The Outsider (46 page)

By knowing himself better. By establishing a discipline to overcome his weakness and self-division. By making it his aim to become harmonious and undivided. These are the answers we have extracted from our analysis. Most men have nothing in their heads except their immediate physical needs; put them on a desert island with nothing to occupy their minds and they would go insane. They lack real motive. The curse of our
civilization is boredom. Kierkegaard observed this acutely:

The Gods were bored, so they created man. Adam was bored because he was alone, so Eve was created.
...
Adam was bored alone, then Adam and Eve were bored together; then Adam and Eve and Cain and Abel were bored
en famille,
then the population of the world increased, and the people were bored
en masse.
To divert themselves, they conceived the idea of constructing a tower high enough to reach the heavens. This idea itself is as boring as the tower was high, and constitutes a terrible proof of how boredom had gained the upper hand. (Tr. D. F. Swenson.)
⁴⁴

This is penetrating commentary; but then, it is only a reversal of Hesse
’
s statement that every man has a residue of unfulfil-ment at the bottom of him: boredom, unfulfilment, they amount to the same thing.

They do not know themselves. They live in prison. How can an individual hope to escape the general destiny of futility?

Blake
’
s solution was: Go and develop the visionary faculty. Good. But how?

It is a question to which, I must admit, I shall not be able to offer a selection from the full range of answers, as I have been able hitherto. The field is too big. In the next chapter, it must be deliberately limited to a few typical examples.

BREAKING THE CIRCUIT

In
the
vault of
Axel
’
s castle, Sara and the young Count
Axel stand clasped in one another
’
s arms. Sara has just shot at
Axel with two pistols at a distance of five yards, but missed him
both times. Sara rhapsodizes about the
‘
world
’
which they
now hold in their hands: the markets of Bagdad, the snows of
Tibet, the fjords of Norway,
‘
all dreams to realize
’
. But Axel,
^‘
grave and impenetrable
’
, asks her:
^‘
Why realize them?
...
Live? No, our existence is full. The future? Sara, believe me
when I say it—we have exhausted the future. All the realities,
what will they be tomorrow in comparison with the mirages
we have just lived?
...
The quality of our hope no longer
allows us the earth. What can we ask from this miserable star
where our melancholy lingers on, save pale reflections of this
moment? ... It is the Earth—don
’
t you see—that has become
illusion. Admit, Sara, we have destroyed in our strange hearts
the love of life. ... To consent, after this, to live would only be
a sacrilege against ourselves. Live ? our servants will do that for
us.... Oh, the external world! Let us not be made dupes by the
old slave
...
who promises us the keys to a palace of enchantments, when he only clutches a handful of ashes in his black
fist
…’
¹

Sara is convinced; they drink the goblet of poison together and die in ecstasy.

There can be no doubt what Nietzsche
’
s comment on this scene would have been; Axel, like his creator, is the most extreme type of other-worlder, and other-worlders are
‘
poisoners, whether they know it or not
’
.

Yet is this quite fair ? Nietzsche himself began as an other-worlder, agreeing with Schopenhauer that
‘
Life is a sorry affair
’
, and that the best way to spend it is in reflecting on it. We began this study of the Outsider with a man who spent his evenings looking through a hole in his wall and
‘
reflecting
’
on what he saw. Van Gogh retired from life when he spent his days painting in the yellow house at Aries; Gauguin went to the South Seas pursuing the same dream,
‘
luxe, calme et volupte.’

And even Zarathustra councilled self-surmounters to
‘
fly to solitude
’
and escape the stings of the
‘
flies in the market-place’
(i.e. other men).

No, Axel is on the right path, even if killing himself is a poor way out.
‘
What can we hope from this miserable star
...
V
But Sara has just spoken of
‘
the pale roads of Sweden
’
and the fjords of Norway. A visionary like Van Gogh would find a great deal to hope from such a world. It is the world of human beings that Axel is condemning. Other people are the trouble.

To confirm this point, we can appeal to another visionary, Thomas Traherne. It is Traherne who gives the famous description of his childhood in
Centuries of Meditation,
when

All appeared new and strange at first, inexpressibly rare and delightful and beautiful. ... I was entertained by the works of God in their splendour and glory; I saw all in the peace of Eden— . The corn was orient and immortal wheat, which never should be reaped nor ever was sown.
...
The dust and stones of the streets were as precious as gold.
...
And young men [were] glittering and sparkling angels, and maids strange seraphic pieces of life and beauty.
...
²

Why Traherne asks, did these
‘
intimations of immortality
’
cease? He answers:

It was eclipsed ... by the customs and manners of men. Grit in the eye or yellow jaundice will not let a man see those objects truly that are before it. And therefore it is requisite that we should be as very strangers to the thoughts, customs and opinions of men in this world.... They all prized things I did not dream of. I was weak and easily guided by their example.
³

And he concludes with a statement that sounds like
a form of the Pelagian heresy.*

*
PAGE NOTE:
Pelagius, the
‘
arch-heretic
’
, denied the doctrine of original sin (as taught by St. Augustine), and wrote:
‘
Everything good and everything evil ... is done by us, not born with us ... we are begotten without virtue as without vice, and before the activity of our own personal Will, there is nothing in man but what God has stored in him
’
(Pro Libero Arbitrio, ap Augustine).

And that our misery proceeds ten times more from the outward bondage of opinion and custom than from any inward corruption or depravation of Nature; and that it is
not our parents
’
loins so much as our parents
’
lives, that enthralls and blinds us.
[Italics mine.]

But Pelagian or not, this is the Blakeian attitude, and the attitude of most mystics. And in it, we can see how closely Traherne
’
s mystical Christianity approaches the romantic attitude. Compare Yeats
’
s lines:

All things uncomely and broken, all things worn-out and old The cry of a child by the roadside, the creak of a lumbering
cart, The heavy steps of the ploughman, splashing the wintry mould Are wronging your image that blossoms a rose in the deeps of my
heart.
⁴

Yeats is implying that it is the sheer ugliness of the world, or certain aspects of it, that destroys his
‘
intimations of immortality
⁵
:

The wrong of unshapely things is a wrong too great to be told

and this is what Axel would say. But Traherne and Blake hold a different view. Other people are the trouble. In another place Traherne tells of his moment of great decision:

When I came into the country, and being seated among silent trees and meads and hills, had all my time in my own hands, I resolved to spend it all, whatever it cost me, in search of happiness, and to satiate that burning thirst which nature had enkindled in me from my youth. In which I was so resolute that I chose rather to live upon ten pounds a year and to go in leather clothes, and feed upon bread and water, so that I might have all my time clearly to myself...
⁵

This is an Outsider
’
s decision. When we met it in Hesse
’
s
Siddhartha
it did not seem abnormal, because it happened in India. But this decision to become a
‘
wanderer
’
, a
‘
seeker
’
in a European country, to wear leather clothes like George Fox
(who was roughly contemporary with Traherne), this seems strange to our Western mentality, and would probably lead us to doubt the sanity of any of our acquaintances who decided to do the same. And yet it is a sensible, straightforward decision. A man only has need of the common sense to say:
‘
Civilization is largely a matter of superfluities; I have no desire for superfluities. On the other hand, I have a very strong desire for leisure and freedom.
’
I am not attempting to assert the validity of this solution for all Outsiders; in fact, the practical objection to it is that the wandering life does not make for leisure or contemplation, and it certainly fails to satisfy the Outsider
’
s need for a direction, a definitive act.

Nevertheless, the
act of willing
is important; the result, whether it proves a success or a disillusionment, is only secondary. Again, we might turn to Yeats for an example, an example that is admittedly rather less serious than the discussion we have in hand, but it would be a pity to leave it unquoted on that account. In the Introduction to
^C
A Vision
’
, a young man called Daniel O
’
Leary tells of how, one night in the theatre, he suddenly felt an urge to express his dislike of the insipid way in which the actors were speaking
Romeo and Juliet:

Suddenly this thought came into my head: What would happen if I were to take off my boots, and fling one at
Mr and one at Miss
...
?
Could I give my future life such
settled purpose that the act would take its place, not among whims,
but among forms of intensity?
...
‘
You have not the courage,
’
I said, speaking in a low voice.
‘
I have,
’
said I, and began
unlacing my boots
⁶
[Italics mine.]

The sentence I have italicized is the important one. It is precise definition of the definitive act: To give one
’
s future life such settled purpose that the act would be a
form of intensity.
Admittedly,
‘
forms of intensity
’
may be a bit vague, but there can be no doubt of what Yeats is getting at. When Raskolnikov killed the old woman, he had committed such an act, that would give his future life a settled purpose; or at least, that is what he hoped. When Stavrogin raped the ten-year-old girl and stole a banknote from a poor clerk, he had not succeeded in committing a
‘
form of intensity
’
. For, unfortunately for himself, Stavrogin was not really mean-souled enough to rape or steal,
and his attempt to commit an act
which should have a meaning independent of the emotion he put into it
was a failure. For him, Blake
’
s dictum that
‘
the true soul of sweet delight can never be defiled
’
was all against him. Stavrogin had to learn that no act is evil in itself; man puts the evil into it by the motive with which he commits it, and the final standard of motive is Blake
’
s
‘
that enthusiasm and life shall not cease
’
. Evil cannot co-exist with the striving
‘
to live more abundantly
’
which is the ultimate aim of religion. Stavrogin completely lacked motive.