Enthusiasms [antikvár]

ONE We live in a querulous age; more, we live in an age in which it is argued that to be happy is frivolous, and expecting to be happy positively childish. To be passionate in a cause provokes widespread embarrassment, and to be passionate in appreciation of the good things of life, especially the non-material good things, is to court on the one hand stem denunciation as an irresponsible hedonist, and to set off on the other the squealing and tittering of those whose motto is 'Surtout, Messieurs, point de zele'. It is, of course, worse than that; behind much of the contempt for joy lie a deep fear and hatred of enjoyment. 'In Xanadu did Kubla Khan a stately pleasure-dome decree . . . '; the pleasures to be found there were of the most innocent kind - gardens bright with sinuous rills, trees bearing incense, forests ancient as the hills enfolding sunny spots of greenery, a deep romantic chasm - yet Kubla none the less heard from far ancestral voices prophesying war. It was the war on pleasure that they prophesied, and it has been going on ever since. The intensity of the disapproval has obviously been greater in some eras than in others, and the phenomenon has been variously explained - climate and reli^on are two of the favoured versions of the reason - but the terrible truth is that the hatred of pleasure is for some an end in itself. Throughout history there have been those who have hated pleasure irrespective of its nature; it began, I suppose, with the serpent in Eden, whispering his doubts about its enjoyment until Adam and Eve became so inhibited by self-consciousness that they took the steps which led to their expulsion from that innocent realm. Macaulay's famous summation of the pleasure-haters' motives - The Puritan hated bear-baiting not because it