Part 13

One must hope and suppose that the move was for the better; but what a long crucifixion is the life of the people! You escape from the horrors of the Russian army—from being preyed upon by human and insect vermin, as well as becoming food for powder—only to sit cross-legged for the rest of your life in a dirty, evil-smelling workshop, with gas flaring, stoves superheated (for making the irons hot), and windows all tightly shut—and that, in the heart of a sad-eyed smoke-ridden manufacturing town in the North of England. The wages I believe, in Max’s case, were not so bad as in some such dens, but the ‘drive’ and the pressure were incessant, the machine-work was exhausting, and the hours amounted to ten and a half per day. Little wonder that in a few years he developed the seeds of phthisis, and was practically marked down as its victim.

Turning into a rebel and a hater of the present order (or disorder) of things, he joined the Socialist club in Leeds and became a worker in the cause. That led to his abandoning his own religion, lodging with Christians, and doing such outrageous things as poking the fire or preparing his own meals on the Sabbath Day—which in turn led to the Jewish community slandering and persecuting _him_! They threw mud and stones at him in the streets; and he became an outcast among his own people. The Jewish girl he was courting refused to consort with him any more and went off with another man, driving him so mad that (as Max told me himself) he on one occasion nearly killed her.

It was somewhere about this time that, in connection with the said Socialist club, I happened to meet him. It was at the deathbed of another Socialist; and perceiving his distress and evident need of a change I asked him for a short holiday to Millthorpe. After that he came again, and again. There was something so gentle and helpful about him that he was always gratefully received by my friends; and the stories of his life and times were always interesting. Once or twice I wrote—in my best German—to his father[18]; and the innocent joy of the old man (in his replies) was touching. But naturally Max did not get stronger—and a time came when after being here a week or two he obviously could not go to work again and had to stay on rather indefinitely. The Adams’ and he became great friends, and he even helped a little in the sandalwork. Then later, when this was too laborious for him, he took up basket-making, and turned out quite a number of useful baskets; and as many of these were “waste-paper baskets,” one must feel that in this alone—in the providing receptacles for the printed rubbish of the day—he performed a useful service! Gradually however he got weaker, and had to give up all work. Then it became necessary for him to go to a convalescent Home at Bournemouth; and there after some months he died.

It is often the case that invalids and old people feel themselves a burden on the household in which they live, think they are no good in the world, and wish themselves out of the way; and yet all the time the opposite may be the fact. Often they form a point of real interest in the house, they call out people’s sympathy and helpfulness, and their own pluck and sociability under failing health gives courage to others who are stronger. Something of this was true of Max. Though depressed at times his quaint and delicate humour was a joy to his friends and acquaintances. One event, which might have proved prematurely fatal to him, he would frequently recount with pleasure. It was one Christmas; a time when the Village Band is in the habit of coming round to each house in turn and playing its rather fearsome tunes! As it happened Max’s bedroom, being at one end of the house, was over a more or less open shed. It was evening and he was composing himself to sleep; when the band arrived. But, snow being on the ground, their footsteps were not heard; and the bandmen very naturally disposed themselves, for more shelter, inside the shed, quite unconscious of course that they were exactly underneath the bed on which an invalid was sleeping. All of a sudden they struck up with a tremendous blare “Christians, Awake!” or some such tune. It was like St. Jerome hearing the last Trump. Poor Max was nearly lifted out of bed by the shock. For a moment he did not know whether he was in this world or the next. When he concluded in favour of this one he found himself lying there in the old bedroom, but his heart palpitating so violently that, combined with the fit of laughter which also seized him, he was quite a wreck for some days after.

There was something ironical in the idea of a Christian hymn proving so nearly fatal to a Jew; but a similar irony, curiously enough, pursued him to his end at Bournemouth. At the Home there—in order to avoid unpleasant questionings, and also because to him the matter was of no importance—he had said nothing about his Jewish connection but had declared himself a Christian, and had received in a friendly way the visits of the chaplain. When he died the Home made the usual arrangements for his interment in the Protestant Cemetery. But—and the story shows how the Jewish community hangs together—the Jews at Leeds and Manchester got to know somehow about it all, and telegraphed to the synagogue at Southampton to stop the infamy of Christian burial. A deputation came over from Southampton and arrived at the Bournemouth home only an hour or two before the funeral—to claim the body for removal to Southampton and burial with Jewish rites. I of course was on the spot; and a nice position I was in! The matron of the Home and the Chaplain on the one hand had “always understood” that he was a Christian; the Chief Rabbi and his friends insisted absolutely that he was a Jew; the funeral car was already waiting in the yard; and Max himself lay there in the mortuary chapel with his features in death finer and paler than ever, and wearing such an expression of high calm and indifference as might well represent his own actual feeling in the matter. I, of course, to all the parties concerned was obviously the “guilty” person—guilty of having got them into such a coil—and they looked at me with eyes of blame. But—though really just as indifferent as Max himself—I thought it best to ‘play the game’; and insisted that as he had openly declared himself a Christian he _was_ a Christian and should be buried as such. The Jewish party on its side brought arguments to show that a mere declaration on such a matter counted for nothing; and soon we plunged into a long discussion which I kept up for some time in order (partly) to hear what they would say. When I perceived however how tremendously seriously the Jews took the whole matter, and reflected also that Max’s father would be broken-hearted if he heard that his son had been put in a Christian grave, I thought it best to give way. The Chaplain and the matron agreed, and were indeed quite sensible about it all—and finally poor Max’s mortal remains were carried off in triumph by his own people.

In conclusion of this chapter I may relate a curious story which perhaps helps to show how the elements of real inspiration and of mental aberration may sometimes get mixed up in the same person.

I had received a letter from London from a man who described himself as a gold-miner from the Sierra Nevada, saying that he had just arrived in England, and was wishful to see me, as he had a message to deliver, and proposing to come on immediately to Millthorpe. As it happened I was just starting for Glasgow and Edinburgh on a lecturing tour. So I wrote at once telling him to wait a week for my return, and to employ his time meanwhile in sight-seeing. But on my return I found to my surprise that he had already been in the village some days, that he had taken a lodging, and was awaiting my arrival. The next day, November 21, 1910, he walked into my yard—obviously an American of a manual worker type, thin, sandy-haired and tall, with dark clothes and black slouch hat, somewhat horny-handed, but with a certain refinement of figure and physiognomy. Also there was a slightly “fallen in” and tired look about him which puzzled me at the moment, but was soon explained. He began almost immediately—as soon as we were sat down—telling me a long story—of which I can only give the outlines.

It seemed that he had been working for a good many years in a gold-mine (probably as part-owner of it)—a mine up 10,000 feet in the Sierra Nevada. One day—six years before the events which he was about to narrate—a strange vision came to him. He had lost his way on the Nevada sandhills, and was searching about in some anxiety, when a sudden transformation of the landscape occurred, and he was transported into a new world, which he could only describe as ‘heaven.’ On several succeeding occasions the same vision came to him. Meanwhile, he said, he had been fighting hard against the three great temptations of a miner’s life—drink, tobacco, and an irascible temper. Each of these troubles in turn disappeared finally with a sudden deliverance and certain assurance of success. Then, only a couple of months before coming to England, more frequent visions came to him, accompanied by voices; and the affair culminated in his getting hold of Dr. Bucke’s book on _Cosmic Consciousness_ when he read the chapters about Buddha and Jesus. Then followed what he described as “seven days of ecstasy, agonizing ecstasy—tears of peace and joy streaming down my face—in which I saw _everything, everything_.” After that he read one day in the same book the chapter on E. C.

Then one morning—as he was going up the mountain to his work from the camp below (Victor, Colorado), he heard the voices again shouting: “They came surging up close to my ears, and then faded away into the far distance, and then came close again—and two of the voices were God’s, and one was my own [!], and they were shouting _Edward Carpenter, Edward Carpenter, go and see E. C., go and see_, etc., etc. And I at the same time was shouting _Brother E. C.—God’s beloved Son, I am coming to you_.”

[George and I looked at each other again with a wild surmise! Another case for the Asylum!]

“And all this,” he continued, “kept being repeated as I walked up the hill, over and over again, till at last it faded away in the distance. And all the morning over my work I was in tears—tears of joy and pain—and had to conceal my face from my mates. But as I turned the crusher I felt enormous strength, and was quite unconscious of effort.”

Then followed all sorts of stories about God telling him to do this and that, and the Devil telling him to do this and that, and of temptations and _tests_ to which he had been subjected. But in the end, he said, he had been impelled to come and see me, and he had come. One day he just threw down his tools and left them lying there, went and said good-bye to his mother (and she evidently did not want him to go) and set sail for England. And now we two (he and I) were to lead a mission round the world—he had some idea about a new Messiah—and to preach and convert the nations together.

Things were evidently getting serious! Yet I hardly knew what to do. He was such a very decent fellow, quiet and kindly and essentially reasonable, and by no means a fanatic; and most obviously genuine and spontaneous. I hardly knew how to attack him.

Then George Merrill saved the situation. He asked Grogan (C. E. Grogan was his name) to have some tea; and the answer gave the needed clue.

“Tea? No, thank you, I haven’t taken tea or any food for three weeks.” [Afterwards on inquiry at his village-lodgings I found his landlady had been dreadfully disturbed at his not touching a crumb of anything all the time he was there.]

“But if you won’t eat, you’ll have a cup of tea, or something to drink?”

“No, nothing—except a glass of water—I haven’t eaten anything for three weeks, and I don’t think I shall ever eat again.”

The cat was out; and the line of action was clear.

“Look here!” I said, “I quite understand you, and sympathize with your experiences—and I think indeed you have had some very real experiences, and some realizations of another kind of consciousness; but you must be careful, and have some idea of what you are doing. There is no doubt that sometimes abstinence from food will help to develop internal faculties. On the other hand to go too far and to weaken the body, perhaps permanently, may be most foolish, and dangerous. The body is there to give expression to the soul, and if you have any important spiritual revelation to express you want all the faculties of your body in good order for the purpose. Starvation, it is well known, engenders visions and voices, often of a very delusive character. You must not give yourself away to all that. How do you know that what you say is of God is not of the Devil; and _vice versâ_? And how do _I_ know?”

So I went on at him; making him plainly understand that I was not going to join in his crusade—whatever it was. “Besides,” I said, “I still do not see what made you come here. You say you have not read any of my writing—except what was contained in Dr. Bucke’s book. _What do you know about me?_”

Then he leaped out again. “Oh, I know all about you. _I know that you will never die!_”

“That is not a very cheerful prospect,” said I, gently laughing.

“Oh, well,” he replied, “you will at any rate live four hundred years. It is like this: The earth and all that are in it, are from this day passing gradually into a new and higher plane of existence. That process will complete itself in four hundred years, and at the end of that time the earth will be absorbed into the Sun and the ethereal life. A wonderful period of new life will arrive; and all those who are living then will be transformed without passing through Death.”

He spoke earnestly and with conviction. I did not oppose him; but warned him again about going too far with his abstinence, and advised deliberation in his conclusions. He did not seem inclined to give way about food—said he thought he should never require it again, and maintained that the internal breathing (_prana_) came to him with a wonderful sense of fragrance and refreshment.

He was extraordinarily good; for though I had refused, almost rudely, to join in his schemes, he took no offence—simply said that he was satisfied now, that he had given the message he had been told to give, and would return to America “to-morrow.”

Having then made my negative attitude quite clear, so that there should be no misunderstanding, I now adopted a positive line; and talked to him for some little time about experiences of the kind he had described. Then I went and fetched some books—the _Bhagavat Gita_, some of the Upanishads, and other works. He had never even heard their names. I opened the _Bhagavat Gita_, almost at random, and pointed him out a passage. He almost clapped his hands for joy. “Oh yes, that is exactly what I feel.” He seized the book, and turned over the pages, pouncing on passage after passage with delight. “Yes, yes, that is just it!” There was no doubt about his sincere and instant appreciation. Then I showed him the passage in the _Bhagavat Gita_ about moderation in eating and moderation in abstinence; but he did not seem inclined to agree. “I just do what God tells me.”

Finally I _gave_ him the _Gita_, and some other books of similar character. And he on his side decided to return to America “to-morrow”—and insisted on my writing at once for a cab. I did not attempt to dissuade him—feeling that perhaps he was right—also that his friends in America would be more satisfied if he returned.

Meanwhile he _looked_ ever so much better than when he came into the house—and evidently was so—“glad to have carried out what he had to do,” he said. I told him that on board ship his mind would settle itself; and he went off.

He wrote from Liverpool next day, saying he was very happy; and a month or so later from Colorado—in which letter he said, “The _unseen force_ which caused me to quit eating caused me to begin again (as suddenly as I quit). My fast was merely a part of the _lesson_ which is continually before me.” Since then I have heard from him from time to time. In one letter he says: “I am feeling fine, and slowly but surely am I (as a child) permitted to learn the _a, b, c_ of _real life_. It is my belief that we are all permitted to pierce the veil that conceals _real Life_ from our view, only accordingly as our minds are ready to absorb the knowledge gained thereby. From a point of view of Cosmic Consciousness I am beginning my life all over again, and am only beginning in a small way to see and understand some of the simpler truths of the same; but I have lost much of that feeling of haste, and learning with the idea in mind that I have all eternity to learn in. My folk and relatives all glad that I am home and quit my wanderings for the present. I think I shall engage in mining again in a small way. This mining camp is about 10,000 feet altitude, and the weather is beautiful, plenty sunshine, and not cold winter weather.”

In his latest to me he says: “You will remember when I visited you I said you would never die. I still feel same way and see no chance of my dying, personally it is a matter of indifference whether I live or die. If I must die in order to live again, so be it, but may we not be permitted to enjoy eternal life here and now? I think so. I think the Harvest of the world is ripe, but such great changes are slow and almost unnoticeable and I think overlap each other, so that _harvest_ or death of one thing is the Birth of another, that is consciousness of Eternal Life becoming more general. Well, I think that I have written enough that you may see the drift of my mind, and I think that is what you want. Love to Mr. Merrill and yourself, yours truly, C. E. GROGAN.”

To which words of Grogan’s I would only add: “No doubt we _are_ permitted to enjoy eternal life here and now—even in this tiniest corner, wherever it may be, of space and time.”

XI THE STORY OF MY BOOKS

The fate of my books has been interesting—at any rate to myself! Leaving aside _Narcissus and Other Poems_, and _Moses: a Drama_—which were written in early days at Cambridge, and were only, so to speak, exercises in literature and efforts to vie with then-accepted models—_Towards Democracy_, of course, has been the start-point and kernel of all my later work, the centre from which the other books have radiated. Whatever obvious weaknesses and defects it may present, I have still always been aware that it was written from a different _plane_ from the other works, from some predominant mood or consciousness superseding the purely intellectual. Indeed, so strong has been this feeling that, though tempted once or twice to make alterations from the latter point of view, I have never really ventured to do so; and now, after more than thirty years since the inception of the book, I am entirely glad to think that I have not.

It is a curious question—and one which literary criticism has never yet tackled—why it is that certain books, or certain passages in books, will bear reading over and over again without becoming stale; that you can return to them after months or years and find entirely new meanings in them which had escaped you on the first occasion; and that this can even go on happening time after time, while other books and passages are exhausted at the first reading and need never be looked at again. How is it possible that the same phrase or concatenation of words should bear within itself meaning behind meaning, horizon after horizon of significance and suggestion? Yet such undoubtedly is the case. Portions of the poetic and religious literature of most countries, and large portions of books like _Leaves of Grass_, the _Bhagavat Gita_, Plato’s _Banquet_, Dante’s _Divina Commedia_, have this inexhaustible germinative quality. One returns to them again and again, and continually finds fresh interpretations lurking beneath the old and familiar words.

I imagine that the explanation is somewhat on this wise: That in the case of passages that are exhausted at a first reading (like statements say of Church doctrine or political or scientific theory) we are simply being presented with an intellectual ‘view’ of some fact; but that in the other cases in some mysterious way the words succeed in conveying the fact itself. It is like the difference between the actual solid shape of a mountain and the different views of the mountain obtainable from different sides. They are two things of a different order and dimension. It almost seems as if some mountain-facts of our experience _can_ be imaged forth by words in such a way that the phrases themselves retain this quality of solidity, and consequently their outlines of meaning vary according to the angle at which the reader approaches them and the variation of the reader’s mind. None of the outlines are final, and the solid content of the phrase remains behind and eludes them all. Anyhow the matter is a most mysterious one; but as a fact it remains, and demands explanation.

I have felt somehow with regard to _Towards Democracy_ that—while my other books were merely subsidiary and mainly represented ‘views’ and ‘aspects’—this one (with all its imperfections) had that central quality and kind of other-dimensional solidity to which I have been alluding. And my experiences in writing it have corroborated that feeling.

I have spoken elsewhere about the considerable period of gestation and suffering which preceded the birth of this book; nor were its troubles over when it made its first appearance in the world. The first edition, printed and published by John Heywood of Manchester, at my own expense, fell quite flat. The infant showed hardly any signs of life. The Press ignored the book or jeered at it. I can only find one notice by a London paper of the first year of its publication, and that is by the old sixpenny _Graphic_ (of August 11, 1883), saying—not without a sort of pleasant humour—that the phrases are “suggestive of a lunatic Ollendorf, with stage directions,” and ending up with the admission that “the book is truly mystic, wonderful—like nothing so much as a nightmare after too earnest a study of the Koran!” The _Saturday Review_ got hold of the _second_ edition, and devoted a long article (March 27, 1886) to slating it and my socialist pamphlets (_Desirable Mansions_, etc.) as instances of “the kind of teaching which is now commonly set before the more ignorant classes, and which is probably accepted in good faith by not a few among them. A haphazard collection of fallacies, to which the semblance of a basis is given by half a dozen truisms, flavored by a little Carlylese, or by diluted extracts of Walt Whitman ... such is the compound which ‘cultivated’ Socialism offers as a new and saving faith to the working classes, and of which the works before us offer a good example.” Then follow severe comments on my absurd views about Usury and the manners and customs of the Rich, and finally a long quotation from _Towards Democracy_; of which book the writer says: “And this sort of thing goes on through two hundred and fifty pages, the blank monotony of which is only relieved here and there by a few passages which it would be undesirable to quote, and which it is not wholesome to read.”