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
Whereas, there is nothing for a man to do but to behold God, and to
become God. It is no good living on memory. When the flower opens, see
him, don’t remember him. When the sun shines, be him, and then cease
again.
So we seek war, death, to kill this memory within us. We hate this
imprisoning memory so much, we will kill the whole world rather than
remain in prison to it. But why do we not create a new revelation of
God, instead of seeking merely the destruction of the old revelations?
We do this, because we are cowards. We say “The great revelation cannot
be destroyed, but I, who am a failure, I can be destroyed”. So we
destroy the individual stones rather than decide to pull down the whole
edifice. The edifice must stand, but the individual bricks must
sacrifice themselves. So carefully we remove single lives from the
edifice, and we destroy these single lives, carefully supporting the
edifice in the weakened place.
And the soldier says: “I die for my God and my Country”. When, as a
matter of fact, in his death his God and his country are so much
destroyed.
But we must always lie, always convert our action to a lie. We know that
we are living in a state of falsity, that all our social and religious
form is dead, a crystallised lie. Yet we say: “We will die for our
social and religious form”.
In truth, we proceed to die because the whole frame of our life is a
falsity, and we know that, if we die sufficiently, the whole frame and
form and edifice will collapse upon itself. But it were much better to
pull it down and have a great clear space, than to have it collapse on
top of us. For we shall be like Samson, buried among the ruins.
And moreover, if we are like Samson, trying to pull the temple down, we
must remember that the next generation will be none the less slaves,
sightless, in Gaza, at the mill. And they will be by no means eager to
commit suicide by bringing more temple beams down with a bang on their
heads. They will say: “It is a very nice temple, quite weather-tight.
What’s wrong with it?” They will be near enough to extinction to be very
canny and cautious about imperilling themselves.
No, if we are to break through, it must be in the strength of life
bubbling inside us. The chicken does not break the shell out of
animosity against the shell. It bursts out in its blind desire to move
under a greater heavens.
And so must we. We must burst out, and move under a greater heavens. As
the chicken bursts out, and has a whole new universe to get into
relationship with.
Our universe is not much more than a mannerism with us now. If we break
through, we shall find, that man is not man, as he seems to be, nor
woman woman. The present seeming is a ridiculous travesty. And even the
sun is not the sun as it appears to be. It is something tingling with
magnificence.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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