第 27 节
作者: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