NCERT Textbook: Non-Fiction: Why the Novel Matters | Class 12 English Kaleidoscope - Humanities/Arts PDF Download

 Page 1


165/WHY THE NOVEL MATTERS
Why the N Why the N Why the N Why the N Why the Novel Matters ovel Matters ovel Matters ovel Matters ovel Matters
D.H. Lawrence was born in a coal-mining town. He
was the son of an uneducated miner and an
ambitious mother who was a teacher. His wife was
German, and the couple lived, at various times, in
Italy, Germany, Australia, Tahiti and Mexico.
Lawrence’s writings reflect a revolt against
puritanism, mediocrity and the dehumanisation of
an industrial society.
We have curious ideas of ourselves. We think of ourselves
as a body with a spirit in it, or a body with a soul in it, or
a body with a mind in it. Mens sana in corpore sano. The
years drink up the wine, and at last throw the bottle away,
the body, of course, being the bottle.
It is a funny sort of superstition. Why should I look at
my hand, as it so cleverly writes these words, and decide
that it is a mere nothing compared to the mind that directs
it? Is there really any huge difference between my hand
and my brain? Or my mind? My hand is alive, it flickers
with a life of its own. It meets all the strange universe in
touch, and learns a vast number of things, and knows a
vast number of things. My hand, as it writes these words,
slips gaily along, jumps like a grasshopper to dot an i,
feels the table rather cold, gets a little bored if I write too
long, has its own rudiments of thought, and is just as
much me as is my brain, my mind, or my soul. Why should
4 4
4 4 4
D.H. Lawrence
1885-1930
2024-25
Page 2


165/WHY THE NOVEL MATTERS
Why the N Why the N Why the N Why the N Why the Novel Matters ovel Matters ovel Matters ovel Matters ovel Matters
D.H. Lawrence was born in a coal-mining town. He
was the son of an uneducated miner and an
ambitious mother who was a teacher. His wife was
German, and the couple lived, at various times, in
Italy, Germany, Australia, Tahiti and Mexico.
Lawrence’s writings reflect a revolt against
puritanism, mediocrity and the dehumanisation of
an industrial society.
We have curious ideas of ourselves. We think of ourselves
as a body with a spirit in it, or a body with a soul in it, or
a body with a mind in it. Mens sana in corpore sano. The
years drink up the wine, and at last throw the bottle away,
the body, of course, being the bottle.
It is a funny sort of superstition. Why should I look at
my hand, as it so cleverly writes these words, and decide
that it is a mere nothing compared to the mind that directs
it? Is there really any huge difference between my hand
and my brain? Or my mind? My hand is alive, it flickers
with a life of its own. It meets all the strange universe in
touch, and learns a vast number of things, and knows a
vast number of things. My hand, as it writes these words,
slips gaily along, jumps like a grasshopper to dot an i,
feels the table rather cold, gets a little bored if I write too
long, has its own rudiments of thought, and is just as
much me as is my brain, my mind, or my soul. Why should
4 4
4 4 4
D.H. Lawrence
1885-1930
2024-25
166/KALEIDOSCOPE
I imagine that there is a me which is more me than my
hand is? Since my hand is absolutely alive, me alive.
Whereas, of course, as far as I am concerned, my pen
isn’t alive at all. My pen isn’t me alive. Me alive ends at my
fingertips.
Whatever is me alive is me. Every tiny bit of my hands
is alive, every little freckle and hair and fold of skin. And
whatever is me alive is me. Only my finger-nails, those
ten little weapons between me and an inanimate universe,
they cross the mysterious Rubicon between me alive and
things like my pen, which are not alive, in my own sense.
So, seeing my hand is all alive and me alive, wherein
is it just a bottle, or a jug, or a tin can, or a vessel of clay,
or any of the rest of that nonsense? True, if I cut it will
bleed, like a can of cherries. But then the skin that is cut,
and the veins that bleed, and the bones that should never
be seen, they are all just as alive as the blood that flows.
So the tin can business, or vessel of clay, is just bunk.
And that’s what you learn, when you’re a novelist.
And that’s what you are very liable not to know, if you’re a
parson, or a philosopher, or a scientist, or a stupid person.
If you’re a parson, you talk about souls in heaven. If you’re
a novelist, you know that paradise is in the palm of your
hand, and on the end of your nose, because both are alive;
and alive, and man alive, which is more than you can say,
for certain, of paradise. Paradise is after life, and I for one
am not keen on anything that is after life. If you are a
philosopher, you talk about infinity; and the pure spirit
which knows all things. But if you pick up a novel, you
realise immediately that infinity is just a handle to this
self-same jug of a body of mine; while as for knowing, if I
find my finger in the fire, I  know that fire burns with a
knowledge so emphatic and vital, it leaves Nirvana merely
a conjecture. Oh, yes, my body, me alive, knows, and knows
intensely. And as for the sum of all knowledge, it can’t be
anything more than an accumulation of all the things I
know in the body, and you, dear reader, know in the body.
These damned philosophers, they talk as if they
suddenly went off in steam, and were then much more
important than they are when they’re in their shirts. It is
2024-25
Page 3


165/WHY THE NOVEL MATTERS
Why the N Why the N Why the N Why the N Why the Novel Matters ovel Matters ovel Matters ovel Matters ovel Matters
D.H. Lawrence was born in a coal-mining town. He
was the son of an uneducated miner and an
ambitious mother who was a teacher. His wife was
German, and the couple lived, at various times, in
Italy, Germany, Australia, Tahiti and Mexico.
Lawrence’s writings reflect a revolt against
puritanism, mediocrity and the dehumanisation of
an industrial society.
We have curious ideas of ourselves. We think of ourselves
as a body with a spirit in it, or a body with a soul in it, or
a body with a mind in it. Mens sana in corpore sano. The
years drink up the wine, and at last throw the bottle away,
the body, of course, being the bottle.
It is a funny sort of superstition. Why should I look at
my hand, as it so cleverly writes these words, and decide
that it is a mere nothing compared to the mind that directs
it? Is there really any huge difference between my hand
and my brain? Or my mind? My hand is alive, it flickers
with a life of its own. It meets all the strange universe in
touch, and learns a vast number of things, and knows a
vast number of things. My hand, as it writes these words,
slips gaily along, jumps like a grasshopper to dot an i,
feels the table rather cold, gets a little bored if I write too
long, has its own rudiments of thought, and is just as
much me as is my brain, my mind, or my soul. Why should
4 4
4 4 4
D.H. Lawrence
1885-1930
2024-25
166/KALEIDOSCOPE
I imagine that there is a me which is more me than my
hand is? Since my hand is absolutely alive, me alive.
Whereas, of course, as far as I am concerned, my pen
isn’t alive at all. My pen isn’t me alive. Me alive ends at my
fingertips.
Whatever is me alive is me. Every tiny bit of my hands
is alive, every little freckle and hair and fold of skin. And
whatever is me alive is me. Only my finger-nails, those
ten little weapons between me and an inanimate universe,
they cross the mysterious Rubicon between me alive and
things like my pen, which are not alive, in my own sense.
So, seeing my hand is all alive and me alive, wherein
is it just a bottle, or a jug, or a tin can, or a vessel of clay,
or any of the rest of that nonsense? True, if I cut it will
bleed, like a can of cherries. But then the skin that is cut,
and the veins that bleed, and the bones that should never
be seen, they are all just as alive as the blood that flows.
So the tin can business, or vessel of clay, is just bunk.
And that’s what you learn, when you’re a novelist.
And that’s what you are very liable not to know, if you’re a
parson, or a philosopher, or a scientist, or a stupid person.
If you’re a parson, you talk about souls in heaven. If you’re
a novelist, you know that paradise is in the palm of your
hand, and on the end of your nose, because both are alive;
and alive, and man alive, which is more than you can say,
for certain, of paradise. Paradise is after life, and I for one
am not keen on anything that is after life. If you are a
philosopher, you talk about infinity; and the pure spirit
which knows all things. But if you pick up a novel, you
realise immediately that infinity is just a handle to this
self-same jug of a body of mine; while as for knowing, if I
find my finger in the fire, I  know that fire burns with a
knowledge so emphatic and vital, it leaves Nirvana merely
a conjecture. Oh, yes, my body, me alive, knows, and knows
intensely. And as for the sum of all knowledge, it can’t be
anything more than an accumulation of all the things I
know in the body, and you, dear reader, know in the body.
These damned philosophers, they talk as if they
suddenly went off in steam, and were then much more
important than they are when they’re in their shirts. It is
2024-25
167/WHY THE NOVEL MATTERS
nonsense. Every man, philosopher included, ends in his
own finger-tips. That’s the end of his man alive. As for the
words and thoughts and sighs and aspirations that fly
from him, they are so many tremulations in the ether, and
not alive at all. But if the tremulations reach another man
alive, he may receive them into his life, and his life may
take on a new colour, like a chameleon creeping from a
brown rock on to a green leaf. All very well and good. It
still doesn’t alter the fact that the so-called spirit, the
message or teaching of the philosopher or the saint, isn’t
alive at all, but just a tremulation upon the ether, like a
radio message. All this spirit stuff is just tremulations
upon the ether. If you, as man alive, quiver from the
tremulation of the other into new life, that is because you
are man alive, and you take sustenance and stimulation
into your alive man in a myriad ways. But to say that the
message, or the spirit which is communicated to you, is
more important than your living body, is nonsense. You
might as well say that the potato at dinner was more
important.
Nothing is important but life. And for myself, I can
absolutely see life nowhere but in the living. Life with a
capital L is only man alive. Even a cabbage in the rain is
cabbage alive. All things that are alive are amazing. And
all things that are dead are subsidiary to the living. Better
a live dog than a dead lion. But better a live lion than a
live dog. C’est la vie!
It seems impossible to get a saint, or a philosopher, or
a scientist, to stick to this simple truth. They are all, in a
sense, renegades. The saint wishes to offer himself up as
spiritual food for the multitude. Even Frances of Assisi
turns himself into a sort of angel-cake, of which anyone
may take a slice. But an angel-cake is rather less than
man alive. And poor St. Francis might well apologise to
his body, when he is dying: ‘Oh, pardon me, my body, the
wrong I did you through the years!’ It was no wafer, for
others to eat.
The philosopher, on the other hand, because he can
think, decides that nothing but thoughts matter. It is as if
a rabbit, because he can make little pills, should decide
2024-25
Page 4


165/WHY THE NOVEL MATTERS
Why the N Why the N Why the N Why the N Why the Novel Matters ovel Matters ovel Matters ovel Matters ovel Matters
D.H. Lawrence was born in a coal-mining town. He
was the son of an uneducated miner and an
ambitious mother who was a teacher. His wife was
German, and the couple lived, at various times, in
Italy, Germany, Australia, Tahiti and Mexico.
Lawrence’s writings reflect a revolt against
puritanism, mediocrity and the dehumanisation of
an industrial society.
We have curious ideas of ourselves. We think of ourselves
as a body with a spirit in it, or a body with a soul in it, or
a body with a mind in it. Mens sana in corpore sano. The
years drink up the wine, and at last throw the bottle away,
the body, of course, being the bottle.
It is a funny sort of superstition. Why should I look at
my hand, as it so cleverly writes these words, and decide
that it is a mere nothing compared to the mind that directs
it? Is there really any huge difference between my hand
and my brain? Or my mind? My hand is alive, it flickers
with a life of its own. It meets all the strange universe in
touch, and learns a vast number of things, and knows a
vast number of things. My hand, as it writes these words,
slips gaily along, jumps like a grasshopper to dot an i,
feels the table rather cold, gets a little bored if I write too
long, has its own rudiments of thought, and is just as
much me as is my brain, my mind, or my soul. Why should
4 4
4 4 4
D.H. Lawrence
1885-1930
2024-25
166/KALEIDOSCOPE
I imagine that there is a me which is more me than my
hand is? Since my hand is absolutely alive, me alive.
Whereas, of course, as far as I am concerned, my pen
isn’t alive at all. My pen isn’t me alive. Me alive ends at my
fingertips.
Whatever is me alive is me. Every tiny bit of my hands
is alive, every little freckle and hair and fold of skin. And
whatever is me alive is me. Only my finger-nails, those
ten little weapons between me and an inanimate universe,
they cross the mysterious Rubicon between me alive and
things like my pen, which are not alive, in my own sense.
So, seeing my hand is all alive and me alive, wherein
is it just a bottle, or a jug, or a tin can, or a vessel of clay,
or any of the rest of that nonsense? True, if I cut it will
bleed, like a can of cherries. But then the skin that is cut,
and the veins that bleed, and the bones that should never
be seen, they are all just as alive as the blood that flows.
So the tin can business, or vessel of clay, is just bunk.
And that’s what you learn, when you’re a novelist.
And that’s what you are very liable not to know, if you’re a
parson, or a philosopher, or a scientist, or a stupid person.
If you’re a parson, you talk about souls in heaven. If you’re
a novelist, you know that paradise is in the palm of your
hand, and on the end of your nose, because both are alive;
and alive, and man alive, which is more than you can say,
for certain, of paradise. Paradise is after life, and I for one
am not keen on anything that is after life. If you are a
philosopher, you talk about infinity; and the pure spirit
which knows all things. But if you pick up a novel, you
realise immediately that infinity is just a handle to this
self-same jug of a body of mine; while as for knowing, if I
find my finger in the fire, I  know that fire burns with a
knowledge so emphatic and vital, it leaves Nirvana merely
a conjecture. Oh, yes, my body, me alive, knows, and knows
intensely. And as for the sum of all knowledge, it can’t be
anything more than an accumulation of all the things I
know in the body, and you, dear reader, know in the body.
These damned philosophers, they talk as if they
suddenly went off in steam, and were then much more
important than they are when they’re in their shirts. It is
2024-25
167/WHY THE NOVEL MATTERS
nonsense. Every man, philosopher included, ends in his
own finger-tips. That’s the end of his man alive. As for the
words and thoughts and sighs and aspirations that fly
from him, they are so many tremulations in the ether, and
not alive at all. But if the tremulations reach another man
alive, he may receive them into his life, and his life may
take on a new colour, like a chameleon creeping from a
brown rock on to a green leaf. All very well and good. It
still doesn’t alter the fact that the so-called spirit, the
message or teaching of the philosopher or the saint, isn’t
alive at all, but just a tremulation upon the ether, like a
radio message. All this spirit stuff is just tremulations
upon the ether. If you, as man alive, quiver from the
tremulation of the other into new life, that is because you
are man alive, and you take sustenance and stimulation
into your alive man in a myriad ways. But to say that the
message, or the spirit which is communicated to you, is
more important than your living body, is nonsense. You
might as well say that the potato at dinner was more
important.
Nothing is important but life. And for myself, I can
absolutely see life nowhere but in the living. Life with a
capital L is only man alive. Even a cabbage in the rain is
cabbage alive. All things that are alive are amazing. And
all things that are dead are subsidiary to the living. Better
a live dog than a dead lion. But better a live lion than a
live dog. C’est la vie!
It seems impossible to get a saint, or a philosopher, or
a scientist, to stick to this simple truth. They are all, in a
sense, renegades. The saint wishes to offer himself up as
spiritual food for the multitude. Even Frances of Assisi
turns himself into a sort of angel-cake, of which anyone
may take a slice. But an angel-cake is rather less than
man alive. And poor St. Francis might well apologise to
his body, when he is dying: ‘Oh, pardon me, my body, the
wrong I did you through the years!’ It was no wafer, for
others to eat.
The philosopher, on the other hand, because he can
think, decides that nothing but thoughts matter. It is as if
a rabbit, because he can make little pills, should decide
2024-25
168/KALEIDOSCOPE
that nothing but little pills matter. As for the scientist, he
has absolutely no use for me so long as I am man alive. To
the scientist, I am dead. He puts under the microscope a
bit of dead me, and calls it me. He takes me to pieces, and
says first one piece, and then another piece, is me. My
heart, my liver, my stomach have all been scientifically
me, according to the scientist; and nowadays I am either a
brain, or nerves, or glands, or something more up-to-date
in the tissue line.
Now I absolutely flatly deny that I am a soul, or a
body, or a mind, or an intelligence, or a brain, or a nervous
system, or a bunch of glands, or any of the rest of these
bits of me. The whole is greater than the part. And
therefore, I, who am man alive, am greater than my soul,
or spirit, or body, or mind, or consciousness, or anything
else that is merely a part of me. I am a man, and alive. I
am man alive, and as long as I can, I intend to go on being
man alive.
Stop and Think Stop and Think Stop and Think Stop and Think Stop and Think
1. What are the things that mark animate things from
the inanimate?
2. What is the simple truth that eludes the philosopher
or the scientist?
For this reason I am a novelist. And being a novelist, I
consider myself superior to the saint, the scientist, the
philosopher, and the poet, who are all great masters of
different bits of man alive, but never get the whole hog.
The novel is the one bright book of life. Books are not
life. They are only tremulations on the ether. But the novel
as a tremulation can make the whole man alive tremble.
Which is more than poetry, philosophy, science, or any
other book tremulation can do.
The novel is the book of life. In this sense, the Bible is
a great novel. You may say, it is about God. But it is really
about man alive.
I do hope you begin to get my idea, why the novel is
supremely important, as a tremulation on the ether. Plato
2024-25
Page 5


165/WHY THE NOVEL MATTERS
Why the N Why the N Why the N Why the N Why the Novel Matters ovel Matters ovel Matters ovel Matters ovel Matters
D.H. Lawrence was born in a coal-mining town. He
was the son of an uneducated miner and an
ambitious mother who was a teacher. His wife was
German, and the couple lived, at various times, in
Italy, Germany, Australia, Tahiti and Mexico.
Lawrence’s writings reflect a revolt against
puritanism, mediocrity and the dehumanisation of
an industrial society.
We have curious ideas of ourselves. We think of ourselves
as a body with a spirit in it, or a body with a soul in it, or
a body with a mind in it. Mens sana in corpore sano. The
years drink up the wine, and at last throw the bottle away,
the body, of course, being the bottle.
It is a funny sort of superstition. Why should I look at
my hand, as it so cleverly writes these words, and decide
that it is a mere nothing compared to the mind that directs
it? Is there really any huge difference between my hand
and my brain? Or my mind? My hand is alive, it flickers
with a life of its own. It meets all the strange universe in
touch, and learns a vast number of things, and knows a
vast number of things. My hand, as it writes these words,
slips gaily along, jumps like a grasshopper to dot an i,
feels the table rather cold, gets a little bored if I write too
long, has its own rudiments of thought, and is just as
much me as is my brain, my mind, or my soul. Why should
4 4
4 4 4
D.H. Lawrence
1885-1930
2024-25
166/KALEIDOSCOPE
I imagine that there is a me which is more me than my
hand is? Since my hand is absolutely alive, me alive.
Whereas, of course, as far as I am concerned, my pen
isn’t alive at all. My pen isn’t me alive. Me alive ends at my
fingertips.
Whatever is me alive is me. Every tiny bit of my hands
is alive, every little freckle and hair and fold of skin. And
whatever is me alive is me. Only my finger-nails, those
ten little weapons between me and an inanimate universe,
they cross the mysterious Rubicon between me alive and
things like my pen, which are not alive, in my own sense.
So, seeing my hand is all alive and me alive, wherein
is it just a bottle, or a jug, or a tin can, or a vessel of clay,
or any of the rest of that nonsense? True, if I cut it will
bleed, like a can of cherries. But then the skin that is cut,
and the veins that bleed, and the bones that should never
be seen, they are all just as alive as the blood that flows.
So the tin can business, or vessel of clay, is just bunk.
And that’s what you learn, when you’re a novelist.
And that’s what you are very liable not to know, if you’re a
parson, or a philosopher, or a scientist, or a stupid person.
If you’re a parson, you talk about souls in heaven. If you’re
a novelist, you know that paradise is in the palm of your
hand, and on the end of your nose, because both are alive;
and alive, and man alive, which is more than you can say,
for certain, of paradise. Paradise is after life, and I for one
am not keen on anything that is after life. If you are a
philosopher, you talk about infinity; and the pure spirit
which knows all things. But if you pick up a novel, you
realise immediately that infinity is just a handle to this
self-same jug of a body of mine; while as for knowing, if I
find my finger in the fire, I  know that fire burns with a
knowledge so emphatic and vital, it leaves Nirvana merely
a conjecture. Oh, yes, my body, me alive, knows, and knows
intensely. And as for the sum of all knowledge, it can’t be
anything more than an accumulation of all the things I
know in the body, and you, dear reader, know in the body.
These damned philosophers, they talk as if they
suddenly went off in steam, and were then much more
important than they are when they’re in their shirts. It is
2024-25
167/WHY THE NOVEL MATTERS
nonsense. Every man, philosopher included, ends in his
own finger-tips. That’s the end of his man alive. As for the
words and thoughts and sighs and aspirations that fly
from him, they are so many tremulations in the ether, and
not alive at all. But if the tremulations reach another man
alive, he may receive them into his life, and his life may
take on a new colour, like a chameleon creeping from a
brown rock on to a green leaf. All very well and good. It
still doesn’t alter the fact that the so-called spirit, the
message or teaching of the philosopher or the saint, isn’t
alive at all, but just a tremulation upon the ether, like a
radio message. All this spirit stuff is just tremulations
upon the ether. If you, as man alive, quiver from the
tremulation of the other into new life, that is because you
are man alive, and you take sustenance and stimulation
into your alive man in a myriad ways. But to say that the
message, or the spirit which is communicated to you, is
more important than your living body, is nonsense. You
might as well say that the potato at dinner was more
important.
Nothing is important but life. And for myself, I can
absolutely see life nowhere but in the living. Life with a
capital L is only man alive. Even a cabbage in the rain is
cabbage alive. All things that are alive are amazing. And
all things that are dead are subsidiary to the living. Better
a live dog than a dead lion. But better a live lion than a
live dog. C’est la vie!
It seems impossible to get a saint, or a philosopher, or
a scientist, to stick to this simple truth. They are all, in a
sense, renegades. The saint wishes to offer himself up as
spiritual food for the multitude. Even Frances of Assisi
turns himself into a sort of angel-cake, of which anyone
may take a slice. But an angel-cake is rather less than
man alive. And poor St. Francis might well apologise to
his body, when he is dying: ‘Oh, pardon me, my body, the
wrong I did you through the years!’ It was no wafer, for
others to eat.
The philosopher, on the other hand, because he can
think, decides that nothing but thoughts matter. It is as if
a rabbit, because he can make little pills, should decide
2024-25
168/KALEIDOSCOPE
that nothing but little pills matter. As for the scientist, he
has absolutely no use for me so long as I am man alive. To
the scientist, I am dead. He puts under the microscope a
bit of dead me, and calls it me. He takes me to pieces, and
says first one piece, and then another piece, is me. My
heart, my liver, my stomach have all been scientifically
me, according to the scientist; and nowadays I am either a
brain, or nerves, or glands, or something more up-to-date
in the tissue line.
Now I absolutely flatly deny that I am a soul, or a
body, or a mind, or an intelligence, or a brain, or a nervous
system, or a bunch of glands, or any of the rest of these
bits of me. The whole is greater than the part. And
therefore, I, who am man alive, am greater than my soul,
or spirit, or body, or mind, or consciousness, or anything
else that is merely a part of me. I am a man, and alive. I
am man alive, and as long as I can, I intend to go on being
man alive.
Stop and Think Stop and Think Stop and Think Stop and Think Stop and Think
1. What are the things that mark animate things from
the inanimate?
2. What is the simple truth that eludes the philosopher
or the scientist?
For this reason I am a novelist. And being a novelist, I
consider myself superior to the saint, the scientist, the
philosopher, and the poet, who are all great masters of
different bits of man alive, but never get the whole hog.
The novel is the one bright book of life. Books are not
life. They are only tremulations on the ether. But the novel
as a tremulation can make the whole man alive tremble.
Which is more than poetry, philosophy, science, or any
other book tremulation can do.
The novel is the book of life. In this sense, the Bible is
a great novel. You may say, it is about God. But it is really
about man alive.
I do hope you begin to get my idea, why the novel is
supremely important, as a tremulation on the ether. Plato
2024-25
169/WHY THE NOVEL MATTERS
makes the perfect ideal being tremble in me. But that’s
only a bit of me. Perfection is only a bit, in the strange
make-up of man alive. The Sermon on the Mount makes
the selfless spirit of me quiver. But that, too, is only a bit
of me. The Ten Commandments set the old Adam shivering
in me, warning me that I am a thief and a murderer, unless
I watch it. But even the old Adam is only a bit of me.
I very much like all these bits of me to be set trembling
with life and the wisdom of life. But I do ask that the
whole of me shall tremble in its wholeness, some time or
other.
And this, of course, must happen in me, living.
But as far as it can happen from a communication, it
can only happen when a whole novel communicates itself
to me. The Bible—but all the Bible—and Homer, and
Shakespeare: these are the supreme old novels. These are
all things to all men. Which means that in their wholeness
they affect the whole man alive, which is the man himself,
beyond any part of him. They set the whole tree trembling
with a new access of life, they do not just stimulate growth
in one direction.
I don’t want to grow in any one direction any more.
And, if I can help it, I don’t want to stimulate anybody else
into some particular direction. A particular direction ends
in a cul-de-sac. We’re in a cul-de-sac at present.
I don’t believe in any dazzling revelation, or in any
supreme Word. ‘The grass withereth, the flower fadeth,
but the Word of the Lord shall stand for ever.’ That’s the
kind of stuff we’ve drugged ourselves with. As a matter of
fact, the grass withereth, but comes up all the greener for
that reason, after the rains. The flower fadeth, and therefore
the bud opens. But the Word of the Lord, being man-uttered
and a mere vibration on the ether, becomes staler and
staler, more and more boring, till at last we turn a deaf
ear and it ceases to exist, far more finally than any withered
grass. It is grass that renews its youth like the eagle, not
any Word.
We should ask for no absolutes, or absolute. Once and
for all and for ever, let us have done with the ugly
2024-25