VI
A BUSH PHILOSOPHER
I have just been out in the forest. It is fine to watch the woodman at his work. The plaintive swish of the swaying boughs; the rhythmic thwack of the swinging axe; the furious hail of the flying chips as the yawning gash grows greater; and then, at last, the creak and the strain and the crash and the roar as the mighty monarch falls! All this I saw and heard to-day as I read the prophet’s vivid tale. And then I saw the hot and tired backwoodsman loll for a moment or two against the stump, surveying the humbled cedar, and wiping the beaded perspiration from his brow.
‘What shall I do with it?’ he asked himself, as he proudly eyed his hard-earned prize.
That is the question: ‘What shall I do with it?’ And it was the shrewd and systematic way in which he resolved that problem that made me reach for paper and pen. For, see! he determines to divide the fallen tree into three parts. With the first part be will roast his meat. A man must eat; and he thus pays his tribute to the necessities of life. And then he thinks of the chilly evening, after the sun has set over the distant sea. He will have a blazing camp-fire, and will warm himself, and will laugh and say, ‘Aha, I am warm; I have seen the fire!’ He thus makes his contribution to the luxuries of life. And then from the remnant of his log he will carve out for himself a god; and he will fall down to it, and worship it, and pray to it, and say, ‘Save me, for thou art my god!’ It is good to see that he is not unmindful of the sanctities of life. These three divisions are most fascinating. It is worth while thridding the tortuous tracks of a mazy Syrian forest to make the acquaintance of a horny- handed philosopher like this!
Now, here is a subject for a painter’s canvas! The deep blue Syrian sky overhead; the riot of tangled forestry around; the newly-fallen cedar; the fragrant chips scattered everywhere; and the exhausted axeman, perspiring and out of breath, leaning against the stump arranging the disposition of his prize. ‘What shall I do with it ?’ he asks. That is a picture drawn from real life. Indeed, it is a picture drawn from every life. For we each of us come to that moment sooner or later ; and everything — simply everything — depends upon the decision we then make We realize proudly that something has become our own; and we ask ourselves what we shall do with it now that we have added it to our possessions. ‘What shall we do with it?’ — that is life’s crucial question. There is no earthly sense in everlastingly chopping down trees unless we know what we propose to do with the timber. There is no earthly sense in everlastingly heaping up wealth unless we know what we propose to do with the gold. I raise my hat respectfully to this old idolater in the wilds of his Oriental forest, and I only hope that I may be found to have paid my dues to the necessities, the luxuries, and the sanctities of life as well and as wisely as did he! For, beyond the shred of a shadow of a shade of a doubt, life consists, not in chopping down trees, but in the discreet disposal of the timber when once we have felled them.
My whole earthly fortune, my entire bag and baggage, my complete stock-in-trade, may consist of this tiny drop of ink that now trembles at the point of my pen, and of this sheet of white paper that lies spread out before me as I write. But that matters little. Think of the possibilities that lie before a sheet of paper and a drop of ink! A poet could set the world singing with that sheet of paper and that drop of ink, and could impart to the fluttering folio a high commercial value. A millionaire could scribble a few words upon that sheet of paper with that drop of ink that would make the page of equal value with all his hoarded millions. A statesman could, with that piece of paper and that drop of ink, write a declaration of war that would turn the world into a shambles. ‘What a strangely potent, Protean thing a drop of ink may grow to be!’ wrote Mr. George Wilson in a very early number of Macmillan’s Magazine.’ Think of a Queen’s first signature to a death-warrant, where tears tried to blanch the fatal blackness of the dooming ink! Of a traitor’s adhesion to a deed of rebellion, written in gall I Of a forger’s trembling imitation of another’s writing, where each letter took the shape of the gallows! Of a lover’s passionate proposal, written in fire! Of a proud girl’s refusal, written in ice! Of a mother’s dying expostulation with a wayward son, written in her heart’s blood! Of an indignant father’s disinheriting curse on his firstborn, black with the lost colour of the grey hairs which shall go down in sorrow to the grave — think of these, and of all the other impassioned writings to which every hour gives birth, and what a strangely potent, Protean thing a drop of ink grows to be!’
Now, a blind man can see what that means. For if it applies to drops of ink, it applies also to drops of gold; aye, and to drops of blood! For, see! the log of cedar became divided into three parts — into necessities, into luxuries, into sanctities — in exact proportion to the place held by these things in the heart of the woodman before the tree was felled. That is the point. The trembling drop of ink simply became the instrument by means of which the characters of the poet, the millionaire, the statesman, the monarch, the traitor, the forger, and the lover expressed themselves. The ink becomes part of the life and soul and history of the man whose ink it is. That is always so. Mine becomes me. I said that it applied, not only to drops of ink, but to drops of gold. Is that not so? See, I hold a sovereign in my hand. It appears to bear the image and superscription of the King. That is merely an optical illusion. It bears my own image and superscription. I have earned it, and it is mine. But now that it is mine, the trouble begins. For that sovereign becomes part of myself, and will henceforth represent a pound’s worth of me! If I am a bad man, I shall spend it in folly, and accelerate the forces that make for the world’s undoing. If I am a bad man, that is to say, it will be a bad sovereign, however truly it may seem to ring. If I am a good man, I shall spend it in clean commerce, and enlist it among the forces that tend to the uplift of my brothers. Yes, drops of gold are very like drops of ink — and logs of cedar — in that respect. They are very good if we are very good, and very bad if we are very bad. Here is the song of the sovereign:
Dug from the mountain-side, washed in the glen,
Servant am I or the master of men;
Steal me, I curse you ;
Earn me, I bless you ;
Grasp me and hoard me, a fiend shall possess you ;
Lie for me, die for me;
Covet me, take me,
Angel or devil, I am what you make me!
Mr. Ginterman is quite right. The log of cedar, the drop of ink, the coin of gold, will be what we make them. And since, by becoming our own, they mix with the very fabric and substance of our being, they will henceforth be what we are, and represent ourselves, for what we are worth, among the highways and byways of the world. Let every man who would pursue this subject further, to his certain and everlasting profit, procure forthwith a copy of William Law’s Serious Call, and read on his bended knees that notable sixth chapter ‘containing the great obligations, and the great advantages, of making a wise and religious use of our estates and fortunes.’ And if, before he rises, he reads on to the seventh chapter and sees ‘how the imprudent use of an estate corrupts all the tempers of the mind, and fills the heart with poor and ridiculous passions, through the whole course of life,’ it will be all the better for him.
I said just now that all this applies not only to drops of ink and drops of gold, but to drops of blood. That is actually so. ‘The blood is the life.’ Mr. H. G. Wells, in Marriage, paints a very pitiful picture which exactly illustrates my point. His hero, Trafford, a clever scientist, discovers the secret of synthetic rubber. He sells it, making a large fortune. He soon finds himself the husband of a charming wife, the father of beautiful children, and the possessor of a lovely home. Nothing that heart could wish is denied him. But, somehow, all these things merely accentuate life’s deepest failure; and, looking round upon his wealth, he cries out bitterly, ‘What are we doing with it? What are we doing with it?’
This leads us to the very crux of the problem. It is a great moment when a man stands, not over a log of cedar, or a drop of ink, or a bag of gold, but with his very life in his hand, saying to himself, ‘ What shall I do with it ? ‘ Garrick, in Sir Joshua Reynolds’ famous picture, torn between tragedy and comedy, is nothing to it. Who has not felt sorry for Goethe, strolling in agony among the willows on the banks of the Lahn, struggling vainly to decide whether to be a lawyer or an artist? Or Lord Dufferin as a young man in direst perplexity as to whether to devote his life to poetry or politics? Or Alfred Ainger, gazing wistfully at the beckoning fingers of stage and law and church, and at his wits’ end as to which to follow? Or Frederick W. Robertson, of Brighton, embarrassed between the conflicting claims of the army and the pulpit? In each case the man’s course may seem clear enough to us. It is so easy to be wise after the event. But in each case it was a veritable Gethsemane to the man himself. It is impossible to deny admiration to the man who deliberately takes his life in his hand, and asks himself the woodman’s question. So many of us are content to drift. We chop down our trees and take our chance as to what becomes of them.
There is only one thing in Isaiah’s story of this Syrian backwoodsman that I am sorry for. I admire the way in which he divided his treasure among the necessities, the luxuries, and the sanctities of life. It was a fine thing to find room for the sanctities. It is not everybody who does. But I am sorry — very sorry — that he put the sanctities last. He devoted the first part to cooking his food—the necessities of life. And he devoted the second part to the fire by which he laughed and rubbed his hands in cheerful glee — the luxuries of life. And the residue thereof — I don’t like that ! — he made into an idol. I am sorry he only gave his leavings to his god. But there! he was only an idolater after all! And perhaps his god was only worthy of a third place. But we are very differently circumstanced, and must be careful to put first things first.
The sister of Nietzsche tells us that, when the thinker was a little boy, he and she once decided to take each of them a toy to give to the Moravian Sisters in support of their missionary enterprise. They carefully chose their toys and duly carried them to the sisters. But when they returned Nietzsche was restless and unhappy. His sister asked what ailed him. ‘I have done a very wicked thing,’ the boy answered. ‘My fine box of cavalry is my favourite toy and my best: I should have taken that!’ ‘But do you think,’ his sister asked, ‘do you think God always wants our best?’ ‘Yes,’ replied the young philosopher, ‘always, always!’ The lad was then, at least, following a true instinct. Professor William James, in his Lecture to Teachers on ‘The Stream of Consciousness,’ says that every object is either ‘focal’ or ‘marginal’ in the mind. That represents with psychological precision the difference between the sanctities of life as they appeared to my Syrian bushman and the sanctities of life as they appeared to the boy philosopher. In the one case they were merely marginal; in the other they were grandly focal. Surely, if they have a place at all, they should be in the very centre of the field — regal, transcendent, sublime. The whole matter is summed up there.
F.W. Boreham
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