'You do not do any of these things at all well,'
he went on, with an insolence peculiar to him when excited.
he went on, with an insolence peculiar to him when excited.
Yeats
He had
been talking at the Lelands, and talking well, and felt that elation
which brings us many thoughts.
'My dear Sherman,' he went on, 'do cease that game. It is very bad
for you. There is nobody alive who is honest enough to play a game
of chess fairly out--right hand against left. We are so radically
dishonest that we even cheat ourselves. We can no more play chess than
we can think altogether by ourselves with security. You had much better
play with me. '
'Very well, but you will beat me; I have not much practice,' replied
the other.
They reset the men and began to play. Sherman relied most upon his
bishops and queen. Howard was fondest of the knights. At first Sherman
was the attacking party, but in his characteristic desire to scheme
out his game many moves ahead, kept making slips, and at last had to
give up, with his men nearly all gone and his king hopelessly cornered.
Howard seemed to let nothing escape him. When the game was finished
he leant back in his chair and said, as he rolled a cigarette: 'You
do not play well. ' It gave him satisfaction to feel his proficiency
in many small arts.
'You do not do any of these things at all well,'
he went on, with an insolence peculiar to him when excited. 'You
have been really very badly brought up and stupidly educated in that
intolerable Ballah. They do not understand there any, even the least,
of the arts of life; they only believe in information. Men who are
compelled to move in the great world, and who are also cultivated,
only value the personal acquirements--self-possession, adaptability,
how to dress well, how even to play tennis decently--you would be not
so bad at that, by the by, if you practised--or how to paint or write
effectively. They know that it is better to smoke one's cigarette with
a certain charm of gesture than to have by heart all the encyclopedias.
I say this not merely as a man of the world, but as a teacher of
religion. A man when he rises from the grave will take with him only
the things that he is in himself. He will leave behind the things that
he merely possesses, learning and information not less than money and
high estate. They will stay behind with his house and his clothes and
his body. A collection of facts will no more help him than a collection
of stamps. The learned will not get into heaven as readily as the
flute-player, or even as the man who smokes a cigarette gracefully.
Now, you are not learned, but you have been brought up almost as badly
as if you were. In that wretched town they told you that education was
to know that Russia is bounded on the north by the Arctic Sea, and
on the west by the Baltic Ocean, and that Vienna is situated on the
Danube, and that William the Third came to the throne in the year
1688. They have never taught you any personal art. Even chess-playing
might have helped you at the day of judgment. '
'I am really not a worse chess-player than you.
been talking at the Lelands, and talking well, and felt that elation
which brings us many thoughts.
'My dear Sherman,' he went on, 'do cease that game. It is very bad
for you. There is nobody alive who is honest enough to play a game
of chess fairly out--right hand against left. We are so radically
dishonest that we even cheat ourselves. We can no more play chess than
we can think altogether by ourselves with security. You had much better
play with me. '
'Very well, but you will beat me; I have not much practice,' replied
the other.
They reset the men and began to play. Sherman relied most upon his
bishops and queen. Howard was fondest of the knights. At first Sherman
was the attacking party, but in his characteristic desire to scheme
out his game many moves ahead, kept making slips, and at last had to
give up, with his men nearly all gone and his king hopelessly cornered.
Howard seemed to let nothing escape him. When the game was finished
he leant back in his chair and said, as he rolled a cigarette: 'You
do not play well. ' It gave him satisfaction to feel his proficiency
in many small arts.
'You do not do any of these things at all well,'
he went on, with an insolence peculiar to him when excited. 'You
have been really very badly brought up and stupidly educated in that
intolerable Ballah. They do not understand there any, even the least,
of the arts of life; they only believe in information. Men who are
compelled to move in the great world, and who are also cultivated,
only value the personal acquirements--self-possession, adaptability,
how to dress well, how even to play tennis decently--you would be not
so bad at that, by the by, if you practised--or how to paint or write
effectively. They know that it is better to smoke one's cigarette with
a certain charm of gesture than to have by heart all the encyclopedias.
I say this not merely as a man of the world, but as a teacher of
religion. A man when he rises from the grave will take with him only
the things that he is in himself. He will leave behind the things that
he merely possesses, learning and information not less than money and
high estate. They will stay behind with his house and his clothes and
his body. A collection of facts will no more help him than a collection
of stamps. The learned will not get into heaven as readily as the
flute-player, or even as the man who smokes a cigarette gracefully.
Now, you are not learned, but you have been brought up almost as badly
as if you were. In that wretched town they told you that education was
to know that Russia is bounded on the north by the Arctic Sea, and
on the west by the Baltic Ocean, and that Vienna is situated on the
Danube, and that William the Third came to the throne in the year
1688. They have never taught you any personal art. Even chess-playing
might have helped you at the day of judgment. '
'I am really not a worse chess-player than you.
