"spirals of spiritual evolution." Now a cycle is just as much a physical
metaphor as a flower of Eden; a spiral is just as much a physical
metaphor as a precious stone. But, after all, a garden is a beautiful
thing; whereas this is by no means necessarily true of a cycle, as can
be seen in the case of a bicycle. A jewel, after all, is a beautiful
thing; but this is not necessarily so of a spiral, as can be seen in the
case of a corkscrew. Nothing is gained by dropping the old material
metaphors, which did hint at heavenly beauty, and adopting other
material metaphors which do not even give a hint of earthly beauty. This
modern or spiral method of describing indescribable happiness may, I
think, be dismissed. Then there has been another method which has been
adopted by many men of a very real poetical genius. It was the method of
the old pastoral poets like Theocritus. It was in another way that
adopted by the elegance and piety of Spenser. It was certainly expressed
in the pictures of Watteau; and it had a very sympathetic and even manly
expression in modern England in the decorative poetry of William Morris.
These men of genius, from Theocritus to Morris, occupied themselves in
endeavouring to describe happiness as a state of certain human beings,
the atmosphere of a commonwealth, the enduring climate of certain cities
or islands. They poured forth treasures of the truest kind of
imagination upon describing the happy lives and landscapes of Utopia or
Atlantis or the Earthly Paradise. They traced with the most tender
accuracy the tracery of its fruit-trees or the glimmering garments of
its women; they used every ingenuity of colour or intricate shape to
suggest its infinite delight. And what they succeeded in suggesting was
always its infinite melancholy. William Morris described the Earthly
Paradise in such a way that the only strong emotional note left on the
mind was the feeling of how homeless his travellers felt in that alien
Elysium; and the reader sympathised with them, feeling that he would
prefer not only Elizabethan England but even twentieth-century
Camberwell to such a land of shining shadows. Thus literature has almost
always failed in endeavouring to describe happiness as a state. Human
tradition, human custom and folk-lore (though far more true and reliable
than literature as a rule) have not often succeeded in giving quite the
correct symbols for a real atmosphere of _camaraderie_ and joy. But
here and th