Reflections on the death of a porcupine and other essaysLawrence, D. H. (David Herbert)
Philosophy
Reflections on the death of a porcupine and other essays
Lawrence, D. H. (David Herbert)
English essays -- 20th century
It may be there is a great inequality, disproportion, within me, that I
am nearly all darkness, like the night, with a few glimmers of cold
light, moonlight, like the tiger with white eyes of reflected light
brindled in the flame of darkness. Then I shall return again and again
to the womb of darkness, avid, never satisfied, my spirit will fall
unfertile into the womb, will never be conceived there, never brought
forth. I shall know the one consummation, the one direction only, into
the darkness. It will be with me for ever the almost, almost, almost, of
satisfaction, of fulfilment. I shall know the one eternity, the one
infinite, the one immortality, I shall have partial being; but never the
whole, never the full. There is an infinite which does not know me. I am
always relative, always partial, always, in the last issue,
unconsummate.
The barren womb can never be satisfied, if the quick of darkness be
sterile within it. But neither can the unfertile loins be satisfied, if
the seed of light, of the spirit, be dead within them. They will return
again and again and again to the womb of darkness, asking, asking, and
never satisfied.
Then the unconsummated soul, unsatisfied, uncreated in part, will seek
to make itself whole by bringing the whole world under its own order,
will seek to make itself absolute and timeless by devouring its
opposite. Adhering to the one eternity of darkness, it will seek to
devour the eternity of light. Realising the one infinite of the Source,
it will endeavour to absorb into its oneness the opposite infinite of
the Goal. This is the infinite with its tail in its mouth.
Consummated in one infinite, and one alone, this soul will assert the
oneness of all things, that all things are one in the One Infinite of
the Darkness, of the Source. One is one and all alone and ever more
shall be so. This is the cry of the Soul consummated in one eternity
only.
There is one eternity, one infinite, one God. “Thou shalt have no other
god before me.”
But why this Commandment, unless there were in truth another god, at
least the equal of Jehovah?
Consummated in the darkness only, having not enough strength in the
light, the partial soul cries out in a convulsion of insistence that
the darkness alone is infinite and eternal, that all light is from the
small, contained sources, the lamps lighted at will by the desire of the
Creator, the sun, the moon and stars. These are the lamps and candles of
the Almighty, which He blows out at will. These are little portions of
special darkness, darkness transfigured, these lights.
There is one God, one Creator, one Almighty; there is one infinite and
one eternity, it is the infinite and the eternity of the Source. There
is One Way: it is the Way of the Law. There is one Life, the Life of
Creation, there is one Goal, the Beginning, there is one immortality,
the immortality of the great I Am. All is God, the One God. Those who
deny this are to be stamped out, tortured, tortured for ever.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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