This lonely leg on which I rest has all the simplicity
of some Doric column. The students of architecture
tell us that the only legitimate use of a column is
to support weight. This column of mine fulfils
its legitimate function. It supports weight.
Being of an animal and organic consistency, it may
even improve by the process, and during these few
days that I am thus unequally balanced, the helplessness
or dislocation of the one leg may find compensation
in the astonishing strength and classic beauty of
the other leg. Mrs. Mountstuart Jenkinson in
Mr. George Meredith’s novel might pass by at
any moment, and seeing me in the stork-like attitude
would exclaim, with equal admiration and a more literal
exactitude, “He has a leg.” Notice
how this famous literary phrase supports my contention
touching this isolation of any admirable thing.
Mrs. Mountstuart Jenkinson, wishing to make a clear
and perfect picture of human grace, said that Sir
Willoughby Patterne had a leg. She delicately
glossed over and concealed the clumsy and offensive
fact that he had really two legs. Two legs were
superfluous and irrelevant, a reflection, and a confusion.
Two legs would have confused Mrs. Mountstuart Jenkinson
like two Monuments in London. That having had
one good leg he should have another— this
would be to use vain repetitions as the Gentiles do.
She would have been as much bewildered by him as if
he had been a centipede.
All pessimism has a secret optimism for its object.
All surrender of life, all denial of pleasure, all
darkness, all austerity, all desolation has for its
real aim this separation of something so that it may
be poignantly and perfectly enjoyed. I feel
grateful for the slight sprain which has introduced
this mysterious and fascinating division between one
of my feet and the other. The way to love anything
is to realise that it might be lost. In one of
my feet I can feel how strong and splendid a foot is;
in the other I can realise how very much otherwise
it might have been. The moral of the thing is
wholly exhilarating. This world and all our powers
in it are far more awful and beautiful than even we
know until some accident reminds us. If you wish
to perceive that limitless felicity, limit yourself
if only for a moment. If you wish to realise
how fearfully and wonderfully God’s image is
made, stand on one leg. If you want to realise
the splendid vision of all visible things—
wink the other eye.
VIII
The End of the World
For some time I had been wandering in quiet streets
in the curious town of Besancon, which stands like
a sort of peninsula in a horse-shoe of river.
You may learn from the guide books that it was the
birthplace of Victor Hugo, and that it is a military
station with many forts, near the French frontier.
But you will not learn from guide books that the very
tiles on the roofs seem to be of some quainter and
