February

[19]February

OneThe ecstasy of longing is better than the assuaging of desire.TwoAs regards facts and ideas, the great mistake made by the average well-intentioned reader is that he is content with the names of things instead of occupying himself with the causes of things.ThreeTime and increasing knowledge of the true facts have dissipated for me the melancholy and affecting legend of literary talent going a-begging because of the indifference of publishers. O young author of talent, would that I could find you and make you understand how the publisher yearns for you as the lover for his love.FourThe brain can be disciplined by learning the habit of obedience. And it can learn the habit of obedience by the practice of concentration.FiveYou can attach any ideas you please to music, but music, if you will forgive me saying so, rejects them all equally. Art has to do with emotions not with ideas, and the great defect of literature is that it can only express emotions by means of ideas. What makes music the greatest of all the arts is that it can express emotions without ideas. Literature can appeal to the soul only through the mind. Music goes direct. Its language is a language which the soul alone understands, but which the soul can never translate.SixIf a man does not spend at least as much time in actively and definitely thinking about what he has read as he spent in reading, he is simply insulting his author.SevenHe was of that small and lonely minority of men who never know ambition, ardour, zeal, yearning, tears; whose convenient desires are capable of immediate satisfaction; of whom it may be said that they purchase a second-rate happiness cheap at the price of an incapacity for deep feeling.EightNo man, except a greater author, can teach an author his business.NineSize is the quality which most strongly and surely appeals to the imagination of the multitude. Of all modern monuments the Eiffel Tower and the Big Wheel have aroused the most genuine curiosity and admiration: they are the biggest. As with this monstrous architecture of metals, so with the fabric of ideas and emotions: the attention of the whole crowd can only be caught by an audacious hugeness, an eye-smiting enormity of dimensions so gross as to be nearly physical.TenGenius apart, woman is usually more touchingly lyrical than man in the yearning for the ideal.ElevenI had fast in my heart’s keeping the new truth that in the body, and the instincts of the body, there should be no shame but rather a frank, joyous pride.TwelveA person is idle because his thoughts dwell habitually on the instant pleasures of idleness.ThirteenBy love I mean a noble and sensuous passion, absorbing the energies of the soul, fulfilling destiny, and reducing all that has gone before it to the level of a mere prelude.FourteenFor myself, I have never valued work for its own sake, and I never shall.FifteenHaving once decided to achieve a certain task, achieve it at all costs of tedium and distaste. The gain in self-confidence of having accomplished a tiresome labour is immense.SixteenAll who look into their experience will admit that the failure to replace old habits by new ones is due to the fact that at the critical moment the brain does not remember; it simply forgets.SeventeenMany writers, and many clever writers, use the art of literature merely to gain an end which is connected with some different art, or with no art. Such a writer, finding himself burdened with a message prophetic, didactic, or reforming, discovers suddenly that he has the imaginative gift, and makes his imagination the servant of his intellect, or of emotions which are not artistic emotions.EighteenI only value mental work for the more full and more intense consciousness of being alive which it gives me.NineteenWhatever the vagaries of human nature, the true philosopher is never surprised by them. And one vagary is not more strange than another.TwentyYou can control nothing but your own mind. Even your two-year-old babe may defy you by the instinctive force of its personality.Twenty-oneTo take the common grey things which people know and despise, and, without tampering, to disclose their epic significance, their essential grandeur—that is realism as distinguished from idealism or romanticism. It may scarcely be, it probably is not, the greatest art of all; but it is art precious and indisputable.Twenty-twoThere are few mental exercises better than learning great poetry or prose by heart.Twenty-threeThe British public will never be convinced by argument. But two drops of perspiration on the cheeks of a nice-looking girl with a torn skirt and a crushed hat will make it tremble for the safety of its ideals, and twenty drops will persuade it to sign anything for the restoration of decency. You surely don’t suppose thatargumentwill be of any use!Twenty-fourSome people have a gift of conjuring with conversations. They are almost always frankly and openly interested in themselves. You may seek to foil them; you may even violently wrench the conversation into other directions. But every effort will be useless. They will beat you. You had much better lean back in your chair and enjoy their legerdemain.Twenty-fiveThe voice of this spirit says that it has lost every illusion about life, and that life seems only the more beautiful. It says that activity is but another form of contemplation, pain but another form of pleasure, power but another form of weakness, hate but another form of love, and that it is well these things should be so. It says there is no end, only a means; and that the highest joy is to suffer, and the supreme wisdom is to exist. If you will but live, it cries, that grave but yet passionate voice—if you will but live! Were there a heaven, and you reached it, you could do no more than live. The true heaven is here where you live, where you strive and lose, and weep and laugh. And the true hell is here, where you forget to live, and blind your eyes to the omnipresent and terrible beauty of existence.Twenty-sixThe most important preliminary to self-development is the faculty of concentrating at will.Twenty-sevenDiaries, save in experienced hands, are apt to get themselves done with the very minimum of mental effort. They also tend to an exaggeration of egotism, and if they are left lying about they tend to strife.Twenty-eightThe English world of home is one of the most perfectly organized microcosms on this planet, not excepting the Indianpurdah. The product of centuries of culture, it is regarded, not too absurdly, as the fairest flower of Christian civilisation. It exists chiefly, of course, for women, but it could never have been what it is had not men bound themselves to respect the code which they made for it. It is the fountain of refinement and of consolation, the nursery of affection. It has the peculiar faculty of nourishing itself, for it implicitly denies the existence of anything beyond its doorstep, save the constitution, a bishop, a rector, the seaside, Switzerland, and the respectful poor.Twenty-nineI have always been a bookman. From adolescence books have been one of my passions. Books not merely—and perhaps not chiefly—as vehicles of learning or knowledge, but books as books, books as entities, books as beautiful things, books as historical antiquities, books as repositories of memorable associations. Questions of type, ink, paper, margins, watermarks, paginations, bindings, are capable of really agitating me.

The ecstasy of longing is better than the assuaging of desire.

As regards facts and ideas, the great mistake made by the average well-intentioned reader is that he is content with the names of things instead of occupying himself with the causes of things.

Time and increasing knowledge of the true facts have dissipated for me the melancholy and affecting legend of literary talent going a-begging because of the indifference of publishers. O young author of talent, would that I could find you and make you understand how the publisher yearns for you as the lover for his love.

The brain can be disciplined by learning the habit of obedience. And it can learn the habit of obedience by the practice of concentration.

You can attach any ideas you please to music, but music, if you will forgive me saying so, rejects them all equally. Art has to do with emotions not with ideas, and the great defect of literature is that it can only express emotions by means of ideas. What makes music the greatest of all the arts is that it can express emotions without ideas. Literature can appeal to the soul only through the mind. Music goes direct. Its language is a language which the soul alone understands, but which the soul can never translate.

If a man does not spend at least as much time in actively and definitely thinking about what he has read as he spent in reading, he is simply insulting his author.

He was of that small and lonely minority of men who never know ambition, ardour, zeal, yearning, tears; whose convenient desires are capable of immediate satisfaction; of whom it may be said that they purchase a second-rate happiness cheap at the price of an incapacity for deep feeling.

No man, except a greater author, can teach an author his business.

Size is the quality which most strongly and surely appeals to the imagination of the multitude. Of all modern monuments the Eiffel Tower and the Big Wheel have aroused the most genuine curiosity and admiration: they are the biggest. As with this monstrous architecture of metals, so with the fabric of ideas and emotions: the attention of the whole crowd can only be caught by an audacious hugeness, an eye-smiting enormity of dimensions so gross as to be nearly physical.

Genius apart, woman is usually more touchingly lyrical than man in the yearning for the ideal.

I had fast in my heart’s keeping the new truth that in the body, and the instincts of the body, there should be no shame but rather a frank, joyous pride.

A person is idle because his thoughts dwell habitually on the instant pleasures of idleness.

By love I mean a noble and sensuous passion, absorbing the energies of the soul, fulfilling destiny, and reducing all that has gone before it to the level of a mere prelude.

For myself, I have never valued work for its own sake, and I never shall.

Having once decided to achieve a certain task, achieve it at all costs of tedium and distaste. The gain in self-confidence of having accomplished a tiresome labour is immense.

All who look into their experience will admit that the failure to replace old habits by new ones is due to the fact that at the critical moment the brain does not remember; it simply forgets.

Many writers, and many clever writers, use the art of literature merely to gain an end which is connected with some different art, or with no art. Such a writer, finding himself burdened with a message prophetic, didactic, or reforming, discovers suddenly that he has the imaginative gift, and makes his imagination the servant of his intellect, or of emotions which are not artistic emotions.

I only value mental work for the more full and more intense consciousness of being alive which it gives me.

Whatever the vagaries of human nature, the true philosopher is never surprised by them. And one vagary is not more strange than another.

You can control nothing but your own mind. Even your two-year-old babe may defy you by the instinctive force of its personality.

To take the common grey things which people know and despise, and, without tampering, to disclose their epic significance, their essential grandeur—that is realism as distinguished from idealism or romanticism. It may scarcely be, it probably is not, the greatest art of all; but it is art precious and indisputable.

There are few mental exercises better than learning great poetry or prose by heart.

The British public will never be convinced by argument. But two drops of perspiration on the cheeks of a nice-looking girl with a torn skirt and a crushed hat will make it tremble for the safety of its ideals, and twenty drops will persuade it to sign anything for the restoration of decency. You surely don’t suppose thatargumentwill be of any use!

Some people have a gift of conjuring with conversations. They are almost always frankly and openly interested in themselves. You may seek to foil them; you may even violently wrench the conversation into other directions. But every effort will be useless. They will beat you. You had much better lean back in your chair and enjoy their legerdemain.

The voice of this spirit says that it has lost every illusion about life, and that life seems only the more beautiful. It says that activity is but another form of contemplation, pain but another form of pleasure, power but another form of weakness, hate but another form of love, and that it is well these things should be so. It says there is no end, only a means; and that the highest joy is to suffer, and the supreme wisdom is to exist. If you will but live, it cries, that grave but yet passionate voice—if you will but live! Were there a heaven, and you reached it, you could do no more than live. The true heaven is here where you live, where you strive and lose, and weep and laugh. And the true hell is here, where you forget to live, and blind your eyes to the omnipresent and terrible beauty of existence.

The most important preliminary to self-development is the faculty of concentrating at will.

Diaries, save in experienced hands, are apt to get themselves done with the very minimum of mental effort. They also tend to an exaggeration of egotism, and if they are left lying about they tend to strife.

The English world of home is one of the most perfectly organized microcosms on this planet, not excepting the Indianpurdah. The product of centuries of culture, it is regarded, not too absurdly, as the fairest flower of Christian civilisation. It exists chiefly, of course, for women, but it could never have been what it is had not men bound themselves to respect the code which they made for it. It is the fountain of refinement and of consolation, the nursery of affection. It has the peculiar faculty of nourishing itself, for it implicitly denies the existence of anything beyond its doorstep, save the constitution, a bishop, a rector, the seaside, Switzerland, and the respectful poor.

I have always been a bookman. From adolescence books have been one of my passions. Books not merely—and perhaps not chiefly—as vehicles of learning or knowledge, but books as books, books as entities, books as beautiful things, books as historical antiquities, books as repositories of memorable associations. Questions of type, ink, paper, margins, watermarks, paginations, bindings, are capable of really agitating me.

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