Letters from Berringford 2 Freckled things
Erewhon
Berringford
14 February, 1978
Freckled things
Happy Valentine’s Day to all
young lovers! And to all old
lovers! In fact, to lovers of every
generation!
I have a young rose in a
large pot by the porch, and I’m trying to train it up the wall of the porch and
then over the roof. In my gardening bible it says distinctly that this variety
is a climber, and I feel that it would enhance the porch as it blossoms, but
the rose has other ideas. It insists on
growing downwards. Every stem I fix to
go up continues to grow vertically for another inch or two to humour me and
then turns and points resolutely down in a determined search for the
ground. Finally, I am beginning to feel
that this is, after all, good. God bless
all wayward things!
Why should everything be
trained and trimmed, classified and sorted, organised and told what to do? The most interesting things are in the
miscellaneous file. We need the rose
which sends out its shoots the wrong way; the child in class who doesn’t give a
damn about marks; the shopper who is not deceived by the empty promises of
advertising; the pavement artist and the street musician; the lonely man who
hands out leaflets in Red Square; the young traveller who has resigned from a
safe and steady job; the aging traveller who refuses to spend their retirement
sitting in front of TV; all those who will not toe the line, bend the knee or
knuckle under. Now, more than ever, we
need them all.
We need anyone who brightens
the uniformity of these times, when Chicago, Tokyo and Istanbul are all turning
into the same thing. We need people who dare to go forward when all the others
are turning back. We need people who decide to accept no more. We need the people who do not laugh at the
shortcomings of the last generation and can see a little further into the
shortcomings of their own; who resist conformity for no other reason than that
the flame of being human burns more brightly in them than in the rest; the
people who say they have had enough and walk off on their own. In these days of bowing to fashion and
kowtowing to vogues, of global companies, customs and language, they are,
without being aware of it, the one true hope we have.
“All things counter,
original, spare, strange;
Whatever is fickle,
freckled…”
Gerard Manley Hopkins praised
them a hundred years ago. They are worth
even more today.
I am sitting in my porch and
have just read this letter aloud. Having
heard it clearly, and inwardly digested it, my rose will probably grow straight
up! Just to be contrary! Well, I’ll soon see!
Goodbye and good luck!
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