Impressions and Comments

Impressions and Comments

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Title: Impressions And Comments
Author: Havelock Ellis
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IMPRESSIONS AND COMMENTS ***

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IMPRESSIONS AND COMMENTS
BY
HAVELOCK ELLIS

PREFACE
For many years I have been accustomed to make notes on random
leaves of the things in Life and Thought which have chanced to strike
my attention. Such records of personal reaction to the outer and inner
world have been helpful to my work, and so had their uses.
But as one grows older the possibilities of these uses become more
limited. One realises in the Autumn that leaves no longer have a vital
function to perform; there is no longer any need why they should cling
to the tree. So let them be scattered to the winds!
It is inevitable that such Leaves cannot be judged in the same way as
though they constituted a Book. They are much more like loose pages
from a Journal. Thus they tend to be more personal, more idiosyncratic,
than in a book it would be lawful for a writer to be. Often, also, they
show blanks which the intelligence of the reader must fill in. At the
best they merely present the aspect of the moment, the flash of a single

facet of life, only to be held in the brain provided one also holds therein
many other facets, for the fair presentation of the great crystal of life.
So it comes about that much is here demanded of the Reader, so much
that I feel it rather my duty to warn him away than to hold out any
fallacious lures.
The fact has especially to be reckoned with that such Impressions and
Comments, stated absolutely and without consideration for divergent
Impressions and Comments, may seem, as a friend who has read some
of them points out, to lack explicit reasonableness. I trust they are not
lacking in implicit reasonableness. They spring, even when they seem
to contradict one another, from a central vision, and from a central faith
too deeply rooted to care to hasten unduly towards the most obvious
goal. From that central core these Impressions and Comments are
concerned with many things, with the miracles of Nature, with the
Charms and Absurdities of the Human Worm, that Golden Wire
wherefrom hang all the joys and the mysteries of Art. I am only
troubled because I know how very feebly these things are imaged here.
For I have only the medium of words to work in, only words, words
that are flung about in the street and often in the mud, only words with
which to mould all my images of the Beauty and Gaiety of the World.
Such as they are, these random leaves are here scattered to the winds. It
may be that as they flutter to the earth one or another may be caught by
the hand of the idle passer-by, and even seem worthy of contemplation.
For no two leaves are alike even when they fall from the same tree.
HAVELOCK ELLIS.

IMPRESSIONS AND COMMENTS

_July 24, 1912_.--I looked out from my room about ten o'clock at night.
Almost below the open window a young woman was clinging to the
flat wall for support, with occasional floundering movements towards
the attainment of a firmer balance. In the dim light she seemed decently

dressed in black; her handkerchief was in her hand; she had evidently
been sick.
Every few moments some one passed by. It was quite clear that she was
helpless and distressed. No one turned a glance towards her--except a
policeman. He gazed at her searchingly