Lawrence in Etruria

Etruscan Places. By D. H. Lawrence. (Martin Seeker.

EnE are dowsers, whose hazel wands will tremble, not only for water, but also for gold and bronze and iron, even for hones,_ or an urn-full of human dust. Archaeologists have used these mysteriously gifted persons, as the truffle- hunter uses his dog or his learned sow, to nose out the buried treasures of ancient cemeteries or long-deserted cities—used them, it is reported, with what are, sometimes, the happiest results. But the mere locating of treasure is not enough ; we demand to know the significance of what is dug up ; we ask when and how and why. . The archaeologist applies his scientific method to the 'solution of the problem. So far as the when and the how are concerned, this method is entirely satisfactory. But when it comes to the inner why, the results, in many cases, are not so good. It is at this point that the man of science might be well advised to invoke the aid of another kind of dowser—a dowser on the psychological rather than the material plane, a diviner, not of water or metals, but of feelings, motives, beliefs.- - • . .

Such a psychological diviner' was D. H. Lawrence. He was a man extraordinarily sensitive to the life that is buried in every fragment of matter. He felt its quality and its intensity, as the dowser feels the quantity and the sub terranean distance . of the water or the -theta' which moves his twig of hazel." In the six Chapters of Etruscan 'Places--= chapters complete in themselves, but forming only a part of the longer study of Etruscan civilization which -he prO-. jected, but was unable to carry out—Lawrence: has left us the results of his dowsing expeditions in the tombs Of CerVeteri- and Tarquinia and Vulei, among the vases and the Carved sarcophagi of Volterra. The teenrd Of his journey- through modern Italian . space and Etruscan time is . not only - a beautiful 'and delicate Work of 'literary 'art ; it also makes a real contribution to historical kik-Ay:ledge. For'. LaWreneel has felt his way into the minds"- Of the Etruscans : What he says about their ways of thinking. and 'feeling and being is,* I am convinced, fundamentally true.' There is no 'Proving its truth, of course. But any sensiti've'prsCn who has looked at the painted tombs of Tarquinia and who then reads what Lawrence has to say about the culture which produced them, is left with the inner certainty that Lawrence's interpretation is right. It is an immediate experience of conviction ; there is no getting behind it.

Lawrence loved the Etruscans for their whole-hearted acceptance of the universe, and because they respected the natural flowering, of life :

"The natural flowering of life ! It is not so easy for human beings as it sounds. Behind all the Etruscan liveliness was a religion of life . . Behind all the dancing was a vision, even a science of life, a conception of the universe and of man's place in the universe which made men live to the depth of their capacity."

This worship of the great impersonal vitalities of the universe was the religion, according to Lawrence, of the whole of the ancient, " pre-classical " world : " The old religion of the profound atceinpt of man to harmonize himself with nature, and hold his own and come to flower in the great seething of life, changed with the Greeks and the Romans into desire to resist nature, to produce a mental cunning and a mechani- cal force that would outwit Nature and chain her down completely, completely; till at last there should be nothing free in nature at

ell, all should be controlled, domesticated, put to man's meaner uses."

This religion of the acceptance of life had as its symbols the immemorial lingam and yoni :

'And perhaps (writes Lawrence, and his words fl • d an echo in

a remarkable passage of Stanley Hall's Adolescence), perhaps in the insistence on these two symbols in the Etruscan world, we can see the reason for the utter destruction and annihilation of tho Etruscan consciousness. The new world wanted to rid itself of these fatal, dominant symbols of the old world,- the old physical world. The Etruscan consciousness was rooted quite blithely in these symbols, the-phallus and the arx. So the whole consciousness, the whole Etruscan pulse and rhythm must be wiped out. Now we see why the Romans called the Etruscans vicious. Even in their palmy days the Romans were not exactly saints. But they though; that they ought to be. They hated the phallus and the arx, because they wanted empire and dominion and, above all, riches : social gain. You cannot dance gaily to the double flute and at the same time conquer nations and rake in large sums of money. Thlenda: cst Carthago. To the greedy man, everybody that is in the way of his greed is vice incarnate."

Carthage must be, and duly was, destroyed. The new spirit, the new way of life, triumphed over the old :

"It seems as if the power of resistance to life, self-assertion and overbearing, such as the Romans know : a power which must needs be moral, or carry morality with it, as a cloak for its inner ugliness : would always succeed in destroying the natural flowering of life."

Everywhere the old religion of acceptance lia.s given, or is giving, place to the new religion of resistance to nature, of non-acceptance, of super-naturalism.

Lawrence is right when he says that "you cannot dance gaily to the double flute and at the same time conquer nations and rake' in money." - But conquest and money-making are not the 'only activities incompatible with gay dancing and the frank acceptance of nature. You cannot dance to the double flute and at the same time be a man of science or a philosopher, a hero or a saint. You cannot even be an artist on any considerable scale : _

" Why has mankind had such a craving to be imposed upon ? Why this lust after imposing creeds, imposing deeds, imposing buildings, Jrnposing. language; iinposing works of art ? The flung becomes an imposition and a weariness at last."

• - —

. _

Lawrence Was not afraid of carrying his ideas to their logical conclusions:. , Foi.the sake of:the:double flute and all that it

stands for, he was prepared to sacrifice mcist of the activities upon which, for the. last two thousand five hundred years or thereabouts, humanity, at any rate in the West, has set the highest value. The philosophy and the practice of non- acceptance have made it possible for man to become, in some respects, more than human. But in the process he has lmd" to sacrifice much of his former happiness ; and while he has become spiritually and intellectually more, emotionally and physically he has, too often, degenerated and become less, than human. Lawrence considered the price of our partia super-lnunanity too high and proclaimed the need to return to the old philosophy and practice of acceptance. Whether we agree with him depends on several things. It depends, to begin with, on our beliefs about the end and purpose of human life. Do we believe that the end of human life is to be happy ? Or do we believe that its purpose is perpetually to transcend itself, even at the cost of happiness ? It depends, in the second place, on our attitude towards reason.

Do we mistrust discursive reason ? Or do we see in reason the only reliable guide to conduct ? And, finally, it depends on our conception of evolution. Do we be7i2ve that human nature is fundamentally unchanging ? Or do we believe that it can be consciously altered and improved ? On our. answers to these questions—and in the hideous confusion of the actual world, how terribly hard they are to answer !- depends our attitude towards Lawrence's (and the Etruscans')