UjlJI!'"! '. I j AMI I'll' I liiil!!il!ii:;llllllitl|il|;;;^>^^^ ;„ ^"''■iiillii lii m m^'^m nji''' ' . . ^ "irri'liii'iitli! Im! .■.., II ■ iii' ii,i ji' I '!# |'> ! *'|ii!fesv.:: llfij.t.iri I ['ill I'i .l,i!,;lfl;ii! i. ;, 'i • , CORNELL UNIVERSITY LIBRARY FROM Wm. Sills er UMI !=iUfc 1956 -.thematiciari ~.q,the Cornell University Library PR4451.T6 1912 Towards democracy .Complete in four parts 3 1924 013 461 615 Cornell University Library The original of tliis book is in tlie Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924013461615 TOWARDS DEMOCRACY Br EDfFJRD CARPENTER TOWARDS DEMOCRACY love's COMING-OF-AGE the drama of love and death c^Uz^. /.900. TOWARDS DEMOCRACY Complete in Four Parts By Edward Carpenter y/. NEW YORK AND LONDON MITCHELL KENNERLEY 1912 llKi|Vri;M'i V l-l,iRA(NY /]i,fl'U.^ CONTENTS PAOB PART I Towards Democracy (1881-2) ... ... ... ... 3 PART U Freedom, beautiful beyond com pa: e ... ... ... 11 1 York Minster ... ... ... ... ... ... 112 Sunday Morning after Church ... ... ... 115 High in My Chamber ... ... ... ... ... 119 Deep Below Deep ... ... ... ... ... 122 Except the Lord ... ... ... ... ... 124 1 Come Forth from the Darkness ... ... ... 130 Sunday Morning near a Manufacturing Town ... ... 137 In the Drawing Rooms ... ... ... ... 139 In a Manufacturing Town ... ... ... ... 144 What Have I to do with Tlice ... ... ... 146 As to You, O Moon ... ... ... ... ... 149 Squinancy Wort ... ... ... ... ... 152 Not of Myself ... ... ... ... ... ... 154 Lo ! I Open a Door ... ... ... ... 154 By this Heart ... ... ... ... ... ... 154 As one who from a high Clitr . . . ... ... ... 15^ To One in Trouble ... ... ... ... ... 156 These Waves of Your Great Heart ... ... ... 156 Thus as I Yearned for Love ... ... ... ... IS^ Eternal Hunger ... ... ... ... ... IS9 Child of tha Lonely Heart ... ... ... ... 160 To One who is where the Eternal aie ... ... ... 162 Through the Long Night ... ... ... ■•■ 165 To a Stranger ... .. ... ... ... 166 To a Friend ... ... ... ... ... •.■ 166 Of the Love that you poured forth , ... ... ... 167 As a Woman of a Man ... ... ... ... ... 1*^7 VJ Contc72ts TAO* lyove, to whom the Poets ... ... ... ... 169 Who You are I Know Not ... ... ... ... 171 Have Faith (1884) ... ... ... ... ... 172 1 Heard a Voice ... ... ... ... ... I79 I lv call, Mysterious Being ... ... .., 37^ Contents IX So thin a Veil divides ... ... ... ,Tfi The open Secret ... ... ... ... _^ ,-5 The Songs of the Birds, who hears ... ... ... 377 A Child at a Window ... ... ... .^. ,gQ Night... ... ... ... ... ... ... 38, April 38, Lucifer ... ,„ ... .. ... . ^gj The Ocean of Sex ... ... ... ... ... 383 As the Greeks Dreamed ... ... .. .., ... 38c In a Scotch-Fir Wood ... ... ... ... 386 The Dream goes by ... ... . ... ... 387 Surely the Time will come ... .., ... ... 388 The one Foundation ... ... ... ... ... 3^0 A Mightier than Mammon ... ... _ ... 30^ O little Sister Heart ... ... ... ... ... .^07 Forms Eternal as the Mountains ... ... ... 408 Spending the Night alone .. .. ... ... 408 O Joy divine of F'riends ... .. ... ... 409 O Child of Uranus 410 One at a Time ... ... ... ... ... 411 The dead Comrade ... ... ... ... ... 412 Philolaus to Diodes... ... ... ... ... 413 Hafi/. to the Cup-bearer ... ... ... ... ... 416 In the stone-floored Workshop ... ... ... 417 The Trysting ... ... ... ... ... ... 419 The Lover far on the Hills ... ... ... ... 422 The Babe ... ... ... ... .„ ... 423 Gracious Mother ... ... ... ... ... 425 1 saw a fair House ... ... .. ... ... 426 A Dream of Human Life ... ... ... ... 428 The Coast of Liguria ... ... ... ... ... 429 Easter Day on Mt. Mounier ... ... ... ... 431 At Mentonc ... ... ... ... ... ... 433 Monte Carlo ... ... ... ... ... 435 India, the Wisdom-land (1890) ... ... ... ... 440 Tanzbodeli ... ... ... ... ... 442 A Village Church ... ... ... ... ... 445 Contents Sheffield... A Lancashire Mill-hand ... A Trade ... The Plough boy The Jackdaw By the Mersey ... In the British Museum Library Empire The British, A. D. 1901 Portland China, A. D. 1900 ... PAGE 454 455 A56 457 459 462 467 468 471 Standing beyond Time ... Who but the Lover should know The Everlasting Now Now is the accepted Time A Summer Day The central Calm Widening Circles When I Look upon your Faces Life behind Life The stupid old Body The wandering lunatic Mind As a Mould for some fair Form Nothing less than All Believe yourself a Whole The Body within the Body In an old Quarry The Soul to the Body ... To become a Creator After Fifty Years Out of the House of Childhood Little Brook without a Name (1902) Lo ! what a World I Create ... 476 477 479 479 480 481 482 483 483 484 48s 487 487 490 491 494 494 497 499 500 502 506 A Note on "Towards Democracy" Having sometimes been asked questions about "Towards Democracy" which I found it difficult to answer, I will try and shape a few thoughts about it here. Quite a long time ago (say when I was about 25, and living at Cambridge) I wanted to write some sort of a book which should address itself very personally and closely to any one who cared to read it — establish so to speak an intimate per- sonal relation between myself and the reader ; and during succeeding years I made several attempts to realise this idea — of which beginnings one or two in verse may be found in a little volume entitled " Narcissus and other Poems," now well out of print, which I pubUshed in 1873. None of these attempts satisfied me however, and after a time I began to think the quest was an unreasonable one — unreasonable be- cause while it might not be difficult for any one with a pliant and sympathetic dispor%ition to touch certain chords in any given individual that he might meet, it seemed impossible to hope that a book — which caan.-t in any way adapt itself to the idiosyncrasies of its reader — could find the key of the per- sonalities into whose hands it should happen to come. For this it would be necessary to suppose, and to find, an absolutely common ground to all individuals (all at any rate who might have reached a certain stage of thought and experience) — and to write the book on and from that common ground : but this seemed at that time quite impracticable. xii Towards Democracy Years followed, more or less eventful, with flight from Cambridge, and university lectures carried on in the Pro- vincial Towns, and so forth; but of much dumbness as regards writing; and inwardly full of tension, and suffering. At last early in 1881, no doubt as the culmination and result of struggles and experiences that had been going on, I became conscious that a mass of material was forming within me, imperatively demanding expression — though what exactly its expression would be I could not then have told. I became for the time overwhelmingly conscious of the disclosure within of a region transcending in some sense the ordinary bounds of personality, in the light of which region my own idiosyncrasies of character — defects, accomplishments, limitations, or what not — appeared of no importance whatever — an absolute Free dom from mortality, accompanied by an indescribable calm and joy. I also immediately saw, or rather felt, that this region of Self existing in me existed equally (though not always equally consciously) in others. In regard to it the mere diversities of temperament which ordinarily distinguish and divide people dropped away and became indifferent, and a field was opened in which all might meet, in which all were truly Equal. Thus I found the common ground which I wanted ; and the two words, Freedom and Equality came for the time being to control all my thought and expression. The necessity for space and time to work this out grew so strong ithat in April of that year I threw up my lecturing employment. Moreover another necessity had come upon me which demanded the latter step — the necessity namely for an open air life and manual work. I could not finally argue with ithis any more than with the other, I had to give in and obey. As it happened at the time I mention I was already living in A Note xiii a little cottage on a farm (at Bradway, near Sheffield) with a friend and his family, and doing fjim-work in the intervals of my lectures. When I threw up the lecturing I had every- thing clear before me. I knocked together a sort of wooden sentinel-box, in the garden, and there, or in the fields and the woods, all that spring and summer, and on through the winter, by day and sometimes by night, in sunlight or in rain, by frost and snow and all sorts of grey and dull weather, I wrote "Towards Democracy" — or at any rate the first and longer poem that goes by that name. By the end of 1881 this was finished — though it was worked over and patched a little in the early part of 1882 ; and I re- member feeling then that, defective and halting and incoherent in expression as it was, still if it succeeded in rendering even a half the splendour which inspired it, it would be good, and / need not trouble to write anything more (which, with due allowance for the said "if," I even now feel was a true and friendly intimation) ! The writing of this and its publication (in 1883) got a load off my mind which had been weighing on it for years — a sense of oppression and anxiety which I had constantly suffered from before — and which I believe, in its different forms, is a common experience in the early part of life. In this first poem were embodied with considerable altera- tions and adaptations a good number of casual pieces, which I had written (merely under stress of feeling and without any particular sense of proportion) during several preceding years. They now found their interpretation under the steady and clear light of a new mood or state of feeling which previously had only visited me fitfully and with clouded beams. The whole of " Towards Democracy " — I may say, speaking broadly and including the later pieces — has been written under the xiv Towards Democracy domination of this mood. I have tested and measured every- thing by it ; it has been the sun to which all the images and conceptions and thoughts used have been as material objects reflecting its light. And perhaps this connects itself with the fact that it has been so necessary to write in the open air. The more universal feeling which I sought to convey refused itself from me within doors ; nor could I at any time or by any means persuade the rhythm or style of expression to render itself up within a room — tending there always to break back into distinct metrical forms ; which, however much I admire them in certain authors, and think them myself suitable for certain kinds of work, were not what I wanted, and did not express for me the feeling which 1 sought to express. This fact (of the necessity of the open air) is very curious, and I cannot really explain it. I only know that it is so, quite indubitable and insurmountable. I can feel it at once, the difference, in merely passing through a doorway — but I cannot explain it. Always especially the sky seemed to contain for me the key, the inspiration ; the sight of it more than anything gave what I wanted (sometimes like a veritable lightning-flas-li coming down from it onto my paper — I a mere witness, but agitated with strange transports). But if I should be asked — as I have sometimes been asked — What is the exact nature of this mood, of this ilium inant splendour, of which you speak ? I should have to reply that I can give no very concise and clearcut answer. The whole of " Towards Democracy" is an endeavour to give it utterance ; any mere single sentence, or direct definition, would be of no use — rather indeed would tend to obscure by limiting. All I can say is that there seems to be a vision possible to man, as from some more universal stand-point, free from the obsrurit) and localism which especially connect themselves with the A Note XV passing clouds of desire, fear, and all ordinary thought and ethotion ; in that sense another and separate faculty ; and as vision always means a sense of light, so here is a sense of inward light, unconnected of course with the mortal eye, but bringing to the eye of the mind the impression that it sees, and by means of a medium which washes as it were the interior surfaces of all objects and things and persons — ^how can I ex- press it?— and yet this is most defective, for the sense is a sense that one is those objects and things and persons that One perceives, (and even that one is the whole universe,) — a sense in which sight and touch and hearing are all fused in identity. Nor can the matter be understood without realising that the whole faculty is deeply and intimately rooted on the far side of the moral and emotional nature, and beyond the thought-region of the brain. ^ And now with regard to the "I" which occurs so freely in this book. In this and in other such cases the author is naturally liable to a charge of egotism — and I personally do not feel disposed to combat any such charge that may be made. That there are mere egotisms and vanities embodied in these pages I do not for a moment doubt ; and that so far as they exist they mar the expression and purpose of the book I'also do not doubt. But the existence of these things does not affect the real question: What or Who in the main is the "I" spoken of? •I do not know any description in its way better that one attributed to Tennyson : — "All at once, as it were, out of the intensity of the con- sciousness of individuality, the individuality itself seemed to dissolve and fade away into boundless being, and this not a confused state, but the clearest of the clearest, the surest of the surest, utterly beyond words, where death was an almost laughable impossibility, the loss of personality — if so it were^seeming no extinction but the only true life. I am ashamed of my feeble description. Have I not said the state is utterly beyond words?" Compare also his poem, "The Ancient Sage." xvi Towards Democracy To this question I must also frankly own that I can give no answer. 1 do not know. That the word is not used in the dramatic sense is all I can say. The " I " is myself — as well as I could find words to express myself : but what that Self is, and what its limits may be ; and therefore what the self of any other person is and what its limits may be — I cannot tell. I have sometimes thought that perhaps the best work one could do — if one felt at any time enlargements and extensions of one's ego — was to simply record these, as faithfully as might be ; leaving others, the science-man and the philosopher, to ' explain — and feeling confident that what really existed in oneself would be found to exist either consciously or in a latent form in other people. And I will say that I have in these records above all endeavored to be genuine. If I have said " I, Nature " it was because at the time, at any rate, I felt "I, Nature"; if I have said "1 am equal with the lowest," it was because I could not express what I felt more directly than by those words. The value of such statements can only appear by time ; if they are corroborated by others then they help to form a body of record which may well be worth investigation, analysis and explanation. If they are not so corroborated, then they naturally and properly fall away as mere vagaries of self-deception. I have not the least doubt that anything which is really genuine will be corroborated. It seems to me more and more clear that the word "I " has a practically infinite range of meaning — that the ego covers far more ground than we usually suppose. At some points we are intensely individual, at others intensely sympathetic ; some of our impressions (as the tickling of a hair) are of the most local and momentary character, others (as the sense of identity") involve long periods of time. Sometimes we are aware of A Note xvii almost a fusion between our own identity and that of another person. What does all this mean? Are we really separate individuals, or is individuality an illusion, or again is it only a part of the ego or soul that is individual, and not the whole? Is the ego absolutely one with the body, or is it only a small part of the body, or again is the body but a part of the self — one of its organs so to speak, and not the whole man ? Or lastly is it perhaps not possible to express the iruth by any direct use of these or other terms of ordinary language ? Anyhow, what am I ? These are questions which come all down Time, demanding solution — which humanity is constantly endeavoring to find an answer to. I do not pretend to answer them. On the contrary I am sure that not one of the pieces in "Towards Democracy " has been written with the deliberate view of pro- viding an answer. They have simply been written to express feelings which insisted on being expressed. Nevertheless it is possible that some of them — by giving the experiences and affirmations even of one person — may contribute material towards that answer to these and the like questions which in some region must assuredly be given. That there is a region of consciousness removed beyond what we usually call mortality, into which we humans can yet pass, I practically do not doubt ; but granting that this is a fact, its explanation still remains for investigation. I have said in this brief note on "Towards Democracy" nothing about th'e influence of Whitman — for the same reason that I have said nothing about the influence of the sun or the winds. These influences lie too far back and ramify too com- plexly to be t'aced. I met with William Rossetti's little selection from "Leaves of Grass" in 1868 or i86g, and read that and the original editions continuously for ten years xviii Towards Democracy I never met with any other book (with the exception , pe;rhaps of Beethoven's sonatasr) which I could read and re-read as I could this one. I find it difficult tq imagine what my life would have been without it. " Leaves of Grass " " filtered and fibred " my blood : but I do not think I ever tried to imitate it or its style. Against the inevitable drift out of the more classic forms of verse into a looser and freer rhythm I fairly fought, contesting the ground ("kicking against the pricks ") inch by inch during a period of seven years in numerous abortive and mongrel creations — till in 1881 I was finally compelled into the form (if such it can be called) of "Towards Democracy." I did not adopt it because it was an approximation to the form of "Leaves of Grass." What- ever resemblance there may be between the rhythm, style, thoughts, constructions, etc., of the two books, must I think be set down to a deeper similarity of emotional atmosphere and intension in the two authors — even though that similarity may have sprung and no doubt largely did spring out of the personal influence of one upon the other. Anyhow our tem- peraments, standpoints, antecedents, etc., are so entirely diverse and opposite that, except for a few points, I can hardly imagine that there is much real resemblance to be traced. Whitman's full-blooded, copious, rank, masculine style must always make him one of the world's great originals — a perennial fountain of health and strength, moral as well as physical. He has the amplitude of the Earth itself, and can no more be thought away than a mountain can. He often indeed reminds one of a great quarry on a mountain side — the great shafts of sunlight and the shadows, the primitive face of the rock itself, the power and the daring of the men at work upon it, the tumbled blocks and masses, materials for endless buildings, and the beautiful tufts of weed or flower on A Note xix tudCiesnible ledges — a picture nK4t artistic in its very inco- herence and formlessness. " Towards Democracy " has a milder radiance, as of the moon compared with the sun — allowing you to glimpse the stars behind. Tender and meditative, less resolute and alto- gether less massive, it has the quality of the fluid and yielding air rather than of the solid and uncompromising earth. Part I TOWARDS DEMOCRACY TOWARDS DEMOCRACY The sun, the moon and tim stars, the grass, the water that flows round trie earth, and the light air of luaven : To You greeting. I too stand belund tJiese and send you word across t/iem. FREEDOM at last ! Long sought, long prayed for — ages and ages long : The burden to which I continually return, seated here ; thick-booted and obvious yet dead and buried and passed into heaven, unsearchable ; [How know you indeed but what I have passed into you ?] And Joy, beginning but without ending — the journey of journeys — Thought laid quietly aside : These things I, writing, translate for you — I wipe a mirror and place it in your hands. II The sun shines, as of old ; the stars look down from heaven ; the moon, crescent, sails in the twilight ; on bushy tops in the warm nights, naked, with mad dance and song, the earth-children address themselves to love ; ^ Towards Democracy Civilisation sinks and swims, but the old facts remain — the sun smiles, knowing well its strength. The little red stars appear once more on the hazel boughs, shining among the catkins; over waste lands the pewit tumbles and cries as at the first day ; men with horses go out on the land — they shout and chide and strive — and return again glad at evening ; the old earth breathes deep and rhyth- mically, night and day, summer and winter, giving and concealing herself. I arise out of the dewy night and shake my wings. Tears and lamentations are no more. Life and death lie stretched below me. I breathe the sweet aether blowing of the breath of God. Deep as the universe is my life — and I know it ; nothing can dislodge the knowledge of it ; nothing can destroy, nothing can harm me. Joy, joy arises — I arise. The sun darts overpowering piercing rays of joy through me, the night radiates it from me. I take wings through the night and pass through all the wildernesses of the worlds, and the old dark holds of tears and death — and return with laughter, laughter, laughter : Sailing through the starlit spaces on outspread wings, we two — O laughter ! laughter ! laughter ! Ill Freedom ! the deep breath ! the word heard centuries and centuries beforehand ; the soul singing low and pas- sicaiate to itself : Joy ! Joy ! Towards Democracy 5 Not as in a dream. The earth remains and daily life remains, and the scrubbing of doorsteps, and the house and the care of the house remains ; but Joy fills it, fills the house full and swells to the sky and reaches the stars : all Joy ! freed soul ! soul that has completed its relation to the body ! O soaring, happy beyond words, into other realms passing, salutations to you, freed, redeemed soul ! What is certain, and not this ? What is solid? — the rocks? the mountains ? destiny ? The gates are thrown wide open all through the universe. I go to and fro— through the heights and depths I go and I return : All is well. 1 conceive the purport of all suffering. The blear-eyed boy, famished in brain, famished in body, shivering there in his rags by the angle of the house, is become divine before me ; I hold him long and silently by the hand and pray to him. I conceive a millermium on earth — a millennium not of riches, nor of mechanical facilities, nor of intellectual facilities, nor absolutely of immunity from disease, nor abso- lutely of immunity from pain ; but a time when men and women all over the earth shall ascend and enter into relation with their bodies— shall attain freedom and joy ; And the men and women of that time looking back with something like envy to the life of to-day, that they too might have borne a part in its travail and throes of birth. All is well : to-day and a million years hence, equally. To you the whole universe is given for a garden of delight and to the soul that loves, in the great coherent Whole, tha Towards Democracy hardest and most despised lot is even with the best.; and there is nothing more certain or more solid than this. IV Freedom ! the deep breath ! The old Earth breathes deep and rythmically, night and day, summer and winter ; the cuckoo calls across the wood- land, and the willow-wren warbles among the great chestnut buds ; the laborer eases himself under a hedge, and the frog flops into the pond as the cows approach ; In the theatre Juliet from her balcony still bends in the moonlight, and Romeo leans up from the bushes below ; in the pale dawn, still, faint with love he tears himself away ; the great outlines of the fields and hills where you were born and grew up remain apparently unchanged. If I am not level with the lowest I am nothing ; and if I did not know for a certainty that the craziest sot in the village is my equal, and were not proud to have him walk with me as my friend, I would not write another word — for in this is my strength. My thoughts are nothing, but I myself will reach my arms through time, constraining you. These are the days which nourished and fed me so kindly and well ; this is the place where I was born, the walls ?.nd roofs which are familiar to me, the windows out of which I have looked. This is the overshadowing love and care of parents ; these are the faces and deeds, in- deUble, of brothers and sisters — closing round me like a wall — the early world in which I lay so long. Towards Democracy 7 This is to-day : the little ship lies ready, the fresh air blowing, the sunlight pouring over the world. These are the gates of all cities and habitations standing open ; this is the love of men and women accompanying me wherever I go ; these are the sacred memories of that early world, time may never change. And this is the word which swells the bosom of the hills and feeds the sacred laughter of the streams, for man : the purpose which endures for you in those old fields and hills and the sphinx-glance of the stars. I, Nature, stand, and call to you though you heed not : Have courage, come forth, O child of mine, that you may see me. As a nymph of the invisible air before her mortal be- loved, so I glance before you — -I dart and stand in your path — and turn away from your heedless eyes like one in pain. I am the ground ; I listen the sound of your feet. They come nearer. I shut my eyes and feel their tread over my face. I am the trees ; I reach downward my long arms and touch you, though you heed not, with enamored fingers ; my leaves and zigzag branches write wonderful words against the evening sky — for you, for you — say, can you not even spell them ? O shame ! shame ! I fling you away from me (you shall not know that I love you). Unworthy ! I strike you across the face ; does the blood mount to your cheek now ? my glove rings at your feet : I dare you to personal combat. Will you come forth ? will you do the daring deed ? 8 Towards Democracy will you strip yourself naked as- you came into the world, and come before me, and regard unafraid the flashing of my sword ? will you lose your life, to Me ? child of mine ! See ! you are in prison, and I can give you space ; You are choked down below there, by the dust of your own raising, and I can give you the pure intoxicating air of the mountains to breathe ; 1 can make you a king, and show you all the lands of the earth ; And from yourself to yourself I can deliver you, and can come, your enemy, and gaze long and long with yells of laughter into your eyes ! VI The caddis worm leaves the water, and takes on wings and flies in the upper air ; the walking mud becomes amorous of the winged sunlight, and behaves itself in an abandoned manner. The Earth (during its infancy) flies round the Sun from which it sprang, and the mud flies round the pond from which it sprang. The earth swims in space, the fish swim in the sea, the bird swims in the air, and the soul of man in the ocean of Equality — -towards which all the other streams run. Here, into this ocean, everything debouches ; all in- terest in life begins anew. The plantain in the croft looks different from what it did before. Towards Democracy 9 Do you understand ? To realise Freedom or Equality (for it comes to the same thing) — for this hitherto, for you, the universe has rolled ; for this, your life, possibly yet many lives ; for this, death, many deaths ; for this, desires, fears, complications, bewilderments, sufferings, hope, regret — all falling away at last duly before the Soul, before You (O laughter !) arising the full grown lover — possessor of the password. The path of Indifference — action, inaction, good, evil, pleasure, pain, the sky, the sea, cities and wilds — all equally used (never shunned), adopted, put aside, as materials only ; you continuing, love continuing — the use and freedom of materials dawning at last upOn you. O laughter ! the Soul invading, looking proudly upon its new kingdom, possessing the offerings of all pleasures, forbidden and unforbidden, from all created things — if per- chance it will stoop to accept tliem ; the everlasting life. From that day forward objects turn round upon them- selves with an exceedingly innocent air, but are visibly not the same ; Fate is leveled, and the mountains and pyramids look foolish before the glance of a little child ; love becomes possessed of itself, and of the certainty of its own fruition (which it never could have before). Here the essence of all expression, and the final surrender of Art — for this the divine Artists have struggled and still struggle ; lo Towards Democracy For this the heroes and lovers of all ages have laid down their lives ; and nations like tigers have fought, knowing well that this life was a mere empty blob without Freedom. Where this makes itself known in a people or even in the soul of a single man or woman, there Democracy begins to exist. Of that which exists in the Soul, political freedom and institutions of equality, and so forth, are but the shadows (necessarily thrown) ; and Democracy in States or Constitu- tions but the shadow of that which first expresses itself in the glance of the eye or the appearance of the skin. Without that first the others are of no account, and need not be further mentioned. VII Inevitable in time for man and all creation is the realisation : the husks one behind another keep shelling and peeling off. Rama crosses to Ceylon by the giant stepping-stones; and the Ganges floats with the flowers and sacred lamps of pilgrims ; Diotima teaches Socrates divine lore ; Benedict plunges his midnight lust in nettles and briars ; and Bruno stands prevaricating yet obstinate before his judges. The midnight jackals scream round the village ; and the feigned cry of the doe is heard as she crosses the track of the hunter pursuing her young ; the chafifinch sits close in her perfect nest, and the shining leaping waters of the streams run on and on. The great stream of history runs on. Towards Democracy 1 1 Over the curve of therqisty horizon, out of the dim past (do you not .see it?) over the plains of China arid the burning plains of India, by the tombs of Egypt and through the gardens beneath the white tower of Belus and under the shadow of the rock of Athens, the great stream descends : Soft slow broad-bosomed mother-stream — where the Ark floats, and Isis in her moon-shaped boat sails on with the corpse of Osiris, and the child-god out of the water rises seated on a lotus flower, and Brahma two-sexed dwells amid the groves, and the maidens weep for Adonis. Mighty long-delaying vagrant stream! Of iimumerable growing rustling life ! Out of some cavern mouth long ago where the cave-dwellers sat gnawing burnt bones, down to to-day — with ever growing tumult, and glints of lights upon thee in the distance as of half-open eyes, and the sound of countless voices out of thee, nearer, nearer, past promoritory after promontory winding,, widening, hastening! Now to-day, turbid wild and unaccountable in ; sudden Niagara-plunge toward thy nearer oceanic levels descending — How wonderful art thou ! VIII Lo ! to-day the falling waters — the ribbed white per- pendicular seas — shaking the ground with their eternal thunder ! Lo ! above all rising like a sign into the immense height of the sky, the columned vapor and calm exhalation of their agony — The Arisen and mighty soul of Man! 12 Towards Democracy [The word runs like fire along the ground ; who shall contain it ? the word that is nothing — as fire is nothing and yet it devours the land in a moment.] Lo ! to-day the eagle soul that stretches its neck into the height, looking before and after ; the living banner calling . with audible inaudible voice through all times ; the spirit whose eyes are heavy with gazing out over the immense world of MAN ! [O spirit ! spirit i spirit ! spirit ! stretching thy arms out oyer the world, Calling to thy children — spirit of the brow of love and feet of war and thunder — Thou art let loose within me ! No delicate fiction art thou to me now — the sound of thy steps appals me with joy as thou strides! — fills me with joy and power. Go, go, my soul, stream out on the wind with this one — I laugh as the ancient cities shake like leaves in the din and tumult ; Go shout on the winds that the world is alive, that the Arisen one controls it — I laugh as the ground rocks under my feet, I laugh as I walk through the forest, and the trees reel to and fro, and their great dead branches chatter Shout on the winds, though the foaming hell grows hoarse with gusty thunder, shout that the crashing distracted hurrying eddying world is taken Prisoner in the highest ! ] Ah ! the live Earth trembles beneath thy footsteps ; Towards _ Democracy 13 the passionate deep shuddering words run along the ground : who shall contain, who shall understand them ? Surely, surely, age after age out of the ground itself arising, from the chinks of the lips of the clods and from between the blades of grass, up with the tall-growing wheat surely ascending Deep-muttered, vast, inaudible — they come — the strange new words, through the frame of the great Mother and through the frames of her children trembling : Freedom ! And among the far nations there is a stir like the stir of the leaves of a forest. Joy, Joy arising on Earth ! And lo ! the banners lifted from point to point, and the spirits of the ancient races looking abroad — the divinely beautiful daughters of God calling to their children. The nations of the old and of the new worlds ! See, what hastening of feet, what throngs, what rustling movement ! Lo ! the divine East from ages and ages back intact her priceless jewel of thought — the germ of Democracy — bringing down ! [Gentle and venerable India well pleased now at last to hear fulfilled the words of her ancient sages.J Lo, Arabia I peerless in dignity, eternal in manhood of love and war — pivoting like a centre the races of man- kind ; Siberia, the aged mother, breaking forth uncontrollable into exultant shouting, from Kokan to farthest Kamschatka and the moss-morasses of the Arctic Sea ! See how they arise and call to each other ! Norway '4 Towaras Democracy with wild hair streaming, dancing frantic on her mountain tops ? Italy from dreams, from languid passionate memories amid her marble ruins, to deeds again arising ; Greece ; Belgium; Denmark; Ireland — liberty's deathless flame leaping on her Atlantic Shore ! O the wild races of Africa, beautiful children of the sun, hardy and superb, givers of gifts to the common stock without which all the other gifts were useless ! The native tribes still roaming in the freedom of the earth and the waters : the Greenlander and his little boy together in their canoe towing the dead seal, the tawny bronzed Malay, and Papuan, and Australian through the interminable siloit bush tracking infallibly for water or the kangaroo ! Lo ! the great users and accumulators of materials, the proud and melancholy Titans struggling with civilisation ! England, ringed with iron and with the glitter of her waves upon her ; Germany ; France ; Russia — and the flow of East juid West, and the throes of womanhood and the future ; lo ! Spain — dark, proud, voiceless, biting her lips, with high white arm beckoning beckoning ! And you, too, ye mani- fold Stars and Stripes — unto what great destiny ! The peoples of the Earth ; the intertwining many-colored streams ! China, gliding seemingly unobservant among the crowd, self-restrained, of her own soul calmly possessed ; the resplen- dent-limbed Negro and half-caste (do you not see that old woman there with brow and nose and jaw dating conclusively back from far away Egypt ?) ; the glitter-eyed caressing-handed Hindu, suave thoughtful Persian, and faithful Turk ; Mexkx> and the Red Indian (O unconscious pleading eyes of the Towards Democracy 15 dying races!); Japan and the Isles of the Pacific, and the caravan wanderers and dwellers in the oases of Sahara. O glancing eyes ! O leaping shining waters ! Do I not know that thou Democracy dost control and inspire, that thou, too, hast relations to these — and a certainty — As surely as Niagara has relations to Erie and Ontario ? IX Lo ! the spirit floats in the air. On his lips it kisses the young man from China, and the patient old man, and the spiritual-faced boy ; And on his lips the long-eyed Japanee ; and on his thick lips the Negro : Come ! And to the forlorn emigrant, to the old Irish woman with shriveled brown anxious face, and to her barefoot beautiful daughter, and to the young fair-haired woman from Sweden : Come ! And to the Portuguese lad with shining teeth and smiling mouth, and to the long-haired Italian, and to the ruddy Scot ; And to the young Tamil boy holding up flowers and pouring his morning libation of water to the Sun, and to his grandmother superintending the household with quiet loving care ; and to the rows of Hindu villagers squatted by the water tanks at early morning, bathing and chatting, and to the women their wives cleaning their brass-glancing waterpots ; and to the noble Mahratta women, and to the beautiful almond-eyed women of Egypt, and to the shifty clever Eurasian, and to the stunted dweller by the sacred unfrozen lake of Thibet : 1 6 Towards Democracy Come! — and to the wanderers lighting their camp-fires at the feet of the world-old statues at Thebes ; and to the sacred exiles on the march to Irkutsk ; to the wild riders across the plains of Wallachia ; And to the sweet healthy-bodied English girl, and to the drink-marked prostitute, and to the convicted criminals, the diseased decrepit and destitute of all the Earth : Lo ! my children I give myself to you ; I stretch my arms ; on the lips each one in the name of all I kiss you : Come ! And out of your clinging kisses, see ! I create a new world. X Who understands ? Who draws close as a little child ? Ah ! who is he who stands closest ? And has heard the word, himself, uttered out of the ground from between the clods ? Who is the wise statesman who walks hand in hand with his people, guiding and guided ? Who is the child of the people, moving joyous, liquid, free, among his equals, touching nearest the serene un- tampered facts of earth and sky ? Who is the poet whom love has made strong strong strong with all strength ? Ah ! who is he who says to the great good Mother : Cling fast, O Mother, and hold me ; clasp thy fingers truer my face and draw me to thee for ever i Towards Democracy 17 XI THE scene changes ; the sun and the stars are. veiled, the solid earth alone is left. I am buried (I too that I may rise again) deep underfoot aniong the clods. Each one a transparent miracle, competent with man and his vast-aspiring religions and civilisations — but for me they are only dirt. Level wastes of sand and scrub ; mudflats by the mouths of rivers ; old disheveled rocks and oozy snow ; trickling slime-places and ponds and bogs and mangrove marshes and chattering shale-slopes and howling deserted ridges and heaps of broken glass and old bones and shoes and pots and pans in blind alleys and fogs along flat shores and crimes betrayals murders thefts respectability, bad smells by house doors, filthy-smelling interiors of factories and drawing-rooms, stale scents, gas, dirt, evil faces, drunkenness, cruelty to animals, and the cruelty of animals to each other This is the solid earth in the midst of which I am buried. 1 am mad ! the lightning flashes on evil raw places. I stretch uneasily in my grave and tumble the towers of great cities with my feet ; the volcanos lurch and spill their molten liquor. 1 hate those nearest me, and am ^^osed, captious and intolerant. I sweep a great space round me and sulk in the middle of it. 1 8 Towards Democracy Now underneath the earth on which you walk I sport in the fire of Hell ; Satan is my friend and vicious blood-spilling lusts and clenched teeth push the way for me to destruction. I dance in the flames and will claw every one in : take care how you cross me ! Your talk of goodness I despise. To every conceivable sin I hold out my hand. My touch blackens you. I crawl forth out of slime and worms and blink at the sun. I press my way madly through the gallows-crowd to him who bears my reprieve held up on high. This is the Cross ; these are the eyes of Christ — and of the crossing-sweeper ; This is the Divine love which encloses and redeems all evil. Ah ! here is peace ! Flat curtains hang round me in every direction (as they hang round you), and behind them the live people go dancing and laughing : but we are not going to be baffled. Sex still goes first, and hands eyes mouth brain follow ; from the midst of belly and thighs radiate the knowledge of self, religion, and immortality. XII The clods press suffocating closer and closer — grit and filth accumulate in the eyes and mouth, I can neither see nor speak — the devil and the worms dance around. Towards Democracy 19 The immortal worms make their obeisance to you, and the religious devil grins at you — they compliment you on your superiority. The Earth is for you, and all that is therein — save what anyone else can grab ; and universal love is for you — and to sleek yourself smoother than others in the glass ; and to fly on from world to world, leaving sweet odors behind you, and to get cleverer and cleverer, and better and better as you go, and to be generally superior ! How very nice ! the devil and the worms thank you for your kind invitation to accompany them; but regret that they are engaged. XIII This is poison ! do not touch it — ^the black brew ot the cauldron out of .vhich Democracy firks its homed and shameless head. disrespectable Democracy ! I love you. No white angelic spirit are you now, but a black and horned Ethio- pian — your great grinning lips and teeth and powerful brow and huge limbs please me well. Where you go about the garden there are great foot- marks and an uncanny smell; the borders are trampled and I see where you have lain and rolled in a great bed of lilies, bruising the sweetness from them. 1 follow you far afield and into the untrodden woods, and there remote from man you disclose yourself to me, goat-footed and sitting on % rock — as to th'" Athenian runner of old. 20 Towards Democracy You fill me with visions, and when the night comes I see the forests upon your flanks and your horns among the stars. I climb upon you and fulfil my desire. XIV The heights heighten and the depths deepen; from beneath the eyelids of man look forth new heavens and a new earth. The glitter of sunlight upon the waves is there. Here underneath, the great lubricous roots grasp downward in darkness at the rocks ; there the tall shaft shoots into air, and the leaves float poised in the sunshine — but the word conceals itself Of the goat-legged God peering over the tops of the clouds ; of the wild creature running in the woods of whom the rabbits are not afraid ; of him who peeps his horns in at the windows of the churches, and the congregation cross themselves and the parson saws his loudest ; of the shame- less lusty unpresentable pal ; of the despised one hobbling on hoofs — I dream. Of the despised and rejected, arising with healing in his wings, of the sane sweet companion in the morning, of the I^ver who neither adorns nor disguises himself — I dream. XV O Democracy, I shout for you ! Back ! Make me a space round me, you kid-gloved rotten-breathed paralytic world, with miserable antics mimick- ing the appearance of life. Towards Democracy 21 England ! for good or evil it is useless to attempt to conceal yourself — I know you too well- I am the very devil. I will tear your veils off, your false shows and pride I will trail in the dust,— you shall be utterly naked before me, in your beauty and in your shame. For who better than I should know your rottenness, your self-deceit, your delusion, your hideous grinning corpse- chattering death-in-life business at top ? (and who better than I the wonderful hidden sources of your strength beneath?) Deceive yourself no longer. Do you think your smooth-faced Respectability will save you ? or that Cowardice carries a master-key of the universe in its pocket — scrambling miserably out of the ditch on the heads of those beneath it ? Do you think that it is a fine thing to grind cheap goods out of the hard labor of ill-paid boys ? and do you imagine that all your Commerce Shows and Manufactures are anything at all compared with the bodies and souls of these ? Do you suppose I have not heard your talk about Morality and Religion and set it face to face in my soul to the instinct of one clean naked unashamed Man ? or that I have not seen your coteries of elegant and learned people put to rout by the innocent speech of a child, and the apparition of a mother suckling her own babe ! Do you think that there ever was or could be Infi- delity greater than this? Do you grab interest on Money and lose all interest 22 Towards Democracy in Life? Do you found a huge system of national Credit on absolute personal Distrust ? Do you batten like a ghoul on the dead corpses of animals, and then expect to be of a cheerful disposition? Do you put the loving beasts to torture as a means of promoting your own health and hap- piness ? Do you, O foolishest one, fancy to bind men together by Laws (of all ideas the most laughable), and set whole tribes of unbelievers at work year after year patching that rotten net ? Do you live continually farther and farther from Nature, till you actually doubt if there be any natural life, or any avenging instinct in the dumb elements? — And then do you wonder that your own Life is slowly ebbing — that you have lost all gladness and faith? I do not a bit I am disgusted with you, and will not cease till I have absolutely floored you. I do not care ; you may struggle ; but I am the strraiger. Ah, England ! Have I not seen, do I not see now, plain as day, through thy midst the genius of thy true life wandering — he who can indeed, who can alone, save thee — Seeking thy soul, thy real life, out of so much rubbish ta disentangle ? Plaintive the Divine Child haply a moment by some cottage door, or by the side of some mechanic at his bench, lingering, passes on ; Through the great magnificent land, through its parks and country palaces and bewildering splendors of the re- sorts of wealth and learning, shy and plaintive, passes ; Is there no hand held out? Towards Democracy 23 Do not the learned people know him ? Have the wealthy nothing to give? Will not the philanthropic reach . hand to this one? The guides are all talking. They are settling the ifTairs of the universe. [They never cease.] They have not settled yet which way to go themselves : low shall they give help to an ignorant child ? They are busy moreover distributing money and pamph- ets : and surely nothing more can be needed. They are very busy. They are worn out and rest not Their faces are without sleep. Nevertheless they go on. Was it said that any man ;ould be contented ? It is a lie ; — or happy ? It is Here foolishness. These things are the dreams of youthful gnorance. The affairs of the universe and the continual fluctua- :ions of the Stock Exchange are too great an anxiety. Meanwhile the old woman was staggering homeward inder a load of sticks — but none offered to relieve her of ler burden. But indeed when you think of it, how could hey ? for it would have spoiled their clothes. The poor boy was taken with a fit upon the doorstep, 3ut it was best not to take him all dirty and slavering into he nicely-carpeted house ! The criminal had suffered shipwreck in life and was ieserted ; but of course it would not have done to be seen ;onsorting with him. 24 Towards Democracy O happy happy guides ! to whom such mighty issues are confided ! Happy happy Child ! who need not stay to hear the end of their talk ! whom I saw, in vision, silent and musing within itself, pass away from among those people. XVI Will you continually deny yourself, you ? Will you for ever turn aside? These are not the times, remember, of canary birds — when the thunder growls along the horizon. O England, do I not know thee — as in a nightmare strangled tied and bound ? Thy poverty — ^when through thy filthy courts from tangles of matted hair gaunt women with venomous faces look upon me? When I see the thin joyless faces of their children, and the brick walls scarcely recognisable as brick for dirt, and the broken windows ; when I breathe the thick polluted air in which not even plants will live ; when oaths and curses are yelled in my ears, and the gibbering face of drink starts upon me at every corner ; When I turn from this and consider throughout the length and breadth of the land, not less but more hateful, the insane greed of riches — of which poverty and its evils are but the necessary obverse and counterpart ; When I see deadly Respectability sitting at its dinner table, quaffing its wine, and discussing the rise and fall of stocks ; when I see the struggle, the fear, the envy, the profound infidelity (so profound that it is almost unconscious of itself) in which the moneyed classes live : Towards Democracy 25 When the faces of their children come to me pleading, pleading — every bit as much as the children of the city poor — pleading for one touch of nature : Of children who have been stuffed with iies all their lives, who have been told that they cannot do without this and that and a thou- sand things — -all of which are wholly unnecessary, and a nuisance, (as who should tell one that it were not safe to walk on the naked Earth, but only on ground embarrassed with straw and all manner of rubbish up to one's knees ;) Of children who have been taught to mix the nonsense manners and diarrhcea of drawing-rooms with their ideals of right and wrong ; to despise manual labor and to reverence ridicule ; to eat and drink and dress and sleep in unbelief and against all their natural instincts ; and in all things to mingle the disgust of repletion with the very thought of pleasure — till their young judgments are confused and their instincts actually cease to be a guide to them ; Of strong healthy boys who positively believe they will , starve unless they enter the hated professions held out to them; When I see avenues of young girls and women, with sideway flopping heads, debarred from Work, debarred from natural Sexuality, weary to death with nothing to do, (and this thy triumph, O deadly respectability discussing stocks ! ) When I see, flickering around, miserable spectrums and nostrums of reform — mere wisps devoid of all body — philanthropic chatterboxes, [Nay, I do not hold with you ! For if you kill me to death talking to me in a drawing- room, what in the name of heaven are you going to do to the unfortunate in hospital ?] 26 Towards Democracy When I hear and see the droning and see-sawing of pulpits ; when the vision of perfect vulgarity and common- placeness arises upon me — of society — and of that which arrogates to itself the sacred name of England ; The puppet dance of gentility — condescension, white hands, unsoiled dress, charitable proprietorship — in the street, the barracks, the church, the shop, the house, the school, the assembly. In eating drinking and saying Good morning and Good night — of the theory of what it is to be a lady or a gentleman ; Of exclusiveness, and of being in the swim ; of the drivel of aristocratic connections ; of drawing-rooms and levees and the theory of animated clothespegs generally; of belonging to clubs and of giving pence to crossing- sweepers without apparently seeing them ; of helplessly living in houses with people who feed you, dress you, clean you, and despise you ; of driving in carriages ; of being intel- lectual ; of prancing about and talking glibly on all subjects on the theory of setting things right — and leaving others to do the dirty work of the world ; of having read books by the score, and being yet unable to read a single page ; of writing, and yet ignorant how to sign your name ; of talking about political economy and politics and never having done a single day's labor in your hfe; of being a magistrate or a judge and never having committed a com- mon crime, or been in the position to commit one ; of being a parson and afraid to be seen toping with Christ in a public ; a barrister and to travel in a third class carriage ; an officer and to walk with one of your own men ; Towards Democracy 27 When I see the sea, spreading, of infidelity, of belief in externals — in money, big guns, laws, views, accomplishments, cheap goods — towncouncilors, cabinet ministers, M.P.'s, generals, judges, bishops — all alike; When I look for help from the guides and see only a dead waste of aimless abject closeshaven shabby simpering flat pompous peaked punctilious faces : England, whither — strangled tied and bound — - whither whither art thou come? XVII 1 choke ! [Or should choke — did I not know very well I could tear all these bonds to pieces like withes of dry grass : did I not know too that these are after all in place as they are, nor could be better than they are : The natural sheath protecting the young bud — fitting close, stranglingly close, till the young thing gains a little more power, and then falling dry, useless, their work finished, to the ground.] Strangled, O Gfid ? Nay — the circle of gibbering faces draws closer, the droning noises become louder, the weight gets heavier, unbearable — One instant struggle ! and lo ! It is Over ! — daylight ! the sweet rain is falling and I hear the songs of the birds. Blessings and thanks for e\er for the sweet rain ; bles- sings for the fresh fresh air blowing, and the meadows illimitable and the grass and the clouds ; 2 8 Towards Democracy Blessings and thanks for you, you wild waters eternally flowing : O come flowing, encroaching, over rne, in my ears : I salute you who are pure and sweet (ah ! what designs, what love, are hid within you ! ) — I praise you for your faithfulness for ever XVIII To descend, first ; To feel downwards and downwards through this wretched maze of shams for the solid ground — to come close to the Earth itself and those that live in direct contact with it ; To identify, to saturate yourself with these, their laws of being, their modes of life, their needs (the Earth's also), thoughts, temptations and aspirations ; This — is it not the eternal precept? — is the first thing : to dig downwards. Afterwards the young shoot will ascend — and ascending easily part aside the overlying rubbish. These are not the times of canary birds — nor of trifling with art and philosophy and impertinent philanthropic schemes ; this is the time of grown Men and Women : Of or among the people ; always living close to the earth and the people, and creating what they create, out of them. Young Men and Women, I — though not of myself alone — call you : the time is come. ( Is not the sweet rain falling ?) Towards Democracy 29 You — for whom the bitter cup and the sweet are so strangely mixed — how strangely none but you can tell ; You — in whom divine strength is one with the utter- most weakness ; In soberness