Part 4 — A Note on “Towards Democracy”

(Reprinted from The Labour Prophet, May, 1894)

Having sometimes been asked questions about “Towards Democracy” which I found it difficult to answer, I will try and shape a few thoughts about it here.

Quite a long time ago (say when I was about 25, and living at Cambridge) I wanted to write some sort of a book which should address itself very personally and closely to any one who cared to read it—establish so to speak an intimate personal relation between myself and the reader; and during succeeding years I made several attempts to realise this idea—of which beginnings one or two in verse may be found in a little volume entitled “Narcissus and other Poems,” now well out of print, which I published in 1873. None of these attempts satisfied me however, and after a time I began to think the quest was an unreasonable one—unreasonable because while it might not be difficult for any one with a pliant and sympathetic disposition to touch certain chords in any given individual that he might meet, it seemed impossible to hope that a book—which cannot in any way adapt itself to the idiosyncrasies of its reader—could find the key of the personalities into whose hands it should happen to come. For this it would be necessary to suppose, and to find, an absolutely common ground to all individuals (all at any rate who might have reached a certain stage of thought and experience)—and to write the book on and from that common ground: but this seemed at that time quite impracticable.

512Years followed, more or less eventful, with flight from Cambridge, and university lectures carried on in the Provincial Towns, and so forth; but of much dumbness as regards writing; and inwardly full of tension, and suffering. At last early in 1881, no doubt as the culmination and result of struggles and experiences that had been going on, I became conscious that a mass of material was forming within me, imperatively demanding expression—though what exactly its expression would be I could not then have told. I became for the time overwhelmingly conscious of the disclosure within of a region transcending in some sense the ordinary bounds of personality, in the light of which region my own idiosyncrasies of character—defects, accomplishments, limitations, or what not—appeared of no importance whatever—an absolute Freedom from mortality, accompanied by an indescribable calm and joy.

I also immediately saw, or rather felt, that this region of Self existing in me existed equally (though not always equally consciously) in others. In regard to it the mere diversities of temperament which ordinarily distinguish and divide people dropped away and became indifferent, and a field was opened in which all might meet, in which all were truly Equal. Thus I found the common ground which I wanted; and the two words, Freedom and Equality came for the time being to control all my thought and expression.

The necessity for space and time to work this out grew so strong that in April of that year I threw up my lecturing employment. Moreover another necessity had come upon me which demanded the latter step—the necessity namely for an open air life and manual work. I could not finally argue with this any more than with the other, I had to give in and obey. As it happened at the time I mention I was already living in 513a little cottage on a farm (at Bradway, near Sheffield) with a friend and his family, and doing farm-work in the intervals of my lectures. When I threw up the lecturing I had everything clear before me. I knocked together a sort of wooden sentinel-box, in the garden, and there, or in the fields and the woods, all that spring and summer, and on through the winter, by day and sometimes by night, in sunlight or in rain, by frost and snow and all sorts of grey and dull weather, I wrote “Towards Democracy”—or at any rate the first and longer poem that goes by that name.

By the end of 1881 this was finished—though it was worked over and patched a little in the early part of 1882; and I remember feeling then that, defective and halting and incoherent in expression as it was, still if it succeeded in rendering even a half the splendour which inspired it, it would be good, and I need not trouble to write anything more (which, with due allowance for the said “if,” I even now feel was a true and friendly intimation)!

The writing of this and its publication (in 1883) got a load off my mind which had been weighing on it for years—a sense of oppression and anxiety which I had constantly suffered from before—and which I believe, in its different forms, is a common experience in the early part of life.

In this first poem were embodied with considerable alterations and adaptations a good number of casual pieces, which I had written (merely under stress of feeling and without any particular sense of proportion) during several preceding years. They now found their interpretation under the steady and clear light of a new mood or state of feeling which previously had only visited me fitfully and with clouded beams. The whole of “Towards Democracy”—I may say, speaking broadly and including the later pieces—has been written under the 514domination of this mood. I have tested and measured everything by it; it has been the sun to which all the images and conceptions and thoughts used have been as material objects reflecting its light. And perhaps this connects itself with the fact that it has been so necessary to write in the open air. The more universal feeling which I sought to convey refused itself from me within doors; nor could I at any time or by any means persuade the rhythm or style of expression to render itself up within a room—tending there always to break back into distinct metrical forms; which, however much I admire them in certain authors, and think them myself suitable for certain kinds of work, were not what I wanted, and did not express for me the feeling which I sought to express. This fact (of the necessity of the open air) is very curious, and I cannot really explain it. I only know that it is so, quite indubitable and insurmountable. I can feel it at once, the difference, in merely passing through a doorway—but I cannot explain it. Always especially the sky seemed to contain for me the key, the inspiration; the sight of it more than anything gave what I wanted (sometimes like a veritable lightning-flash coming down from it onto my paper—I a mere witness, but agitated with strange transports).

But if I should be asked—as I have sometimes been asked—What is the exact nature of this mood, of this illuminant splendour, of which you speak? I should have to reply that I can give no very concise and clearcut answer. The whole of “Towards Democracy” is an endeavour to give it utterance; any mere single sentence, or direct definition, would be of no use—rather indeed would tend to obscure by limiting. All I can say is that there seems to be a vision possible to man, as from some more universal stand-point, free from the obscurity and localism which especially connect themselves with the 515passing clouds of desire, fear, and all ordinary thought and emotion; in that sense another and separate faculty; and as vision always means a sense of light, so here is a sense of inward light, unconnected of course with the mortal eye, but bringing to the eye of the mind the impression that it sees, and by means of a medium which washes as it were the interior surfaces of all objects and things and persons—how can I express it?—and yet this is most defective, for the sense is a sense that one is those objects and things and persons that one perceives, (and even that one is the whole universe,)—a sense in which sight and touch and hearing are all fused in identity. Nor can the matter be understood without realising that the whole faculty is deeply and intimately rooted on the far side of the moral and emotional nature, and beyond the thought-region of the brain.^[1]

And now with regard to the “I” which occurs so freely in this book. In this and in other such cases the author is naturally liable to a charge of egotism—and I personally do not feel disposed to combat any such charge that may be made. That there are mere egotisms and vanities embodied in these pages I do not for a moment doubt; and that so far as they exist they mar the expression and purpose of the book I also do not doubt. But the existence of these things does not affect the real question: What or Who in the main is the “I” spoken of?

516To this question I must also frankly own that I can give no answer. I do not know. That the word is not used in the dramatic sense is all I can say. The “I” is myself—as well as I could find words to express myself: but what that Self is, and what its limits may be; and therefore what the self of any other person is and what its limits may be—I cannot tell. I have sometimes thought that perhaps the best work one could do—if one felt at any time enlargements and extensions of one’s ego—was to simply record these, as faithfully as might be; leaving others, the science-man and the philosopher, to explain—and feeling confident that what really existed in oneself would be found to exist either consciously or in a latent form in other people. And I will say that I have in these records above all endeavored to be genuine. If I have said “I, Nature” it was because at the time, at any rate, I felt “I, Nature”; if I have said “I am equal with the lowest,” it was because I could not express what I felt more directly than by those words. The value of such statements can only appear by time; if they are corroborated by others then they help to form a body of record which may well be worth investigation, analysis and explanation. If they are not so corroborated, then they naturally and properly fall away as mere vagaries of self-deception. I have not the least doubt that anything which is really genuine will be corroborated.

It seems to me more and more clear that the word “I” has a practically infinite range of meaning—that the ego covers far more ground than we usually suppose. At some points we are intensely individual, at others intensely sympathetic; some of our impressions (as the tickling of a hair) are of the most local and momentary character, others (as the sense of identity) involve long periods of time. Sometimes we are aware of 517almost a fusion between our own identity and that of another person. What does all this mean? Are we really separate individuals, or is individuality an illusion, or again is it only a part of the ego or soul that is individual, and not the whole? Is the ego absolutely one with the body, or is it only a small part of the body, or again is the body but a part of the self—one of its organs so to speak, and not the whole man? Or lastly is it perhaps not possible to express the truth by any direct use of these or other terms of ordinary language? Anyhow, what am I?

These are questions which come all down Time, demanding solution—which humanity is constantly endeavoring to find an answer to. I do not pretend to answer them. On the contrary I am sure that not one of the pieces in “Towards Democracy” has been written with the deliberate view of providing an answer. They have simply been written to express feelings which insisted on being expressed. Nevertheless it is possible that some of them—by giving the experiences and affirmations even of one person—may contribute material towards that answer to these and the like questions which in some region must assuredly be given.

That there is a region of consciousness removed beyond what we usually call mortality, into which we humans can yet pass, I practically do not doubt; but granting that this is a fact, its explanation still remains for investigation.

I have said in this brief note on “Towards Democracy” nothing about the influence of Whitman—for the same reason that I have said nothing about the influence of the sun or the winds. These influences lie too far back and ramify too complexly to be traced. I met with William Rossetti’s little selection from “Leaves of Grass” in 1868 or 1869, and read that and the original editions continuously for ten years. 518I never met with any other book (with the exception perhaps of Beethoven’s sonatas) which I could read and re-read as I could this one. I find it difficult to imagine what my life would have been without it. “Leaves of Grass” “filtered and fibred” my blood: but I do not think I ever tried to imitate it or its style. Against the inevitable drift out of the more classic forms of verse into a looser and freer rhythm I fairly fought, contesting the ground (“kicking against the pricks”) inch by inch during a period of seven years in numerous abortive and mongrel creations—till in 1881 I was finally compelled into the form (if such it can be called) of “Towards Democracy.” I did not adopt it because it was an approximation to the form of “Leaves of Grass.” Whatever resemblance there may be between the rhythm, style, thoughts, constructions, etc., of the two books, must I think be set down to a deeper similarity of emotional atmosphere and intension in the two authors—even though that similarity may have sprung and no doubt largely did spring out of the personal influence of one upon the other. Anyhow our temperaments, standpoints, antecedents, etc., are so entirely diverse and opposite that, except for a few points, I can hardly imagine that there is much real resemblance to be traced. Whitman’s full-blooded, copious, rank, masculine style must always make him one of the world’s great originals—a perennial fountain of health and strength, moral as well as physical. He has the amplitude of the Earth itself, and can no more be thought away than a mountain can. He often indeed reminds one of a great quarry on a mountain side—the great shafts of sunlight and the shadows, the primitive face of the rock itself, the power and the daring of the men at work upon it, the tumbled blocks and masses, materials for endless buildings, and the beautiful tufts of weed or flower on 519inaccessible ledges—a picture most artistic in its very incoherence and formlessness.

“Towards Democracy” has a milder radiance, as of the moon compared with the sun—allowing you to glimpse the stars behind. Tender and meditative, less resolute and altogether less massive, it has the quality of the fluid and yielding air rather than of the solid and uncompromising earth.

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TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES

Page Changed from Changed to

340 How long will you build you houses to hide yourselves How long will you build your houses to hide yourselves

Fixed typos; non-standard spelling and dialect retained.