Eeldrop and Appleplex | Page 2

forward and exclaimed: 'I
was married once myself'--we were able to detach him from his
classification and regard him for a moment as an unique being, a soul,
however insignificant, with a history of its own, once for all. It is these
moments which we prize, and which alone are revealing. For any vital
truth is incapable of being applied to another case: the essential is
unique. Perhaps that is why it is so neglected: because it is useless.
What we learned about that Spaniard is incapable of being applied to
any other Spaniard, or even recalled in words. With the decline of
orthodox theology and its admirable theory of the soul, the unique
importance of events has vanished. A man is only important as he is
classed. Hence there is no tragedy, or no appreciation of tragedy, which
is the same thing. We had been talking of young Bistwick, who three
months ago married his mother's housemaid and now is aware of the
fact. Who appreciates the truth of the matter? Not the relatives, for they
are only moved by affection, by regard for Bistwick's interests, and
chiefly by their collective feeling of family disgrace. Not the generous
minded and thoughtful outsider, who regards it merely as evidence for
the necessity of divorce law reform. Bistwick is classed among the
unhappily married. But what Bistwick feels when he wakes up in the
morning, which is the great important fact, no detached outsider
conceives. The awful importance of the ruin of a life is overlooked.
Men are only allowed to be happy or miserable in classes. In Gopsum
Street a man murders his mistress. The important fact is that for the
man the act is eternal, and that for the brief space he has to live, he is
already dead. He is already in a different world from ours. He has
crossed the frontier. The important fact is that something is done which
can not be undone--a possibility which none of us realize until we face
it ourselves. For the man's neighbors the important fact is what the man
killed her with? And at precisely what time? And who found the body?
For the 'enlightened public' the case is merely evidence for the Drink
question, or Unemployment, or some other category of things to be
reformed. But the mediaeval world, insisting on the eternity of
punishment, expressed something nearer the truth."

"What you say," replied Appleplex, "commands my measured
adherence. I should think, in the case of the Spaniard, and in the many
other interesting cases which have come under our attention at the door
of the police station, what we grasp in that moment of pure observation
on which we pride ourselves, is not alien to the principle of
classification, but deeper. We could, if we liked, make excellent
comment upon the nature of provincial Spaniards, or of destitution (as
misery is called by the philanthropists), or on homes for working girls.
But such is not our intention. We aim at experience in the particular
centres in which alone it is evil. We avoid classification. We do not
deny it. But when a man is classified something is lost. The majority of
mankind live on paper currency: they use terms which are merely good
for so much reality, they never see actual coinage."
"I should go even further than that," said Eeldrop. "The majority not
only have no language to express anything save generalized man; they
are for the most part unaware of themselves as anything but generalized
men. They are first of all government officials, or pillars of the church,
or trade unionists, or poets, or unemployed; this cataloguing is not only
satisfactory to other people for practical purposes, it is sufficient to
themselves for their 'life of the spirit.' Many are not quite real at any
moment. When Wolstrip married, I am sure he said to himself: 'Now I
am consummating the union of two of the best families in
Philadelphia.'"
"The question is," said Appleplex, "what is to be our philosophy. This
must be settled at once. Mrs. Howexden recommends me to read
Bergson. He writes very entertainingly on the structure of the eye of the
frog."
"Not at all," interrupted his friend. "Our philosophy is quite irrelevant.
The essential is, that our philosophy should spring from our point of
view and not return upon itself to explain our point of view. A
philosophy about intuition is somewhat less likely to be intuitive than
any other. We must avoid having a platform."
"But at least," said Appleplex, "we are. . ."

"Individualists. No!! nor anti-intellectualists. These also are labels. The
'individualist' is a member of a mob as fully as any other man: and the
mob of individualists is the most unpleasing, because it has the least
character.