Iain Sinclair - White Chappell, Scarlet Tracings

I could refer to this process as the erasure of the inessential; but I could go further, leap beyond, it does come on me, that it is the obvious and the most apparent that is not to be stated. That which is present before our eyes needs no elaboration. It is the invisible that moves us. We arrive at the essence by describing that which surrounds it. To describe the invisible itself would be to erase its power over us. If I listed all the forces that were around me, the rights, passions, feelings, influences — I say, all — I would make my own presence wholly unnecessary. By ceasing to be I would however be more powerfully and truly present than I had ever been before. I would be disencumbered, no longer prey to the physical laws of the universe and the grinding tyranny of time. I should never again be before your eyes, a succession of negatives and qualifications, I should be within you, around you, beyond you. In erasing myself I should truly become.

So you see there is a compulsion on me, a necessity — the universal compulsion and necessity by which I believe all deeper seeing has come — to see human life differently, if I am to see it at all. That which is visible in it — is not it. I must see more if I am to feel I see it. I must see some hidden things that seem not there at all, but are there, though I will never see them.

Now, the fact that has arrested me in social life — perhaps it is emphatically in modern social life, though perhaps not — is the discord between people and what they do; how such people can do such things. This is the problem. What I am perhaps more conscious of than most, is the evil of this good life. And this is, I suppose, the happy fruit of my sojourn in Whitechapel in my youth.

I discovered then that there was a force that operates upon us, a force that our deeds can never describe; perhaps our deeds even deflect that force from its purpose. What is that purpose? It is not to be spoken of — other than by stating: it is that which we choose to leave out. We are now far beyond all notions of good and evil, all merely human morality. This new Heaven is not for greenhouses and carriages. There are no high walls around it. We have prepared ourselves for another ‘invisible life’ but that world has slipped away. When we have surrounded it — then it is gone. And we are the shape of that absence.

Dear Carrie, it is assuredly true that some men and some women will be alive and remain to the coming of the Lord; the very last epoch of human life will be witnessed by some eyes and hailed, or wailed (most likely at first) by some hearts incredulous and incapable of believing that they can be the witnesses of the last stage, the triumph. Then assuredly, too, the last stage before the last stage will be witnessed by some eyes, and trembled at, and mourned over, and disbelieved by some weak and troubled minds. Why should they not be yours and mine?

Your loving brother,

James

St Michael’s, The Azores

November 1875

A TRIBUTE

My dear Son,

Not Corvo, nor Flores.

Not Pico. It is at St Michael’s,

almost beyond the pull of

Europe, those tired bones, the

dust of its sad history, that I

have at last settled. Not at rest,

halted. The New World is a

rumour across the cold ocean.

I cannot hear the fall of those

bright feathers, the tooth of

the jaguar breaking upon

black stone.

I watch the sun die and feel

that it is my own brain

burning, liquefying, melting,

cooling to lead. Patches shine

like silver. But they do not

remain.

The fire in my skull is out. I

can watch most calmly as my

brain falls out of the heavens,

so abruptly, into the great

dead sea.

This is where I have come

We have heard recently, from

Ponta Delgada on the island of

St Michael’s in the Azores, of

the death of the philosopher

and surgeon, James Hinton.

Acute inflammation of the

brain declared itself, and after a

few days of intense suffering,

in which he knew no one, he

entered into his rest on the

16th December 1875.

It would be a pain to me that

any Memoir of James Hinton

should go forth without a word

of affectionate regard for his

memory from me. It is now

near twenty years ago that our

acquaintance began. Sympathies

in common on the nearest

subjects of human interest

brought us much together.

I recall vividly the earnest

manner with which he would

submit to me his new works,

chapter by chapter. Convinced

as he was that the only deadness

because this is nowhere. Dust.

The dust that man is,

blowing, blowing. On our

lips and in our fingers. The

orange groves! All those sad

lives; those candles, folded

into bulbs of wax. They hang.

But they are green, Howard.

There is no fire of truth in

them. I will not suck on that

green blood.

Our dwelling is a ruin,

nowhere better. The shutters

cannot hold out the dust. I

take it on my spoon.

A little girl of ten came to me

while I was sitting on the

harbour wall and said, ‘Do tell

me about the fluxions.’

I replied at once, ‘Multiply me

17 by 3. So you know 3 times 7

is 21, 1 and carry 2; 3 times 1 is

3 and 2 is 5 equals 51.’

‘Now,’ I said, ‘do you see

what you have done with that

2? You have put it down and

then rubbed it out; it was

necessary to have it, but not

to keep it. Now, a fluxion is

this; it is a thing we need to

have, but are not intended to

hold; a thing we rightly make,

but in order to unmake.’

in nature, the only negative

condition, was man’s selfishness,

his whole life and

thought was to excite a reaction

against it.

Death to him was a purely

human idea. All nature is living.

He was abreast of the best

physiology of the time, and

may be considered as having

done good service in combating

the narrow views that still

prevail, even in high quarters,

and which would raise a barrier

in nature between organic and

inorganic where none exists.

Hinton was not a man of

science, but a philosopher.

Science was to him the servant

of philosophy. He felt himself

to be an interpreter of nature;

not in the Baconian sense by

the collection and arrangement

of facts, the sequences of

causes and effects, but, like the

Hebrew seer of old, penetrating

through appearances to

their central cause.

I remember one occasion

when he came to me full of

emotion, with tears in his eyes,

at a glimpse he had caught of

the universal relation of things

The world is so beautiful I

don’t know what to do; the

condition of that joy is

consenting to bear pain; and

one scarcely dares to say one is

happy, because it makes the

pain confront one, and the

words have lost their meaning

ere they have passed one’s

lips.

I am happy and sorry; and just

now I cannot see a bit

whether that gladness I think

is coming on the earth is

coming or not.

I am not sure I shall be in a

great hurry to come back.

There is no reason to move

from where I am now. Not

even an eyelid, or tongue

over dried lips. Why should I

disturb the pain that is the

only truth?

It is so sad to me that I have

lost the power of helping

those who need worldly aid. I

have tried too much, and

failed; but yet perhaps in that,