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What do you value the most? Things, people, ideas and ideals, or abstract beauty? Few admit to choosing material possessions, but things are hard to ignore. They can be hard not to want. Especially if they’re beautiful. Even more so if the reflected beauty seems to emanate from you, drawing admiring eyes.

When I read this, my exposure to Lawrence had been limited to a pair of very sensual novels (reviews: The Rainbow and Women in Love) and one such short story (review: Sun). This was a surprising change: a satirical short story about a couple of idealists who reject convention and materialism, and try to rule their lives with �beauty� as their watchword. They fail.

Nearly a century after Lawrence wrote it, it’s still contemporary. These idealists could be on an extended gap year, trying to find themselves.

They dabble in different cultures and theological and philosophical beliefs. But they’re perpetually disappointed, so they move on to something else, somewhere else, without admitting disappointment to themselves. And again.

The grass is always greener - until they are standing on it, mowing and tending it. The problem is not with France or Italy, not with theosophy or Buddhism; it’s with them. “They deliberately set themselves to eliminate from their own souls greed, pain, and sorrow. They did not realise - yet - that Buddha’s very eagerness to free himself from pain and sorrow is in itself a sort of greed.�

They have vague ideals, but they lack what many Lawrence characters have to excess: passion. “They both painted, but not desperately.�

They succumb to the allure of material gew-gaws and the beguiling but ephemeral admiration of others. “The glow of beauty� dies down unless it is fed� Things that glow vividly while you’re getting them go almost quite cold after a year or two.�

These supposedly free spirits lose sight and thus flight: their pearls have the density of lead. They accumulate more than they can afford, more than they can easily travel with. Beautiful things, but things, nevertheless. Meanwhile, their son is sidelined, as a minor inconvenience (a common feature of Lawrence’s stories).


What do I value the most? Things, people, ideas and ideals, or abstract beauty? They overlap, of course. I value kindness, integrity, interest, empathy, and passion in people - qualities that render them beautiful to me. With things, I value more literal, objective beauty. Yes, I have too many things, but they’re mainly books - books which bring beauty and insight and joy to my life.

Thus, I too elevate “beauty� as an ideal, but I hope I do so in a broad, almost spiritual sense, rather than a narrow material one. I hope that my sense of self-worth is not rooted and nourished solely in the opinions of others. I look down at the grass beneath my feet, and I see green. Mostly. Best not to look over the fence, though.

May my loved ones remain beautiful in my eyes (and I in theirs), and may my beautiful books be forever thumbed and to hand, never languishing in storage. And I wish the same for my GR friends.


Read as part of Selected Short Stories.


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