Fantasia of the UnconsciousLawrence, D. H. (David Herbert)
Philosophy
Fantasia of the Unconscious
Lawrence, D. H. (David Herbert)
Psychoanalysis; Sex; Subconsciousness
So good-by! There we leave humanity, encamped in an appalling mess
beside the railway-smash of love, sitting down, however, and having
not a bad time, some of 'em, feeding themselves fat on the plunder:
others, further down the line, with mouths green from eating grass.
But all grossly, stupidly, automatically gabbling about getting the
love-service running again, the trains booked for the New Jerusalem
well on the way once more. And occasionally a good engine gives a
screech of love, and something seems to be about to happen. And
sometimes there is enough steam to set the indignation-whistles
whistling. But never any more will there be enough love-steam to get
the system properly running. It is done.
Good-by, then! You may have laid your line from one end to the other
of the infinite. But still there's plenty of hinterland. I'll go.
Good-by. Ach, it will be so nice to be alone: not to hear you, not to
see you, not to smell you, humanity. I wish you no ill, but wisdom.
Good-by!
To be alone with one's own soul. Not to be alone without my own soul,
mind you. But to be alone with one's own soul! This, and the joy of
it, is the real goal of love. My own soul, and myself. Not my ego, my
conceit of myself. But my very soul. To be at one in my own self. Not
to be questing any more. Not to be yearning, seeking, hoping,
desiring, aspiring. But to pause, and be alone.
And to have one's own "gentle spouse" by one's side, of course, to dig
one in the ribs occasionally. Because really, being alone in peace
means being two people together. Two people who can be silent
together, and not conscious of one another outwardly. Me in my
silence, she in hers, and the balance, the equilibrium, the pure
circuit between us. With occasional lapses of course: digs in the ribs
if one gets too vague or self-sufficient.
They say it is better to travel than to arrive. It's not been my
experience, at least. The journey of love has been rather a
lacerating, if well-worth-it, journey. But to come at last to a nice
place under the trees, with your "amiable spouse" who has at last
learned to hold her tongue and not to bother about rights and wrongs:
her own particularly. And then to pitch a camp, and cook your rabbit,
and eat him: and to possess your own soul in silence, and to feel all
the clamor lapse. That is the best I know.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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