CHESTERTON-ALL THING CONSIDERED - OXFORD FROM WITHOUT
A correspondent has written me an able and interesting letter in the
matter of some allusions of mine to the subject of communal kitchens. He
defends communal kitchens very lucidly from the standpoint of the
calculating collectivist; but, like many of his school, he cannot
apparently grasp that there is another test of the whole matter, with
which such calculation has nothing at all to do. He knows it would be
cheaper if a number of us ate at the same time, so as to use the same
table. So it would. It would also be cheaper if a number of us slept at
different times, so as to use the same pair of trousers. But the
question is not how cheap are we buying a thing, but what are we buying?
It is cheap to own a slave. And it is cheaper still to be a slave.
My correspondent also says that the habit of dining out in restaurants,
etc., is growing. So, I believe, is the habit of committing suicide. I
do not desire to connect the two facts together. It seems fairly clear
that a man could not dine at a restaurant because he had just committed
suicide; and it would be extreme, perhaps, to suggest that he commits
suicide because he has just dined at a restaurant. But the two cases,
when put side by side, are enough to indicate the falsity and
poltroonery of this eternal modern argument from what is in fashion. The
question for brave men is not whether a certain thing is increasing; the
question is whether we are increasing it. I dine very often in
restaurants because the nature of my trade makes it convenient: but if I
thought that by dining in restaurants I was working for the creation of
communal meals, I would never enter a restaurant again; I would carry
bread and cheese in my pocket or eat chocolate out of automatic
machines. For the personal element in some things is sacred. I heard Mr.
Will Crooks put it perfectly the other day: "The most sacred thing is to
be able to shut your own door."
My correspondent says, "Would not our women be spared the drudgery of
cooking and all its attendant worries, leaving them free for higher
culture?" The first thing that occurs to me to say about this is very
simple, and is, I imagine, a part of all our experience. If my
correspondent can find any way of preventing women from worrying, he
will indeed be a remarkable man. I think the matter is a much deeper
one. First of all, my correspondent overlooks a distinction which is
elementary in our human nature. Theoretically, I suppose, every one would
like to be freed from worries. But nobody in the world would always
like to be freed from worrying occupations. I should very much like (as
far as my feelings at the moment go) to be free from the consuming
nuisance of writing this article. But it does not follow that I should
like to be free from the consuming nuisance of being a journalist.
Because we are worried about a thing, it does not follow that we are not
interested in it. The truth is the other way. If we are not interested,
why on earth should we be worried? Women are worried about housekeeping,
but those that are most interested are the most worried. Women are still
more worried about their husbands and their children. And I suppose if
we strangled the children and poleaxed the husbands it would leave women
free for higher culture. That is, it would leave them free to begin to
worry about that. For women would worry about higher culture as much as
they worry about everything else.
I believe this way of talking about women and their higher culture is
almost entirely a growth of the classes which (unlike the journalistic
class to which I belong) have always a reasonable amount of money. One
odd thing I specially notice. Those who write like this seem entirely to
forget the existence of the working and wage-earning classes. They say
eternally, like my correspondent, that the ordinary woman is always a
drudge. And what, in the name of the Nine Gods, is the ordinary man?
These people seem to think that the ordinary man is a Cabinet Minister.
They are always talking about man going forth to wield power, to carve
his own way, to stamp his individuality on the world, to command and to
be obeyed. This may be true of a certain class. Dukes, perhaps, are not
drudges; but, then, neither are Duchesses. The Ladies and Gentlemen of
the Smart Set are quite free for the higher culture, which consists
chiefly of motoring and Bridge. But the ordinary man who typifies and
constitutes the millions that make up our civilisation is no more free
for the higher culture than his wife is.
Indeed, he is not so free. Of the two sexes the woman is in the more
powerful position. For the average woman is at the head of something
with which she can do as she likes; the average man has to obey orders
and do nothing else. He has to put one dull brick on another dull brick,
and do nothing else; he has to add one dull figure to another dull
figure, and do nothing else. The woman's world is a small one, perhaps,
but she can alter it. The woman can tell the tradesman with whom she
deals some realistic things about himself. The clerk who does this to
the manager generally gets the sack, or shall we say (to avoid the
vulgarism), finds himself free for higher culture. Above all, as I said
in my previous article, the woman does work which is in some small
degree creative and individual. She can put the flowers or the furniture
in fancy arrangements of her own. I fear the bricklayer cannot put the
bricks in fancy arrangements of his own, without disaster to himself and
others. If the woman is only putting a patch into a carpet, she can
choose the thing with regard to colour. I fear it would not do for the
office boy dispatching a parcel to choose his stamps with a view to
colour; to prefer the tender mauve of the sixpenny to the crude scarlet
of the penny stamp. A woman cooking may not always cook artistically;
still she can cook artistically. She can introduce a personal and
imperceptible alteration into the composition of a soup. The clerk is
not encouraged to introduce a personal and imperceptible alteration into
the figures in a ledger.
The trouble is that the real question I raised is not discussed. It is
argued as a problem in pennies, not as a problem in people. It is not
the proposals of these reformers that I feel to be false so much as
their temper and their arguments. I am not nearly so certain that
communal kitchens are wrong as I am that the defenders of communal
kitchens are wrong. Of course, for one thing, there is a vast difference
between the communal kitchens of which I spoke and the communal meal
(monstrum horrendum, informe) which the darker and wilder mind of my
correspondent diabolically calls up. But in both the trouble is that
their defenders will not defend them humanly as human institutions. They
will not interest themselves in the staring psychological fact that
there are some things that a man or a woman, as the case may be, wishes
to do for himself or herself. He or she must do it inventively,
creatively, artistically, individually--in a word, badly. Choosing your
wife (say) is one of these things. Is choosing your husband's dinner one
of these things? That is the whole question: it is never asked.
And then the higher culture. I know that culture. I would not set any
man free for it if I could help it. The effect of it on the rich men who
are free for it is so horrible that it is worse than any of the other
amusements of the millionaire--worse than gambling, worse even than
philanthropy. It means thinking the smallest poet in Belgium greater
than the greatest poet of England. It means losing every democratic
sympathy. It means being unable to talk to a navvy about sport, or about
beer, or about the Bible, or about the Derby, or about patriotism, or
about anything whatever that he, the navvy, wants to talk about. It
means taking literature seriously, a very amateurish thing to do. It
means pardoning indecency only when it is gloomy indecency. Its
disciples will call a spade a spade; but only when it is a
grave-digger's spade. The higher culture is sad, cheap, impudent,
unkind, without honesty and without ease. In short, it is "high." That
abominable word (also applied to game) admirably describes it.
No; if you were setting women free for something else, I might be more
melted. If you can assure me, privately and gravely, that you are
setting women free to dance on the mountains like maenads, or to worship
some monstrous goddess, I will make a note of your request. If you are
quite sure that the ladies in Brixton, the moment they give up cooking,
will beat great gongs and blow horns to Mumbo-Jumbo, then I will agree
that the occupation is at least human and is more or less entertaining.
Women have been set free to be Bacchantes; they have been set free to be
Virgin Martyrs; they have been set free to be Witches. Do not ask them
now to sink so low as the higher culture.
I have my own little notions of the possible emancipation of women; but
I suppose I should not be taken very seriously if I propounded them. I
should favour anything that would increase the present enormous
authority of women and their creative action in their own homes. The
average woman, as I have said, is a despot; the average man is a serf. I
am for any scheme that any one can suggest that will make the average
woman more of a despot. So far from wishing her to get her cooked meals
from outside, I should like her to cook more wildly and at her own will
than she does. So far from getting always the same meals from the same
place, let her invent, if she likes, a new dish every day of her life.
Let woman be more of a maker, not less. We are right to talk about
"Woman;" only blackguards talk about women. Yet all men talk about men,
and that is the whole difference. Men represent the deliberative and
democratic element in life. Woman represents the despotic.
The incident of the Suffragettes who chained themselves with iron chains
to the railings of Downing Street is a good ironical allegory of most
modern martyrdom. It generally consists of a man chaining himself up and
then complaining that he is not free. Some say that such larks retard
the cause of female suffrage, others say that such larks alone can
advance it; as a matter of fact, I do not believe that they have the
smallest effect one way or the other.
The modern notion of impressing the public by a mere demonstration of
unpopularity, by being thrown out of meetings or thrown into jail is
largely a mistake. It rests on a fallacy touching the true popular value
of martyrdom. People look at human history and see that it has often
happened that persecutions have not only advertised but even advanced a
persecuted creed, and given to its validity the public and dreadful
witness of dying men. The paradox was pictorially expressed in Christian
art, in which saints were shown brandishing as weapons the very tools
that had slain them. And because his martyrdom is thus a power to the
martyr, modern people think that any one who makes himself slightly
uncomfortable in public will immediately be uproariously popular. This
element of inadequate martyrdom is not true only of the Suffragettes; it
is true of many movements I respect and some that I agree with. It was
true, for instance, of the Passive Resisters, who had pieces of their
furniture sold up. The assumption is that if you show your ordinary
sincerity (or even your political ambition) by being a nuisance to
yourself as well as to other people, you will have the strength of the
great saints who passed through the fire. Any one who can be hustled in
a hall for five minutes, or put in a cell for five days, has achieved
what was meant by martyrdom, and has a halo in the Christian art of the
future. Miss Pankhurst will be represented holding a policeman in each
hand--the instruments of her martyrdom. The Passive Resister will be
shown symbolically carrying the teapot that was torn from him by
tyrannical auctioneers.
But there is a fallacy in this analogy of martyrdom. The truth is that
the special impressiveness which does come from being persecuted only
happens in the case of extreme persecution. For the fact that the modern
enthusiast will undergo some inconvenience for the creed he holds only
proves that he does hold it, which no one ever doubted. No one doubts
that the Nonconformist minister cares more for Nonconformity than he
does for his teapot. No one doubts that Miss Pankhurst wants a vote more
than she wants a quiet afternoon and an armchair. All our ordinary
intellectual opinions are worth a bit of a row: I remember during the
Boer War fighting an Imperialist clerk outside the Queen's Hall, and
giving and receiving a bloody nose; but I did not think it one of the
incidents that produce the psychological effect of the Roman
amphitheatre or the stake at Smithfield. For in that impression there is
something more than the mere fact that a man is sincere enough to give
his time or his comfort. Pagans were not impressed by the torture of
Christians merely because it showed that they honestly held their
opinion; they knew that millions of people honestly held all sorts of
opinions. The point of such extreme martyrdom is much more subtle. It is
that it gives an appearance of a man having something quite specially
strong to back him up, of his drawing upon some power. And this can only
be proved when all his physical contentment is destroyed; when all the
current of his bodily being is reversed and turned to pain. If a man is
seen to be roaring with laughter all the time that he is skinned alive,
it would not be unreasonable to deduce that somewhere in the recesses of
his mind he had thought of a rather good joke. Similarly, if men smiled
and sang (as they did) while they were being boiled or torn in pieces,
the spectators felt the presence of something more than mere mental
honesty: they felt the presence of some new and unintelligible kind of
pleasure, which, presumably, came from somewhere. It might be a strength
of madness, or a lying spirit from Hell; but it was something quite
positive and extraordinary; as positive as brandy and as extraordinary
as conjuring. The Pagan said to himself: "If Christianity makes a man
happy while his legs are being eaten by a lion, might it not make me
happy while my legs are still attached to me and walking down the
street?" The Secularists laboriously explain that martyrdoms do not
prove a faith to be true, as if anybody was ever such a fool as to
suppose that they did. What they did prove, or, rather, strongly
suggest, was that something had entered human psychology which was
stronger than strong pain. If a young girl, scourged and bleeding to
death, saw nothing but a crown descending on her from God, the first
mental step was not that her philosophy was correct, but that she was
certainly feeding on something. But this particular point of psychology
does not arise at all in the modern cases of mere public discomfort or
inconvenience. The causes of Miss Pankhurst's cheerfulness require no
mystical explanations. If she were being burned alive as a witch, if she
then looked up in unmixed rapture and saw a ballot-box descending out of
heaven, then I should say that the incident, though not conclusive, was
frightfully impressive. It would not prove logically that she ought to
have the vote, or that anybody ought to have the vote. But it would
prove this: that there was, for some reason, a sacramental reality in
the vote, that the soul could take the vote and feed on it; that it was
in itself a positive and overpowering pleasure, capable of being pitted
against positive and overpowering pain.
I should advise modern agitators, therefore, to give up this particular
method: the method of making very big efforts to get a very small
punishment. It does not really go down at all; the punishment is too
small, and the efforts are too obvious. It has not any of the
effectiveness of the old savage martyrdom, because it does not leave the
victim absolutely alone with his cause, so that his cause alone can
support him. At the same time it has about it that element of the
pantomimic and the absurd, which was the cruellest part of the slaying
and the mocking of the real prophets. St. Peter was crucified upside
down as a huge inhuman joke; but his human seriousness survived the
inhuman joke, because, in whatever posture, he had died for his faith.
The modern martyr of the Pankhurst type courts the absurdity without
making the suffering strong enough to eclipse the absurdity. She is like
a St. Peter who should deliberately stand on his head for ten seconds
and then expect to be canonised for it.
Or, again, the matter might be put in this way. Modern martyrdoms fail
even as demonstrations, because they do not prove even that the martyrs
are completely serious. I think, as a fact, that the modern martyrs
generally are serious, perhaps a trifle too serious. But their martyrdom
does not prove it; and the public does not always believe it.
Undoubtedly, as a fact, Dr. Clifford is quite honourably indignant with
what he considers to be clericalism, but he does not prove it by having
his teapot sold; for a man might easily have his teapot sold as an
actress has her diamonds stolen--as a personal advertisement. As a
matter of fact, Miss Pankhurst is quite in earnest about votes for
women. But she does not prove it by being chucked out of meetings. A
person might be chucked out of meetings just as young men are chucked
out of music-halls--for fun. But no man has himself eaten by a lion as a
personal advertisement. No woman is broiled on a gridiron for fun. That
is where the testimony of St. Perpetua and St. Faith comes in. Doubtless
it is no fault of these enthusiasts that they are not subjected to the
old and searching penalties; very likely they would pass through them as
triumphantly as St. Agatha. I am simply advising them upon a point of
policy, things being as they are. And I say that the average man is not
impressed with their sacrifices simply because they are not and cannot
be more decisive than the sacrifices which the average man himself would
make for mere fun if he were drunk. Drunkards would interrupt meetings
and take the consequences. And as for selling a teapot, it is an act, I
imagine, in which any properly constituted drunkard would take a
positive pleasure. The advertisement is not good enough; it does not
tell. If I were really martyred for an opinion (which is more improbable
than words can say), it would certainly only be for one or two of my
most central and sacred opinions. I might, perhaps, be shot for England,
but certainly not for the British Empire. I might conceivably die for
political freedom, but I certainly wouldn't die for Free Trade. But as
for kicking up the particular kind of shindy that the Suffragettes are
kicking up, I would as soon do it for my shallowest opinion as for my
deepest one. It never could be anything worse than an inconvenience; it
never could be anything better than a spree. Hence the British public,
and especially the working classes, regard the whole demonstration with
fundamental indifference; for, while it is a demonstration that probably
is adopted from the most fanatical motives, it is a demonstration which
might be adopted from the most frivolous.
Generally, instinctively, in the absence of any special reason, humanity
hates the idea of anything being hidden--that is, it hates the idea of
anything being successfully hidden. Hide-and-seek is a popular pastime;
but it assumes the truth of the text, "Seek and ye shall find."
Ordinary mankind (gigantic and unconquerable in its power of joy) can
get a great deal of pleasure out of a game called "hide the thimble,"
but that is only because it is really a game of "see the thimble."
Suppose that at the end of such a game the thimble had not been found at
all; suppose its place was unknown for ever: the result on the players
would not be playful, it would be tragic. That thimble would hag-ride
all their dreams. They would all die in asylums. The pleasure is all in
the poignant moment of passing from not knowing to knowing. Mystery
stories are very popular, especially when sold at sixpence; but that is
because the author of a mystery story reveals. He is enjoyed not because
he creates mystery, but because he destroys mystery. Nobody would have
the courage to publish a detective-story which left the problem exactly
where it found it. That would rouse even the London public to
revolution. No one dare publish a detective-story that did not detect.
There are three broad classes of the special things in which human
wisdom does permit privacy. The first is the case I have mentioned--that
of hide-and-seek, or the police novel, in which it permits privacy only
in order to explode and smash privacy. The author makes first a
fastidious secret of how the Bishop was murdered, only in order that he
may at last declare, as from a high tower, to the whole democracy the
great glad news that he was murdered by the governess. In that case,
ignorance is only valued because being ignorant is the best and purest
preparation for receiving the horrible revelations of high life.
Somewhat in the same way being an agnostic is the best and purest
preparation for receiving the happy revelations of St. John.
This first sort of secrecy we may dismiss, for its whole ultimate object
is not to keep the secret, but to tell it. Then there is a second and
far more important class of things which humanity does agree to hide.
They are so important that they cannot possibly be discussed here. But
every one will know the kind of things I mean. In connection with these,
I wish to remark that though they are, in one sense, a secret, they are
also always a "secret de Polichinelle." Upon sex and such matters we are
in a human freemasonry; the freemasonry is disciplined, but the
freemasonry is free. We are asked to be silent about these things, but
we are not asked to be ignorant about them. On the contrary, the
fundamental human argument is entirely the other way. It is the thing
most common to humanity that is most veiled by humanity. It is exactly
because we all know that it is there that we need not say that it is
there.
Then there is a third class of things on which the best civilisation
does permit privacy, does resent all inquiry or explanation. This is in
the case of things which need not be explained, because they cannot be
explained, things too airy, instinctive, or intangible--caprices, sudden
impulses, and the more innocent kind of prejudice. A man must not be
asked why he is talkative or silent, for the simple reason that he does
not know. A man is not asked (even in Germany) why he walks slow or
quick, simply because he could not answer. A man must take his own road
through a wood, and make his own use of a holiday. And the reason is
this: not because he has a strong reason, but actually because he has a
weak reason; because he has a slight and fleeting feeling about the
matter which he could not explain to a policeman, which perhaps the very
appearance of a policeman out of the bushes might destroy. He must act
on the impulse, because the impulse is unimportant, and he may never
have the same impulse again. If you like to put it so he must act on the
impulse because the impulse is not worth a moment's thought. All these
fancies men feel should be private; and even Fabians have never proposed
to interfere with them.
Now, for the last fortnight the newspapers have been full of very varied
comments upon the problem of the secrecy of certain parts of our
political finance, and especially of the problem of the party funds.
Some papers have failed entirely to understand what the quarrel is
about. They have urged that Irish members and Labour members are also
under the shadow, or, as some have said, even more under it. The ground
of this frantic statement seems, when patiently considered, to be simply
this: that Irish and Labour members receive money for what they do. All
persons, as far as I know, on this earth receive money for what they do;
the only difference is that some people, like the Irish members, do it.
I cannot imagine that any human being could think any other human being
capable of maintaining the proposition that men ought not to receive
money. The simple point is that, as we know that some money is given
rightly and some wrongly, an elementary common-sense leads us to look
with indifference at the money that is given in the middle of Ludgate
Circus, and to look with particular suspicion at the money which a man
will not give unless he is shut up in a box or a bathing-machine. In
short, it is too silly to suppose that anybody could ever have discussed
the desirability of funds. The only thing that even idiots could ever
have discussed is the concealment of funds. Therefore, the whole
question that we have to consider is whether the concealment of
political money-transactions, the purchase of peerages, the payment of
election expenses, is a kind of concealment that falls under any of the
three classes I have mentioned as those in which human custom and
instinct does permit us to conceal. I have suggested three kinds of
secrecy which are human and defensible. Can this institution be defended
by means of any of them?
Now the question is whether this political secrecy is of any of the
kinds that can be called legitimate. We have roughly divided legitimate
secrets into three classes. First comes the secret that is only kept in
order to be revealed, as in the detective stories; secondly, the secret
which is kept because everybody knows it, as in sex; and third, the
secret which is kept because it is too delicate and vague to be
explained at all, as in the choice of a country walk. Do any of these
broad human divisions cover such a case as that of secrecy of the
political and party finances? It would be absurd, and even delightfully
absurd, to pretend that any of them did. It would be a wild and charming
fancy to suggest that our politicians keep political secrets only that
they may make political revelations. A modern peer only pretends that he
has earned his peerage in order that he may more dramatically declare,
with a scream of scorn and joy, that he really bought it. The Baronet
pretends that he deserved his title only in order to make more exquisite
and startling the grand historical fact that he did not deserve it.
Surely this sounds improbable. Surely all our statesmen cannot be saving
themselves up for the excitement of a death-bed repentance. The writer
of detective tales makes a man a duke solely in order to blast him with
a charge of burglary. But surely the Prime Minister does not make a man
a duke solely in order to blast him with a charge of bribery. No; the
detective-tale theory of the secrecy of political funds must (with a
sigh) be given up.
Neither can we say that the thing is explained by that second case of
human secrecy which is so secret that it is hard to discuss it in
public. A decency is preserved about certain primary human matters
precisely because every one knows all about them. But the decency
touching contributions, purchases, and peerages is not kept up because
most ordinary men know what is happening; it is kept up precisely
because most ordinary men do not know what is happening. The ordinary
curtain of decorum covers normal proceedings. But no one will say that
being bribed is a normal proceeding.
And if we apply the third test to this problem of political secrecy, the
case is even clearer and even more funny. Surely no one will say that
the purchase of peerages and such things are kept secret because they
are so light and impulsive and unimportant that they must be matters of
individual fancy. A child sees a flower and for the first time feels
inclined to pick it. But surely no one will say that a brewer sees a
coronet and for the first time suddenly thinks that he would like to be
a peer. The child's impulse need not be explained to the police, for the
simple reason that it could not be explained to anybody. But does any
one believe that the laborious political ambitions of modern commercial
men ever have this airy and incommunicable character? A man lying on the
beach may throw stones into the sea without any particular reason. But
does any one believe that the brewer throws bags of gold into the party
funds without any particular reason? This theory of the secrecy of
political money must also be regretfully abandoned; and with it the two
other possible excuses as well. This secrecy is one which cannot be
justified as a sensational joke nor as a common human freemasonry, nor
as an indescribable personal whim. Strangely enough, indeed, it violates
all three conditions and classes at once. It is not hidden in order to
be revealed: it is hidden in order to be hidden. It is not kept secret
because it is a common secret of mankind, but because mankind must not
get hold of it. And it is not kept secret because it is too unimportant
to be told, but because it is much too important to bear telling. In
short, the thing we have is the real and perhaps rare political
phenomenon of an occult government. We have an exoteric and an esoteric
doctrine. England is really ruled by priestcraft, but not by priests. We
have in this country all that has ever been alleged against the evil
side of religion; the peculiar class with privileges, the sacred words
that are unpronounceable; the important things known only to the few. In
fact we lack nothing except the religion.
* * * * *
I have received a serious, and to me, at any rate, an impressive
remonstrance from the Scottish Patriotic Association. It appears that I
recently referred to Edward VII. of Great Britain and Ireland, King,
Defender of the Faith, under the horrible description of the King of
England. The Scottish Patriotic Association draws my attention to the
fact that by the provisions of the Act of Union, and the tradition of
nationality, the monarch should be referred to as the King of Britain.
The blow thus struck at me is particularly wounding because it is
particularly unjust. I believe in the reality of the independent
nationalities under the British Crown much more passionately and
positively than any other educated Englishman of my acquaintance
believes in it. I am quite certain that Scotland is a nation; I am quite
certain that nationality is the key of Scotland; I am quite certain that
all our success with Scotland has been due to the fact that we have in
spirit treated it as a nation. I am quite certain that Ireland is a
nation; I am quite certain that nationality is the key to Ireland; I am
quite certain that all our failure in Ireland arose from the fact that
we would not in spirit treat it as a nation. It would be difficult to
find, even among the innumerable examples that exist, a stronger example
of the immensely superior importance of sentiment to what is called
practicality than this case of the two sister nations. It is not that we
have encouraged a Scotchman to be rich; it is not that we have
encouraged a Scotchman to be active; it is not that we have encouraged a
Scotchman to be free. It is that we have quite definitely encouraged a
Scotchman to be Scotch.
A vague, but vivid impression was received from all our writers of
history, philosophy, and rhetoric that the Scottish element was
something really valuable in itself, was something which even Englishmen
were forced to recognise and respect. If we ever admitted the beauty of
Ireland, it was as something which might be loved by an Englishman but
which could hardly be respected even by an Irishman. A Scotchman might
be proud of Scotland; it was enough for an Irishman that he could be
fond of Ireland. Our success with the two nations has been exactly
proportioned to our encouragement of their independent national
emotion; the one that we would not treat nationally has alone produced
Nationalists. The one nation that we would not recognise as a nation in
theory is the one that we have been forced to recognise as a nation in
arms. The Scottish Patriotic Association has no need to draw my
attention to the importance of the separate national sentiment or the
need of keeping the Border as a sacred line. The case is quite
sufficiently proved by the positive history of Scotland. The place of
Scottish loyalty to England has been taken by English admiration of
Scotland. They do not need to envy us our titular leadership, when we
seem to envy them their separation.
I wish to make very clear my entire sympathy with the national sentiment
of the Scottish Patriotic Association. But I wish also to make clear
this very enlightening comparison between the fate of Scotch and of
Irish patriotism. In life it is always the little facts that express the
large emotions, and if the English once respected Ireland as they
respect Scotland, it would come out in a hundred small ways. For
instance, there are crack regiments in the British Army which wear the
kilt--the kilt which, as Macaulay says with perfect truth, was regarded
by nine Scotchmen out of ten as the dress of a thief. The Highland
officers carry a silver-hilted version of the old barbarous Gaelic
broadsword with a basket-hilt, which split the skulls of so many English
soldiers at Killiecrankie and Prestonpans. When you have a regiment of
men in the British Army carrying ornamental silver shillelaghs you will
have done the same thing for Ireland, and not before--or when you
mention Brian Boru with the same intonation as Bruce.
Let me be considered therefore to have made quite clear that I believe
with a quite special intensity in the independent consideration of
Scotland and Ireland as apart from England. I believe that, in the
proper sense of the words, Scotland is an independent nation, even if
Edward VII. is the King of Scotland. I believe that, in the proper sense
of words, Ireland is an independent nation, even if Edward VII. is King
of Ireland. But the fact is that I have an even bolder and wilder belief
than either of these. I believe that England is an independent nation. I
believe that England also has its independent colour and history, and
meaning. I believe that England could produce costumes quite as queer as
the kilt; I believe that England has heroes fully as untranslateable as
Brian Boru, and consequently I believe that Edward VII. is, among his
innumerable other functions, really King of England. If my Scotch
friends insist, let us call it one of his quite obscure, unpopular, and
minor titles; one of his relaxations. A little while ago he was Duke of
Cornwall; but for a family accident he might still have been King of
Hanover. Nor do I think that we should blame the simple Cornishmen if
they spoke of him in a rhetorical moment by his Cornish title, nor the
well-meaning Hanoverians if they classed him with Hanoverian Princes.
Now it so happens that in the passage complained of I said the King of
England merely because I meant the King of England. I was speaking
strictly and especially of English Kings, of Kings in the tradition of
the old Kings of England. I wrote as an English nationalist keenly
conscious of the sacred boundary of the Tweed that keeps (or used to
keep) our ancient enemies at bay. I wrote as an English nationalist
resolved for one wild moment to throw off the tyranny of the Scotch and
Irish who govern and oppress my country. I felt that England was at
least spiritually guarded against these surrounding nationalities. I
dreamed that the Tweed was guarded by the ghosts of Scropes and Percys;
I dreamed that St. George's Channel was guarded by St. George. And in
this insular security I spoke deliberately and specifically of the King
of England, of the representative of the Tudors and Plantagenets. It is
true that the two Kings of England, of whom I especially spoke, Charles
II. and George III., had both an alien origin, not very recent and not
very remote. Charles II. came of a family originally Scotch. George III.
came of a family originally German. But the same, so far as that goes,
could be said of the English royal houses when England stood quite
alone. The Plantagenets were originally a French family. The Tudors were
originally a Welsh family. But I was not talking of the amount of
English sentiment in the English Kings. I was talking of the amount of
English sentiment in the English treatment and popularity of the English
Kings. With that Ireland and Scotland have nothing whatever to do.
Charles II. may, for all I know, have not only been King of Scotland; he
may, by virtue of his temper and ancestry, have been a Scotch King of
Scotland. There was something Scotch about his combination of
clear-headedness with sensuality. There was something Scotch about his
combination of doing what he liked with knowing what he was doing. But I
was not talking of the personality of Charles, which may have been
Scotch. I was talking of the popularity of Charles, which was certainly
English. One thing is quite certain: whether or no he ever ceased to be
a Scotch man, he ceased as soon as he conveniently could to be a Scotch
King. He had actually tried the experiment of being a national ruler
north of the Tweed, and his people liked him as little as he liked them.
Of Presbyterianism, of the Scottish religion, he left on record the
exquisitely English judgment that it was "no religion for a gentleman."
His popularity then was purely English; his royalty was purely English;
and I was using the words with the utmost narrowness and deliberation
when I spoke of this particular popularity and royalty as the popularity
and royalty of a King of England. I said of the English people specially
that they like to pick up the King's crown when he has dropped it. I do
not feel at all sure that this does apply to the Scotch or the Irish. I
think that the Irish would knock his crown off for him. I think that the
Scotch would keep it for him after they had picked it up.
For my part, I should be inclined to adopt quite the opposite method of
asserting nationality. Why should good Scotch nationalists call Edward
VII. the King of Britain? They ought to call him King Edward I. of
Scotland. What is Britain? Where is Britain? There is no such place.
There never was a nation of Britain; there never was a King of Britain;
unless perhaps Vortigern or Uther Pendragon had a taste for the title.
If we are to develop our Monarchy, I should be altogether in favour of
developing it along the line of local patriotism and of local
proprietorship in the King. I think that the Londoners ought to call him
the King of London, and the Liverpudlians ought to call him the King of
Liverpool. I do not go so far as to say that the people of Birmingham
ought to call Edward VII. the King of Birmingham; for that would be high
treason to a holier and more established power. But I think we might
read in the papers: "The King of Brighton left Brighton at half-past two
this afternoon," and then immediately afterwards, "The King of Worthing
entered Worthing at ten minutes past three." Or, "The people of Margate
bade a reluctant farewell to the popular King of Margate this morning,"
and then, "His Majesty the King of Ramsgate returned to his country and
capital this afternoon after his long sojourn in strange lands." It
might be pointed out that by a curious coincidence the departure of the
King of Oxford occurred a very short time before the triumphal arrival
of the King of Reading. I cannot imagine any method which would more
increase the kindly and normal relations between the Sovereign and his
people. Nor do I think that such a method would be in any sense a
depreciation of the royal dignity; for, as a matter of fact, it would
put the King upon the same platform with the gods. The saints, the most
exalted of human figures, were also the most local. It was exactly the
men whom we most easily connected with heaven whom we also most easily
connected with earth.
CHESTERTON-ALL THING CONSIDERED - OXFORD FROM WITHOUT