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Edward Carpenter E DW AR D CARPENTE R H I S I D E A S A N D I D EA L S BY M A M ON C R S I M E . H U W I T H A P ORT RA I T 1 N P H OT OG R AVURE OF E D R A R P E N E R 1 1 2 W A D C T , 9 B ’ N N E L L Y L E N A. C O LON D ON " E GAN AUL T E N C H T R U BN E R C o . LT D . P , R , , N E Y W O R " D C O . U O : E . P TT N 1 9 1 6 C ON T E N T S C H A P T E R I B G P C L . IO RA HI A L L P I I . G ENERA PHI OSO HI C POSITI ON W WE M Y III . HAT DO EAN B V H U M N Y AN D C M I . A IT RI E M ARRIAG E AN D THE SE"ES VI I M D T YP . NTER E IATE ES VI P A I . C AR ENTER S POET V M L D M III . ORA S AN ANNERS I ". LOVE AND DEATH C OM P ARISON W ITH N IETZ SC HE L M P "I . G ENERA I RESSIONS B Y "I I . SEVENTIETH IRTHDA BI BLIOG RAP HY 5 1 6 8 7 3 E DW ARD C ARP E N T E R CHAPTER I B I O G RA P H I C AL HE external incidents of Edward Car ’ enter s so we p life are not , far as know , especially dramatic or exciting . He was born 1 8 at Brighton in 44 , of a family of standing in the social world— his parents on both sides being the descendants of naval officers of some distinction . He graduated at Cambridge Uni 1 868 versity in , and a year later took orders in the Church of England . He also held a — Fellowship of his college Trinity Hall . After a time he began to change his views on religious and social questions , with the result that in 1 874 he r esigned both his Curacy and Fellowship . For the next seven years he was engaged in University Extension Lecture B 2 EDWARD CARPENTER as work , taking his subj ects Natural Philosophy 1 8 and Music . In 77 he visited the United States of America , where he made intimate acquaintance with Walt Whitman . He tells us in an intensely absorbing per sonal note which concludes the complete edition of Towards Democracy , how he came to abandon the University Extension Lecture ship , and to adopt that simple but wholly artis tic life which he has now followed for five -and 1 88 1 thirty years . At last , early in , no doubt as the culmination and result of struggles and “ experiences that had been going on , I became conscious that a mass of material was forming h wit in me , imperatively demanding expression — though what exactly its expression would be I could not then have told . I became for the time overwhelmingly conscious of the disclosure within of a region transcending in some sense the ordinary bounds of personality , in the light of which region my own idiosyncrasies of char - h o or acter defects , accomplis ments , limitati ns , what not — appeared of no importance whatever — an o o o acc om absolute Freed m fr m m rtality , BIOGRAPHICAL 3 anie d p by an indescribable calm and j oy . I saw h h almost immediately , or rat er felt , t at this r egion of Self existing in me existed equally (though not always equally consciously) in others . In regard to it the mere diversities of temperament which ordinarily distinguish and divide people dropped away and became in f was di ferent , and a field opened in which all the were truly equal . Thus I found common ground which I wanted , and the two words Freedom and Equality came for the time being to control all my thought and expression . The necessity for space and time to work this out grew so strong that in April of this year I threw up my lecturing employment . ’ M ore over another , necessity had come upon me which demanded the latter step — the necessity " — namely for an open air life and manual work . I could not finally argue with this any more than in . with the other , I had to give and obey - The open air life meant manual work , and association with manual workers . Carpenter himself looks upon his manual labours and occupations as the most important part of his 4 EDWARD CARPENTER 1 88 life . In 3 he secured a small holdin g of ho some seven acres , built a use upon it , and cultivated the land as a market garden . For the next seven years much of his time was spent in close t ouch with the manual workers of f She field and the surrounding country . He interested himself sympathetically in all their aims and pursuits , and shared in their labours . During this period he did much propaganda work for the Socialist Movement , lecturing in many of the northern towns , and even speak “ ing repeatedly at the street corners . He took part in all the duties , of farm and garden r life , accustoming himself to the ca e of horses and cattle , carting of stone and manure and of the the coal , the use hoe , the spade , scythe , and the pick and shove". n m ll — - Though bor a ong the we to do , he has learnt to love and trust the common people , and for more than a generation he has thought of them and for them , and done all that lay in his power to gain justice for them . By speech a and pen , without h ste and without rest , he has done giant service in creating a Society BIOGRAPHICAL 5 that in its corporate capacity Shall act through government for the highest ethical ends of human experience and anticipation . It would be doing Carpenter a great injustice to all ow the public to think of him as a recluse . He is delightfully human . He keeps absolutely in touch with the progressive movements of humanity in every department , and no one looks more sympathetically upon the Signifi f cant unrest o the times . He sees what the see hustling man of action often fails to , that the world needs to be understood and inter prete d to itself . This he has zealously striven to do , and the comprehensiveness and fairness of his judgment make him not onl y a broad minded , but exceedingly reliable guide in the realm of ideas , principles , and spiritual essences . ’ No Cll SC l ple of Carpenter s who fully appre ciates his aims and method of thought can be - either Shallow or narrow minded . Carpenter makes ready allowance for the honest differ ence s of opinion which arise among con scientious students of weighty subj ects because of the different points from which they are 6 EDWARD CARPENTER r . the viewed He feels , howeve , that with progress of the years the several schools in each division of investigation must necessarily ul approach one another more closely , until ti - mately ideas become unified . Truth seekers arfdtruth-bringers must at last see eye to eye on those matters which are of supreme consequence to belief and practice . Carpenter gives one the impression of being a man of great force of character , a man of far vision and extraordinary audacity of thought . The man is as notable in many ways as his . books Few thinkers, have impressed them selves so deeply upon them writings as he has done . Carpenter has a very attractive and interest His ing personal ity . seventy years rest lightly upon him , and he seems to possess the spirit of eternal youth . His mind is very alert , and his so his memory keen , that in company there is w1nn1n never any lack of helpful , informing , g, is and inspiring talk . His manner perfectly his genial and gracious , and a look from calm kindly face is a benediction . BIOGRAPHICAL 7 It would be an impertinence to speak of his many endowments or of his vast acquirements in the departments of literary and philosophical study . Enough to mark and emphasise the fact x how these talents have been put out to u sury , preserved against temptation of many to kinds , devoted wholly and consistently the ‘ a to C use of Democracy , which Carpenter is the Cause that is making for the all-round e - of W ll Being Man Universal . CHAPTER 1 1 GENERAL P H I LOSOP HI c POS ITION E W can dispute that the equilibrium (If - st Society to day is very unstable . Unre , e and revolt even , prevail in almost every civilis d country . And Revolutionaries are concerned now , not so much with details , maj or or minor , is as with fundamentals . The protest not merely or chiefly against specific forms of oppression and injustice "it is rather , to all intents and purposes , a protest against our present Social system itself as intrinsically undemocratic , and as necessarily promotive of poverty and dependence on the one hand , and excessive wealth and inevitable injustice on ‘ the other . 1 On the purely economic Side there is a wide agr eement that the present distribution of wealth is unfavourable to the highest general 8 GENERAL PHILOSOPHIC POSITION 9 “ well being of the country, that it is equally dangerous to the moral excellence of those who have I n excess as it is to those who are living down on the line of poverty .
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