War Letters of a Public-School BoyJones, Henry Paul Mainwaring
History
War Letters of a Public-School Boy
Jones, Henry Paul Mainwaring
World War, 1914-1918 -- Personal narratives, British
He demurred to the proposition that while the function of Ethics is to
instruct, that of Art is to delight. "I hold," he writes, "that Art's
duty is to instruct as much as, if not more than, that of Ethics. Art
to be great must elevate and edify." Hudson wrote: "The common view
that the primitive ages of the world were ages of colossal
individualism is grotesquely unhistorical; they were, on the contrary,
ages in which group-life and group-consciousness were in the
ascendant." "Quite true," notes Paul. "See Maine's 'Ancient Law,'
where he points out that ancient history has nothing to do with the
individual but only with groups." Another annotated book is
Maeterlinck's "Wisdom and Destiny." To Maeterlinck's remark, "It is
often of better avail from the start to seek that which is highest,"
he adds: "Always, not often." He heartily subscribed to Maeterlinck's
doctrine that our attitude to life ought to be one of "gladsome,
enlightened acceptance, not a hostile, gloomy submission."
His philosophy of life was expressed in that beautiful passage in
Carlyle's essay on "Characteristics":
Here on earth we are as soldiers fighting in a foreign land; that
understand not the plan of the campaign and have no need to
understand it; seeing well what is at our hand to be done, let us
do it like soldiers, with submission, with courage, with a heroic
joy. "Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with all thy
might." Behind us, behind each one of us, lie 6,000 years of
human effort, human conquest. Before us is the boundless Time,
with its as yet uncreated and unconquered continents and
Eldorados, which we, even we, have to conquer, to create; and
from the bosom of Eternity there shine for us celestial guiding
stars.
My inheritance, how wide and fair!
Time is my fair seed-field, of Time I'm heir.
The ethical side of Paul's character is reflected in the appended
quotations from some of his essays:
Sacrifice is always the lot of the divine man.
What is "to do good"? It is to think of other people.
Joy only comes to Faust when at last he is labouring for others.
As Wolsey puts it in _Henry VIII_: "Love thyself last," and "bear
peace in thy right hand."
The Epicurean idea is vile and detestable. If everyone thinks
only of his own indulgence, how can the wherewithal for that
indulgence be forthcoming? What is the use of man having all his
glorious gifts of character and intellect if he does not use
them? Why is man made so different from the animals if he is to
be the mere slave of his passions?
Stoicism finally degenerates into mere pessimism.
The great defect of Puritanism was its hostility to Art; for Art
glorifies and ennobles Life.
"What is the final cause of the Universe?" This is the old
problem of the philosophers. Goethe's lines leap to the mind:
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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