Potterism, A Tragi-Farcical Tract Rose Macaulay POTTERISM, A TRAGI-FARCICAL TRACT BY ROSE MACAULAY Author of ‘What Not, ' etc. 1920 TO THE UNSENTIMENTAL PRECISIANS IN THOUGHT, WHO HAVE, ON THIS CONFUSED, INACCURATE, AND EMOTIONAL PLANET, NO FIT HABITATION ‘They contract a Habit of talking loosely and confusedly. ' — J. CLARKE. ‘My dear friend, clear your mind of cant Don’t think foolishly. ' SAMUEL JOHNSON. ‘On the whole we are Not intelligent— No, no, no, not intelligent. ' —W. S. GILBERT. ‘Truth may perhaps come to the price of a Pearle, that sheweth best by day; But it will not rise to the price of a Diamond or Carbuncle, that sheweth best in varied lights. A mixture of a Lie doth ever adde Pleasure. Doth any man doubt, that if there were taken out of men’s mindes Vaine Opinions, Blattering Hopes, False Valuations, Imaginations as one would, and the like, but it would leave the Mindes of a Number of Men poore shrunken Things, full of Melancholy and Indisposition and unpleasing to themselves? ' —FRANCIS BACON. ‘What is it that smears the windows of the senses? Thought, convention, self-interest We see the narrow world our windows show us not in itself, but in relation to our own needs, moods, and preferences for the universe of the natural man is strictly egocentric Unless we happen to be artists—and then but rarely— we never know the “thing seen” in its purity; never from birth to death, look at it with disinterested eyes It is disinterestedness, the saint’s and poet’s love of things for their own sakes which is the condition of all real knowledge When the verb “to have” is ejected from the centre of your consciousness your attitude to life will cease to be commercial and become artistic. Then the guardian at the gate, scrutinising and sorting the incoming impressions, will no longer ask, “What use is this to me? ” You see things at last as the artist does, for their sake, not for your own. ' —EVELYN UNDERHILL. CONTENTS PART I. —TOLD BY R. M. I. POTTERS II. ANTI-POTTERS III. OPPORTUNITY IV. JANE AND CLARE PART II. —TOLD BY GIDEON I. SPINNING II. DINING WITH THE HOBARTS III. SEEING JANE PART III. —TOLD BY LELIA YORKE I. THE TERRIBLE TRAGEDY ON THE STAIRS II. AN AWFUL SUSPICION PART IV. —TOLD BY KATHERINE VARICK A BRANCH OF STUDY PART V. —TOLD BY JUKE GIVING ADVICE PART VI. —TOLD BY R. M. I. THE END OF A POTTER MELODRAMA II. ENGAGED TO BE MARRIED III. THE PRECISIAN AT WAR WITH THE WORLD IV. RUNNING AWAY V. A PLACARD FOR THE PRESS Potterism, A Tragi-Farcical Tract 1 PART I: TOLD BY R. M. CHAPTER I POTTERS 1 Johnny and Jane Potter, being twins, went through Oxford together. Johnny came up from Rugby and Jane from Roedean. Johnny was at Balliol and Jane at Somerville. Both, having ambitions for literary careers, took the Honours School of English Language and Literature. They were ordinary enough young people; clever without being brilliant, nice-looking without being handsome, active without being athletic, keen without being earnest, popular without being leaders, open-handed without being generous, as revolutionary, as selfish, and as intellectually snobbish as was proper to their years, and inclined to be jealous one of the other, but linked together by common tastes and by a deep and bitter distaste for their father’s newspapers, which were many, and for their mother’s novels, which were more. These were, indeed, not fit for perusal at Somerville and Balliol. The danger had been that Somerville and Balliol, till they knew you well, should not know you knew it. In their first year, the mother of Johnny and Jane (‘Leila Yorke, ' with ‘Mrs. Potter’ in brackets after it), had, after spending Eights Week at Oxford, announced her intention of writing an Oxford novel. Oh God, Jane had cried within herself, not that; anything but that; and firmly she and Johnny had told her mother that already there were Keddy, and Sinister Street, and The Pearl, and The Girls of St. Ursula’s (by Annie S. Swan: ‘After the races were over, the girls sculled their college barge briskly down the river, '), and that, in short, the thing had been done for good and all, and that was that. Mrs. Potter still thought she would like to write an Oxford novel. Because, after all, though there might be many already, none of them were quite like the one she would write. She had tea with Jane in the Somerville garden on Sunday, and though Jane did not ask any of her friends to meet her (for they might have got put in) she saw them all about, and thought what a nice novel they would make. Jane Potterism, A Tragi-Farcical Tract 2 knew she was thinking this, and said, ‘They’re very commonplace people, ' in a discouraging tone. ‘Some of them, ' Jane added, deserting her own snobbishness, which was intellectual, for her mother’s, which was social, ‘are also common. ' ‘There must be very many, ' said Mrs. Potter, looking through her lorgnette at the garden of girls, ‘who are neither. ' ‘Fewer, ' said Jane, stubbornly, ‘than you would think. Most people are one or the other, I find. Many are both. ' ‘Try not to be cynical, my pet, ' said Leila Yorke, who was never this. 2 That was in June, 1912. In June, 1914, Jane and Johnny went down. Their University careers had been creditable, if not particularly conspicuous. Johnny had been a fluent speaker at the Union, Jane at the women’s intercollegiate Debating Society, and also in the Somerville parliament, where she had been the leader of the Labour Party. Johnny had for a time edited the Isis, Jane the Fritillary. Johnny had done respectably in Schools, Jane rather better. For Jane had always been just a shade the cleverer; not enough to spoil competition, but enough to give Johnny rather harder work to achieve the same results. They had probably both got firsts, but Jane’s would be a safe thing, and Johnny would be likely to have a longish viva. Anyhow, here they were, just returned to Potter’s Bar, Herts (where Mr. Percy Potter, liking the name of the village, had lately built a lordly mansion). Excellent friends they were, but as jealous as two little dogs, each for ever on the look-out to see that the other got no undue advantage. Both saw every reason why they should make a success of life. But Jane knew that, though she might be one up on Johnny as regards Oxford, owing to slightly superior brain power, he was one up on her as regards Life, owing to that awful business sex. Women were handicapped; they had to fight much harder to achieve equal results. People didn’t give them jobs in the same way. Young men possessed the earth; young women had to wrest what they wanted out of it piecemeal. Johnny might end a cabinet minister, a notorious journalist, a Labour leader, anything Women’s jobs were, as a rule, so dowdy and unimportant. Jane was [...]... it was an appeal to sentiment over the head, or under the head, of reason Neither the speaker nor any one else probably had the least idea what he was talking about or what he meant ‘He had the kind of face which is always turned away from facts, ' Gideon said ‘Facts are too difficult, too complicated for him Hard, jolly facts, with clear sharp edges that you can’t slur and talk away Potterism has no... massacred in an Odessa pogrom; his father had been taken at the age of five to England by an aunt, become naturalised, taken the name of Sidney, married an Englishwoman, and achieved success and wealth as a banker His son Arthur was one of the most brilliant men of his year at Oxford, regarded Russians, Jews, and British with cynical dislike, and had, on turning twenty-one, reverted to his family name... Katherine Varick Katherine Varick had frosty blue eyes, a pale, square-jawed, slightly cynical face, a first in Natural Science, and a chemical research fellowship In those happy days it was easy to stay in places, even by the sea, and they stayed first at the fishing village of Mevagissey Gideon was the only one who never forgot that they were to make observations and write a book He came of a more hard-working... should be lunatics to stand out of this damnable mess ' 15 Potterism, A Tragi-Farcical Tract Juke also was now, painful to him though it was to be so, in agreement with the Potter press To him the war had become a crusade, a fight for decency against savagery ‘It’s that, ' said Gideon ‘But that’s not all This isn’t a show any country can afford to stand out of It’s Germany against Europe, and if Europe... conquering nation, not a conquered one, and to save ourselves from having an ill- 18 Potterism, A Tragi-Farcical Tract conditioned people like the Germans strutting all over us It’s a very laudable object, and needs no camouflage Sheer Potterism, all this cant and posturing I’d rather say, like the Daily Mail, that we’re fighting to capture the Hun’s trade; that’s a lie, but at least it isn’t cant ' ‘Let... was started He dined with Jane and Katherine at their flat, soon after he could get about He was leaner than ever, white and gaunt, and often illtempered from pain Johnny was there too, a major on leave, stuck over with coloured ribbons Jane called him a pot-hunter They laughed and talked and joked and dined When Gideon and Johnny had gone, and Katherine and Jane were left smoking last cigarettes and... deep private disgust gnawing always, as of one defrauded 16 Potterism, A Tragi-Farcical Tract CHAPTER III OPPORTUNITY 1 They did not know then about people in general going to the war They thought it was just for the army and navy, not for ordinary people That idea came a little later, after the Anti-Potter party had broken up and gone home The young men began to enlist and get commissions It was done;... two classes The world was thus shown that Leila Yorke was no mere flâneuse of letters, but an Englishwoman who rose to her country’s call and was worthy of her men-folk Clare became a V A. D., and went up to town every day to work at an officers’ hospital It was a hospital maintained partly by Mr Potter, and she got on very well there She made many pleasant friends, and hoped to get out to France later... defection of valuable allies, but by the unwavering optimism of her parent’s press ‘But, ' said Katherine Varick, ‘it’s usually right, your papa’s press That’s the queer thing about it It sounds always wildly wrong, like an absurd fairy story, and all the sane, intelligent people laugh at it, and then it turns out to have been right Look at the way it used to say that Germany was planning war; it was mostly... hoped later on to explore, and hardly existing in the Slavs In Russia, said Gideon, who loathed Russians, because he was half a Jew, it practically did not exist The Russians were without shame and without cant, saw things as they were, and proceeded to make them a good deal worse That was barbarity, imbecility, and devilishness, but it was not Potterism, said Gideon grimly Gideon’s grandparents had been . Potterism, A Tragi-Farcical Tract Rose Macaulay POTTERISM, A TRAGI-FARCICAL TRACT BY ROSE MACAULAY. as a rule, so dowdy and unimportant. Jane was Potterism, A Tragi-Farcical Tract 3 bored to death with this sex business; it wasn’t fair. But Jane was