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
Myself I want Power. But I don’t want to boss anybody.
I want Honour. But I don’t see any existing nation or government that
could give it me.
I want Glory. But heaven save me from mankind.
I want Might. But perhaps I’ve got it.
The first thing, of course, is to open one’s heart to the source of
Power, and Might, and Glory, and Honour. It just depends, which gates of
one’s heart one opens. You can open the humble gate, or the proud gate.
Or you can open both, and see what comes.
Best open both, and take the responsibility. But set a guard at each
gate, to keep out the liars, the snivellers, the mongrel and the greedy.
However smart we be, however rich and clever or loving or charitable or
spiritual or impeccable, it doesn’t help us at all. The real power comes
in to us from beyond. Life enters us from behind, where we are
sightless, and from below, where we do not understand.
And unless we yield to the beyond, and take our power and might and
honour and glory from the unseen, from the unknown, we shall continue
empty. We may have length of days. But an empty tin can lasts longer
than Alexander lived.
So, anomalous as it may sound, if we want power, we must put aside our
own will, and our own conceit, and _accept_ power, from the beyond.
And having admitted the power from the beyond into us, we must abide by
it, and not traduce it. Courage, discipline, inward isolation, these are
the conditions upon which power will abide in us.
And between brave people there will be the communion of power, prior to
the communion of love. The communion of power does not exclude the
communion of love. It includes it. The communion of love is only a part
of the greater communion of power.
Power is the supreme quality of God and man: the power to cause, the
power to create, the power to make, the power to do, the power to
destroy. And then, between those things which are created or made, love
is the supreme binding relationship. And between those who, with a
single impulse, set out passionately to destroy what must be destroyed,
joy flies like electric sparks, within the communion of power.
Love is simply and purely a relationship, and in a pure relationship
there can be nothing but equality; or at least equipoise.
But Power is more than a relationship. It is like electricity, it has
different degrees. Men are powerful or powerless, more or less: we know
not how or why. But it is so. And the communion of power will always be
a communion in inequality.
In the end, as in the beginning, it is always Power that rules the
world! There _must be_ rule. And only Power can rule. Love cannot,
should not, does not seek to. The statement that love rules the camp,
the court, the grove, is a lie; and the fact that such love has to rhyme
with “grove”, proves it. Power rules and will always rule. Because it
was Power that created us all. The act of love itself is an act of
power, original as original sin. The power is given us.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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