End of the Empire

I watched the 1940 version of “Pride and Prejudice” yesterday. I’ve not watched any version before, but as a period drama I found it infinitely superior to modern adaptations simply because the characters were believable. The failing of any modern piece of work set in the Past, in my experience, is the total inability of actors to rethink that Past. In UK we had a BBC soap opera called Rome a few years ago; it was interesting to think what living was really like at that exciting time; they would have to weave an entirely different cosmos together one populated by a pantheon of man-like gods who demanded probably quite different virtue from today; I thought it would have been an been at least interesting. A total failure. It was essentially “Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure” (which is a great movie :-); simply modern people in fancy dress pretending to have gone back in time. Totally unbelievable and the adoption of ancient practice just the meaningless going through the motions. Acting is not just woodenly performing some actions: a robot can do this. “Troy”, on last night, is virtually unwatchable – apart from it being a terribly scripted film anyway, there is absolutely no consciousness of the Past. That said I do like Brad Pitts portrayal of arrogant invincibility; a good interpretation of Achilles.

Now “Pride and Prejudice” on the other hand is different. All the characters actually believe what they are doing and saying. The days of Jane Austin are not so far behind them that they are just myth. They can remember a time when their world actually was like the one they are acting. My own father behaved in a way that was informed by this time now gone, although the cultural memory was fading – he was born 1933. My mother remembers another side being the grandchild of Hollands - who share a mother with King Henry II – aristocratic consciousness alive and well in her youth. It was evidently a time of great elegance, respect and dignity. It has now totally gone. That world was the world of the Aryan, the noble-man. Today (in UK at least) it is fair to say that the Asian goal (I include Europe in the Asian continent) that has driven the cultures since at least the last ice age has finally died. We now no longer look to any Saviour defined by quality of superiority or perfection because we are cynical enough to not believe such a thing exists. Our eyes are so dirtied by the mud from the gutter that we can no longer see the stars.

I am reassured by “Pride and Prejudice” that nobility does exist. This is not about “class” or “wealth” (which are used only to obscure the issue of nobility): we are all nobles when we act with accuracy, wit and wisdom. It is a wake up call to myself how far I have fallen in search for some base on which to stand. Time to take up flying again I realise. The film acts as a brilliant record of our proper behaviours and attitudes, and a sad reflection upon my own existence.

This morning I was brought once again to revisit the question of “my muse”. I believe this has finally run its course. The failings are on both sides – that is difficult to accept because my first premise was that she was perfect. I am almost ready to accept that she was not. But for my own part I realise this morning that I have been hindered by “greed” and “lack of self-esteem”. Essentially I have been unable to ask directly for what I want from girls – this because I am afraid of rejection, afraid of hurting their feelings and afraid that, actually, demands on others are morally wrong. The last two are noble fears but through my instinctive search for nobility I have ironically done a lot of harm because I am not straight-forward. I will have desire for a girl and she for me, but I will not act for fear that I will be bound by the emotions of another rather than my own. It is true that we have to be clear with our communications to enable both parties to prosper. I have been a coward and not expressed my true feelings (positive or negative) for fear of doing harm. This is not noble behaviour. I, and others, have suffered.

But “My Muse” for her part was not noble either and this morning I am prepared to admit that she was “not the right sort of girl to fall in love with”. She was from Essex and of lower class and it is sad to say that this does seem to map on to expectations of nobility. The lower class actually behave with less nobility – they don’t have to, but I think society (and they themselves) expect themselves to. Worth adding that the upper class don’t behave with much more these days – which is a far greater crime since it is their duty to do so and they have only themselves to blame. After all this analysis I can say I did the right thing and that the fault was that she was not the right girl. Odd that I should have been convinced all these years of the opposite.

If we wish to speak to someone of an urgent matter we seek their attention. We do not hold a conversation with someone else and we wait until they have finished speaking with whoever they are conversant with. This is noble and polite. “My Muse” on the other hand was not polite and didn’t know politeness. She was in a relationship with someone who was in turn in a relationship with someone else. Her boyfriend was not polite or respectful to be holding two conversations at the same time (at 33 he certainly should have known). “My Muse” it seems wanted to hold a conversation with me and I waited for her to finish speaking. No end ever came to that other conversations so I was right to have never spoken. This is correct behaviour. Dionysian thinking would say that I should have abandoned myself to my passions and acted impulsively and with conviction, worked my charm, seduced her and stolen her from the other man’s bed in the dead of night, stolen her away through the velvety shadows and satin moonlight. This itself is seductive and I was thinking “irreason” (previous posts) in those days. But this is actually not correct behaviour; it is not noble. This is the sword of perfection that anoints the noble and cuts away the ignoble. Maybe it is hard for modern thought to comprehend: I refer above.

Hers was in reflection a series of steps towards imperfection. She always used to say to me that she wanted to be “corrupted”. I have no idea what demon tainted her with that poison but in reflection that is all it was. She had had 6 months of relationship when I met her. Maybe he had succeeded in corrupting already what was probably an impressionable teenager. I always thought she had more strength; was her own person already. Maybe here I was wrong again. From the imperfections of that relationship from which she was eventually ousted to one night stands and seeking sexual thrills drawn by some taint toward something which I am discovering within myself does not exist. Eventually she met what by all accounts was a charming fellow and got engaged, but her sister says even this was imperfect for her. She called this “realism” but it is all still imperfection, sullied and ignoble. So it was a mistake to seek perfection with her who herself did not know perfection.

This must be the end of the issue of “My Muse”. That is a term I will no longer use for her. My musing now source from myself and the world. On April 17th it will be the 10year anniversary of the last time we ever embraced and I ever heard her voice and ever looked into her eyes. I still remember her hands seeking me through my shirt and the tears in her eyes; things which I assumed were just fake because I had ceased to make sense of her loyalties. I know now (after speaking with her sister) that she actually had a high regard for me and that these were genuine and I made a mistake to walk away without talking things out and saying what I really had to say: but it was too late by then and my own ignoble actions and cowardice had gone on long enough: that day of December 4th 1997 when, as we parted, we caught each other’s glance looking back, which has been on freeze frame ever since I had to stitch off and walk away… and walk away… and walk away…

It is odd writing this: I can’t do it. I still can’t walk away. Somehow my life is still there. What lies out here is still wilderness; a wilderness I have walked in for almost 10 years. Is their life after love? Not really. (For that matter was their life before love? I have wondered this also). Yet I have faith: that will never go, that is the air that fills my lungs, but it is thin up here in the mountains and I must have walked a long way down now because all the familiar things are back; the scrubland has become trees and there are rivers and butterflies. Yet when I speak of Her sincerely and remember I see that actually it was better then. Somehow being alive right now is not as good as what I remember. This is a truly ignoble thing to say but it is just how I feel. My head asks: How can “this” which is Real compare with what is only a vague memory of something that never really happened? but my heart tells me otherwise. But my head gets the last word because stupid heart what you seek is nowhere in all this universe or beyond to find. And, yet it still seeks it. Is this how I was born? With this insatiable yearning for something which doesn’t anywhere exist – or when you find it dies? How many lifetimes does it take to learn that this is an endless road? So still I cannot walk away…but returning to the issue…”Pride and Prejudice” and especially Greer Garson actually, has reminded me what I also instinctively know in that stupid heart that nobility is the only true way and that gains approval from my head as well… and of the end of empire? How many speak like this these days, when in times gone by it was our only code of living?