Fear Of Life

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Title:     Fear Of Life
Author: Arthur C. Benson [More Titles by Benson]

Let us divide our fears up into definite divisions, and see how it is best to deal with them. Lowest and worst of all is the shapeless and bodiless fear, which is a real disease of brain and nerves. I know no more poignant description of this than in the strange book Lavengro:

"'What ails you, my child,' said a mother to her son, as he lay on a couch under the influence of the dreadful one; 'what ails you? you seem afraid!'

"Boy. And so I am; a dreadful fear is upon me.

"Mother. But of what? there is no one can harm you; of what are you apprehensive?

"Boy. Of nothing that I can express; I know not what I am afraid of, but afraid I am.

"Mother. Perhaps you see sights and visions; I knew a lady once who was continually thinking that she saw an armed man threaten her, but it was only an imagination, a phantom of the brain.

"Boy. No armed man threatens me; and 'tis not a thing that would cause me any fear. Did an armed man threaten me, I would get up and fight him; weak as I am, I would wish for nothing better, for then, perhaps, I should lose this fear; mine is a dread of I know not what, and there the horror lies.

"Mother. Your forehead is cool, and your speech collected. Do you know where you are?

"Boy. I know where I am, and I see things just as they are; you are beside me, and upon the table there is a book which was written by a Florentine. All this I see, and that there is no ground for being afraid. I am, moreover, quite cool, and feel no pain--but--but--

"And then there was a burst of 'gemiti, sospiri ed alti guai.' Alas, alas, poor child of clay! as the sparks fly upward, so wast thou born to sorrow--Onward!"

That is a description of amazing power, but of course we are here dealing with a definite brain-malady, in which the emotional centres are directly affected. This in a lesser degree no doubt affects more people than one would wish to think; but it may be considered a physical malady of which fear is the symptom and not the cause.

Let us then frankly recognise the physical element in these irrational terrors; and when one has once done this, a great burden is taken off the mind, because one sees that such fear may be a real illusion, a sort of ghastly mockery, which by directly affecting the delicate machinery through which emotion is translated into act, may produce a symptom of terror which is both causeless and baseless, and which may imply neither a lack of courage nor self-control.

And, therefore, I feel, as against the Ascetic and the Stoic, that I am meant to live and to taste the fulness of life; and that if I begin by choosing the wrong joys, it is that I may learn their unreality. I have learned already to compromise about many things, to be content with getting much less than I desire, to acquiesce in missing many good things altogether. But asceticism for the sake of prudence seems to me a wilful error, as though a man practised starvation through uneasy days, because of the chance that he might some day find himself with not enough to eat. The only self-denial worth practising is the self-denial that one admires, and that seems to one to be fine and beautiful.

For we must emphatically remember that the saint is one who lives life with high enjoyment, and with a vital zest; he chooses holiness because of its irresistible beauty, and because of the appeal it makes to his mind. He does not creep through life ashamed, depressed, anxious, letting ordinary delights slip through his nerveless fingers; and if he denies himself common pleasures, it is because, if indulged, they thwart and mar his purer and more lively joys.

The fear of life, the frame of mind which says, "This attractive and charming thing captivates me, but I will mistrust it and keep it at arm's length, because if I lose it, I shall experience discomfort," seems to me a poor and timid handling of life. I would rather say, "I will use it generously and freely, knowing that it may not endure; but it is a sign to me of God's care for me, that He gives me the desire and the gratification; and even if He means me to learn that it is only a small thing, I can learn that only by using it and trying its sweetness."

This may be held a dangerous doctrine; but I do not mean that life must be a foolish and ingenuous indulgence of every appetite and whim. One must make choices; and there are many appetites which come hand in hand with their own shadow. I am not here speaking of tampering with sin; I think that most people burn their fingers over that in early life. But I am speaking rather of the delights of the body that are in no way sinful, food and drink, games and exercise, love itself; and of the joys of the mind and the artistic sense; free and open relations with men and women of keen interests and eager fancies; the delights of work, professional success, the doing of pleasant tasks as vigorously and as perfectly as one can-- all the stir and motion and delight of life.

To shrink back in terror from all this seems to me a sort of cowardice; and it is a cowardice too to go on indulging in things which one does not enjoy for the sake of social tradition. One must not be afraid of breaking with social custom, if one finds that it leads one into dreary and useless formalities, stupid and expensive entertainments, tiresome gatherings, dull and futile assemblies. I think that men and women ought gaily and delightedly to choose the things that minister to their vigour and joy, and to throw themselves willingly into these things, so long as they do not interfere with plainer and simpler duties.

Another way of escape from the importunities of fear is to be very resolute in fighting against our personal claims to honour and esteem. We are sorely wounded through our ambitions, whether they be petty or great; and it is astonishing to find how frail a basis often serves for a sense of dignity. I have known lowly and unimportant people who were yet full of pragmatical self-concern, and whose pride took the form not so much of exalting their own consequence as of thinking meanly of other people. It is easy to restore one's own confidence by dwelling with bitter emphasis on the faults and failings of those about one, by cataloguing the deficiencies of those who have achieved success, by accustoming oneself to think of one's own lack of success as a sign of unworldliness, and by attributing the success of others to a cynical and unscrupulous pursuit of reputation. There is nothing in the world which so differentiates men and women as the tendency to suspect and perceive affronts, and to nurture grievances. It is so fatally easy to think that one has been inconsiderately treated, and to mistake susceptibility for courage. Let us boldly face the fact that we get in this world very much what we earn and deserve, and there is no surer way of being excluded and left out from whatever is going forward than a habit of claiming more respect and deference than is due to one. If we are snubbed and humiliated, it is generally because we have put ourselves forward and taken more than our share. Whereas if we have been content to bear a hand, to take trouble, and to desire useful work rather than credit, our influence grows silently and we become indispensable. A man who does not notice petty grumbling, who laughs away sharp comments, who does not brood over imagined insults, who forgets irritable passages, who makes allowance for impatience and fatigue, is singularly invulnerable. The power of forgetting is infinitely more valuable than the power of forgiving, in many conjunctions of life. In nine cases out of ten, the wounds which our sensibilities receive are the merest pin-pricks, enlarged and fretted by our own hands; we work the little thorn about in the puncture till it festers, instead of drawing it out and casting it away.

Very few of the prizes of life that we covet are worth winning, if we scheme to get them; it is the honour or the task that comes to us unexpectedly that we deserve. I have heard discontented men say that they never get the particular work that they desire and for which they feel themselves to be suited; and meanwhile life flies swiftly, while we are picturing ourselves in all sorts of coveted situations, and slighting the peaceful happiness, the beautiful joys which lie all around us, as we go forward in our greedy reverie.

I have been much surprised, since I began some years ago to receive letters from all sorts of unknown people, to realise how many persons there are in the world who think themselves unappreciated. Such are not generally people who have tried and failed;--an honest failure very often brings a wholesome sense of incompetence;--but they are generally persons who think that they have never had a chance of showing what is in them, speakers who have found their audiences unresponsive, writers who have been discouraged by finding their amateur efforts unsaleable, men who lament the unsuitability of their profession to their abilities, women who find themselves living in what they call a thoroughly unsympathetic circle. The failure here lies in an incapacity to believe in one's own inefficiency, and a sturdy persuasion of the malevolence of others.

Here is a soil in which fears spring up like thorns and briars. "Whatever I do or say, I shall be passed over and slighted, I shall always find people determined to exclude and neglect me!" I know myself, only too well, how fertile the brain is in discovering almost any reason for a failure except what is generally the real reason, that the work was badly done. And the more eager one is for personal recognition and patent success, the more sickened one is by any hint of contempt and derision.

But it is quite possible, as I also know from personal experience, to go patiently and humbly to work again, to face the reasons for failure, to learn to enjoy work, to banish from the mind the uneasy hope of personal distinction. We may try to discern the humour of Providence, because I am as certain as I can be of anything that we are humorously treated as well as lovingly regarded. Let me relate two small incidents which did me a great deal of good at a time of self-importance. I was once asked to give a lecture, and it was widely announced. I saw my own name in capital letters upon advertisements displayed in the street. On the evening appointed, I went to the place, and met the chairman of the meeting and some of the officials in a room adjoining the hall where I was to speak. We bowed and smiled, paid mutual compliments, congratulated each other on the importance of the occasion. At last the chairman consulted his watch and said it was time to be beginning. A procession was formed, a door was majestically thrown open by an attendant, and we walked with infinite solemnity on to the platform of an entirely empty hall, with rows of benches all wholly unfurnished with guests. I think it was one of the most ludicrous incidents I ever remember. The courteous confusion of the chairman, the dismay of the committee, the colossal nature of the fiasco filled me, I am glad to say, not with mortification, but with an overpowering desire to laugh.

I may add that there had been a mistake about the announcement of the hour, and ten minutes later a minute audience did arrive, whom I proceeded to address with such spirit as I could muster; but I have always been grateful for the humorous nature of the snub administered to me.

Again on another occasion I had to pay a visit of business to a remote house in the country. A good-natured friend descanted upon the excitement it would be to the household to entertain a living author, and how eagerly my utterances would be listened to. I was received not only without respect but with obvious boredom. In the course of the afternoon I discovered that I was supposed to be a solicitor's clerk, but when a little later it transpired what my real occupations were, I was not displeased to find that no member of the party had ever heard of my existence, or was aware that I had ever published a book, and when I was questioned as to what I had written, no one had ever come across anything that I had printed, until at last I soared into some transient distinction by the discovery that my brother was the author of Dodo.

I cannot help feeling that there is something gently humorous about this good-humoured indication that the whole civilised world is not engaged in the pursuit of literature, and that one's claims to consideration depend upon one's social merits. I do honestly think that Providence was here deliberately poking fun at me, and showing me that a habit of presenting one's opinions broadcast to the world does not necessarily mean that the world is much aware either of oneself or of one's opinions.

The cure then, it seems to me, for personal ambition, is the humorous reflection that the stir and hum of one's own particular teetotum is confined to a very small space and range; and that the witty description of the Greek politician who was said to be well known throughout the whole civilised world and at Lampsacus, or of the philosopher who was announced as the author of many epoch- making volumes and as the second cousin of the Earl of Cork, represents a very real truth,--that reputation is not a thing which is worth bothering one's head about; that if it comes, it is apt to be quite as inconvenient as it is pleasant, while if one grows to depend upon it, it is as liable to part with its sparkle as soda- water in an open glass.

And then if one comes to consider the commoner claim, the claim to be felt and respected and regarded in one's own little circle, it is wholesome and humiliating to observe how generously and easily that regard is conceded to affectionateness and kindness, and how little it is won by any brilliance or sharpness. Of course irritable, quick-tempered, severe, discontented people can win attention easily enough, and acquire the kind of consideration which is generally conceded to anyone who can be unpleasant. How often families and groups are drilled and cautioned by anxious mothers and sisters not to say or do anything which will vex so- and-so! Such irritable people get the rooms and the chairs and the food that they like, and the talk in their presence is eagerly kept upon subjects on which they can hold forth. But how little such regard lasts, and how welcome a relief it is, when one that is thus courted and deferred to is absent! Of course if one is wholly indifferent whether one is regarded, needed, missed, loved, so long as one can obtain the obedience and the conveniences one likes, there is no more to be said. But I often think of that wonderful poem of Christina Rossetti's about the revenant, the spirit that returns to the familiar house, and finds himself unregretted:

"'To-morrow' and 'to-day,' they cried;
I was of yesterday!"

One sometimes sees, in the faces of old family servants, in unregarded elderly relatives, bachelor uncles, maiden aunts, who are entertained as a duty, or given a home in charity, a very beautiful and tender look, indescribable in words but unmistakable, when it seems as if self, and personal claims, and pride, and complacency had really passed out of the expression, leaving nothing but a hope of being loved, and a desire to do some humble service.

I saw it the other day in the face of a little old lady, who lived in the house of a well-to-do cousin, with rather a bustling and vigorous family pervading the place. She was a small frail creature, with a tired worn face, but with no look of fretfulness or discontent. She had a little attic as a bedroom, and she was not considered in any way. She effaced herself, ate about as much as a bird would eat, seldom spoke, uttering little ejaculations of surprise and amusement at what was said; if there was a place vacant in the carriage, she drove out. If there was not, she stopped at home. She amused herself by going about in the village, talking to the old women and the children, who half loved and half despised her for being so very unimportant, and for having nothing she could give away. But I do not think the little lady ever had a thought except of gratitude for her blessings, and admiration for the robustness and efficiency of her relations. She claimed nothing from life and expected nothing. It seemed a little frail and vanquished existence, and there was not an atom of what is called proper pride about her; but it was fine, for all that! An infinite sweetness looked out of her eyes; she suffered a good deal, but never complained. She was glad to live, found the world a beautiful and interesting place, and never quarrelled with her slender share of its more potent pleasures. And she will slip silently out of life some day in her attic room; and be strangely mourned and missed. I do not consider that a failure in life, and I am not sure that it is not something much more like a triumph. I know that as I watched her one evening knitting in the corner, following what was said with intense enjoyment, uttering her little bird-like cries, I thought how few of the things that could afflict me had power to wound her, and how little she had to fear. I do not think she wanted to take flight, but yet I am sure she had no dread of death; and when she goes thitherward, leaving the little tired and withered frame behind, it will be just as when the crested lark springs up from the dust of the roadway, and wings his way into the heart of the dewy upland.

[The end]
Arthur C. Benson's essay: Fear Of Life

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