On indexing this volume, as with Vols. I and IV which are already indexed and as, no doubt, will be the case with any that I may live to index later, I am alarmed at the triviality of many of these notes, the ineptitude of many and the obvious untenableness of many that I should have done much better to destroy.

Elmsley, in one of his letters to Dr. Butler, says that an author is the worst person to put one of his own works through the press (Life of Dr. Butler, I, 88). It seems to me that he is the worst person also to make selections from his own notes or indeed even, in my case, to write them. I cannot help it. They grew as, with little disturbance, they now stand; they are not meant for publication; the bad ones serve as bread for the jam of the good ones; it was less trouble to let them go than to think whether they ought not to be destroyed. The retort, however, is obvious; no thinking should have been required in respect of many—a glance should have consigned them to the waste-paper basket. I know it and I know that many a one of those who look over these books—for that they will be looked over by not a few I doubt not—will think me to have been a greater fool than I probably was. I cannot help it. I have at any rate the consolation of also knowing that, however much I may have irritated, displeased or disappointed them, they will not be able to tell me so; and I think that, to some, such a record of passing moods and thoughts good, bad and indifferent will be more valuable as throwing light upon the period to which it relates than it would have been if it had been edited with greater judgment.

Besides, Vols. I and IV being already bound, I should not have enough to form Vols. II and III if I cut out all those that ought to be cut out. [June, 1898.]

P.S.—If I had re-read my preface to Vol. IV, I need not have written the above.

Waste-Paper Baskets

Every one should keep a mental waste-paper basket and the older he grows the more things he will consign to it—torn up to irrecoverable tatters.

Flies in the Milk-Jug

Saving scraps is like picking flies out of the milk-jug. We do not mind doing this, I suppose, because we feel sure the flies will never want to borrow money off us. We do not feel so sure about anything much bigger than a fly. If it were a mouse that had got into the milk-jug, we should call the cat at once.

My Thoughts

They are like persons met upon a journey; I think them very agreeable at first but soon find, as a rule, that I am tired of them.

Our Ideas

They are for the most part like bad sixpences and we spend our lives in trying to pass them on one another.

Cat-Ideas and Mouse-Ideas

We can never get rid of mouse-ideas completely, they keep turning up again and again, and nibble, nibble—no matter how often we drive them off. The best way to keep them down is to have a few good strong cat-ideas which will embrace them and ensure their not reappearing till they do so in another shape.

Incoherency of New Ideas

An idea must not be condemned for being a little shy and incoherent; all new ideas are shy when introduced first among our old ones. We should have patience and see whether the incoherency is likely to wear off or to wear on, in which latter case the sooner we get rid of them the better.

An Apology for the Devil

It must be remembered that we have only heard one side of the case. God has written all the books.

Hallelujah

When we exclaim so triumphantly “Hallelujah! for the Lord God omnipotent reigneth” we only mean that we think no small beer of ourselves, that our God is a much greater God than any one else’s God, that he was our father’s God before us, and that it is all right, respectable and as it should be.

Hating

It does not matter much what a man hates provided he hates something.

Hamlet, Don Quixote, Mr. Pickwick and others

The great characters of fiction live as truly as the memories of dead men. For the life after death it is not necessary that a man or woman should have lived.

Reputation

The evil that men do lives after them. Yes, and a good deal of the evil that they never did as well.

Science and Business

The best class of scientific mind is the same as the best class of business mind. The great desideratum in either case is to know how much evidence is enough to warrant action. It is as unbusiness-like to want too much evidence before buying or selling as to be content with too little. The same kind of qualities are wanted in either case. The difference is that if the business man makes a mistake, he commonly has to suffer for it, whereas it is rarely that scientific blundering, so long as it is confined to theory, entails loss on the blunderer. On the contrary it very often brings him fame, money and a pension. Hence the business man, if he is a good one, will take greater care not to overdo or underdo things than the scientific man can reasonably be expected to take.

Scientists

There are two classes, those who want to know and do not care whether others think they know or not, and those who do not much care about knowing but care very greatly about being reputed as knowing.

Scientific Terminology

This is the Scylla’s cave which men of science are preparing for themselves to be able to pounce out upon us from it, and into which we cannot penetrate.

Scientists and Drapers

Why should the botanist, geologist or other-ist give himself such airs over the draper’s assistant? Is it because he names his plants or specimens with Latin names and divides them into genera and species, whereas the draper does not formulate his classifications, or at any rate only uses his mother tongue when he does? Yet how like the sub-divisions of textile life are to those of the animal and vegetable kingdoms! A few great families—cotton, linen, hempen, woollen, silk, mohair, alpaca—into what an infinite variety of genera and species do not these great families subdivide themselves? And does it take less labour, with less intelligence, to master all these and to acquire familiarity with their various habits, habitats and prices than it does to master the details of any other great branch of science? I do not know. But when I think of Shoolbred’s on the one hand and, say, the ornithological collections of the British Museum upon the other, I feel as though it would take me less trouble to master the second than the first.

Men of Science

If they are worthy of the name they are indeed about God’s path and about his bed and spying out all his ways.

Sparks

Everything matters more than we think it does, and, at the same time, nothing matters so much as we think it does. The merest spark may set all Europe in a blaze, but though all Europe be set in a blaze twenty times over, the world will wag itself right again.

Dumb-Bells

I regard them with suspicion as academic.

Purgatory

Time is the only true purgatory.

Greatness

He is greatest who is most often in men’s good thoughts.

The Vanity of Human Wishes

There is only one thing vainer and that is the having no wishes.

Jones’s Conscience

He said he had not much conscience, and what little he had was guilty.

Nihilism

The Nihilists do not believe in nothing; they only believe in nothing that does not commend itself to themselves; that is, they will not allow that anything may be beyond their comprehension. As their comprehension is not great their creed is, after all, very nearly nihil.

On Breaking Habits

To begin knocking off the habit in the evening, then the afternoon as well and, finally, the morning too is better than to begin cutting it off in the morning and then go on to the afternoon and evening. I speak from experience as regards smoking and can say that when one comes to within an hour or two of smoke-time one begins to be impatient for it, whereas there will be no impatience after the time for knocking off has been confirmed as a habit.

Dogs

The great pleasure of a dog is that you may make a fool of yourself with him and not only will he not scold you, but he will make a fool of himself too.

Future and Past

The Will-be and the Has-been touch us more nearly than the Is. So we are more tender towards children and old people than to those who are in the prime of life.

Nature

As the word is now commonly used it excludes nature’s most interesting productions—the works of man. Nature is usually taken to mean mountains, rivers, clouds and undomesticated animals and plants. I am not indifferent to this half of nature, but it interests me much less than the other half.

Lucky and Unlucky

People are lucky and unlucky not according to what they get absolutely, but according to the ratio between what they get and what they have been led to expect.

Definitions

i

As, no matter what cunning system of checks we devise, we must in the end trust some one whom we do not check, but to whom we give unreserved confidence, so there is a point at which the understanding and mental processes must be taken as understood without further question or definition in words. And I should say that this point should be fixed pretty early in the discussion.

ii

There is one class of mind that loves to lean on rules and definitions, and another that discards them as far as possible. A faddist will generally ask for a definition of faddism, and one who is not a faddist will be impatient of being asked to give one.

iii

A definition is the enclosing a wilderness of idea within a wall of words.

iv

Definitions are a kind of scratching and generally leave a sore place more sore than it was before.

v

As Love is too young to know what conscience is, so Truth and Genius are too old to know what definition is.

Money

It has such an inherent power to run itself clear of taint that human ingenuity cannot devise the means of making it work permanent mischief, any more than means can be found of torturing people beyond what they can bear. Even if a man founds a College of Technical Instruction, the chances are ten to one that no one will be taught anything and that it will have been practically left to a number of excellent professors who will know very well what to do with it.

Wit

There is no Professor of Wit at either University. Surely they might as reasonably have a professor of wit as of poetry.

Oxford and Cambridge

The dons are too busy educating the young men to be able to teach them anything.

Cooking

There is a higher average of good cooking at Oxford and Cambridge than elsewhere. The cooking is better than the curriculum. But there is no Chair of Cookery, it is taught by apprenticeship in the kitchens.

Perseus and St. George

These dragon-slayers did not take lessons in dragon-slaying, nor do leaders of forlorn hopes generally rehearse their parts beforehand. Small things may be rehearsed, but the greatest are always do-or-die, neck-or-nothing matters.

Specialism and Generalism

Woe to the specialist who is not a pretty fair generalist, and woe to the generalist who is not also a bit of a specialist.

Silence and Tact

Silence is not always tact and it is tact that is golden, not silence.

Truth-tellers

Professional truth-tellers may be trusted to profess that they are telling the truth.

Street Preachers

These are the costermongers and barrow men of the religious world.

Providence and Othello

Providence, in making the rain fall also upon the sea, was like the man who, when he was to play Othello, must needs black himself all over.

Providence and Improvidence

i

We should no longer say: Put your trust in Providence, but in Improvidence, for this is what we mean.

ii

To put one’s trust in God is only a longer way of saying that one will chance it.

iii

There is nothing so imprudent or so improvident as over-prudence or over-providence.

Epiphany

If Providence could be seen at all, he would probably turn out to be a very disappointing person—a little wizened old gentleman with a cold in his head, a red nose and a comforter round his neck, whistling o’er the furrow’d land or crooning to himself as he goes aimlessly along the streets, poking his way about and loitering continually at shop-windows and second-hand book-stalls.

Fortune

Like Wisdom, Fortune crieth in the streets, and no man regardeth. There is not an advertisement supplement to the Times—nay, hardly a half sheet of newspaper that comes into a house wrapping up this or that, but it gives information which would make a man’s fortune, if he could only spot it and detect the one paragraph that would do this among the 99 which would wreck him if he had anything to do with them.

Gold-Mines

Gold is not found in quartz alone; its richest lodes are in the eyes and ears of the public, but these are harder to work and to prospect than any quartz vein.

Things and Purses

Everything is like a purse—there may be money in it, and we can generally say by the feel of it whether there is or is not. Sometimes, however, we must turn it inside out before we can be quite sure whether there is anything in it or no. When I have turned a proposition inside out, put it to stand on its head, and shaken it, I have often been surprised to find how much came out of it.

Solomon in all his Glory

But, in the first place, the lilies do toil and spin after their own fashion, and, in the next, it was not desirable that Solomon should be dressed like a lily of the valley.

David’s Teachers

David said he had more understanding than his teachers. If his teachers were anything like mine this need not imply much understanding on David’s part. And if his teachers did not know more than the Psalms—it is absurd. It is merely swagger, like the German Emperor. [1897.]

S. Michael

He contended with the devil about the body of Moses. Now, I do not believe that any reasonable person would contend about the body of Moses with the devil or with any one else.

One Form of Failure

From a worldly point of view there is no mistake so great as that of being always right.

Andromeda

The dragon was never in better health and spirits than on the morning when Perseus came down upon him. It is said that Andromeda told Perseus she had been thinking how remarkably well he was looking. He had got up quite in his usual health—and so on.

When I said this to Ballard [a fellow art-student at Heatherley’s] and that other thing which I said about Andromeda in Life and Habit, [225] he remarked that he wished it had been so in the poets.

I looked at him. “Ballard,” I said, “I also am ‘the poets.’”

Self-Confidence

Nothing is ever any good unless it is thwarted with self-distrust though in the main self-confident.

Wandering

When the inclination is not obvious, the mind meanders, or maunders, as a stream in a flat meadow.

Poverty

I shun it because I have found it so apt to become contagious; but I fancy my constitution is more seasoned against it now than formerly. I hope that what I have gone through may have made me immune.

Pedals or Drones

The discords of every age are rendered possible by being taken on a drone or pedal of cant, common form and conventionality. This drone is, as it were, the flour and suet of a plum pudding.

Evasive Nature

She is one long This-way-and-it-isness and, at the same time, That-way-and-it-isn’tness. She flies so like a snipe that she is hard to hit.

Fashion

Fashion is like God, man cannot see it in its holy of holies and live. And it is, like God, increate, springing out of nothing, yet the maker of all things—ever changing yet the same yesterday, to-day and for ever.

Doctors and Clergymen

A physician’s physiology has much the same relation to his power of healing as a cleric’s divinity has to his power of influencing conduct.

God is Love

I dare say. But what a mischievous devil Love is!

Common Chords

If Man is the tonic and God the dominant, the Devil is certainly the sub-dominant and Woman is the relative minor.

God and the Devil

God and the Devil are an effort after specialisation and division of labour.

Sex

The sexes are the first—or are among the first great experiments in the social subdivision of labour.

Women

If you choose to insist on the analogies and points of resemblance between men and women, they are so great that the differences seem indeed small. If, on the other hand, you are in a mood for emphasising the points of difference, you can show that men and women have hardly anything in common. And so with anything: if a man wants to make a case he can generally find a way of doing so.

Offers of Marriage

Women sometimes say that they have had no offers, and only wish that some one had ever proposed to them. This is not the right way to put it. What they should say is that though, like all women, they have been proposing to men all their lives, yet they grieve to remember that they have been invariably refused.

The question of marriage or non-marriage is only the question of whether it is better to be spoiled one way or another.

ii

In matrimony, to hesitate is sometimes to be saved.

iii

Inoculation, or a hair of the dog that is going to bite you—this principle should be introduced in respect of marriage and speculation.

Life and Love

To live is like to love—all reason is against it, and all healthy instinct for it.

The Basis of Life

We may say what we will, but Life is, au fond, sensual.

Woman Suffrage

I will vote for it when women have left off making a noise in the reading-room of the British Museum, when they leave off wearing high head-dresses in the pit of a theatre and when I have seen as many as twelve women in all catch hold of the strap or bar on getting into an omnibus.

Manners Makyth Man

Yes, but they make woman still more.

Women and Religion

It has been said that all sensible men are of the same religion and that no sensible man ever says what that religion is. So all sensible men are of the same opinion about women and no sensible man ever says what that opinion is.

Happiness

Behold and see if there be any happiness like unto the happiness of the devils when they found themselves cast out of Mary Magdalene.

Sorrow within Sorrow

He was in reality damned glad; he told people he was sorry he was not more sorry, and here began the first genuine sorrow, for he was really sorry that people would not believe he was sorry that he was not more sorry.

Going Away

I can generally bear the separation, but I don’t like the leave-taking.