This story, though absurd, reveals the naked truth. Life has become so burdensome, and half the day is spent in useless occupations: unnecessary visits, telephoning, writing letters about nothing, reading the papers; especially in making one's toilette which formerly consisted of a becoming mantle fastened with a single cord, but has now developed into a whole set of things with buttons, hooks, eyes, strings, ribbons, needles, buckles. Our toilettes are a miniature picture of our civilisation with all its time-wasting fussiness, most of which is useless nonsense. The man who lives in the country and cultivates the ground needs neither art, science, nor literature. He who has nature needs no art, and religion is more than science and literature. There are churches everywhere, but museums, theatres, book-shops, and clubs only in the towns. Whether they are necessary is another question.
That is Rousseau!
Rousseau Again.—In Southern France I once saw some half-wild Arab horses running loose in a meadow. They still had their long tails to hide what is not beautiful and to protect them against the stings of insects. They seemed well adapted to their purpose, but they were more than useful: they were beautiful. And when I contemplated the lines in these beautiful creatures' bodies—the curve of the withers such as is not found in geometry, its continuation along the back and loins; the noble construction and movements of the hind-legs; the proportions of the shank below the knee tapering down to the hoof, which leaves on the sand graceful prints like Moorish arches—and when the proud creatures sped over the meadow in full gallop with movements like that of a sailing-boat on the waves, then the curves played into new harmonies and changed their form, tail, mane, and forelock floated like draperies about the body, and I thought "All that is certainly adapted for running, but it is much more, it is beautiful; it has not come to be of itself, but it is created by a Contriver, a wise and great Artist." It is, however, more than a work of art, for it has life and individuality, and no two horses are exactly alike. Then I thought of the attempts of men to "improve" this masterpiece, of the English race-horses—those machines! In this process of selection they have chosen the ugliest, docked their tails, robbed them of their fairest ornament, placed an apelike jockey on their backs in order to make money by racing. To this caricature men have degraded the beautiful gift of God.
Anyone who has learnt at school to draw a horse knows how difficult it is to make these lines harmonise, and fall and rise in the right places; to draw the head not too large and not too small, but exactly proportioned; to bring the forepart and the loins into symmetrical relations with each other; to make the neck slope gently into the fine curve of the back. It was the work of many days merely to copy the outline correctly. Raphael could not draw a horse; his Attila rides on a rocking-horse. One is often inclined to agree with Rousseau when he says everything which comes from the hand of the Creator is perfect, but when it falls into the hands of man it is spoiled.
Materialised Apparitions.—I have never seen it, but it is said to be a fact that in hypnotic seances those who are present produce from the half-etherialised substance of the medium a kind of being which is visible and leads an apparitional life, so long as the circle keeps together. Such among others was Professor Crookes' "Katie King."
But what causes me to believe this is a matter of everyday experience. Men create their idols out of nothing, and by means of their imagination fashion their fellow-men, both living and dead, into something quite different to what they really are. These creations naturally partake of their own substance and are after their own likeness. Sometimes they create something really great, sometimes a monster, a demigod, or a devil.
We often see that hatred against one person is, so to speak, polarised and converted into love towards his antagonist. A great unpopularity is, in the person of another, changed into a great popularity. The reward which should have been given to the worthiest is given to the unworthy, in order to crush the deserving.
At the award of a famous prize one who was uninitiated lately asked: "Why did not X get the prize?"
"Because Y was to have it," was the answer.
Fifteen years ago a very remarkable book of 650 pages was published. It obtained no notice in the press. But at the same time a wretched pamphlet received all the praise which the large book ought to have had. When I read the reviews of the paltry pamphlet I thought I was reading those of the book, for the subject-matter was the same.