CIVILIZATION

heart, and has created (among other things) selfish landlordism, économie poverty, factories, the " tailor's den/' unhappy labour, white slavery, the crowded tenement, food-adulteration — more than half the diseases and miseries which the best men in the world are now spending brains, time, money, and manifold energy to cope with and eradicate if possible. The mention of such typical modem social phenomena suggests the very antithesis to a " natural life."

If thèse, then, be the causes of our séparation from Nature, what are the remédies? It may be said at once and franidy that Carpenter's main business is not with remédies, in the sensé that the modem student of social problems understands them. To organise the détails of a reform movement is not his màier. He is a revealer, rather than a reformer. He is a prophet rather than an organiser. He has a vision, not a formulated scheme. He is a jnoneer ; the builders of the railway which shall bring the world up to the point which he reached come after. He " opens a door" and shows us what ahall be, displays the wider horizon ; the construction of the common way thereto may be left to others.

In a vague, hinting way he asks for a revival of Paganism within the Christian ethic ; for the simplification of life; for a more " natural " éducation of children ; for a fréer, broader, purer, more reverential treatment of the central sôdal f act— Love ; he would probably support a scheme for

90 REMEDIES

Land Nationalization ; he has compiled a volume of Labour Chants most of which are revolutionary , and not a few anarchical, in spirit ; but he is no pedlar of remédies ; he is a dreamer, and he tells his dream.

O for a breath of the sea and tha great mountains !

A bironzed hardy live man walking his way through itaU;

Thousands of men oompanioning the waves and the storms, splendid in health, naked-breasted, catching the lion with their hands ;

A thousand women swift-footed and free — owners of themselves, forgetful of themselves, in ail their actions — full of joy and laughter and action ;

Garbed not so difierently from the men, joining with them in their games and sports, sharing also their labours ;

Free to hold their own, to grant or withhold their love, the same as the men ;

Strong, well-equipped in muscle and skill, clear of finesse and affectation —

(The men, too, dear pf much brutality and oonceit) —

Comrades together, equal in intelligence and adventure,

Trusting wiihout concealment, loving without shame, but with discrimination and continence towards a perfect passion.

O for a breath of the sea !

The necessity and directness. of the great elethents themselves I

Swimming the rivers, braving the sun, the coM, taming the animais and the earth, conqueriîig the sur with wings, and each other with love, —

The true, the human, sodety.^ * >

The dream is aii alluring one. Signs are i

THE DKBAM 91

wanting that it is beginning to captivate the hearts of an increasing number of men and women ; the movement in fhis direction has aiready almost passed through the apparently necessary stage of being victimized by ail kinds of cranks and faddists; closer to Nature — ^partly in spite of garden dties and suburbs — ^is a r^ and vital modem tendency. This is enough for faith and hope. Capture the will, and a way will be found. Create the désire, and it will in its tum create the structure; quicken, stimulate, reinforce the spirit, and organization will follow as surely and as faithfully as the tides follow the moon. When the love of a truer Idéal arises and grows strong, it brings with it in increasing measure a discontent with Ihe présent condition of things, and the adéquate remédies, the necessary outlets, are sure to be found. Meanwhile, let us acknowledge and acclaim the man who witnesses to the Idéal, and helps us to love it.

One day» in a manufacturing town, with sulphurous atmosphère and smoke-blackened houses, Carpenter looked into the wistful child-face of a ragged boy who passed him in the crowd. In a flash

I saw it aU clearly, the lie I saw and tfae trnth, the false dream and the awakening.

For the smoke-blackened walls and the tall chimneys, and the dieary habitations of the poor, and the drearier habitations of the rich, crumbled and ooûveyed themselves away as if by magie ;