I would like to argue that today’s least discussed books of the past actually contain all that is needed for daily life. Yet how many speak of looking for such Passé wisdom and in such a corner? On your very bookshelf lies the “kink of the unseen”; yet alas, you look not. Perhaps no bookshelf reclines in your room of petty requirement, or the books are not of an intellectually grand kind.
John Ruskin speaks of this magnanimity of books of the
past (now his is one of them!) in his work “Sesame and Lilies”. He sees the
necessity of arranging one’s short life around intake of such noble resources
so as not to squander the riches at hand.
“Will you go and gossip with your housemaid, or stable-boy, when you may
talk with queens and kings….” He continues saying that you alone position
yourself in rank above or below in society according to your attentions and “desire
to take in this company of the Dead”. Therefore, “ by your aristocracy of
companionship there, your own inherent aristocracy will be assuredly tested”
(52).
According to Howard’s End, by E.M. Forster, there are two kinds of people
in the world: Wilcoxes and Schlegels.
The
Wilcoxes
The Wilcoxes of the world have always
been there to lay un-ornamented, yet practical porches, looking out upon even duller morning mists, which consequently only they could have created. Their
thoughts and opinions, expressed openly, are vacuous and irrelevant to more
bold and penetrating impressions. They care about bland sense, logic, practicality
and care nothing for the poetry, literature, art and philosophy that are the
meat and cheese of the Schlegels’ world. There’s nothing wrong with them by this
description, other than they lack all sentimentality; they perform actions
devoid of imagination and heart, and openly reject actions that arise from
these “frivolities”. All progress, then, becomes the work of clumsy hands that
stem from ideas drawn from even clumsier minds.
The
Miss Schlegels
·
These are the minds that tend
towards intellection, philosophical discussion, deliberation, dreaming, and
all-encompassing feeling. They are the idealists of the world who see above (or
beneath) the daily grey. They want to question this dullness of life and
spirit. They seek to penetrate the great mysteries of the “other side” and
expose the absurdities of this side of the grave. They ask the untapped
questions, they are the ones that stir the ashes when no one wants a fire.
Their senses are so finely attuned that they allocate and ignite subtlety
wherever they go, in whatever medium they enter. It is this subtlety in
relation to life, an asset beyond reckoning that is so overlooked by this modern
age. And thus it is even harder to put a price tag on these “feelings” or have
a job requirements section for such intuitive abilities.
-----------------------
However, success in this world is often granted to (and
by!) the Wilcoxes of the world. Yet Schlegels are expected to thrive and
succeed in it as well; though the world disparages Introvert-intuitive personality
types, generally. So there proves a contradiction, a disparity unacknowledged
because before now there has been no label for these types.
One of the parts of the book that struck me can be summarized as follows.
Helen Schlegel and Leonard Bast (a fellow dreamer trying to survive in a Wilcox world) have a deep discussion at some point
where he explains to her why he has given up, a bit. Where once walking in the
woods at nightfall and perusing books by Ruskin or Stevenson was delightful,
Leonard now puts them aside for more practical matters. He believes that money
is what’s real, where “all the rest is a dream”. Helen urges him that he’s
wrong; that there’s a force greater still that has more power over all of us:
Death. She continues, “If we lived for ever, what you say would be true. But we
have to die, we have to leave life presently. Injustice and greed would be the
real thing if we lived for ever. As it is, we must hold to other things,
because Death is coming. I love Death…He shows me the emptiness of Money.”
Helen goes on to say how none of us is exempt from the
situation, “We are all in a mist—I know but I can help you this far—men like
the Wilcoxes are deeper in the mist than any. Sane, sound Englishmen! Building
up empires, leveling all the world into what they call common sense. But
mention Death to them and they’re offended, because Death’s really
imperial…”(188). Helen finishes by insisting that Leonard therefore “never give
in” (189).
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I think we can make the mental leap to recognizing how the modern "Wilcox" is being raised up today. Oh, classics are being read; but only by school mates robed in
apathy, saving smiles for selfies. And the teachers are vested in nothing but apology
and appeasement to state standards. Education today will not create upstanding,
commanding, noble members of society; instead it will create slaves to the ever
new, and ceaseless carelessness. If “educere” means to lead out, it leads
nothing out but a line of heavy trash bags from predictable cafeterias. Any
movements that spring from this generation drugged on ipads, raised by YouTube,
will be of a disturbed feckless motion; a one-direction movement, going downward,
disinterestedly.
