The Upton Letters

by Arthur Christopher Benson

Besides this experience which I have acquired, I have acquired a similar experience in the direction of teaching—I know now the sort of statement which arrests the attention and arouses the interest of boys; I know how to put a piece of knowledge so that it appears both intelligible and also desirable to acquire.

Then I have learnt, in literary matters, the art of expression to a certain extent. I can speak to you with entire frankness and unaffectedness, and I will say that I am conscious that I can now express lucidly, and to a certain extent attractively, an idea. My deficiency is now in ideas and not in the power of expressing them. I have quality though not quantity. It amuses me to read this old diary and see how impossible I found it to put certain thoughts into words.

But apart from these definite acquirements, I cannot see that my character has altered in the smallest degree. I detect the same little, hard, repellent core of self, sitting enthroned, cold, unchanging, and unchanged, "like a toad within a stone," to borrow Rossetti's great simile. I see exactly the same weaknesses, the same pitiful ambitions, the same faults. I have learnt, I think, to conceal them a little better; but they are not eradicated, nor even modified. Even with regard to their concealment, I have a terrible theory. I believe that the faults of which one is conscious, which one admits, and even the faults of which one faintly suspects oneself, and yet supposes that one conceals from the world at large, are the very faults that are absolutely patent to every one else. If one dimly suspects that one is a liar, a coward, or a snob, and gratefully believes that one has not been placed in a position which inevitably reveals these characteristics in their full nakedness, one may be fairly certain that other people know that one is so tainted.

The discouraging point is that one is not similarly conscious of one's virtues. I take for granted that I have some virtues, because I see that most of the people whom I meet have some sprinkling of them, but I declare that I am quite unable to say what they are. A fault is patent and unmistakable. The old temptation comes upon one, and one yields as usual; but with one's virtues, if they ever manifest themselves, one's own feeling is that one might have done better. Moreover, if one tries deliberately to take stock of one's good points, they seem to be only natural and instinctive ways of behaving; to which no credit can possibly attach, because by temperament one is incapable of acting otherwise.

Another melancholy fact which I believe to be true is this—that the only good work one does is work which one finds easy and likes. I have one or two patiently acquired virtues which are not natural to me, such as a certain methodical way of dealing with business; but I never find myself credited with it by others, because it is done, I suppose, painfully and with effort, and therefore unimpressively.

I look round, and the same phenomenon meets me everywhere. I do not know any instance among my friends where I can trace any radical change of character. "Sicut erat in principio et nunc et semper et in saecula saeculorum."

Indeed the only line upon which improvement is possible seems to me to be this—that a man shall definitely commit himself to a course of life in which he shall be compelled to exercise virtues which are foreign to his character, and any lapses of which will be penalised in a straightforward, professional way. If a man, for instance, is irritable, impatient, unpunctual, let him take up some line where he is bound to be professionally bland, patient, methodical. That would be the act of a philosopher; but, alas, how few of us choose our profession from philosophical motives!

And even so I should fear that the tendencies of temperament are only temporarily imprisoned, and not radically cured; after all, it fits in with the Darwinian theory. The bird of paradise, condemned to live in a country of marshes, cannot hope to become a heron. The most he can hope is that, by meditating on the advantages which a heron would enjoy, and by pressing the same consideration on his offspring, the time may come in the dim procession of years when the beaks of his descendants will grow long and sharp, their necks pliant, their legs attenuated.

And anyhow, one is bound in honour to have a try; and the hopefulness of my creed (you may be puzzled to detect it) lies in the fact that one HAS a sense of honour about it all; that one's faults are repugnant, and that missing virtues are desirable—possunt quia posse videntur!

Thank you for the photographs. I begin to realise your house; but I want some interiors as well; and let me have the view from your terrace, though I daresay it is only sea and sky.—Ever yours,