The Complete Essays | Page 5

world, with his
bowler hat, his skittle-alley, his gramophone, who had planted himself

down in this temple of wild harmony, was he not Progress itself--the
blind figure with the stomach full of new meats and the brain of raw
notions? Was he not the very embodiment of the wonderful child,
Civilisation, so possessed by a new toy each day that she has no time to
master its use--naive creature lost amid her own discoveries! Was he
not the very symbol of that which was making economists thin,
thinkers pale, artists haggard, statesmen bald--the symbol of
Indigestion Incarnate! Did he not, delicious, gross, unconscious man,
personify beneath his Americo-Italian polish all those rank and
primitive instincts, whose satisfaction necessitated the million miseries
of his fellows; all those thick rapacities which stir the hatred of the
humane and thin-skinned! And yet, one's meditation could not stop
there--it was not convenient to the heart!
A little above us, among the olive-trees, two blue-clothed peasants,
man and woman, were gathering the fruit--from some such couple, no
doubt, our friend in the bowler hat had sprung; more "virile" and
adventurous than his brothers, he had not stayed in the home groves,
but had gone forth to drink the waters of hustle and commerce, and
come back--what he was. And he, in turn, would beget children, and
having made his pile out of his 'Anglo-American hotel' would place
those children beyond the coarser influences of life, till they became,
perhaps, even as our selves, the salt of the earth, and despised him. And
I thought: "I do not despise those peasants--far from it. I do not despise
myself--no more than reason; why, then, despise my friend in the
bowler hat, who is, after all, but the necessary link between them and
me?" I did not despise the olive- trees, the warm sun, the pine scent, all
those material things which had made him so thick and strong; I did not
despise the golden, tenuous imaginings which the trees and rocks and
sea were starting in my own spirit. Why, then, despise the skittle-alley,
the gramophone, those expressions of the spirit of my friend in the
billy-cock hat? To despise them was ridiculous!
And suddenly I was visited by a sensation only to be described as a sort
of smiling certainty, emanating from, and, as it were, still tingling
within every nerve of myself, but yet vibrating harmoniously with the
world around. It was as if I had suddenly seen what was the truth of
things; not perhaps to anybody else, but at all events to me. And I felt
at once tranquil and elated, as when something is met with which

rouses and fascinates in a man all his faculties.
"For," I thought, "if it is ridiculous in me to despise my friend-- that
perfect marvel of disharmony--it is ridiculous in me to despise anything.
If he is a little bit of continuity, as perfectly logical an expression of a
necessary phase or mood of existence as I myself am, then, surely,
there is nothing in all the world that is not a little bit of continuity, the
expression of a little necessary mood. Yes," I thought, "he and I, and
those olive-trees, and this spider on my hand, and everything in the
Universe which has an individual shape, are all fit expressions of the
separate moods of a great underlying Mood or Principle, which must be
perfectly adjusted, volving and revolving on itself. For if It did not
volve and revolve on Itself, It would peter out at one end or the other,
and the image of this petering out no man with his mental apparatus
can conceive. Therefore, one must conclude It to be perfectly adjusted
and everlasting. But if It is perfectly adjusted and everlasting, we are all
little bits of continuity, and if we are all little bits of continuity it is
ridiculous for one of us to despise another. So," I thought, "I have now
proved it from my friend in the billy-cock hat up to the Universe, and
from the Universe down, back again to my friend."
And I lay on my back and looked at the sky. It seemed friendly to my
thought with its smile, and few white clouds, saffron-tinged like the
plumes of a white duck in sunlight. "And yet," I wondered, "though my
friend and I may be equally necessary, I am certainly irritated by him,
and shall as certainly continue to be irritated, not only by him, but by a
thousand other men and so, with a light heart, you may go on being
irritated with your friend in the bowler hat, you may go on loving those
peasants and this sky and sea. But, since you have this theory of life,
you may not despise any