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Read Ebook: If I May by Milne A A Alan Alexander
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Ebook has 484 lines and 47738 words, and 10 pages
THE CASE FOR THE ARTIST
A LONDON GARDEN
THE GAME OF KINGS
EXPERTS
THE ROBINSON TRADITION
GETTING THINGS DONE
CHRISTMAS GAMES
THE MATHEMATICAL MIND
GOING OUT TO DINNER
THE ETIQUETTE OF ESCAPE
GEOGRAPHICAL RESEARCH
CHILDREN'S PLAYS
THE ROAD TO KNOWLEDGE
A MAN OF PROPERTY
AN ORDNANCE MAP
THE LORD MAYOR
THE HOLIDAY PROBLEM
THE BURLINGTON ARCADE
STATE LOTTERIES
THE RECORD LIE
WEDDING BELLS
PUBLIC OPINION
THE HONOUR OF YOUR COUNTRY
A VILLAGE CELEBRATION
A TRAIN OF THOUGHT
MELODRAMA
A LOST MASTERPIECE
A HINT FOR NEXT CHRISTMAS
THE FUTURE
THE LARGEST CIRCULATION
THE WATSON TOUCH
SOME OLD COMPANIONS
A HAUNTED HOUSE
ROUND THE WORLD AND BACK
THE STATE OF THE THEATRE
THE FIRES OF AUTUMN
NOT GUILTY
A DIGRESSION
HIGH FINANCE
SECRET PAPERS
IF I MAY
IF I MAY
The Case for the Artist
Probably we artists have all been a little modest about ourselves lately. During the war we asked ourselves gloomily what use we were to the State compared with the noble digger of coals, the much-to-be-reverenced maker of boots, and the god-like grower of wheat. Looking at the pictures in the illustrated papers of brawny, half-dressed men pushing about blocks of red-hot iron, we have told ourselves that these heroes were the pillars of society, and that we were just an incidental decoration. It was a wonder that we were allowed to live. And now in these days of strikes, when a single union of manual workers can hold up the rest of the nation, it is a bitter reflection to us that, if we were to strike, the country would go on its way quite happily, and nine-tenths of the population would not even know that we had downed our pens and brushes.
I made the discovery that we were all right by studying the life of the bee. All that I knew about bees until yesterday was derived from that great naturalist, Dr. Isaac Watts. In common with every one who has been a child I knew that the insect in question improved each shining hour by something honey something something every something flower. I had also heard that bees could not sting you if you held your breath, a precaution which would make conversation by the herbaceous border an affair altogether too spasmodic; and, finally, that in any case the same bee could only sting you once--though, apparently, there was no similar provision of Nature's that the same person could not be stung twice.
Well, that was all that I knew about bees until yesterday. I used to see them about the place from time to time, busy enough, no doubt, but really no busier than I was; and as they were not much interested in me they had no reason to complain that I was not much interested in them. But since yesterday, when I read a book which dealt fully, not only with the public life of the bee, but with the most intimate details of its private life, I have looked at them with a new interest and a new sympathy. For there is no animal which does not get more out of life than the pitiable insect which Dr. Watts holds up as an example to us.
Hitherto, it may be, you have thought of the bee as an admirable and industrious insect, member of a model community which worked day and night to but one end--the well-being of the coming race. You knew perhaps that it fertilized the flowers, but you also knew that the bee didn't know; you were aware that, it any bee deliberately went about trying to improve your delphiniums instead of gathering honey for the State, it would be turned down promptly by the other workers. For nothing is done in the hive without this one utilitarian purpose. Even the drones take their place in the scheme of things; a minor place in the stud; and when the next generation is assured, and the drones cease to be useful and can now only revert to the ornamental, they are ruthlessly cast out.
It comes, then, to this. The bee devotes its whole life to preparing for the next generation. But what is the next generation going to do? It is going to spend its whole life preparing for the third generation... and so on for ever.
An admirable community, the moralists tell us. Poor moralists! To miss so much of the joy of life; to deny oneself the pleasure of reclining lazily on one's back in a snap-dragon, watching the little white clouds sail past upon a sea of blue; to miss these things for no other reason than that the next generation may also have an opportunity of missing them--is that admirable? What do the bees think that they are doing? If they live a life of toil and self-sacrifice merely in order that the next generation may live a life of equal toil and self-sacrifice, what has been gained? Ask the next bee you meet what it thinks it is doing in this world, and the only answer it can give you is, "Keeping up the supply of bees." Is that an admirable answer? How much more admirable if it could reply that it was eschewing all pleasure and living the life of a galley-slave in order that the next generation might have leisure to paint the poppy a more glorious scarlet. But no. The next generation is going at it just as hard for the same unproductive end; it has no wish to leave anything behind it--a new colour, a new scent, a new idea. It has one object only in this world--more bees. Could any scheme of life be more sterile?
Possibly you put in a plea here for the explorer and the scientist. The explorer perhaps may stand alone. His discovery of a peak in Darien is something in itself, quite apart from the happy possibility that Keats may be tempted to bring it into a sonnet. Yes, if a Beef-Essence-Merchant has only provided sustenance for an Explorer he has not lived in vain, however much the poets and the painters recoil from his wares. But of the scientist I am less certain. I fancy that his invention of the telephone can only be counted to his credit because it has brought the author into closer touch with his publisher.
So we artists may be of good faith. They may try to pretend, these others, in their little times of stress, that we are nothing--decorative, inessential; that it is they who make the world go round. This will not upset us. We could not live without them; true. But they would have no reason for living at all, were it not for us.
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