Tommy Dukes burst into a laugh.
Go it, you two minds! he said. Look at me I dont do any high and pure mental work, nothing but jot down a few ideas. And yet I neither marry nor run after women. I think Charlies quite right; if he wants to run after the women, hes quite free not to run too often. But I wouldnt prohibit him from running. As for Hammond, hes got a property instinct, so naturally the straight road and the narrow gate are right for him. Youll see hell be an English Man of Letters before hes done. A. B. C. from top to toe. Then theres me. Im nothing. Just a squib. And what about you, Clifford? Do you think sex is a dynamo to help a man on to success in the world?
Clifford rarely talked much at these times. He never held forth; his ideas were really not vital enough for it, he was too confused and emotional. Now he blushed and looked uncomfortable.
Well! he said, being myself hors de combat,[34] I dont see Ive anything to say on the matter.
Not at all, said Dukes; the top of yous by no means hors de combat. Youve got the life of the mind sound and intact. So let us hear your ideas.
Well, stammered Clifford, even then I dont suppose I have much idea I suppose marry-and-have-done-with-it would pretty well stand for what I think. Though of course between a man and woman who care for one another, it is a great thing.
What sort of great thing? said Tommy.
Oh it perfects the intimacy, said Clifford, uneasy as a woman in such talk.
Well, Charlie and I believe that sex is a sort of communication like speech. Let any woman start a sex conversation with me, and its natural for me to go to bed with her to finish it, all in due season. Unfortunately no woman makes any particular start with me, so I go to bed by myself; and am none the worse for it I hope so, anyway, for how should I know? Anyhow Ive no starry calculations to be interfered with, and no immortal works to write. Im merely a fellow skulking in the army
Silence fell. The four men smoked. And Connie sat there and put another stitch in her sewing Yes, she sat there! She had to sit mum. She had to be quiet as a mouse, not to interfere with the immensely important speculations of these highly-mental gentlemen. But she had to be there. They didnt get on so well without her; their ideas didnt flow so freely. Clifford was much more hedgy and nervous, he got cold feet much quicker in Connies absence, and the talk didnt run. Tommy Dukes came off best; he was a little inspired by her presence. Hammond she didnt really like; he seemed so selfish in a mental way. And Charles May, though she liked something about him, seemed a little distasteful and messy, in spite of his stars.
How many evenings had Connie sat and listened to the manifestations of these four men! these, and one or two others. That they never seemed to get anywhere didnt trouble her deeply. She liked to hear what they had to say, especially when Tommy was there. It was fun. Instead of men kissing you, and touching you with their bodies, they revealed their minds to you. It was great fun! But what cold minds!
And also it was a little irritating. She had more respect for Michaelis, on whose name they all poured such withering contempt, as a little mongrel arriviste, and uneducated bounder of the worst sort. Mongrel and bounder or not, he jumped to his own conclusions. He didnt merely walk round them with millions of words, in the parade of the life of the mind.
Connie quite liked the life of the mind, and got a great thrill out of it. But she did think it overdid itself a little. She loved being there, amidst the tobacco smoke of those famous evenings of the cronies, as she called them privately to herself. She was infinitely amused, and proud too, that even their talking they could not do, without her silent presence. She had an immense respect for thought and these men, at least, tried to think honestly. But somehow there was a cat, and it wouldnt jump. They all alike talked at something, though what it was, for the life of her she couldnt say. It was something that Mick didnt clear, either.
But then Mick wasnt trying to do anything, but just get through his life, and put as much across other people as they tried to put across him. He was really anti-social, which was what Clifford and his cronies had against him. Clifford and his cronies were not anti-social; they were more or less bent on saving mankind, or on instructing it, to say the least.
There was a gorgeous talk on Sunday evening, when the conversation drifted again to love.
Blest be the tie that binds
Our hearts in kindred something-or-other
said Tommy Dukes. Id like to know what the tie is The tie that binds us just now is mental friction on one another. And, apart from that, theres damned little tie between us. We bust apart, and say spiteful things about one another, like all the other damned intellectuals in the world. Damned everybodies, as far as that goes, for they all do it. Else we bust apart, and cover up the spiteful things we feel against one another by saying false sugaries. Its a curious thing that the mental life seems to flourish with its roots in spite, ineffable and fathomless spite. Always has been so! Look at Socrates,[35] in Plato,[36] and his bunch round him! The sheer spite of it all, just sheer joy in pulling somebody else to bits Protagoras,[37] or whoever it was! And Alcibiades,[38] and all the other little disciple dogs joining in the fray! I must say it makes one prefer Buddha, quietly sitting under a bo-tree, or Jesus, telling his disciples little Sunday stories, peacefully, and without any mental fireworks. No, theres something wrong with the mental life, radically. Its rooted in spite and envy, envy and spite. Ye shall know the tree by its fruit.
I dont think were altogether so spiteful, protested Clifford.
My dear Clifford, think of the way we talk each other over, all of us. Im rather worse than anybody else, myself. Because I infinitely prefer the spontaneous spite to the concocted sugaries; now they are poison; when I begin saying what a fine fellow Clifford is, etc., etc., then poor Clifford is to be pitied. For Gods sake, all of you, say spiteful things about me, then I shall know I mean something to you. Dont say sugaries, or Im done.
Oh, but I do think we honestly like one another, said Hammond.
I tell you we must we say such spiteful things to one another, about one another, behind our backs! Im the worst.
And I do think you confuse the mental life with the critical activity. I agree with you, Socrates gave the critical activity a grand start, but he did more than that, said Charlie May, rather magisterially. The cronies had such a curious pomposity under their assumed modesty. It was all so ex cathedra, and it all pretended to be so humble.
Dukes refused to be drawn about Socrates.
Thats quite true, criticism and knowledge are not the same thing, said Hammond.
They arent, of course, chimed in Berry, a brown, shy young man, who had called to see Dukes, and was staying the night.
They all looked at him as if the ass had spoken.
I wasnt talking about knowledge I was talking about the mental life, laughed Dukes. Real knowledge comes out of the whole corpus of the consciousness; out of your belly and your penis as much as out of your brain and mind. The mind can only analyse and rationalize. Set the mind and the reason to cock it over the rest, and all they can do is to criticize, and make a deadness. I say all they can do. It is vastly important. My God, the world needs criticizing today criticizing to death. Therefore lets live the mental life, and glory in our spite, and strip the rotten old show. But, mind you, its like this: while you live your life, you are in some way an Organic whole with all life. But once you start the mental life you pluck the apple. Youve severed the connexion between the apple and the tree: the organic connexion. And if youve got nothing in your life but the mental life, then you yourself are a plucked apple youve fallen off the tree. And then it is a logical necessity to be spiteful, just as its a natural necessity for a plucked apple to go bad.