第 27 节
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博搏 更新:2022-04-08 21:02 字数:9322
direction of a mischievous pacifism comes from an entirely
different class。
The Genteel Whig; though he differs very widely in almost every
other respect from the Resentful Employee; has this much in
common; that he has never been drawn into the whirl of collective
life in any real and assimilative fashion。 This is what is the
matter with both of them。 He is a little loose; shy; independent
person。 Except for eating and drinkingin moderation; he has
never done anything real from the day he was born。 He has
frequently not even faced the common challenge of matrimony。
Still more frequently is he childless; or the daring parent of
one particular child。 He has never traded nor manufactured。 He
has drawn his dividends or his salary with an entire
unconsciousness of any obligations to policemen or navy for these
punctual payments。 Probably he has never ventured even to
reinvest his little legacy。 He is acutely aware of possessing an
exceptionally fine intelligence; but he is entirely unconscious
of a fundamental unreality。 Nothing has ever occurred to him to
make him ask why the mass of men were either not possessed of his
security or discontented with it。 The impulses that took his
school friends out upon all sorts of odd feats and adventures
struck him as needless。 As he grew up he turned with an equal
distrust from passion or ambition。 His friends went out after
love; after adventure; after power; after knowledge; after this
or that desire; and became men。 But he noted merely that they
became fleshly; that effort strained them; that they were
sometimes angry or violent or heated。 He could not but feel that
theirs were vulgar experiences; and he sought some finer exercise
for his exceptional quality。 He pursued art or philosophy or
literature upon their more esoteric levels; and realised more and
more the general vulgarity and coarseness of the world about him;
and his own detachment。 The vulgarity and crudity of the things
nearest him impressed him most; the dreadful insincerity of the
Press; the meretriciousness of success; the loudness of the rich;
the baseness of common people in his own land。 The world
overseas had by comparison a certain glamour。 Except that when
you said 〃United States〃 to him he would draw the air sharply
between his teeth and beg you not to。。。
Nobody took him by the collar and shook him。
If our world had considered the advice of William James and
insisted upon national service from everyone; national service in
the drains or the nationalised mines or the nationalised deep…sea
fisheries if not in the army or navy; we should not have had any
such men。 If it had insisted that wealth and property are no
more than a trust for the public benefit; we should have had no
genteel indispensables。 These discords in our national unanimity
are the direct consequence of our bad social organisation。 We
permit the profiteer and the usurer; they evoke the response of
the Reluctant Employee; and the inheritor of their wealth becomes
the Genteel Whig。
But that is by the way。 It was of course natural and inevitable
that the German onslaught upon Belgium and civilisation generally
should strike these recluse minds not as a monstrous ugly
wickedness to be resisted and overcome at any cost; but merely as
a nerve…racking experience。 Guns were going off on both sides。
The Genteel Whig was chiefly conscious of a repulsive vast
excitement all about him; in which many people did inelegant and
irrational things。 They waved flagsnasty little flags。 This
child of the ages; this last fruit of the gigantic and tragic
tree of life; could no more than stick its fingers in its ears as
say; 〃Oh; please; do /all/ stop!〃 and then as the strain
grew intenser and intenser set itself with feeble pawings now to
clamber 〃Au…dessus de la Melee;〃 and now toin some
weak waystop the conflict。 (〃Au…dessus de la
Melee〃as the man said when they asked him where he
was when the bull gored his sister。) The efforts to stop the
conflict at any price; even at the price of entire submission to
the German Will; grew more urgent as the necessity that everyone
should help against the German Thing grew more manifest。
Of all the strange freaks of distressed thinking that this war
has produced; the freaks of the Genteel Whig have been among the
most remarkable。 With an air of profound wisdom he returns
perpetually to his proposition that there are faults on both
sides。 To say that is his conception of impartiality。 I suppose
that if a bull gored his sister he would say that there were
faults on both sides; his sister ought not to have strayed into
the field; she was wearing a red hat of a highly provocative
type; she ought to have been a cow and then everything would have
been different。 In the face of the history of the last forty
years; the Genteel Whig struggles persistently to minimise the
German outrage upon civilisation and to find excuses for Germany。
He does this; not because he has any real passion for falsehood;
but because by training; circumstance; and disposition he is
passionately averse from action with the vulgar majority and from
self…sacrifice in a common cause; and because he finds in the
justification of Germany and; failing that; in the blackening of
the Allies to an equal blackness; one line of defence against the
wave of impulse that threatens to submerge his private self。 But
when at last that line is forced he is driven back upon others
equally extraordinary。 You can often find simultaneously in the
same Pacifist paper; and sometimes even in the utterances of the
same writer; two entirely incompatible statements。 The first is
that Germany is so invincible that it is useless to prolong the
war since no effort of the Allies is likely to produce any
material improvement in their position; and the second is that
Germany is so thoroughly beaten that she is now ready to abandon
militarism and make terms and compensations entirely acceptable
to the countries she has forced into war。 And when finally facts
are produced to establish the truth that Germany; though still
largely wicked and impenitent; is being slowly and conclusively
beaten by the sanity; courage and persistence of the Allied
common men; then the Genteel Whig retorts with his last defensive
absurdity。 He invents a national psychology for Germany。
Germany; he invents; loves us and wants to be our dearest friend。
Germany has always loved us。 The Germans are a loving; unenvious
people。 They have been a little misleadbut nice people do not
insist upon that fact。 But beware of beating Germany; beware of
humiliating Germany; then indeed trouble will come。 Germany will
begin to dislike us。 She will plan a revenge。 Turning aside
from her erstwhile innocent career; she may even think of hate。
What are our obligations to France; Italy; Serbia and Russia;
what is the happiness of a few thousands of the Herero; a few
millions of the Belgianswhose numbers moreover are constantly
diminishingwhen we might weigh them against the danger; the
most terrible danger; of incurring /permanent German
hostility?。。。/
A Frenchman I talked to knew better than that。 〃What will happen
to Germany;〃 I asked; 〃if we are able to do so to her and so;
would she take to dreams of a /Revanche?/〃
〃She will take to Anglomania;〃 he said; and added after a flash
of reflection; 〃In the long run it will be the worse for you。〃
III。 THE RELIGIOUS REVIVAL
1
One of the indisputable things about the war; so far as Britain
and France goand I have reason to believe that on a lesser
scale things are similar in Italyis that it has produced a very
great volume of religious thought and feeling。 About Russia in
these matters we hear but little at the present time; but one
guesses at parallelism。 People habitually religious have been
stirred to new depths of reality and sincerity; and people are
thinking of religion who never thought of religion before。 But
as I have already pointed out; thinking and feeling about a
matter is of no permanent value unless something is /thought
out/; unless there is a change of boundary or relationship;
and it an altogether different question to ask whether any
definite change is resulting from this universal ferment。 If it
is not doing so; then the sleeper merely dreams a dream that he
will forget again。。。。
Now in no sort of general popular mental activity is there so
much froth and waste as in religious excitements。 This has been
the case in all periods of religious revival。 The number who are
rather impressed; who for a few days or weeks take to reading
their Bibles or going to a new place of worship or praying or
fasting or being kind and unselfish; is always enormous in
relation to the people whose lives are permanently changed。 The
effort needed if a contemporary is to blow off the froth; is
always very considerable。
Among the froth that I would blow off is I think most of the
tremendous efforts being made in England by the Anglican church
to attract favourable attention to itself /apropos/
of the war。 I came back from my visit to the Somme battlefields
to find the sylvan peace of Essex invade