No More Learning

The moment of repentance is
the moment of initiation. More than that: it is the means by which one
alters one's past. The Greeks thought that impossible. They often say
in their Gnomic aphorisms, 'Even the Gods cannot alter the past. ' Christ
showed that the commonest sinner could do it, that it was the one thing
he could do. Christ, had he been asked, would have said--I feel quite
certain about it--that the moment the prodigal son fell on his knees and
wept, he made his having wasted his substance with harlots, his swine-
herding and hungering for the husks they ate, beautiful and holy moments
in his life. It is difficult for most people to grasp the idea. I dare
say one has to go to prison to understand it. If so, it may be worth
while going to prison.

There is something so unique about Christ. Of course just as there are
false dawns before the dawn itself, and winter days so full of sudden
sunlight that they will cheat the wise crocus into squandering its gold
before its time, and make some foolish bird call to its mate to build on
barren boughs, so there were Christians before Christ. For that we
should be grateful. The unfortunate thing is that there have been none
since. I make one exception, St. Francis of Assisi.
But then God had
given him at his birth the soul of a poet, as he himself when quite young
had in mystical marriage taken poverty as his bride: and with the soul of
a poet and the body of a beggar he found the way to perfection not
difficult. He understood Christ, and so he became like him. We do not
require the Liber Conformitatum to teach us that the life of St. Francis
was the true _Imitatio Christi_, a poem compared to which the book of
that name is merely prose.

Indeed, that is the charm about Christ, when all is said: he is just like
a work of art. He does not really teach one anything, but by being
brought into his presence one becomes something. And everybody is
predestined to his presence. Once at least in his life each man walks
with Christ to Emmaus.

As regards the other subject, the Relation of the Artistic Life to
Conduct, it will no doubt seem strange to you that I should select it.
People point to Reading Gaol and say, 'That is where the artistic life
leads a man. ' Well, it might lead to worse places. The more mechanical
people to whom life is a shrewd speculation depending on a careful
calculation of ways and means, always know where they are going, and go
there. They start with the ideal desire of being the parish beadle, and
in whatever sphere they are placed they succeed in being the parish
beadle and no more. A man whose desire is to be something separate from
himself, to be a member of Parliament, or a successful grocer, or a
prominent solicitor, or a judge, or something equally tedious, invariably
succeeds in being what he wants to be. That is his punishment. Those
who want a mask have to wear it.