And it went away to a lonely place where a solitary tree was standing, and in the tree sat the white bird in her nest. And he blew down the tree, and broke the nest, and chased the bird for days and days over the water, till at last the bird sank.
And still the wind was not satisfied. He had a faint idea that he had not been doing much good. He ought, by rights, to have killed his masters. He knew that, but his masters could not be killed. How they smiled as they sat up in cloudland, and watched their angry servant snarling over a child, a bird, and a flower! “He’s not satisfied,” said the first. “Very few people are,” grunted a second. “You’re right there,” snorted a third. Their conversation rarely rose above the intellectual level of a market ordinary; but they had the power, and could afford to be a little dull at times.
VII.
ON CAUSES; WITH AN EXCURSION ON LUCK.
I HAVE just been lunching with a man. He is either a Socialist or a Vegetarian—I forget which. On second thoughts, he cannot have been a Vegetarian, because he ate cutlets. He may have been a Philatelist; but I doubt it, and I do not fancy that it really matters. He was something—one of those things that make a man want to lead a higher life, and collar most of the conversation. He told me a good deal about it, and I know that at the time I thought it was a fine thing and an interesting thing; and I wondered why more of us did not do it; and yet I’ve forgotten what it was. The main point, however, is not what he was, but the fact that he was something. He had a Cause, an Enthusiasm; something that lifted him above the common ruck, something he could brag about, something that made it necessary for him to fill up papers, and sign declarations, and feel as if the nation had purchased him at his own price.
The jilted are bitter on the subject of women; the fox was malicious about the grapes that he could not reach; Tantalus was often heard to remark that undiluted water was not worth drinking. If a man sneer at Causes, it is because he himself has not any Cause; and the sneer is idle, because he might have many Causes if he liked. A man may be so poor that he has no effects; but he may still have a Cause. Some of them require a subscription of one shilling; but with more it suffices that a man shall bother half a crown out of his friend. So, as the sneer is not required for the consolation of the sneerer, it must therefore be quite pointless and unprejudiced.
Personally, I must own that I have no Cause at present. I loaf. I am utterly selfish. But I am going to select one soon, because I feel sure that it will elevate me. Besides, I do not see why I should be bored to death by those of my friends who happen to be cracked—quite cracked—about some glorious ideal, and never be able to return their unkindness. Reciprocity is the rule of life. You brag to me about your picture gallery for the starving poor, and I feel at once that I must lie to you about thought-transference. It is partly because I am just about to ruin a Cause by my support that I feel so angry with those selfish, flippant, trivial people who sneer at Causes. The worst point in the sneer is its impartiality. We do not want cold, hard, uncoloured criticism with its shameful want of bias. We want warm, tender, muddle-headed enthusiasm, that does not quibble about merit or demerit, that tinges the mere critical faculty with good feeling or bad feeling as the case may be, that is full of humanity which is pigheadedness. But no amount of sneers will prevent me from selecting a Cause to which I may devote my life. The only thing which is likely to prevent me is the difficulty of selection. There are so many Causes, and they are all so good. Shall I be a Philanthropist? Help the poor, and you help yourself. The Philanthropist is the mainstay of the nation. Or shall I be a Dipsomaniac? Help yourself, and pass the bottle. The Dipsomaniac is the mainstay of the Budget. It would be difficult to choose even between these two. The Dipsomaniac sacrifices more than the Philanthropist, and he is less self-conscious; but, on the other hand, the Philanthropist is more popular and less truthful. If it be a fine thing to help the poor, is it not an equally fine thing to help the dear Budget? Perhaps the main distinction between the two is that the Dipsomaniac accounts for most of the rum, and the Philanthropist is mostly rum in his accounts. But who can possibly decide the difference in their merits? And these are but two: there are thousands of others.
There once was a cuckoo-clock bird; and after the manner of cuckoos it did not lay wind-eggs in its own nest. It deposited them in a mare’s nest, and a stuffed phœnix hatched them dead on the Greek Kalends of April. It was thought at the time that the mechanical, the impossible, and the futile had never been so beautifully combined. Yet I have seen a man repeat the lessons that the last pamphlet had wound him up to say, deposit a handsome donation of his father’s money in the society that published it, crow to all his friends and expect to see the world regenerated. The combination was quite as beautiful, and yet people sneer at Causes! What great general ever lived who had not this, or a similar faculty for combination? And though the things combined may be utterly bad in themselves, we should never forget how very much of them we get for our money—or our father’s money, as the case may be.
But it is of little use to speak. There are few men in the world who have a Cause. We are not serious enough. We give our minds to all manner of trifles. With the exception of yourself, perhaps, I believe that I am the only man left who really wants a Cause and is unable to find one. With the rest it is sheer selfishness.
See me hit that fly on my boat’s nose. Flop. Missed it. All right, you wait till it comes back again.
It seems to have aggravated that fly. It has left the boat’s nose and gone for mine. I wonder if it knows that I do not like to hit my own nose hard: instinct is a marvellous thing in insects. Or it may simply be luck: luck is quite as marvellous.