Chapter XIV

During the journey back to England I thought much of Strickland. I tried to set in order what I had to tell his wife. It was unsatisfactory, and I could not imagine that she would be content with me; I was not content with myself. Strickland perplexed¹ me. I could not understand his motives². When I had asked him what first gave him the idea of being a painter, he was unable or unwilling³ to tell me. I could make nothing of it. I tried to persuade myself than an obscure feeling of revolt had been gradually coming to a head in his slow mind, but to challenge this was the undoubted fact that he had never shown any impatience⁴ with the monotony of his life. If, seized by an intolerable boredom⁵, he had determined⁶ to be a painter merely to break with irksome ties, it would have been comprehensible, and commonplace; but commonplace is precisely⁷ what I felt he was not. At last, because I was romantic, I devised an explanation which I acknowledged to be far-fetched, but which was the only one that in any way satisfied me. It was this: I asked myself whether there was not in his soul some deep-rooted instinct of creation, which the circumstances of his life had obscured, but which grew relentlessly⁸, as a cancer may grow in the living tissues, till at last it took possession of his whole being and forced him irresistibly⁹ to action. The cuckoo lays its egg in the strange bird’s nest, and when the young one is hatched it shoulders its foster-brothers out and breaks at last the nest that has sheltered it.

But how strange it was that the creative instinct should seize upon this dull stockbroker¹⁰, to his own ruin, perhaps, and to the misfortune of such as were dependent on him; and yet no stranger than the way in which the spirit of God has seized men, powerful and rich, pursuing them with stubborn vigilance till at last, conquered, they have abandoned the joy of the world and the love of women for the painful austerities of the cloister¹¹. Conversion¹² may come under many shapes, and it may be brought about in many ways. With some men it needs a cataclysm¹³, as a stone may be broken to fragments by the fury of a torrent¹⁴; but with some it comes gradually, as a stone may be worn away by the ceaseless fall of a drop of water. Strickland had the directness of the fanatic¹⁵ and the ferocity of the apostle.

But to my practical mind it remained to be seen whether the passion which obsessed¹⁶ him would be justified¹⁷ of its works. When I asked him what his brother-students at the night classes he had attended in London thought of his painting, he answered with a grin:

“They thought it a joke.”

“Have you begun to go to a studio here?”

“Yes. The blighter came round this morning—the master, you know; when he saw my drawing he just raised his eyebrows¹⁸ and walked on.”

Strickland chuckled¹⁹. He did not seem discouraged. He was independent of the opinion of his fellows.

And it was just that which had most disconcerted me in my dealings with him. When people say they do not care what others think of them, for the most part they deceive themselves. Generally they mean only that they will do as they choose, in the confidence that no one will know their vagaries²⁰; and at the utmost only that they are willing to act contrary to the opinion of the majority because they are supported by the approval of their neighbours. It is not difficult to be unconventional in the eyes of the world when your unconventionality is but the convention of your set. It affords you then an inordinate²¹ amount of self-esteem. You have the self-satisfaction of courage without the inconvenience of danger. But the desire for approbation²² is perhaps the most deeply seated instinct of civilised man. No one runs so hurriedly to the cover of respectability as the unconventional woman who has exposed herself to the slings²³ and arrows of outraged²⁴ propriety²⁶. I do not believe the people who tell me they do not care a row of pins for the opinion of their fellows. It is the bravado²⁷ of ignorance. They mean only that they do not fear reproaches for peccadillos which they are convinced none will discover.

But here was a man who sincerely did not mind what people thought of him, and so convention had no hold on him; he was like a wrestler²⁸ whose body is oiled; you could not get a grip on him; it gave him a freedom which was an outrage²⁵. I remember saying to him:

“Look here, if everyone acted like you, the world couldn’t go on.”

“That’s a damned silly thing to say. Everyone doesn’t want to act like me. The great majority are perfectly²⁹ content to do the ordinary thing.”

And once I sought to be satirical.

“You evidently don’t believe in the maxim³⁰: Act so that every one of your actions is capable of being made into a universal rule.”

“I never heard it before, but it’s rotten nonsense.”

“Well, it was Kant who said it.”

“I don’t care; it’s rotten nonsense.”

Nor with such a man could you expect the appeal to conscience to be effective. You might as well ask for a reflection without a mirror. I take it that conscience is the guardian³¹ in the individual of the rules which the community has evolved for its own preservation³². It is the policeman in all our hearts, set there to watch that we do not break its laws. It is the spy seated in the central stronghold of the ego³³. Man’s desire for the approval of his fellows is so strong, his dread³⁴ of their censure³⁵ so violent, that he himself has brought his enemy within his gates; and it keeps watch over him, vigilant³⁶ always in the interests of its master to crush any half-formed desire to break away from the herd³⁷. It will force him to place the good of society before his own. It is the very strong link that attaches the individual to the whole. And man, subservient³⁸ to interests he has persuaded himself are greater than his own, makes himself a slave to his taskmaster. He sits him in a seat of honour. At last, like a courtier fawning³⁹ on the royal stick that is laid about his shoulders, he prides himself on the sensitiveness of his conscience. Then he has no words hard enough for the man who does not recognise its sway; for, a member of society now, he realises accurately⁴⁰ enough that against him he is powerless. When I saw that Strickland was really indifferent to the blame his conduct must excite, I could only draw back in horror as from a monster of hardly human shape.

The last words he said to me when I bade him good-night were:

“Tell Amy it’s no good coming after me. Anyhow, I shall change my hotel, so she wouldn’t be able to find me.”

“My own impression is that she’s well rid of you,” I said.

“My dear fellow, I only hope you’ll be able to make her see it. But women are very unintelligent.”