Fantasia of the UnconsciousLawrence, D. H. (David Herbert)
Philosophy
Fantasia of the Unconscious
Lawrence, D. H. (David Herbert)
Psychoanalysis; Sex; Subconsciousness
Wives, don't love your husbands nor your children nor anybody. Sit
still, and say Hush! And while you shake the duster out of the
drawing-room window, say to yourself--"In the sweetness of solitude."
And when your husband comes in and says he's afraid he's got a cold
and is going to have double pneumonia, say quietly "surely not." And
if he wants the ammoniated quinine, give it him if he can't get it for
himself. But don't let him drive you out of your solitude, your
singleness within yourself. And if your little boy falls down the
steps and makes his mouth bleed, nurse and comfort him, but say to
yourself, even while you tremble with the shock: "Alone. Alone. Be
alone, my soul." And if the servant smashes three electric-light bulbs
in three minutes, say to her: "How very inconsiderate and careless of
you!" But say to yourself: "Don't hear it, my soul. Don't take fright
at the pop of a light-bulb."
Husbands, don't love your wives any more. If they flirt with men
younger or older than yourselves, let your blood not stir. If you can
go away, go away. But if you must stay and see her, then say to her,
"I would rather you didn't flirt in my presence, Eleanora." Then, when
she goes red and loosens torrents of indignation, don't answer any
more. And when she floods into tears, say quietly in your own self,
"My soul is my own"; and go away, be alone as much as possible. And
when she works herself up, and says she must have love or she will
die, then say: "Not my love, however." And to all her threats, her
tears, her entreaties, her reproaches, her cajolements, her
winsomenesses, answer nothing, but say to yourself: "Shall I be
implicated in this display of the love-will? Shall I be blasted by
this false lightning?" And though you tremble in every fiber, and feel
sick, vomit-sick with the scene, still contain yourself, and say, "My
soul is my own. It shall not be violated." And learn, learn, learn the
one and only lesson worth learning at last. Learn to walk in the
sweetness of the possession of your own soul. And whether your wife
weeps as she takes off her amber beads at night, or whether your
neighbor in the train sits in your coat bottoms, or whether your
superior in the office makes supercilious remarks, or your inferior is
familiar and impudent; or whether you read in the newspaper that Lloyd
George is performing another iniquity, or the Germans plotting another
plot, say to yourself: "My soul is my own. My soul is with myself, and
beyond implication." And wait, quietly, in possession of your own
soul, till you meet another man who has made the choice, and kept it.
Then you will know him by the look on his face: half a dangerous look,
a look of Cain, and half a look of gathered beauty. Then you two will
make the nucleus of a new society--Ooray! Bis! Bis!!
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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