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 C O N T E N TS

List of Tables and Figures xi

Acknowledgments xiii

CHAPTER 1 Introduction 1
Evolution of International Relations Theories 3
The Study of International Relations 8
Levels of Analysis 14
Case Study: Proliferation and Arms Races 17
Case Study: Trade and Protectionism 24
Organization of the Book 31
Key Terms 32
Suggested Reading 33
Notes 33

CHAPTER 2 Realism 35
Roots and Evolution of Realism 36
Central Assumptions 37
Classical Realism 40
Pioneers in the Field 41
Spotlight on Policymakers: George Kennan 45
Neorealism (Structural Realism) 47
Pioneers in the Field 48
Polarity and Balance versus Imbalance of Power 50
Neoclassical Realism 56
Pioneers in the Field 57
Mercantilism 60

vii
viii Contents

Case Study: Proliferation and Arms Races 64

Case Study: Trade and Protectionism 68
Criticisms of Realism 74
Conclusion 78
Key Terms 78
Suggested Reading 79
Notes 79

CHAPTER 3 Liberalism 81
Roots and Evolution of Liberalism 83
Central Assumptions 84
Liberal Internationalism 87
Pioneers in the Field 90
Neoliberal Institutionalism 94
Pioneers in the Field 96
Barriers to Cooperation and How States Overcome
Them 100
Laissez-Faire and Economic Liberalism 104
Pioneers in the Field 104
Spotlight on Policymakers: John Maynard
Keynes 108
Globalization and Liberal Economic Policies
in Crisis? 114
Case Study: Proliferation and Arms Races 116
Case Study: Trade and Protectionism 121
Criticisms of Liberalism 126
Conclusion 128
Key Terms 129
Suggested Reading 130
Notes 130

CHAPTER 4 Economic Structuralism 133

Roots and Evolution of Economic Structuralism 135
Central Assumptions 135
Classical Marxism 139
Pioneers in the Field 139
Economic Structuralism and Dependency Theory 151
Pioneers in the Field 153
Spotlight on Policymakers: Raúl Prebisch 154
Marxist Variant of Dependency Theory 157
Non-Marxist Variant of Dependency Theory 159
 Contents ix

World Systems Theory 161

Pioneers in the Field 161
Case Study: Proliferation and Arms Races 163
Case Study: Trade and Protectionism 170
Criticisms of Economic Structuralism 176
Conclusion 178
Key Terms 179
Suggested Reading 179
Notes 180

CHAPTER 5 Constructivism 182

Constructivism and the Third Debate 184
Roots and Evolution of Constructivism 186
Central Assumptions 187
Spotlight on Policymakers: Raphael Lemkin 192
Emergence of Constructivism 197
Modernist Constructivists: Pioneers in the Field 200
Naturalistic Constructivists: Pioneers in the Field 205
Postmodernist Constructivists: Pioneers in the
Field 207
Case Study: Proliferation and Arms Races 210
Case Study: Trade and Protectionism 217
Criticisms of Constructivism 223
Conclusion 224
Key Terms 225
Suggested Reading 225
Notes 226

CHAPTER 6 Feminism 227

Feminism: A Movement 230
Spotlight on Policymakers: Margot Wallström 234
Roots and Evolution of Feminist International Relations
Theory 237
Central Assumptions 240
Family of Theories 242
Feminist Empiricism 243
Feminist Standpoint 245
Feminist Postmodernism 249
Pioneers in the Field 251
Case Study: Proliferation and Arms Races 258
Case Study: Trade and Protectionism 264
x Contents

Criticisms of Feminism 269

Conclusion 271
Key Terms 271
Suggested Reading 272
Notes 272

CHAPTER 7 A Holistic Approach to Studying International

Relations 276
Ontology and Epistemology Revisited 277
Toward a Holistic Approach to Studying International
Relations 278
English School 281
Critical Theory 284
Postcolonialism 288
Green Theory 293
Case Studies: A Holistic Approach to Proliferation and
Trade Liberalization 299
Proliferation and Arms Races 303
Trade and Protectionism 306
Where Do We Go from Here? 309
Key Terms 311
Suggested Reading 311
Notes 311
Glossary 314
Works Cited 323
Index 347
 L I S T O F TA B L E S/ F IGU R E S

Tables
Chapter 2
Table 2.1 Realism: Proliferation and Arms Races 67
Table 2.2 Realism: Trade and Protectionism 73
Chapter 3
Table 3.1 Liberalism: Proliferation and Arms Races 120
Table 3.2 Liberalism: Trade and Protectionism 125
Chapter 4
Table 4.1 Economic Structuralism: Proliferation and Arms
Races 169
Table 4.2 Economic Structuralism: Trade and Protectionism 175
Chapter 5
Table 5.1 Constructivism: Proliferation and Arms Races 216
Table 5.2 Constructivism: Trade and Protectionism 222
Chapter 6
Table 6.1 Feminism: Proliferation and Arms Races 263
Table 6.2 Feminism: Trade and Protectionism 268

xi
xii List of Tables/Figures

Figures
Chapter 1
1.1 Theories of International Relations Timeline 5
Chapter 2
2.1 Realism Family Tree 39
Chapter 3
3.1 Liberalism Family Tree 88
3.2 The Prisoner’s Dilemma 101
Chapter 4
4.1 The Stratified International System 137
4.2 Economic Structuralism Family Tree 139
Chapter 5
5.1 The Interactions of the Claims and Assumptions of
Constructivism 192
5.2 Constructivism Family Tree 197
Chapter 6
6.1 Feminism Family Tree 243
Chapter 7
7.1 Proliferation and Trade Liberalization 302
 AC K N OW L E D GM E N TS

W
e have many people to thank for their assistance and en-
couragement as we made our way through this process. The
idea for this book came from years of teaching our students
about theories of international relations and witnessing the difficulties
they encountered in the learning process. Much of the material in this
book came from our experiments in delivering theoretical explanations
in a way the students could not just understand but also be excited by.
Thus, we thank all of our students over the years for their interest in
theoretical approaches to understanding the world and their willing-
ness to embrace even the most difficult theoretical concepts. We would
like to thank California State University San Marcos and Sam Houston
State University for their support of our professional ­development. We
are indebted to Rhonda’s colleague at SHSU Ken Hendrickson for his
expertise and editorial eye. We would like to thank Elizabeth’s research
assistant, Hannah Shohara, for her enthusiastic compiling information
for the revised case studies, and Elizabeth’s colleague at CSUSM, Ashley
Fogle, for her assistance with the design of the figure in Chapter 7.
We would also like to thank Jennifer Carpenter, our Acquisitions
Editor, for her faith in this project and in us. We also appreciate the
guidance and assistance provided to us by Patrick Keefe, Editorial As-
sistant, India Gray, Copyeditor, and Brad Rau, Project Manager. Lastly,
we would like to thank our families, friends, and colleagues for their
endless support and encouragement through this process. Without

xiii
xiv Acknowledgments

your shoulders to cry on and ears to bend, we might not have made it
to this point.
The authors would also like to thank the following reviewers:

Proposal Reviewers—2013
Karolina L. Abrahms, UMass Lowell
Agber Dimah, Chicago State University
John Miglietta, Tennessee State University
Joao Resende-Santos, Bentley University
Evan Robertson, Purdue University Northwest
Amanda Slobe, Georgetown University
Laura Zanotti, Virginia Tech

First Edition Reviewers—2018

Lan T. Chu, Occidental College
Raymonde Kleinberg, University of North Carolina Wilmington
Kathryn C. Lavelle, Case Western Reserve University
 CHAPTER 1

Introduction
The study of international affairs is best understood as a protracted
competition between the realist, liberal and radical traditions . . .
The boundaries between traditions are somewhat fuzzy and a
number of important works do not fit neatly into any of them, but
debates within and among them have largely defined the discipline.
—Stephen M. Walt, International Relations: One World,
Many Theories

S
tudents of international relations face a daunting task. In order
to understand the complex world of international relations, we
must devise explanations for the myriad activities and behaviors
we see on a daily basis. We are faced with an ever-growing number of
state and non-state international actors, a complex and growing set of
issues, and shifts in attitudes, response choices, government structures,
weapons, technology, and environmental factors. As such, means of
organizing this vast amount of information is vital to understanding it;
further, creating analytical tools allows for a deeper appreciation and
comprehension of the events that take place in world politics. One of
the ways in which we seek this clarity is through the use of theory.
Theory refers to frameworks of thought or knowledge that we use to
engage and give meaning to the world around us. A theory contains a
set of statements that explain particular events and acts as a conceptual
framework to understand phenomena in world politics.
Practitioners of international relations utilize theories to analyze
and inform policies and practices. Some theories aim to explain, cat-
egorize, and establish causal relationships regarding state behavior, ul-
timately leading to predictive capabilities on the part of analysts and

1
2 International Relations Theory

policymakers alike. For example, if state A went to war under a certain

set of conditions, and those conditions are repeated, state A should the-
oretically go to war again. Other theories opt to focus less on universal
claims and explanation and more on understanding and interpreting
the meaning and context of state and non-state behavior. Extending
our war example, critical theorists might ask whether a war is a just
war, thus, taking a normative approach to conflict studies. As will be
seen throughout this book, some theories often lack predictive power,
while the normative approach is often viewed as naïve and incomplete,
but that does not stop theorists from all perspectives from trying to
simplify reality and better understand international relations.
This book presents a comprehensive overview of the five main the-
ories or approaches in international relations. There are a number of
other theoretical approaches in international relations, but realism, lib-
eralism, economic structuralism, constructivism, and feminism have
been, and continue to be, the five predominant theories of international
relations (Maliniak, et al., 2012). Before proceeding, we offer an expla-
nation for the inclusion of these specific approaches. In your study of
international relations, you will see these five described by a number of
terms: images, paradigms, approaches, worldviews, and perspectives.
What explains the use of these different terms? The answer lies in the
fact that they do different things and serve different purposes. Realism
and liberalism are the dominant theoretical frameworks utilized in in-
ternational relations approaches, and international relations scholars,
in general, agree that these are indeed “theories.” In addition, these
are most often held and articulated by the practitioners of foreign and
national security policy even if they do not self-identify as a realist or a
liberal. This use of the term “theory” is consistent with the definition of
a theory found in discussions regarding the philosophy of science. That
is, a theory consists of a set of statements that help to explain events,
in this case, the behavior of states and non-state actors in the interna-
tional system. It is a simplified view of reality. Furthermore, a set of
hypotheses can be derived from such theories and empirically tested.
It becomes more complicated when we move to the critical ap-
proaches of economic structuralism, constructivism, and feminism,
perhaps more correctly referred to as worldviews rather than theories. A
worldview (Weltanschauung in German) is how one looks at the world
and a belief about how the world works. It denotes a broader perspec-
tive than a theory. In the early stages of international relations theory,
 Introduction 3

the focus was primarily war; although this remains an important area
of study, we are inundated with an increasing number of issues and
interactions we seek to explain such as human rights, the environment,
globalization, and poverty. This has helped create a growing number
of perspectives seeking to explain the causes of global phenomena and
how those phenomena are created. Constructivists, feminists, and eco-
nomic structuralists ask different questions than those asked by real-
ists and liberals; they look at the world differently and provide different
answers and interpretations of phenomena. To fully appreciate the
range of explanations available in international relations, exposure to
all five approaches is essential regardless of what they are named.
The remainder of this chapter covers foundational information
you will need to begin your study of international relations theory.
Before you can dive into the paradigms presented in the subsequent
chapters, you need to be introduced to the evolution of international
relations theory. Where did these ideas come from? How are they tied
to the historical narrative of world politics? The following sections also
provide an explanation of the research process in international rela-
tions and an introduction to one of the central organizing features of
study in this field, the levels of analysis. We also discuss foundational
material on the case studies that are analyzed throughout the chapters:
one focuses on the issues of proliferation and arms races, and the other
examines international trade and protectionism. The first represents a
classic security concern, and the latter focuses on issues associated with
cooperation as well as conflict. As you will see, there are many facets
to both cases, and we will apply each theory to these issues in order to
illustrate how theory helps describe, explain, predict, or at least better
understand phenomena in world politics. Finally, we explain how this
book is organized and present you with a series of questions to consider
as you make your way through the following chapters. You should pay
close attention to these questions, as well as the bolded terms, because
they will come up throughout the chapters.

Evolution of International Relations Theories

Although the discipline of political science is relatively young, the sub-
field of international relations traces its origins to Thucydides’s The
History of the Peloponnesian War and, more specifically, a section de-
scribing a conversation between Athenian and Melian generals called
4 International Relations Theory

“The Melian Dialogue” (see Chapter 2). With the writings of Niccolo
Machiavelli, Hugo Grotius, Thomas Hobbes, Immanuel Kant, and
many others, international relations theorists have delved into the past
to help explain current, as well as to predict future, state behavior. Thus,
the evolution of theories within international relations is intrinsically
tied to history; in fact, much of theoretical development is in response
to international conditions and events (see Figure 1.1). One prevail-
ing paradigm guiding policymakers and analysts in decision-making
is replaced when the assumptions underlying that paradigm fail to ad-
equately explain reality. Ultimately, decision-makers want the ability
to understand and predict systemic conditions as well as state behavior.
When the theory fails to help in these two areas, decision-makers and
theorists search for alternative explanations. Over the past couple of
centuries, the primary event leading to the demise of a particular para-
digm and the emergence of another has been international war.
After World War I, for example, policymakers and philosophers
sought to replace the realist-based balance-of-power system with a dif-
ferent understanding of state relations based on what E. H. Carr (1939)
referred to as a utopian perspective. The ultimate goal of policymak-
ers, as well as the burgeoning field of international relations, was to
find ways to avoid war. The balance-of-power model served European
­decision-makers well during the Concert of Europe, where peace among
the great powers existed for almost a century in the years between the
end of the Napoleonic wars in 1815 and the start of World War I in 1914.
However, changes in domestic conditions within the European states
altered the rules and subsequently the assumptions of the balance-of-
power paradigm culminating in the Great War. One of these domestic
changes occurred in czarist Russia when revolutionaries ushered in an
alternative worldview based on Marxist ideology as interpreted by the
leadership of Vladimir Lenin in October 1917.
The failure of the League of Nations and collective security to
deter aggression in the interwar period (1919–1939) followed by World
War II lead policymakers and international relations theorists to deem
the utopian or idealism view as too naïve, and realism returned as the
predominant theory to explain interstate relations. Realism posits that
states, as unitary and rational actors, are the most important actors in
the international system. These states exist in a self-help system where
national security and survival are paramount issues for the state. For a
realist, states seek to maximize their relative power in an anarchic and
 Concert of WWI 1914–1919 Interwar Period Cold War 1960–1970s End of Cold September 11,
Europe 1820 • Russian 1919–1939 Begins 1945 • Vietnam War War 1989 2001 and Beyond
• Balance of Revolution • Utopianism • Realism • Neorealism & • Constructivism
• Wars in Iraq &
Power System 1917 • Idealism & • Morgenthau Neoliberalism & Feminism
Afghanistan
• Multipolar • Marxist/Leninist Collective Security • Liberalism • Waltz 1979 emerge
• Multipolar System?
System Theory • Woodrow Wilson • Bipolar System • Marxist Influenced • Unipolar System?
• Great Recession
Theories
• Dependency
Theory
• World Systems

5
Theory

FIGURE 1.1 Theories of International Relations Timeline.

6 International Relations Theory

zero-sum environment where conflict is inevitable. Realism is fully ex-

plained in Chapter 2.
While conflict between the superpowers dominated the forty years
after World War II, realism failed to explain many of the cooperative ac-
tions on the part of state actors in areas such as trade and international
finance, leading to a resurgence of idealism in the form of ­liberalism.
Liberals contend that while states are important, non-state actors such
as intergovernmental and nongovernmental organizations (IGOs
and NGOs) play an important and mitigating role in the international
system. States seek absolute gains in a positive-sum environment where
shared interests tend to mute the potential for conflict. Liberals argue
that these non-state actors serve as arenas for states to meet and com-
promise on disagreements alleviating some, if not all, of the conflict
among states that previously would have led to war. Moreover, liber-
als consider individuals, terrorist organizations, and multinational or
transnational organizations, such as Apple, IBM, and Facebook, to be
additional actors that operate within the system. Thus, there are mul-
tiple channels by which states interact with one another. For liberals,
states learn to cooperate, leading to win-win situations (positive-sum
game), thus overcoming the self-help and conflictual nature of the an-
archic international system. Liberalism is the focus of Chapter 3.
During the Cold War, Marxist-influenced theories also emerged as
explanations for the disparate levels of economic development found in
the international system. Often referred to as economic structuralism
today, this family of theories focuses on economic class as the key ele-
ment in the international system rather than power for realists or shared
interests for liberals. Economic structuralists argue that economic class,
that is, the general level of economic development, determines a state’s
position in the international system in a hierarchical fashion. They reject
the liberal notion that all states benefit from capitalism, rather they sug-
gest capitalism is exploitative in nature and has subsequently created a
structure that consists of poor and rich states, the haves and have-nots,
with the latter in a perpetual state of underdevelopment. Marxist-based
theories help explain this subservient position as smaller states often
view multinational corporations (MNCs) as tools of both larger states
and the elites within their own countries. Attempts at breaking these
dependent relationships focused on domestic economic policies and a
strategy of nonalignment during the Cold War. The family of theories
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 am always, always going to think of you and next Christmas we
will meet properly like you said.
Your loving
Robbie.
P. S. Happy New Year.

I kissed the letter.

There was no time to be lost. I wrapped Aunt Martha's cape round
me and put on my shoes,—indoor slippers without a strap, poor
enough footwear for an eight mile walk. I clambered on to the chair
and lifted the heavy handle of the sky-light window. The damp air of
a raw winter's night crept into the room.
How I ever got to the ground, I do not know. Somehow I slithered
down the sloping roof till my feet touched the ledge Robbie had
spoken of; somehow I found the drain pipe, and somehow I
clambered down. The yard door was open as he had said, and I
walked through it into the deathly silent street, breathing a sigh of
intense relief that I remember to this day. I broke immediately into a
run, that I might put between me and that accursed house as much
distance with as small delay as possible; when I was halfway across
the old bridge I looked back at it, dimly silhouetted against the
winter's night.
"Good-bye Robbie!" I called.
I crossed the bridge and climbed the hill. Very soon I was foot-sore;
the toe that had caught on the beam in the roof-room began to
bleed, and my shoes kept slipping off. I was cold, hungry, sore,
cramped and faint. The cold slow rain, somewhere between drizzle
and sleet, beat upon my face. By all the tenets of melodrama my
escape should have been through deep crisp snow with the valiant
horned moon astride the sky. There was no moon, and sleet is
crueller than snow. After a while, I lost one of my shoes, turned
back, peered about for it, was unable to find it; kicked away the
other and ran along in my stockinged feet. Both feet were soon
bleeding. After a mile or so, when I could run no further, I trudged
or rather hobbled along, keeping to the middle of the road, which
was the easiest and least muddy part. At moments the temptation to
sit down was almost irresistible; sleep more than half possessed me.
I clenched my teeth and kept on, will power eking out what little
physical force was left. I prayed continuously.
After perhaps three or four hours, though it seemed unending years,
I saw ahead of me the first roofs of Tawborough. I limped through
the wet silent streets of the town, up Bear Street on to the Lawn,
and through our garden gate. I pulled the bell, and then with a
wretchedness and weariness I could not resist now that my goal was
reached, sank down upon the doorstep.
Immediately I must have fallen asleep, for it seemed that I awoke
from far away to see my Grandmother in her red dressing-gown and
funny nightcap standing before me.
"It's me—Mary. I've come back, Grandmother, because he would
have killed me. I've walked all night, and I'm so tired."
I rose to my feet, and fainted in her arms. Then I remember no
more.
CHAPTER XIX: BEAR LAWN AGAIN
I awoke to find myself in my Grandmother's bed. Evening was
darkening the room. Uncle Simeon had already come—and gone.
Precisely what had taken place I was not told, but according to Mrs.
Cheese neither my Grandmother nor my Great-Aunt had minced
their words. Aunt Jael, particularly, must have been in awful form.
Though I had not yet told my tale, my condition must have spoken
for itself; and if Aunt Jael's sympathy for me was not alone sufficient
to pitch her to the highest key of scorn, the sight of her old enemy
made good the deficiency. Even for him he must have cringed and
whined exceptionally, being quite in the dark as to how much I had
told. Whether the flagellative heart of my Great-Aunt was filled with
professional jealousy or whether the new rôle of Tender and Merciful
appealed to her for the moment, all that is certain is this: that she
drove Master Simeon Greeber with words and scorpions over the
doorstep, adding that he was never required to cross it again. Nor
did he. I was many years older when next we met: under what
circumstances the sequel will shew.
When I regained my health, which under my Grandmother's care
and feeding was speedily enough, I was surprised to find how little
Grandmother and Aunt Jael pressed me for details of my life at
Torribridge. This incuriousness puzzled me: chiefly by contrast with
what my own interest would have been in their place. Details of
other people's doings and sayings were to become one of the
absorbing passions of my life: I was born with my mind at a keyhole.
Hence Tuesday afternoons, when they could be diverted from godly
generalities to piquant personalities were more welcome than of old;
and now that I was occasionally allowed to speak a word at
Clinkerian ceremonies, I became quite deft in sidetracking Miss
Salvation down the pathways of scandal, where Aunt Jael, not too
reluctantly, would sometimes follow her. Aunt Jael, to do her justice,
was not much of a gossip: she was too selfish, just as my
Grandmother was too unselfish, too deeply absorbed in Aunt Jael
ever to feel deep interest, even a scandal-mongering interest, in
other people: while her suspicion that her own efforts were capable
of similar sacrilegious discussion would not allow her to allow me to
talk of Uncle Simeon's beatings and persecutions. She felt that
however objectionable Uncle Simeon might be, she would not permit
me—a child, a subject, a slave—to discuss him. Authority must be
upheld, in whatever unpleasant quarters. In the Tacit Alliance and
Trade Union for Cruelty to Children there must be no blacklegs.
My Grandmother was the most incurious woman I have ever known:
partly because of her inherent good nature, which made her regard
all chatter about others as unkindly; partly because of her religion,
which enabled her to see, though I think to exaggerate, the
unimportance of earthly things. To every question, every trouble,
every accusation, every wrong, she would everlastingly reply: "What
will it matter in a hundred years?" and then, "Anyhow, 'tis the Lord's
will." With a character thus compounded of kindness, unworldliness
and fatalism, Grandmother was never born to pry. It quite irritated
me how little she asked me about my life at Uncle Simeon's. I had
believed myself the centre of the universe, the victim of the cruellest
wrongs in human story; and here was my Grandmother thinking it
friendly and loving and sympathetic to say "Don't 'ee brood over it,
my dear. Forget it all. 'Twill seem little in a hundred years from now!"
Apart however from this pique that my miseries should be denied
the glory of posthumous fame, I was glad that I was left alone with
the past eight months of my life. I could hide without subterfuge my
friendship with Robbie. Naturally, and artfully, I mentioned him
sometimes.
"Such a nice little boy, Grandmother; he was really! We liked each
other—ever so!"
Always my favourite form of insincerity: to tell the literal truth, while
conveying by the context or my manner something much less—i. e.
morally speaking, not the truth at all. I loved him; I told
Grandmother I liked him. It was the truth, and a lie.
I also kept hidden in my own breast the chief events of New Year's
Night.
* * * * * * *
Within a few weeks the eight months of Torribridge seemed infinitely
far away: as though it were some one else's life I was contemplating
from a distant mountain-peak. I have always found that the more
complete my change of surroundings, the more distant does my
previous life immediately become; until some sudden messenger
from the earlier days brings it back with a vivid rush. I never lived
again the present-moment horror, as it were, of that life with Uncle
Simeon until one day, far ahead, when I realized with frightening
suddenness, as I gazed at a certain face beside me, that those eyes,
that smile, that gesture—were his.
I fell back almost insensibly into the old groove of Bear Lawn life:
the bare empty-seeming silent house, the long days of loneliness
and godliness, pinings and prayers, the two familiar black-clad
figures in the old familiar horse-hair chairs, the harsh staccato
jobations proceeding from one side of the fireplace, and the gentler
but no less continual "Don't 'ee do it's!" from the other. Torribridge
was soon a nightmare episode shot through with glad dreams more
episodal still. This life in this house that had sheltered my first
memories was, after all, my real life; was Life. It seemed as though I
had never known any other; I often cannot remember whether
certain things happened before or after Torribridge: my Bear Lawn
life was all one.
Nevertheless a few notable changes marked my return.
First of all, I was received as a full member of the Lawn
confraternity. Aunt Jael allowed me to go out and play: ay, with this
selfsame famous tribe through whose frankness in grappling with
fundamentals I had been disgraced and sent away.
"No filth, mind! No low talk. No abominations."
Nor were there. Filth, low talk and abominations had departed with
Joseph Jones to his draper's apprenticeship in a big city—this was
one of the large events of my absence—and what Bristol gained,
Tawborough lost. Under the new rule of Laurie Prideaux I heard no
more of the talk to which my six weeks under Joe had been
accustoming me. The change of chieftainship meant a change in the
tone of the whole community. Joe bullied and sneered if you
wouldn't use his words; Laurie thrashed Ted King for using them.
One boy changed the moral outlook of a Lawn; a generation, a
town, a world! Under Laurie's patronage I was received into full
membership. Under which flag? After a moving discussion, in which
arguments charged with the nicest theological insight jostled with
mere vulgar prejudice against my clothes (this was the Tompkins
girl, over-dressed and under-witted little cat that she was), it was
decided that the Chapel League was best fitted to receive me to its
nonconformist bosom. I could not help feeling it a come-down that a
Saint should be classed, as it were officially, with mere Dissenters: it
was, however, the lesser of two evils, for the Church of England,
after all, was something worse than "mere."
I was never much good at the various games, tig, French cricket,
rounders and the like, which occupied so large a part of Lawn life.
The amorous ones—Kiss in the Ring and Shy Widow—I shunned
altogether. I was too serious, or too sensitive, or high-minded, or
morbid, to be able to regard touch as a plaything sentiment. Laurie
and Marcus were nice boys, and I liked them, quite definitely; but I
refused to respond when they "chose" me for their lady. In these
games of sentiment and shy surrender, the challenge of choice must
be accepted without flush or murmur: I could not, so refused to take
part. Kissing was too precious a privilege. I cherished it for three
people only: my Mother when I sought the gates of Heaven; myself
when on my own lips in the looking-glass I tried to discover the
mystery of this world; Robbie, when I needed Love.
I acquired, however, a certain position of my own in Lawn esteem:
the teller of stories. My subject was Aunt Jael; her ways, words and
deeds; her rods and ropes; her food and medicine cupboards, her
winsome underclothing, awful wrath, and appetite diurnal and
nocturnal. I told of the beetle and of the Great God; and of far
beatings. The Lawn listened, admired and applauded; admitted in
me something they did not possess; the power to interest and to
amuse. Thus they decided my fate for me, in showing me the thing
in which I was different from and better than others; and Mary Lee,
silent and morose by instinct, by upbringing and by environment, set
up for life as an amateur-professional raconteuse. That way lay
success, and success is what we seek. In forcing myself to talk that I
might bask in the amusement of the other children, I gradually lost
some of the moodiness and glumness of my earlier days; later on in
life, in still more favourable surroundings, I lost them altogether:
that is, in the face I showed to the world. The simple need of status
with the Lawn children drove me to do the one thing I could do: to
talk, and so to discover my talent and overlay my original nature.
Thus it is ambition that transforms character, rather than character
ambition. Thus it was that Aunt Jael provided me with the capital for
my new venture, and paid handsomely for all her oppressions. An
eye for an eye, a Lawn laugh for every blow!
The Elementary Educational Establishment was now beneath my
needs, so I was transferred from the Misses Clinker (who, while far
above vile pecuniary jealousy, prophesied ill) to the seminary of the
Misses Primp. The latter were Saints, obscure but regular at the
Great Meeting, and socially above the ruck. "Reg'lar standoffish, wi'
the pride ur the flesh in their 'earts," declared Miss Salvation, who
saw clearly from her altitude far above vile pecuniary jealousy. They
held their school in a bleak house with a big bare garden, to the
north of the town, ten minutes or so from the Lawn. The curriculum
embraced Arithmetic to the Rule of Three, Composition, Grammar,
French, Literature (Sacred and Profane), Needlework (Plain and
Fancy), Drawing (Freehand and Design); Botany and Brushwork;
together with "a thorough grounding in the principles of Salvation."
Not to put too fine a point upon it, this last pretension was a lie. A
Bible-reading, usually Kings or Chronicles, read with parrot-quickness
round the class, one verse to each pupil; a long dry prayer offered
up, with eyes gimletted not on heaven but on us, by Miss Prudence
Primp; and a longer and still drier homily by Miss Obedience Primp, a
gaunt old lady with a gigantic crinoline and a parched soul and
throat—in a later, more worldly age, this allowance of heavenly fare
may not seem so niggardly; to me, bred as it were in the imperial
purple of Grace, the whole performance appeared perfunctory and
tepid, and the Primpian acquaintance with the principles of salvation
positively sketchy. My studies were remarkable only for their
unevenness. The net result of my inequalities was that I occupied a
steady middle-place in the weekly marks. I reflected with pride,
however, that it was no ordinary middle-place, the result of
humdrum averageness in everything: and I was vainer of being bad
at my bad subjects than good at my good ones. Were they not
stupid subjects in which a quite special unique set-apart Chosen little
girl like myself would not stoop to shine? Tots indeed! Brushwork!
I do not recall many events in my school life. Those that recur to me
are chiefly unpleasant; how some of the girls cribbed and copied and
cheated and lied; how others giggled sickeningly at the word "boys,"
or mocked shamefully at their mothers and fathers. They were red-
letter days when Cissie King, my Lawn enemy, had a fit, foamed at
the mouth, went green in the face, was obdurate under basinsful of
water, and only came round at the third dose of brandy; or when
Miss Obedience quarrelled openly with Miss Prudence in front of the
whole school, and cried "Leave me, woman!" Nor can I forget my
first day, when Miss Obedience, as we were leaving after the
morning school, asked two of the older girls who lived my way to
accompany me home, and I overheard them say to each other "Not
likely! We'll leave her at the school gate; wouldn't be seen with her,
with her frock all darned and nasty common clothes and boots,
would you? If anybody should think she belonged to us!" How my
cheeks burned, how I hated and loathed those two giggling little
snobs, and still more my own uncomely person and garments. How I
brooded for days and gnawed at the shame. These are the real
events of a child's life; they sound the depths of human passion:
shame, jealousy and hate.

One other major event followed close upon my return. Wedding

Bells! For five and forty years had Miss Salvation Clinker been
pursuing Brother Brawn; now the long chase was ended, and the
quarry at last secured. She was seventy-seven, he but seventy-one.
How on a secret visit one morning she broke the news to
Grandmother, postponing vainly the Jaelian wrath to come; how later
that wrath fell ("Bold woman of Proverbs seven-twelve, who lieth in
wait at every corner," said Denouncer; "I shall do more than some as
I know, and go to 'Eaven a wedded wife," answered Denounced,
brazen in vanishing-maidenhood)—while scorn and pity were
showered upon the victim; how Aunt Jael's ban went forth, and the
banns despite it; how they became man and wife; how she had her
Triumph, and dragged him through the streets of Tawborough in an
open carriage ... this and much more I might portray.
The mild scandal in our Meeting was as nothing to the rage and
horror in the Upper Room for Celibate Saints. At a solemn mass-
meeting of the survivors, nigh half a dozen strong, Doctor Obadiah
Tizzard decreed: that Glory Clinker, aider and abetter in evil, be then
and thenceforward struck from the sacred roll and flung into outer
darkness; that against Salvation, née Clinker, sinner of sinners, be
pronounced the Major Excommunication.
The "Upper's" gain was our loss. Henceforward the Clinkers were
always with us. (Nobody favoured Salvation with her new surname.)
But the chief loser by her change of state was, alas, poor Brother
Brawn. The sisters let the High Street Mansion, the aforetime E.E.E.,
and moved, inseparably, into the White House. There, sandwiched
between a gentle détraquée and a scolding shrew, our bleating
leader found repentance, if no leisure more.
"I told 'ee so," said Aunt Jael. "'E've done it now. There is no hope."
The husband certainly had none, though his spouse, dreamily
quoting Luke-one-thirteen, declared that she had, and the good
sister-in-law er-er-er'd and plied her unsteady needle on swaddling-
clothes, while muttering always to herself "John! Thou shalt call his
name John!" ...

Neither school nor Lawn nor Clinkers, however, seemed anything but
incidental to my life in the big house at Number Eight, always for me
the first of external things. Here too there were changes.
Mrs. Cheese had come back. Servant after servant had passed away
like that grass which in the morning groweth up and in the evening
withereth away. Stability reigned in the kitchen once more. Relations
with Aunt Jael partook of the nature of an armed truce. Both
restrained themselves, Mrs. Cheese because she wanted to stay,
Aunt Jael because she wanted her to; though the former was a bit
too fond of making it clear that she had come back to us for my
Grandmother's sake only, "and not to plaize zome others I cude
mention." Despite her loyal affection for my Grandmother, the real
person for whose sake she had come back was herself. At sixty she
was too old to break with old habits, such as our kitchen and her
routine therein, or with Aunt Jael, who was a habit also, if a bad
one.
From this time Grandmother occupies a larger place in my memories
than Aunt Jael. Why, I am somewhat puzzled to say; for their life,
and my life with them, went on just as of old. Perhaps now that
beatings became rarer, it was natural that she whose skill therein
had been the terror of my earlier childhood should loom less large.
Perhaps it was that Aunt Jael, my bad angel, appeared tame in her
badness by the side of Uncle Simeon (but then should Grandmother,
my good angel, have become faint in my affections besides Robbie;
whereas I liked her better and thought of her more). Perhaps it was
that Grandmother's gentler qualities would naturally have made less
impression on a little child than Aunt Jael's harsh ones, or anybody's
good qualities than anybody's bad ones. Further, I now saw more of
Grandmother, as Aunt Jael developed the habit of confining herself
to her bedroom for days at a stretch, only emerging on to the
landing to rain curses over the banisters on Mrs. Cheese for a
useless, shiftless idler, unfit to wait on a suffering bedridden old
martyr, or on Grandmother for a selfish, ungrateful sister always
absent from her elder's bed of pain; or (oftenest) on me.
With outdoor exercise and good food, which now for the first time I
enjoyed together, I became healthier and I think happier. Though I
still lived for my daydreams, I had less time on my hands.
What with dusting and bed-making and cooking, what with
homework and meals and prayers and ceaseless reading of the Word
in public and private, and Aunt Jael's and Grandmother's expositions,
I found my days too full to yield the time I needed for thinking and
talking to myself: for living. I got into the habit of stealing odd
quarters-of-an-hour in the attic. Aunt Jael was on my scent in a
moment. How I loathed her when a luxurious heart-to-heart talk
between Mary and Myself was interrupted by her hoarse scolding
voice.
"Child! Child! Now then. Down from the garret, now. No monkey
tricks."
Perhaps as an attraction to hold me downstairs, the portals of the
dining-room bookcase were at last thrown open to me. The wealth
therein would have seemed meagre, perhaps, to worldlier spirits; to
me, for whom all books save One (and one other) had always been
closed, it was a gold mine. Of unequal yield. With some of the more
desiccated devotional works I saw at once that I could make no
headway. Such were Aunt Jael's beloved "Thoughts on the
Apocalypse" and a row of funereally-bound tomes devoted to the
exposition of prophecy. Laid sideways on the bottom shelf was that
musty fusty giant, our celebrated copy of the "Trowsers Bible." I
liked Matthew Henry's great Commentary in three huge black
volumes, with the dates at the top of every page, from which I
learnt that this world was made in the year B.C. 4004 (six thousand
years ago: a brief poor moment lost in the facing-both-ways Eternity
that haunted me), and that Christ was born four years Before Christ.
Certain books demolishing the Darbyites or Close Brethren and their
fellow-sinners at the other pole of Error pleased me by their
hairsplitting arguments and vituperative abuse. Then there was
"Grace abounding to the Chief of Sinners" by Master John Bunyan.
* * * * * * *
The record of this period of my life is perforce wearisome and
undramatic. There are no events. More than ever my real life was
inside me, was make-believe; that is, real. Change of residence was
but a change of stage. The same comedy-tragedy—ME—was for
ever on the boards. Not that the change of stage meant nothing.
Houses, rooms, weathers, smells, all affected and were somehow a
part of my thoughts. The two towns, I knew, were intimately mixed
up with my feelings about all that had happened to me in them.
Torribridge was the more romantic: little white town made magical
by the word-sorcery of Westward Ho! Quay that harboured brown-
sailed ships from the Indies, memories of the Rose of Torribridge
and that salmon-coloured hostelry called by her name; then Number
One, house of gold and murder and mystery. Tawborough was more
real. Graced by no Rose of Torridge, she held instead the rose of
merchandise. The busy, countrified, unimaginably English character
of her market and her streets seemed to make her more genuine,
more actual—the right word eludes me—than Torribridge:
Torribridge, that eight months' rainbow-circled nightmare, mere
invention of Mr. Kingsley and Robbie and Uncle Simeon. Act Three
was back in the first setting again; and here, in dining-room, in bed,
in attic, the play went on. The principal character was Mary Lee. The
audience was Mary Lee. I was player, producer, public all in one.
"Mary," I would say, as soon as I was alone. "Listen, I will tell you
what I think."
"Yes, Mary; do!"
This sense of two selves, one of whom could confide in the other,
was ever more vivid. Some one else inside me was pleased,
surprised, angered, grieved; shared my sorrows and triumphs. Thus
it was that in weeping for myself after some cruelty of Aunt Jael's or
some more spiritual grief, I felt I was not selfish, because I was
sharing trouble with some one else, who lived in the same body.
Such impressions are at once too rudimentary and too subtle to be
well conveyed in words.
When I called out "Mary," and "I" answered "Yes" the reality of
question and answer between two different, though curiously
intimate persons, was physical, overwhelming.
Soon after my return to my Grandmother's this sense of dual
personality began, in its most physical manifestations, to fade
somewhat; in its more spiritual quality, to grow more intense: the
first when I began my Diary, the second at the miraculous moment
of my Baptism.
CHAPTER XX: DIARY
The notion came to me one warm autumn afternoon, as I was
reading "Grace Abounding."
From the first page I struck up a living friendship with the Bedford
tinker, though he had been in heaven for near two hundred years. I
understood him as he talked aloud to himself and peered within to
discover who and what was this John Bunyan inside him. I liked too
—the more so as it was so new in print and from the mind of some-
one-else—the careful detail with which he told of his earthly outward
life: his descent, his lowly parentage, his school, his early days,
though I could have wished for details of his Aunt Jaels and Uncle
Simeons. These did not lack when he talked of his "inside" life, and
told me (who knew) of his childhood's "fearful dreams" and
"dreadful visions" and "thoughts of the fearful Torments of Hell fire,"
because of which "in the midst of my many Sports and Childish
Vanities, amidst my vain Companions, I was often much cast down
and afflicted." Why should not I tell a like story of my soul day by
day, detail by detail?
The notion rolled through me like a tide. I closed the book, sprang
up, shut my eyes, and walked round and round the room in my
excitement. Today, this moment, I would begin. Then as I turned my
mind to practical details—the book I should write it in, the hiding-
place for the book—hesitations appeared. Wasn't it a bit funny? Did
other people do it? Why, yes: John Bunyan was "other people" right
enough, and a good Christian too. And I remembered that I had
heard somewhere before of a man who wrote down the story of his
life. In a few seconds I placed my man. Poor old Robinson Crewjoe.
I ran into the kitchen.
"Mrs. Cheese, you know Robinson Crewjoe you told me about, didn't
you say you could read about it all in a book he'd written himself?"
"'E wrote it pon a bit buke 'e vound on the Wreck, so's 'e shidden
virget it, I reckon, or so's ither volk cude rade it arterwards—"
"Yes, but when did he write it?"
"Ivry day, avore goin' to bed nights. Ivrythin' 'e'd been doin' that
day. Leastways that's what my ol' Uncle Zam ollers did, who kep' a
buke of the zame zort."
"What was it like? Please tell me about Uncle Sam's book."
"Wull, my Uncle Zam, over to Exmoor, was very aiddicayted he was,
a turrable 'and vur raidin' and writin'. So long as 'twas a buke 'e'd
love'n and spell over'n vur hours and as 'appy as a king, as the
zayin' is, but 'e liked best writin' down in this lil buke uv 'is own—a
dairy they caals un. Why fer I don't knaw, 'cause tizzen much to do
wi' the milk, so far as I can see, and I ain't blind neither. Wull, in this
lil buke, and there was eight or nine uv them avore 'e died, 'e put
down ivry blimmin' thing 'e did, 'tis true's I zit yer. Wull, when the
funeral was over and all the cryin', 'is widder—my ol' Aunty Sary that
was, bein' curyus like bein' a lil bit like you—thought she'd be findin'
zummat tasty in these ol' dairies, and tuke it into 'er 'ead to try to
rade all the eight bukesful, or mebbe 'twas nine. But 'er cud'n 'ardly
du it, not bein' aiddicayted like 'im, and when 'er vound it tuke 'er
'alf the day to spell over 'alf wan page, 'er got 'erself into a turrable
upset, an threw un all pon the vire, 'ollern' out 'Burn un all, burn un
all, burn un all! Then 'er bangs out uv the rume. I was up vrom me
zeat avore you cude say Bo, and rescued the bettermos' part uv
them avore they was burnt. Aw my dear days, I niver did rade zuch
stuff. 'E'd put 'pon they bukes ivry drimpy lil thing e'd done and zeen
and zed they vorty years: 'ow many calves the ol' cow 'ad 'ad, how
much butter an' crame 'e zold to Markit, all mixed up wi' stuff about
the pixies 'e zaw, or thort 'e zeed, top uv Exmoor o' nights; and a lot
o' religyus writin,' for 'e was a gude Christyen for all 'is pixies and
goblins, wi' plenty 'o sound stuff 'bout 'Eaven and 'Ell, and a middlin'
gude dale about 'is sowl...."
These were valuable hints. My resolve was confirmed. I would follow
in the footsteps of John Bunyan and Robinson Crewjoe and Uncle
Zam.
That day, October the Twelfth 1860 (thirty-seven years ago come
Tuesday), in the unused half of an old blue-covered exercise book, I
began. With what a sense of pride, of importance, of creativeness,
of high adventure, I scrawled in great flourishing capitals my
heading:
THE LIFE OF MARY LEE
Written By Herself.
My opening sentence was this: "I was born at Tawborough on March
the Second, 1848." I have put it also on the first page of this present
record, which from now, my thirteenth year onwards, is but a
matured, shortened and bowdlerized version of the diary, eked out—
more often for atmosphere than detail—by memory. The keeping of
the diary, however, weakened my memory; which, though of its old
photographic accuracy in what it held, yet held far less. I did not
need to remember things, I said to myself: I could always find them
in the book. Certainly for the first few years, I could have found
there everything that was worth reading, as well as everything that
wasn't; in later years, alas, I have succumbed to the fatal habit of
compact little paragraphs epitomizing whole weeks, and even
months, as fatal as the Sundries habit in a household account-book.
Indeed, despite the pathetic leniency we show towards the trivial
when it is the trivial in our own life, I find the earlier pages of my
diary tiresomely full; far too fond of "What we had for dinner" or
"Aunt Jael's scripture at this evening's worship."
As I told my diary everything, it began to take the place of my other
self, and it is in this sense that I mean that the feeling of dual
personality was weakened. The self-to-self talks became fewer; the
sense of a person telling and a person told was blurred. Unspoken
notes in a grimy exercise book took their place; although at first,
and always in exciting passages, I would talk aloud, and take down,
so to say, from my own dictation.
This early diary is morbid, precocious, shrewd, petty, priggish, and
comically, pitifully sincere. Religion looms large, with food a bad
second. This is natural enough. John Bunyan's whole aim was A Brief
Revelation of the Exceeding Mercy of God in Christ to his poor
Servant, John Bunyan; Robinson Crewjoe was not the man to let slip
any opportunity for a pious ejaculation, a moral reflection or a godly
aside; while Uncle Zam, according to his niece, took a middlin' gude
deal of interest in his "Sowl." These great exemplars helped to
increase what would have been in any case a heavy disproportion of
holy matter. This kind of thing is typical of the earlier years:—

Feb. 13. Woke still worried by the problems of Infinity in Time

and Space, tho' less despairing and appalled than the day
before. I pray, pray, PRAY; but all the time at the back of my
soul, the fear is still there:—Eternity faces me tho' I dare not
face Him, and Where may my Eternity not be spent? Perhaps
"One Day at a Time" is the only way. A wet day. Read Exodus
this afternoon. Aunt Jael rough; so held forth to the Lawn
children this evening. They are too appreciative; roar with
laughter at everything I say; it does me good, though this is set
off by the harm done me by encouragement in self-esteem. But
no, no, no—I have a good and great ideal for this Mary, that I
must strive to fulfil; and petty ministerings to her (my) vanity
must be quashed and that right sternly. Laurie Prideaux gave
me some chocolate cream. He is an obliging, kind, childlike,
good, conceited boy. Polony for supper.
Sunday. Meeting. Bro. Quappleworthy on the Personal God. Saw
Joe Jones, I think in Bear Street: must be on holiday from
Bristol. Mrs. Cheese thought he was back. He did not see me;
as he never looked towards or acknowledged me, I assumed did
 not. To Lord's Day School, two prayer-meetings, and Gospel-
Service this evening. Very weary.

Like Uncle Zam on Aunt Sary, I indulged in a good deal of "plain-

spaikin" on Aunt Jael. The diary thus became invested with a halo of
danger. Suppose she found it in one of its many (and changing)
hiding-places! She would beat me utterly, burn the diary, and mock
cruelly at its contents. Yet it was from my Grandmother that I hid it
with my most ardent cunning. She would neither beat, nor burn, nor
mock, but I knew she would condemn it as "morbid" (the word is a
later acquisition), and search me with her kind common-sense eyes;
and I should be covered with shame. Not guilty shame, rather the
shame a man feels when his naked soul is shown to the world; the
shame I always felt when caught red-handed in one of my self-to-
self declarations in the attic. What if other eyes should read this for
instance?

1860. Sept. 25. There are three months just to Christmas. Then
I shall kiss Robbie.

All through my life these books of revelation have dogged me with

the daily fear that through them I should be found out; now that
they have served their purpose in helping me to compile this more
permanent record, I have decided, like Aunt Sary, to "burn un all."
(Or nearly decided; it is hard for a woman to destroy memorials of
the past.)
The precautions I took, beyond subtle hiding, were: prayer, magic,
and the etching in red ink on each exercise-book-cover of this
Device:—
PRIVATE
SHAME!
ON WHOEVER MAY THINK EVEN OF READING THIS
BOOK.
SHAME!
Whether in the worst of us, e. g. Aunt Jael, curiosity is not a
stronger passion than fear, and whether therefore this curiosity-
tempting cover might not do more harm than good, was a problem
and a worry that continually assailed me.
In connection with the diary, I must speak of the Resolves or
Resolutions I began to make. These were a result, on one side of my
growing sense of sin (egotism, ambition, triumph, revenge, hate,
greed, dirt, doubt), and on another side of an exactly opposite desire
to realize my imagined ambitions by equipping myself to achieve
them (wide knowledge, better health, nicer looks). They were
written on half-sheets of note-paper, which I immediately put in an
envelope. This was sealed and hidden in between the pages of that
day in the diary on which the resolution was formed. The moment
the least part of the current resolve was broken—I knew it always by
heart—I had to break open the envelope and begin afresh. The old
unkept resolve I placed in the page of the day on which it was
broken. Thus an enveloped, sealed, still-in-action Resolve was kept
with the day in which it was formed, a discarded one on the day on
which I fell. I usually began again on a day that would give me a
clean start, such as the first of the month, or a magic date, or some
special anniversary. Here is one that had a pretty long run:—

March 9th, 1861.

My Mother died thirteen years ago today—Therefore from now
onwards I DO RESOLVE:—
I. EVERY DAY
To drink a glass of cold water before breakfast and } To help
at night (better than senna) } me be
To go for a walk } healthy
} To help
To brush my hair well } me be
To clean my teeth hard } pretty
To learn at least seven new verses of the Word by } To help
 heart and revise seventeen old ones } me be
} good
} To help
To tell the Lord everything in prayer } me be
} Him
II. NEVER

To steal oatmeal from the larder (as I did three times last
week)
To think dirty things (as I did last Wednesday when I
laughed when Mrs. Cheese said Aunt Jael's drawers were
like two red bladders).

III. ALWAYS

To eat slowly (37 bites to each mouthful)

To be like God would like.

RESOLVED, with Mother's help

Mary Lee.
20 minutes past 6.
March 9th, 1861.

For any one to whom this absurd document is absurd only, comment
would be but adding insult to injury. Here is another:—

New Year's Day, 1862.

(Beginning of a new year and third anniversary of my Flight
from Torribridge)
For this year I am going to make no special resolutions put out
in a list but at
EVERY
 moment I shall ask myself this question:
WHAT WOULD THE LORD DO IF HE WERE ME?
Then I shall never do wrong, and I shall be fitted and worthy for
His service.
So with His help I sign
Mary Lee.
Jan. 1st, 1862.
10.30 (a.m.)

This magnificent resolve seems not to have been specific enough,

alas, for my frail endeavours; under a date but six or seven weeks
later I find this:—

1862. THIS YEAR'S RESOLVE.

(New Version)
WHAT WOULD THE LORD DO IF HE WERE ME?
EVERY DAY
(1) He would pray, hiding nothing.
(2) He would learn a new piece of the Word, and more than
Aunt Jael made Him.
(3) He would be clean (ears, face, nails, teeth, hands, heart).
(4) He would go a nice long walk (instead of "poking indoors" as
She calls it)

AND HE WOULD NEVER

(5) Have sinful thoughts like

Spite
Vengeance
 Vileness
Pride

(6) Say sinful words, like

——
——

(7) Like sinful things, like

Praise
Riches
Eating
The Pleasure I have whenever the worst part of the "For Ever"
Fear is over
Flattery
Fame
(Signed) Mary.
Feb. 19th, 1862.

If this era of diaries and resolutions saw the two-persons idea for a
while less distinct, all the other mysteries of my earlier days
remained. I still, for instance, put everything I did to the test of
reason and instinct, obeying always the latter. I believed more than
ever in my private magic and was persuaded that there were special
acts, gestures and words which would enable me to perform
miracles, if only I could discover them. Dreaming away during
Breaking of Bread at the Room, I would be assailed by the desire to
turn the wine in the two glass decanters into water; Lord's Day after
Lord's Day I sought the magic gesture in vain. I knew there was a
word that, if cried aloud, just once, would enable me to soar upward
to the sky and fly about angel-like among the stars. I never found it,
though a hundred times it was on the tip of my tongue, till I was
half wild with hope. Another well-cherished notion was this: that if
my mother came to me again, and we could achieve a complete
embrace, she would be able to take me away with her to heaven for
a space, till a moment when she kissed me again, before the very
face of God, and I would swiftly return to earth.
The only magic with which I actually succeeded, or believed I did
(which is the same) was Numbers. 1, 10, 17, 437, 777 were magic: 7
and 237 were big magic; 37 was arch-magic, the Holy Number. In
every need I called upon them. If Aunt Jael were flogging me, what
I had to do was to count a perfectly even 37, timing it to finish at
the same moment as her last stroke. I believed positively that it
eased my hurt, and I believe so still, for my attention was
concentrated not on Aunt Jael's blows but on my magic: so far, if no
farther, is faith-healing a fact. Or I would jump out of bed in the
morning, and begin to count, always evenly. If when I finished
dressing, I was at a magic number (the correct moment was when I
shut the bedroom door behind me, though for a second chance I
allowed reaching the bottom stair) then the whole day would be
lucky. Or out in the street, the amount of house frontage I could
cover in thirty-seven strides I believed positively would be the same
as the frontage of the big house I should one day possess. So, like
the peasant in Count Tolstoi's tale, I strode mightily.
A big house was one of my few material ambitions at this time, with
money to spend on grand furniture for it ("Riches," vide Resolution
of 19|2|62). Even here my need was chiefly a spiritual one. I
thought that in a vast house, utterly alone, I should have a perfect
place for practising echoes, one of the means by which I hoped to
solve the riddle of my existence. In the midst of a deathly silence I
should stand in the great marble hall and shout.
"Mary Lee, what are you? What are you?"
A hundred echoes would swiftly call back through the silence, and I
was on the brink of understanding——
A different method of solving the haunting riddle was to whisper my
own name quite suddenly in a silent room, when alone with myself.
Sometimes the physical effect was so curious that I was certain of
success. Fervent praying to the point of ecstasy, more often to the
point of exhaustion, was another way. Sometimes I was able, it
seemed, to disembody myself; my soul left my body (at which it
could look back as though it belonged to some one else) and
wandered nowhere, everywhere, becoming in some half-realized
fashion a part of everything in space, and an inhabitant of all periods
of time. I remembered, in the fleeting fashion of dreams, things I
had done before I was born, in some hitherto unremembered life.
Then, again, things I had done still earlier, in distant lives and far-
away centuries; till, at last, I remembered myself for ever and for
ever in the past, and my soul fled back into my body to hide from
the new terror: Eternity behind as well as before me, the unpitying
everlastingness of the past as of the future.
The latter was still the unappeasable fear which hung like an evil
menace over every moment of my life. If I thought it out and lived
through the mad blinding moment of terror as my brain battered
itself against Infinity, I gained nothing; the terror flung me back. If I
was wise, and refused to think of it, I knew myself for an ostrich
with my head in the sand. If I dared not face it, it was there
beholding me just the same, unconquered, unconquerable.
Was there no escape? The only notion I could conceive, and which I
cherished with most desperate hope, was that Love, if ever it could
possess my whole soul and being, would slay the King of Terrors
once for all. How could Love so come to me? Sometimes I thought it
would be God. I knew that my Grandmother had a joy, a serene and
fearless delight in the love of the Lord, which I did not share. I
prayed fervently for this: that I might know the peace of God, which
is perfect understanding; that I might possess this divine love, which
I could see in her but did not feel in myself; that it might free me
from the Fear which darkened my soul. And sometimes I thought it
would be Robbie. In his kind embrace, not in foolish echoes or
magical tricks, might I find a perfect happiness which would
transform and transfigure me, till I could turn a laughing face upon
the Terror. Then would I long for Eternity; an Eternity of Love. And
my body and soul would fly back to Christmas Night. Ah tender arms
around me, ah dear little boy beside me, ah tears, ah joy, ah Robbie!
CHAPTER XXI: I AM BAPTIZED IN
JORDAN
"Do 'ee love the Lord?" my Grandmother was for ever asking.
"Yes, Grandmother," I always replied.
Down in my heart I knew it was not true. There was belief in me,
and awe; but of that passion for God which I envied in her, no
semblance. If it were really love I felt for Him (I put it to myself)
"my heart would warm within me whenever I think of Him, as it
does when I think of Robbie: or of Mother." When I tried to conjure
Him up, all I could ever see was a blurred bearded man on a high
grey throne; and if I peered harder for face and features, a dark
mist like a rain-cloud always filled the space where they should be.
I knew I could never love Any One Whose face I could never see.
"You do not love Him as you do Robbie," kept saying the accusing
voice within. It is true, and the thought horrified me. Until I could
feel this greater love, I knew I had not "got religion."
For all my godly upbringing, for all my pious ways, I was no more
privileged than ninety-nine of a hundred mere averagely religious
grown-ups. Like theirs, my religion was but an affair of education,
habit, intellect, morality. The Rapture was withheld. I had not got
religion.
I knew my Bible as well as any child in England, and I loved it as
well. I believed in all the doctrines of the Saints, not vaguely either,
like a normal unreflecting child: but had pondered on them, and
within my capabilities thought them out and personally accepted
them. No atheist doubts oppressed me. The Tempter had not
assailed me, as he had assailed my friend John Bunyan, with "Is
Christianity no better than other religions, just one religion among
many?" and other such wicked doubts. But I had not got religion.
And fear beset me: fear of other people, of the Devil, of Eternity,
and, now as I grew older, of myself. The glimpses I had of the evil
natures in me affrighted me. Sometimes in brooding over some
wrong done me, my imagination ran riot in fantastic excesses of
cruelty and revenge till I drew back appalled at the horrors of which,
in thought at any rate, I was capable. I would brood over the
unhappiness of my life and the injustice meted out to me every day,
till my soul was a dark seething mass of revengefulness and hate.
Not till I found myself visualizing the very act of murder did I draw
back affrighted.
With the change in my nature that came as I grew into girlhood, a
new series of evil visions possessed me. I found myself picturing
fleshly and disgraceful things, things I had never heard of nor known
to be possible, thrown up from the wells of original sin within.
Pleasurable sensations lured me on till I drew back appalled at the
sickening deeds that I, godly little Plymouth Sister, conceived myself
as doing. Of course they were things I never should really do—oh
dear no! that was foul, unimaginable!—but Conscience quoted
Matthew five, twenty-eight, and though I stuffed my fingers in my
ears she kept dinning it. You have committed it already in your
heart.
I had no sense of proportion, and believed myself a very monster of
vileness: a vileness, I feared, which would cling and canker till it
deformed my soul and body and face; and I saw myself, a loathsome
shape, living on for ever with increasing self-loathing through all the
pitiless eternal years. My blood froze with fear as my mind's eye
stared fascinated at the shameful shape. I screamed as madmen
scream.
Madness I often feared. In my imaginings of Eternity, let me one day
go but a single step too far, let me suffer the awful ecstasy of fear to
hold me but a second too long, and I knew my reason would be fled.
So about this time I added to my prayers: "God, save me from going
mad."
But fear, though never far away, and the sense of wickedness,
though always near the surface, were not masters of every moment.
The one thing that never left me was a feeling of unsatisfiedness,
incompleteness. The world seemed an empty place, my soul an
empty vessel. I had a melancholy sureness that something, the chief
thing, the secret of happiness, was lacking me. I believed that this
secret could only be discovered in the love of God: that there only
could I find, as my Grandmother had found, the peace and delight
which pass all understanding. That alone was religion, and I had it
not.
"Do 'ee love the Lord?" my Grandmother was for ever asking.
To possess the love of God became the aim of all my prayers and
hopes. It alone could save me from my evil self, quell my bad
desires, dispel my fears, and fill the aching void. How could I
possess it? The conviction seized me one day, how or why I do not
know, that I should obtain it in the moment at which I was baptized;
not before, and in no other way. Once the idea had come, it would
not leave me; to hasten on my public immersion became the chief
endeavour of my life.
Grandmother was nothing loth, for it was her own dearest wish. My
age, she said, might be raised in objection: I was not yet thirteen.
Had I surely faith?—I gave her passionate proofs—then God's
requirements were fulfilled. She spoke to Aunt Jael, and both of
them to Pentecost Dodderidge, who agreed ardently.
The Brethren do not of course practise infant baptism. However,
children of about my age could be, and very occasionally were,
baptized, provided they gave surpassing proofs of holiness. Faith,
not age, as the Bible shows, is the only test of fitness. But certain of
the Saints in our Meeting, influenced whether by "common-sense,"
or by the rankling notion that none of their children ever had been
or ever would be admitted to baptism at such a tender age, began
to murmur, and spoke privily to Pentecost against the project.
Brother Browning took the bolder course of taking my Grandmother
herself to task. Dark doubts beset him, he declared, scriptural
doubts; though his real motive was jealousy for Marcus.
"Unscriptural?" said my Grandmother in amaze. "Have you read your
acts of the Apostles, Brother Browning? Faith, not years or rank or
race is what the Scripture requires. Think of Crispus, Cornelius, the
jailor of Philippi, Lydia seller of purple! Turn to your eighth chapter:
Philip and the Ethiopian eunuch: 'See, here is water, what doth
hinder us to be baptized?' Does Philip answer 'But tell me first your
age?' No, he answers: 'If thou believest with all thine heart, thou
mayest.'"
She turned to me. "Child, do you believe with all your heart?"
"Yes, Grandmother."
Turning in triumph to Brother Browning: "The Scripture is satisfied.
And," she added, "Mr. Pentecost approves."
Brother Browning was confounded. Nevertheless, but for the
affection in which Grandmother was held, and Aunt Jael's prestige,
both backed by the insurmountable authority of Pentecost, I am
pretty sure that some of the Saints would have resisted further. In
face of that Trinity, they were dumb.
So it was settled, and I began a term of "preparation." Grandmother
enjoined that I turn my mind wholly on heavenly things. She held
devotions with me at all hours, praying sometimes far into the night.
Pentecost himself came in to pray with me, while those who had
raised objections were invited specially to test my faith. Brother
Browning came,—like the Queen of Sheba, to prove me with hard
questions. Like Solomon, I emerged triumphant.
As the time drew near, sometimes my excitement could hardly
contain itself. My visions of the Moment became more detailed, more
delirious, more intense. At the very moment of immersion the old
Wicked Me would instantly die and a New Self come into being: in a
second, Eve would be driven out and Christ implanted for ever in my
soul. At one magical stroke I should possess happiness and be freed
from all fear and wickedness and emptiness of heart. The love of
God would not enter me slowly, gradually; but would storm me like a
victorious army, swallow me like the sea.
As part of my preparation, I was taken by Grandmother to one or
two baptisms. Ceremonies were held from time to time, according as
there were sufficient candidates. Our Meeting baptized not only for
ourselves but also for the Branch Meeting and all the villages
around. The number of persons immersed ranged from two or three
to a dozen. The ceremony took place in the Taw, following Scripture
example; at a spot just beyond the quay and the ships, a few yards
from where the Town railway-station for Ilfracombe now stands.
Here the river was shallow; you could wade nearly into mid-stream.
Robing and re-robing took place at White House, Brother Brawn's
tumble-down residence near by. Now that Pentecost was too old,
Brother Brawn was our Baptist. The usual time was Lord's Day
morning; very early, to avoid a jeering crowd.
At the second of these ceremonies that I was taken to see, a strange
incident occurred. Despite the day and hour, we were never quite
without a few scoffers, who would stand on the shore a little way
away from our company, and shout and mock at the proceedings in
the water. On this particular occasion two men who looked like
labourers appeared, not on shore, but in a small boat in mid-stream;
where they remained cat-calling and jeering while we held our
preliminary service on the river bank. Brother Brawn waded out with
the convert—a fair-haired young man whose name I do not
remember—till the water was about up to their middles. The two
men in the boat rowed nearer till they were within a few yards only;
but farther out, and therefore in a deeper place. The river was at
high tide.