Complete Essays | Page 7

or the other, and fix
the responsibility where it belongs. It does no good, as people always
find out by reflex action, to kick an inanimate thing that has offended,
to smash a perverse watch with a hammer, to break a rocking-chair that

has a habit of tipping over backward. If Things are not actually
malicious, they seem to have a power of revenging themselves. We
ought to try to understand them better, and to be more aware of what
they can do to us. If the lady who bought the red hat could have known
the hidden nature of it, could have had a vision of herself as she was
transformed by it, she would as soon have taken a viper into her bosom
as have placed the red tempter on her head. Her whole previous life, her
feeling of the moment, show that it was not vanity that changed her, but
the inconsiderate association with a Thing that happened to strike her
fancy, and which seemed innocent. But no Thing is really powerless for
good or evil.

THE LOSS IN CIVILIZATION
Have we yet hit upon the right idea of civilization? The process which
has been going on ever since the world began seems to have a defect in
it; strength, vital power, somehow escapes. When you've got a man
thoroughly civilized you cannot do anything more with him. And it is
worth reflection what we should do, what could we spend our energies
on, and what would evoke them, we who are both civilized and
enlightened, if all nations were civilized and the earth were entirely
subdued. That is to say, are not barbarism and vast regions of
uncultivated land a necessity of healthful life on this globe? We do not
like to admit that this process has its cycles, that nations and men, like
trees and fruit, grow, ripen, and then decay. The world has always had a
conceit that the globe could be made entirely habitable, and all over the
home of a society constantly growing better. In order to accomplish this
we have striven to eliminate barbarism in man and in nature:
Is there anything more unsatisfactory than a perfect house, perfect
grounds, perfect gardens, art and nature brought into the most absolute
harmony of taste and culture? What more can a man do with it? What
satisfaction has a man in it if he really gets to the end of his power to
improve it? There have been such nearly ideal places, and how strong
nature, always working against man and in the interest of untamed
wildness, likes to riot in them and reduce them to picturesque
destruction! And what sweet sadness, pathos, romantic suggestion, the
human mind finds in such a ruin! And a society that has attained its end
in all possible culture, entire refinement in manners, in tastes, in the art

of elegant intellectual and luxurious living--is there nothing pathetic in
that? Where is the primeval, heroic force that made the joy of living in
the rough old uncivilized days? Even throw in goodness, a certain
amount of altruism, gentleness, warm interest in unfortunate
humanity--is the situation much improved? London is probably the
most civilized centre the world has ever seen; there are gathered more
of the elements of that which we reckon the best. Where in history,
unless some one puts in a claim for the Frenchman, shall we find a Man
so nearly approaching the standard we have set up of civilization as the
Englishman, refined by inheritance and tradition, educated almost
beyond the disturbance of enthusiasm, and cultivated beyond the
chance of surprise? We are speaking of the highest type in manner,
information, training, in the acquisition of what the world has to give.
Could these men have conquered the world? Is it possible that our
highest civilization has lost something of the rough and admirable
element that we admire in the heroes of Homer and of Elizabeth? What
is this London, the most civilized city ever known? Why, a
considerable part of its population is more barbarous, more hopelessly
barbarous, than any wild race we know, because they are the barbarians
of civilization, the refuse and slag of it, if we dare say that of any
humanity. More hopeless, because the virility of savagery has
measurably gone out of it. We can do something with a degraded race
of savages, if it has any stamina in it. What can be done with those who
are described as "East-Londoners"?
Every great city has enough of the same element. Is this an accident, or
is it a necessity of the refinement that we insist on calling civilization?
We are always sending out missionaries to savage or perverted nations,
we are always sending out emigrants to occupy and reduce to