Part 9 (1/2)
When we die, we awake into Reality--that Reality to which, from the beginning, Sh.e.l.ley was consecrated:
”I vowed that I would dedicate my powers To thee and thine--have I not kept my vow?”
He calls it ”intellectual Beauty”; he impersonates it as Asia, and sings it in verse that pa.s.ses beyond sense into music:
”Life of Life! thy lips enkindle With their love the breath between them; And thy smiles before they dwindle Make the cold air fire; then screen them In those looks, where whoso gazes Faints, entangled in their mazes.
Child of Light! thy limbs are burning Through the vest which seems to hide them; As the radiant lines of morning Through the clouds ere they divide them; And this atmosphere divinest Shrouds thee wheresoe'er thou s.h.i.+nest.
Fair are others; none beholds thee, But thy voice sounds low and tender Like the fairest, for it folds thee From the sight, that liquid splendour, And all feel, yet see thee never, As I feel now, lost for ever!
Lamp of Earth! where'er thou movest Its dim shapes are clad with brightness, And the souls of whom thou lovest Walk upon the winds with lightness, Till they fail, as I am failing, Dizzy, lost, yet unbewailing!”
This we call poetry; and we call the Iliad poetry. But the likeness is superficial, and the difference profound. Was it Homer or Sh.e.l.ley that grasped Reality? This is not a question of literary excellence; it is a question of the sense of life. And--oddly enough--it is a question to which the intellect has no answer. The life in each of us takes hold of it and answers it empirically. The normal man is Homeric, though he is not aware of the fact. Especially is the American Homeric; naf, spontaneous, at home with fact, implicitly denying the Beyond. Is he right? This whole continent, the prairies, the mountains and the coast, the trams and trolleys, the sky-sc.r.a.pers, the factories, elevators, automobiles, shout to that question one long deafening Yes. But there is another country that speaks a different tongue. Before America was, India is.
VII
THE RELIGION OF BUSINESS
In the house in which I am staying hangs an old coloured print, representing two couples, one young and l.u.s.ty, the other decrepit, the woman carrying an hour-gla.s.s, the man leaning on a stick; and underneath, the following inscription:
”My father and mother that go so stuping to your grave, Pray tell me what good I may in this world expect to have?”
”My son, the good you can expect is all forlorn, Men doe not gather grapes from of a thorn.”
This dialogue, I sometimes think, symbolises the att.i.tude of the new world to the old, and the old to the new. Not seldom I feel among Americans as the Egyptian is said to have felt among the Greeks, that I am moving in a world of precocious and inexperienced children, bearing on my own shoulders the weight of the centuries. Yet it is not exactly that Americans strike one as young in spirit; rather they strike one as undeveloped. It is as though they had never faced life and asked themselves what it is; as though they were so occupied in running that it has never occurred to them to inquire where they started and whither they are going. They seem to be always doing and never experiencing. A dimension of life, one would say, is lacking, and they live in a plane instead of in a solid. That missing dimension I shall call religion. Not that Americans do not, for aught I know, ”believe” as much as or more than Europeans; but they appear neither to believe nor to disbelieve religiously. That, I admit, is true almost everywhere of the ma.s.s of the people. But even in Europe--and far more in India--there has always been, and still is, a minority who open windows to the stars; and through these windows, in pa.s.sing, the plain man sometimes looks. The impression America makes on me is that the windows are blocked up. It has become incredible that this continent was colonised by the Pilgrim Fathers. That intense, narrow, unlovely but genuine spiritual life has been transformed into industrial energy; and this energy, in its new form, the churches, oddly enough, are endeavouring to recapture and use to drive their machines. Religion is becoming a department of practical business. The Churches--orthodox and unorthodox, old and new, Christian, Christian-Scientific, theosophic, higher-thinking--vie with one another in advertising goods which are all material benefits: ”Follow me, and you will get rich,” ”Follow me, and you will get well,” ”Follow me, and you will be cheerful, prosperous, successful.” Religion in America is nothing if not practical. It does not concern itself with a life beyond; it gives you here and now what you want. ”What _do_ you want? Money?
Come along!--Success? This is the shop!--Health? Here you are! Better than patent medicines!” The only part of the Gospels one would suppose that interests the modern American is the miracles; for the miracles really did _do_ something. As for the Sermon on the Mount--well, no Westerner ever took that seriously.
This conversion of religion into business is interesting enough. But even more striking is what looks like a conversion of business into religion. Business is so serious that it sometimes a.s.sumes the shrill tone of a revivalist propaganda. There has recently been brought to my attention a circular addressed to the agents of an insurance society, urging them to rally round the firm, with a special effort, in what I can only call a ”mission-month.” I quote--with apologies to the unknown author--part of this production:
THE CALL TO ACTION.
”How about these beautiful spring days for hustling? Everything is on the move. New life and force is apparent everywhere. The man who can stand still when all creation is on the move is literally and hopelessly a dead one.
”These are ideal days for the insurance field-man. Weather like this has a tremendously favourable effect on business. In the city and small town alike there is a genuine revival of business. The farmer, the merchant, the manufacturer, are beginning to work overtime. Spring is in the footstep of the ambitious man as well as in the onward march of nature. This is the day of growth, expansion, creation, and re-creation.
”Consciously or unconsciously every one responds to the glad call to new life and vigour. Men who are cold and selfish, who are literally frozen up the winter through, yield to the warm, invigorating, energising touch of spring.
”Gentlemen of the field force, now is the psychological moment to force your prospects to action as indicated by the dotted line. As in nature, some plants and trees are harder to force than others, so in the nature of human prospects, some are more difficult than others. Suns.h.i.+ne and rain will produce results in the field of life-underwriting.
”Will it not be possible for you during these five remaining days not only to increase the production from regular sources, but to go out into the highways and hedges and compel others to sign their applications, if for only a small amount?
”Everything is now in full swing, and we are going to close up the month
”IN A BLAZE OF GLORY.”
Might not this almost as well have been an address from the headquarters of the Salvation Army? And is not the following exactly parallel to a denunciation, from the mission-pulpit, of the unprofitable servant?
”A few days ago we heard of a general agent who has one of the largest and most prosperous territories in this country. He has been in the business for years, and yet that man, for some unknown reason, rather apologises for his vocation. He said he was a little ashamed of his calling. Such a condition is almost a crime, and I am sure that the men of the Eastern Department will say, that man ought to get out of the business.