Chapter 1

POTTERISM

A TRAGI-FARCICAL TRACT

BY ROSE MACAULAY

Author of 'What Not,' etc.

1920

TO THE UNSENTIMENTAL PRECISIANS IN THOUGHT, WHO HAVE, ON THIS CONFUSED, INACCURATE, AND EMOTIONAL PLANET, NO FIT HABITATION

'They contract a Habit of talking loosely and confusedly.'--J. CLARKE.

'My dear friend, clear your mind of cant.... Don't _think_ foolishly.' SAMUEL JOHNSON.

'On the whole we are Not intelligent-- No, no, no, not intelligent.'--W.S. GILBERT.

'Truth may perhaps come to the price of a Pearle, that sheweth best by day; But it will not rise to the price of a Diamond or Carbuncle, that sheweth best in varied lights. A mixture of a Lie doth ever adde Pleasure. Doth any man doubt, that if there were taken out of men's mindes Vaine Opinions, Blattering Hopes, False Valuations, Imaginations as one would, and the like, but it would leave the Mindes of a Number of Men poore shrunken Things, full of Melancholy and Indisposition and unpleasing to themselves?'--FRANCIS BACON.

'What is it that smears the windows of the senses? Thought, convention, self-interest.... We see the narrow world our windows show us not in itself, but in relation to our own needs, moods, and preferences ... for the universe of the natural man is strictly egocentric.... Unless we happen to be artists--and then but rarely--we never know the "thing seen" in its purity; never from birth to death, look at it with disinterested eyes.... It is disinterestedness, the saint's and poet's love of things for their own sakes ... which is the condition of all real knowledge.... When ... the verb "to have" is ejected from the centre of your consciousness ... your attitude to life will cease to be commercial and become artistic. Then the guardian at the gate, scrutinising and sorting the incoming impressions, will no longer ask, "What use is this to _me?_"... You see things at last as the artist does, for their sake, not for your own.'--EVELYN UNDERHILL.

PART III.--TOLD BY LELIA YORKE

I. THE TERRIBLE TRAGEDY ON THE STAIRS II. AN AWFUL SUSPICION

PART IV.--TOLD BY KATHERINE VARICK

A BRANCH OF STUDY

PART V.--TOLD BY JUKE

GIVING ADVICE

PART VI.--TOLD BY R.M.

I. THE END OF A POTTER MELODRAMA II. ENGAGED TO BE MARRIED III. THE PRECISIAN AT WAR WITH THE WORLD IV. RUNNING AWAY V. A PLACARD FOR THE PRESS

PART I:

TOLD BY R.M.