第115章

We've got this great industrial population,and they've got to be fed,so the damn show has to be kept going somehow.The women talk a lot more than the men,nowadays,and they are a sight more cock-sure.The men are limp,they feel a doom somewhere,and they go about as if there was nothing to be done.Anyhow,nobody knows what should be done in spite of all the talk,the young ones get mad because they've no money to spend.Their whole life depends on spending money,and now they've got none to spend.That's our civilization and our education:bring up the masses to depend entirely on spending money,and then the money gives out.The pits are working two days,two and a half days a week,and there's no sign of betterment even for the winter.It means a man bringing up a family on twenty-five and thirty shillings.The women are the maddest of all.But then they're the maddest for spending,nowadays.

If you could only tell them that living and spending isn't the same thing!But it's no good.If only they were educated to live instead of earn and spend,they could manage very happily on twenty-five shillings.

If the men wore scarlet trousers as I said,they wouldn't think so much of money:if they could dance and hop and skip,and sing and swagger and be handsome,they could do with very little cash.And amuse the women themselves,and be amused by the women.They ought to learn to be naked and handsome,and to sing in a mass and dance the old group dances,and carve the stools they sit on,and embroider their own emblems.Then they wouldn't need money.

And that's the only way to solve the industrial problem:train the people to be able to live and live in handsomeness,without needing to spend.

But you can't do it.They're all one-track minds nowadays.Whereas the mass of people oughtn't even to try to think,because they can't.They should be alive and frisky,and acknowledge the great god Pan.He's the only god for the masses,forever.The few can go in for higher cults if they like.But let the mass be forever pagan.

But the colliers aren't pagan,far from it.They're a sad lot,a deadened lot of men:dead to their women,dead to life.The young ones scoot about on motor-bikes with girls,and jazz when they get a chance,But they're very dead.And it needs money.Money poisons you when you've got it,and starves you when you haven't.

I'm sure you're sick of all this.But I don't want to harp on myself,and I've nothing happening to me.I don't like to think too much about you,in my head,that only makes a mess of us both.But,of course,what I live for now is for you and me to live together.I'm frightened,really.

I feel the devil in the air,and he'll try to get us.Or not the devil,Mammon:which I think,after all,is only the mass-will of people,wanting money and hating life.Anyhow,I feel great grasping white hands in the air,wanting to get hold of the throat of anybody who tries to live,to live beyond money,and squeeze the life out.There's a bad time coming.

There's a bad time coming,boys,there's a bad time coming!If things go on as they are,there's nothing lies in the future but death and destruction,for these industrial masses.I feel my inside turn to water sometimes,and there you are,going to have a child by me.But never mind.All the bad times that ever have been,haven't been able to blow the crocus out:not even the love of women.So they won't be able to blow out my wanting you,nor the little glow there is between you and me.We'll be together next year.And though I'm frightened,I believe in your being with me.