FRANCIS


Asceticism is a thing which in its very nature, we tend in these days to
misunderstand. Asceticism, in the religious sense, is the repudiation of
the great mass of human joys because of the supreme joyfulness of the
one joy, the religious joy. But asceticism is not in the least confined
to religious asceticism: there is scientific asceticism which asserts
that truth is alone satisfying: there is æsthetic asceticism which
asserts that art is alone satisfying: there is amatory asceticism which
asserts that love is alone satisfying. There is even epicurean
asceticism, which asserts that beer and skittles are alone satisfying.
Wherever the manner of praising anything involves the statement that the
speaker could live with that thing alone, there lies the germ and
essence of asceticism. When William Morris, for example, says that 'love
is enough,' it is obvious that he asserts in those words that art,
science, politics, ambition, money, houses, carriages, concerts, gloves,
walking-sticks, door-knockers, railway-stations, cathedrals and any
other things one may choose to tabulate are unnecessary. When Omar
Khayyam says:

'A book of verse beneath the bough
A loaf of bread, a jug of wine and thou
Sitting beside me in the wilderness
O wilderness were Paradise enow.'

It is clear that he speaks fully as much ascetically as he does
æsthetically. He makes a list of things and says that he wants no more.