William, an Englishman (1919) and the Collapse of Cicely Hamilton’s Pre-war Meliorism

Abstract

desertion and emptying of a city, its abandonment as dusk came down. In the old wars men 34 fled into walled towns for refuge from their enemy; in our wars, the wall, when the night 35 comes down, is a trap that you fly from to the open. (Hamilton, 1918, 577) 36The catastrophic menace Cicely Hamilton (1872Hamilton ( -1952 imposed on all those who were coerced to remain passive. 106Before one drop of angry blood was shed 107I was sore hurt and beaten to my knee; 108Before one fighting man reeled back and died 109The War-Lords struck at me. 110They struck me down an idle, useless mouth, 111As cumbrous, nay, more cumbrous than the dead, Editor ProofWith life and heart afire to give and give 113I take a dole instead. 114With life and heart afire to give and give 115I take and eat the bread of charity. 116In all the length of all eager land, 117No man has need of me. 118That is my hurt my burning, beating wound; 119That is the spear-thrust driven through my pride! 120With aimless hands, and mouth that must be fed, 121I wait and stand aside. Editor ProofHer late-Victorian and early twentieth-century meliorism was brutally challenged 144 by the shock and trauma of war, her former confidence on uninterrupted civiliza-145 tional ascent forced to confront its brittle foundations. 4 The war powerfully dis-146 rupted the former optimistic narrative of human liberation. 147Looking through the chaos before her as if it were a scrim, Hamilton sees beyond it a future 148 in which the terror of a mature air power would, she imagined, turn town-dwelling citizens Reflecting upon her own prolonged experience near the front, she realized that 153 human progress was not inevitable, re-evaluated some of her most authentic ideals, 154and reappraised the human potential for self-destruction. 'Meliorism, The doctrine, intermediate between optimism and pessimism, which affirms that the world may be made better by rightly-directed human effort. James Sully (Pessimism, 1877) attributed the term to George Eliot, "the faith which affirms not merely our power of lessening evil -this nobody questions -but also our ability to increase the amount of positive good." OED. See also James Sully, Pessimism: A History and A Criticism, Henry S. King & Co., 1877, Chapter XIV, 399-401. https://archive.org/details/pessimismahisto01sullgoog. Accessed 26.01. 2016. 5And first English prize-winner of the then most prominent prize to be awarded to any woman writer. See Prix Femina. http://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/rd/a77f8754-6b14-448c-a06f-a491a43387f5. Accessed 27.09.2015. Editor Proof The project was interrupted by the war and nearly forgotten until Hamilton 177 returned to it in 'the form of a war novel' (Hamilton, 1935, 85 Editor Proof 'If we ignore the devastation wreaked by war on women, children, civilians, animals, the land, buildings, bridges, communications, the entire fabric of family, social and civilized life, we can perhaps construe the makers of war to be its victims, but this requires that we imagine the world of war to b...