Welsh Journals

completely. In this connection I cannot refrain from quoting from Mr. Chesterton's play, now running at the Little Theatre, for it contains one character, the Duke, who deserves to become the locus classicus for this view of broad-mindedness. When visited by the Rector with the request for a subscription towards a model public-house, and by the Doctor for a subscription towards the league for opposing it, he solves the difficulty by presenting each with a cheque for £ 50. Well," he says, I believe in looking at both sides of a question, you know. Aspects, as old Buffle called them. Aspects. (With an all-embracing gesture of the arm.) You represent the tendency to drink in moderation and you do good in your way. The Doctor represents the tendency not to drink at all and he does good in his way. We can't be Ancient Britons, you know." And the Duke is not uncommon the only difference between him and most of us is that we usually solve the difficulty by giving nothing. As a matter of fact, this attitude is nothing more than laziness plus a small mixture of cowardice, for it requires a certain amount of courage to be definite, but laziness is the chief constituent. As a proof of this, you will notice that nearly everyone is prepared to adopt this attitude on every subject except the one in which he happens to be interested. The social reformer speaks his mind distinctly when it is on a question that relates to the condition of the slums, or sweating, or the enormous variations of wealth, or the evils of drunkenness and prostitution. or victimisation or speeding-up-he knows that the only possible method is clear thinking and speaking and, if necessary, honest hard hitting. The artist, though he may consider the social reformers and politicians to be mere wind-bags and all as alike as two peas, will not only seize the first oppor- tunity to epater les bourgeois, he will for ever be fighting with his brother artists for the ideas that he has himself evolved. It is even worth noting how much of the great art of the world has been produced by men with what we might call narrow minds; over and over again has great art been produced from entirely contrary aesthetic standpoints, but it has been produced by men who believed their own dogmas utterly, and not by those who say that there is much to be said on both sides. What two artists could be imagined with more exactly antithetical points of view than Tolstoy and Beaudelaire, and yet he would be a bold man who would say that the art of either suffered from not being broad enough to include the other's point of view. Lastly, let us take your ordinarily broad-minded religious man," the sort of man who likes to say that all religions at heart are really one (whatever that may mean, unless it is a reference to the obvious fact that there is what one may call the will to bow down in almost everyone, in which case it does not get us much further)-take that man and question him on the subject of morals, in which, of course, he is really interested, and you will find that he has the lines drawn in as good a black and white as the most dogmatic old puritan who ever lived. And yet there is a broad-mindedness which is really of supreme value, though very difficult to define. It is the opposite of the party-spirit, the spirit which says my country or my Church or my clique right or wrong, and says it with venom. Your broad-minded man is he who, while taking a side with all his heart and soul, can yet imagine himself on the other side, and can therefore sympathise with his opponents he will loathe the sin and love the sinner; he will fight to eradicate error with all his might, but he will not cut the man who errs he will defend his Church or his country or his own ideas and defend them joyfully, and will go out to lunch every day with his most determined opponent; he is the man who loves a fight in the good cause and loves his enemy too. And again, he is not afraid of owning himself wrong your broad-minded man can change sides when convinced without feeling shame. He has, I repeat, no party-spirit; because he disagrees with a man on one point he will not be driven to disagree on all because his party or his country stand in the main for what he agrees with, he will not there- fore champion them when he thinks them wrong he is fair. And then again, and perhaps this is the most important point of all, he takes a wide outlook; he sees his own speciality in relation to the whole; he has a sense of proportion, of relative values. He does not give up the least of his convictions on the least of his special points, but he can see that perhaps that point is of less importance than another; he may be a vegetarian, and yet he will take meat under some circumstances, as, for instance, if he knew that it would give his hostess trouble to have suddenly to prepare a vegetarian meal. He is not a crank. He can balance one good against another, and let one evil stand while preparing to make war upon a greater. His broadness consists in seeing the whole and not confining his vision to one point, however important that one point may be; his tastes and his intellect, his sympathies and even his antipathies are catholic. He is big with a big heart and a big mind he is a lover of men he knows that we were told to love our enemies, not necessarily to agree with them.