Retrospectively, the brilliant lecture suddenly appeared to have been built around a hollow core of myth and fantasy. And yet I felt not so much disappointment or cynicism as a genuine gratitude: after all, my mind had been stirred and my curiosity aroused; I had felt a compelling urge to look for the original sources and to read them; as a result, I had been able to form my own opinion on an interesting subject. Could any teacher aim for more?
* * *
Should I buy Patrick White’s Letters? I am still hesitating. The truth is, I was never able to finish any of his novels — I confess this with shame. I always watch with envy and frustration the true connoisseurs who derive from his impenetrable prose an enjoyment that remains obstinately denied to me. Although I am perhaps not alone in suffering from this singular disability (actually I know a number of people who share it, and not all of them are illiterate), it is always stupid to flaunt one’s infirmities as if they were a badge of originality; thus, Roger Stéphane, having once foolishly declared to Gide that he found Goethe unreadable, was coolly put back in his place by the Master: “Tant pis pour vous.” And whenever I re-read “The Screaming Potato” (this prose-poem is scarcely a page long but it ranks on an equal footing with the masterpieces of the genre, from Baudelaire to Lu Xun), I feel that I should — and I know that I will — attempt once more to find an access point to his fiction. Meanwhile Flaws in the Glass had moved me — but in the way one is affected by the groaning of a man in pain. And now all the extracts and quotations from the Letters which have been published in the newspapers have further stimulated my desire to read this volume. Yet $50—which should be no obstacle for a true aficionado, however penniless — seems a steep price for someone who merely wishes to satisfy an idle taste for literary gossip. The traditional method which enables writers to obtain new books is to secure a free copy for reviewing, but this entails a double pitfalclass="underline"
1. You have to write the review;
2. You have to read the book (even if you discover that, after all, it was not really your cup of tea).
And the obligation to finish a book when you do not enjoy it is a ghastly prospect. I would sooner sip, spoonful by spoonful, an entire bottle of cod-liver oil. Since the reviewing formula appears fraught with too great a risk, only one solution remains: wait for the paperback edition to appear. Meanwhile, I keep browsing the hard-cover volume in bookshops.
The other day, in the course of this exercise, I came across his letter to Dorothy Green. I am not absolutely sure of this attribution: one can hardly take notes when browsing. (Oh, for a civilised bookshop that would provide deep sofas where one could read and write at leisure, under a cloud of tobacco smoke, with good coffee at hand!) In that letter, White was vilely berating his correspondent for the disgraceful lack of self-respect she had displayed in accepting a perfectly respectable Australian honour; and then, practically in the same breath, he expressed his own desire to visit the Soviet Union — on the condition that the Communist authorities invite him, and pay for all his expenses. Obviously he had not perceived any contradiction between the two halves of his letter. I found this hilarious. I cannot wait for the paperback edition.
A WAY OF LIVING
There are many ways of living, and reading is one of them. . When you are reading you are living, and when you are dreaming you are living also.
IN PRAISE OF LAZINESS
WE HAVE just visited old neighbours who recently retired and settled on the coast. As I was congratulating them on what appeared to me a blissful state of unlimited leisure they replied rather defensively that, actually, in their new situation they found themselves much more busy than they ever were during their professional lives. Now, they proudly explained, there were so many activities and commitments that they had to draw up a tightly organised timetable which was posted on the door of the fridge: yoga classes, bowling club, bush-walking, reading group, bingo, lectures, cooking classes, arts and crafts (in the latter field, the hand-painted plates that covered the walls made one regret that the lady of the house had not opted instead for judicious Doing Nothing).
Chesterton has already confessed his puzzlement at this sort of attitude: “There are some who complain of a man doing nothing; there are some, still more mysterious and amazing, who complain of having nothing to do. When actually presented with some beautiful blank hours or days, they will grumble at their blankness. When given the gift of loneliness, which is the gift of liberty, they will cast it away; they will destroy it deliberately with some dreadful game with cards, or a little ball… I cannot repress a shudder when I see them throwing away their hard-won holidays by doing something. For my own part, I can never get enough Nothing to do.”
The poet Reverdy said: “I need so much time to do nothing that I have none left for work.” This is a good definition of the poetical activity, which itself is the supreme fruit of the contemplative life. However much we should value the contribution of Martha attending to the household chores, we must always remember that it was Mary, by simply sitting at the feet of the Lord, who chose the better part. What the vulgar call laziness can in fact reflect better judgement and demand greater inner strength and spiritual resources than the facile escape into activism. La Bruyère put it beautifully (but I despair to convey in translation the rhythm of the most perfect classical French prose): “In France you need great inner strength and vast learning to do without official position or employment, and simply stay home, doing nothing; almost no one has sufficient character to do this with dignity, or to fill their days without what is commonly called ‘business.’ And yet the only thing that the wise man’s leisure lacks is a better name: meditation, conversation, reading and inner peace should be called ‘work.’”
From the earliest antiquity, leisure was always regarded as the condition of all civilised endeavours. Confucius said: “The leisure from learning should be devoted to politics and the leisure from politics should be devoted to learning.” Government responsibilities and scholarly wisdom were the twin prerogatives of a gentleman and both were rooted in leisure. The Greeks developed a similar concept — they called it scholê; this word literally means the state of a person who belongs to himself, who has free disposition of himself and therefore: rest, leisure; and therefore, also, the way in which leisure is used: study, learning; or the place where study and learning are conducted: study-room, school (actually scholê is the etymological root of “school”). In ancient Greece, politics and wisdom were the exclusive province of the free men, who alone enjoyed leisure. Leisure was not only the indispensable attribute of “the good life,” it was also the defining mark of a free man. In one of Plato’s dialogues, Socrates asks rhetorically, “Are we slaves, or do we have leisure?”—for there was a well-known proverb that said “Slaves have no leisure.”
From Greece, the notion passed to Rome; the very concept of artes liberales again embodies the association between cultural pursuits and the condition of a free man (liber), as opposed to that of a slave, whose skills pertain to the lower sphere of practical and technical activity.