by Jan Morris
‘What are men for?’ a man said to me in Trieste. ‘Tell me that – what are we for?’ He was bewildered by the mighty changes in relationship between men and women, leaving him as unsure about his new status as many women were about theirs. ‘Sure I’m a Christian,’ a woman at a café table in San Francisco assured me, ‘but, I don’t know, I can’t believe in all that Jesus stuff any more.’ She was recognizing in herself, half-way through life, the desolating loss of innocence. ‘What’s happened to the frogs?’ a child asked me in England. She was already observing, so early in life, the universal degradation of nature.
The intermingling of peoples around the world, which had once seemed so happy a portent, was beginning to feel an oppression. In Hawaii I was told that you could park a canoe on a beach only if you could prove that your ancestors had lived in the island for more than a century, and when I arrived in Australia they had just turned away 450 Asian refugees who had been rescued from a sinking ship – ‘the people have had enough’, wrote Mr A. Prizibilla (sic) to the Sydney Daily Telegraph, ‘Australia is not a dumping ground for depressed citizens of the world.’ And disorienting the spirit of the new age most elementally was the baffling gulf, growing every minute of every day, between the rich and the poor, the well-fed and the hungry – between those who had plenty, and expected to have more, and those who had almost nothing, and could expect nothing better.
We were all mixed up, I came to think as I travelled on, all unsure, and it sometimes occurred to me that the condition was even blurring our thought at the edges, and making our very speech more imprecise. Somebody in America told me of a recent review he had read of a television series. ‘This series’, it said, ‘fulfils a long needed want’ – and it took me several moments, I confess, before I realized that while the syntax was OK, the sense was decidedly uncertain.
*
The lingering reproaches of imperialism, the mysteries of technology, the antipathies of race, shifts of balance, bewilderments of progress, corrosions of money and power – all, it seemed to me, were reaching some kind of dark climax. For years I had sneered at the old stiffs and farts who had been assuring us, down the generations, that the world was going to pot. Now at last I began to fear that they might have been right all along. It was not a rush towards apocalypse that I sensed, more a welter of discrete and contradictory forces throwing us about, tossing us here and there, rather as we are sometimes told the universe itself was whirled into existence out of a bouillabaisse of floating gases.
As I get old I realize more clearly than ever that to the ultimate question – what’s it all about? – there is not, and never will be, an answer. The truest and most brilliant brains down the centuries have fudged the issue with their various species of mumbo-jumbo, from High Mass at St Peter’s to witch-doctors’ prancing spells. The best we can do, I have come to think, is to ignore the conundrum, as we move from one age to another, and to my mind there need be only one commandment to help us cope: Be Kind. This plain injunction embraces the highest teachings of all the religions. Flexible enough to allow for free will and human frailty, it is, at the core of it, solid as granite – firm as St Peter’s rock, mysterious as the Black Stone of the Kaaba, simple as Stonehenge, organic as the Buddha’s Bodhi Tree, authoritative as any Mosaic law.
Yes, I thought to myself as I ended my journey and boarded the last flight home, kindness is the one principle that can see us through, a rule of life so straightforward that we all know what it means, and need no theologians to explain it for us. Contemplating this simple discipline, I remembered the confused colonel of St Petersburg, the Cairo student, the canoe-owners of Hawaii, Mr Prizibilla, the disillusioned Triestino, the vanished frogs, the lost faiths and the worried villagers of Llyn so close to home; and imagining how a universal devotion to kindness might have comforted all their anxieties, thoughtfully I returned to Wales on 10 September 2001.
The very next day, far away in dear old Manhattan, the next zeitgeist declared itself.
*
TREFAN MORYS, 2003
Index
Abdulillah (Crown Prince of Iraq), 1
aborigines, Australian, 1, 2
Accra, 1
acrobats, Chinese, 1
Addis Ababa, 1
Adenauer, Konrad, 1
Africa,
1950s, 1
1960s, 1
1970s, 1, 2
Ethiopia, 1
Ghana, 1
Nigeria, 1
South Africa, 1, 2
Sudanese Republic, 1
Afrikaners, 1, 2
Albania, 1
Algeria, 1
Alice Springs, 1
All Souls College, Oxford, 1, 2
Allen, Woody, 1
Andes Mountains, 1, 2
apartheid, 1, 2
Arabs, in London, 1
Arendt, Hannah, 1
Argentina, 1
Arlene Schnitzer Hall, Portland, 1
Arpad (King of Hungary), 1
Asanuma, Inejiro, 1
Athanasius, St, 1
Augustusplatz, Leipzig, 1
Austen, Jane, 1
Australia,
1960s, 1
1980s, 1
1990s, 1, 2
aborigines, 1, 2
Alice Springs, 1
Darwin, 1
Sydney, 1, 2, 3,4
Austria, 1
Ayers Rock, 1
Aymara Indians, 1
Bacall, Lauren, 1
Bach, Johann Sebastian, 1, 2, 3, 4
Bachardy, Don, 1
Bad Kreuznach, 1
Baghdad, 1
Bai-el-’Arab, 1
Bailey, Philip, 1
Balkans, 1
Bangkok, 1
Barbados, 1
Battery Park, New York, 1
The Battleship Potemkin (film), 1
Bauhaus, 1, 2
Beerbohm, Max, 1
Beethoven, Ludwig van, 1
Beijing, 1, 2, 3, 4
Beirut, 1
Belfast, 1
Berlin, 1, 2
Berlin Wall, 1
Billingsgate fish market, London, 1
Blood River, Battle of (1838), 1
Blücherplatz, Leipzig, 1, 2
Bogart, Humphrey, 1
Bolivia, 1
Bolshoi Theatre, Moscow, 1
Bonwit Teller department store, New York, 1
Bosnia-Herzegovina, 1
Botev, Hristo, 1
Bourdillon, Tom, 1
Brandenburg Gate, Berlin, 1
Brandenburger Tor, Berlin, 1, 2
Brazil, 1, 2, 3
Bristol Freighters, 1
Bristol Hotel, Warsaw, 1, 2
Britain,
1950s, 1, 2
and Canada, 1
and Hong Kong, 1
monarchy, 1, 2
and Switzerland, 1, 2
and USA, 1
see also England
Brown v. Board of Education, 1
Browning, Robert, 1
Brussels, Treaty of (1972), 1
Bryce, James, 1
Bucharest, 1
Budapest, 1
Buddhism, 1 India, 1
Japan, 1
Sri Lanka, 1
Bulgaria, 1
Burbank Studios, Hollywood, 1
Burgess, Guy, 1
Burgundy, 1
Buthelezi, Gatsha, 1
Café Einstein, Berlin, 1
Cairo, 1
California Zephyr (train), 1
Canada, 1
Cape Town, 1
Capote, Truman, 1
Capuchins, Church of the, Vienna, 1
Caribbean, 1
Casablanca, 1
Castro, Fidel, regime, of 1
Ceausescu, Nicolai, 1, 2
Central House of the Army, Bucharest, 1
Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), 1, 2, 3
Central Park, New York, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5
Cetinje, 1
Ceylon, 1
chalets
, Swiss, 1
Changan, Beijing, 1
Change Alley, Singapore, 1
Chardin, Teilhard de, 1
Charles (Prince of Wales), 1
Chartres, 1
Chateau Marmont, Hollywood, 1
Chicago, 1
Chicago Tribune, 1
Children’s Palace, Shanghai, 1
China,
1950s, 1
1980s, 1
Beijing, 1, 2, 3, 4
Chinese in Singapore, 1
Chinese in Sydney, 1
Great Wall, 1
and Hong Kong, 1, 2
Shanghai, 1, 2
Churchill, Randolph, 1
Churchill, Sir Winston, 1
CIA, see Central Intelligence Agency
City of London, 1, 2
Cockneys 1
Cold War, 1, 2 Berlin Wall, 1
Colombo Café, Rio de Janeiro, 1
communism, 1
Confederation Building, St John’s, 1
Congress Hall, Berlin, 1
Copacabana, 1
Côte de Beaune, 1courts of law, Canada, 1
England, 1
Covent Garden, London, 1, 2
Coward, Noël, 1
Cranach, Lucas, the Elder, 1, 2
cricket, 1, 2
crime, Chicago, 1
New York, 1, 2, 3
Sri Lanka, 1
Croatia, 1
Crosses, Hill of, Siauliai, 1
Crossmaglen, 1
Crown of St Stephen, 1
Cuba, 1
Customs House, Shanghai, 1
Cuzco, 1
Cwm Hyfryd, 1
Czechoslovakia, 1
Darjeeling, 1
Darwin, 1
de Gaulle, Charles, 1, 2
Deauville, 1
Delhi, 1
Deng Xiaoping, 1
Denver railway station, 1
Dickens, Charles, 1
Dickens, Monica, 1
Donner Lake, 1
Double Bay, Sydney, 1
Dyffryn Camwy, 1
Egypt, 1950s, 1, 2 status among Muslim countries, 1
Suez Affair (1956), 1
Eichmann, Adolf, trial, (1961) 1
Eiffel Tower, Paris, 1
Elaine’s saloon, New York, 1
Elephant Hotel, Leipzig, 1
Elizabeth II (Queen of Great Britain and Northern Ireland), 1
coronation, 1, 2
Ellis Island, New York, 1
Encounter, 1
England, 950s, 1
1960s, 1
1970s, 1
1980s, 1
France, attitude to, 1, 2
London, 1, 2, 3
Oxford, 1
Wells, 1
see also Britain
espionage, 1, 2
Ethiopia, 1
Eugénie (Empress of France), 1
European Union, 1
Evans, Charles, 1
Everest, first ascent (1953) 1
Falk, Peter, 1
Farmer’s Market, Los Angeles, 1
Feisal II (King of Iraq), 1, 2
feng shui, 1
Fermi, Enrico, 1
Fermor, Patrick Leigh, 1
Fielding, Henry, 1
film industry, Hollywood, 1, 2, 3
‘Final Solution’, 1
Finland, 1
Fisher, Adm. ‘Jacky’, 1, 2
Fisherman’s Wharf, San Francisco, 1
Ford Motor Company factory, Singapore, 1
France,
1950s, 1
1970s, 1
1990s, 1, 2
Côte de Beaune, 1
English attitude to French, 1, 2
French character, 1
Paris, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5
Trouville, 1
Franglais, 1
Franz Josef I (Emperor of Austria), 1, 2, 3
Freedom Memorial, Shipka, 1
freeways, Los Angeles, 1
Freud, Sigmund, 1, 2
Fulanis, 1
Gandhi, Mohandas Karamchand, Mahatma, 1, 2
Garbo, Greta, 1
geishas, 1
Gell, Christopher, 1
Germany, 1950s, 1
1960s, 1
1980s, 1
1990s, 1, 2
Berlin, 1, 2
Leipzig, 1
Nazi, 1, 2
Rheingau, 1
Weimar, 1
Gewandhaus Orchestra, 1
Ghana, 1
Ghanaian Times, 1
Giza, pyramids, of 1
Goethe (ship), 1
Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5
Grand Central Station, New York, 1
Graves, Michael, 1
Great Wall of China, 1
Greenwich Village, New York, 1
Gregory, Alfred, 1
Grimaud, 1
Grinev, Mikhail, 1
Gropius, Walter, 1
Guardian, 1, 2, 3 passim
Guevara, Ernesto ‘Che’, 1
Guinness, Alec, 1
Gundel’s Restaurant, Budapest, 1
Gunther, John, 1
Gurkhas, 1
Haifa, 1
Haile Selassie (Emperor of Ethiopia), 1, 2
Halevi, Dr Benjamin, 1
Harlem, New York, 1, 2
Harley St, London, 1
Haro, 1
Hassanein, Maj. Magdi, 1
Haus zorn Kaffeebaum, Leipzig, 1
Hausas, 1
Hausner, Dr Gideon, 1
Havana, 1
Hawaii, 1
Hawker, Harry G., 1
Hebbel, Friedrich, 1
Helsinki, 1
Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg, 1
Heroes’ Square, Budapest, 1
Heydrich, Reinhard, 1
Hillary, Sir Edmund, 1
Himalayas, 1, 2
Hiroshima, 1
Hitler, Adolf, 1, 2
Hochschule für Musik Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy,
Leipzig, 1
Hofburg, Vienna, 1
Hollywood, 1, 2, 3
Holocaust, 1
Hong Kong, 1, 2, 3
Hood, Raymond, 1
horse racing, 1
Hotel Newfoundland, St John’s, 1
houseboats, Kashmiri, 1
Houses of Parliament, London, 1, 2, 3
hovercraft, 1
Hoxha, Enver, 1, 2
Hughes, Howard, 1
Hungary, 1
Hunt, Sir John, 1
Hussein (King of Jordan), wedding of, 1
Ibos 1, 2
Illimani, Mount, 1
Incas, 1
India, 1950s, 1
1970s, 1
and Kashmir, 1 Iran, 2
Iraq, 1
Ireland, Northern, 1
Irish, in Australia, 1
in Newfoundland, 1
Isfahan, 1
Isherwood, Christopher, 1, 2
Islam, 1 Ahmadiya, 1
Cairo mosques and superstitions, 1
Jerusalem, 1
Kano, 1
Isle of Man, 1
Israel,
1950s, 1
Eichmann trial, (1961) 1
and Jerusalem, 1, 2
Israeli Army, and Suez Affair (1956), 1
Italy,
1950s, 1
1960s, 1
1990s, 1
Naples, 1
Rome, 1, 2
Trieste, 1
Venice, 1
Jalapahar Hill, Darjeeling, 1
Japan,
1950s, 1, 2
Singapore, capture of (1942), 1
Jehangir (Moghul Emperor), 1
Jerusalem, 1
Jews and Jewish issues, Eichmann trial (1961), 1
Israel, 1
Jerusalem, 1
Nazi-hunting, 1
Viennese anti-Semitism, 1, 2
Jingshan, Beijing, 1
Johanna Park, Leipzig, 1
Johnson, Philip, 1
Johnson, Dr Samuel, 1
Jordan,
1
Jost, Jerry, 1
Kano, 1
Karloff, Boris, 1
Karlskirche, Vienna, 1
Kashmir, 1
Kharga, 1
King’s Cross, Sydney, 1, 2
Knightsbridge, London, 1
Königliche Conservatorium der Musik, Leipzig, 1, 2
Kozloduy, 1
Krushchev, Nikita, 1, 2, 3
Kryziu Kalnas, Siauliai, 1
Kurfürstendamm, Berlin, 1
Kyoto, 1
La Paz, 1
Lagos, 1
Lake Lucerne, 1
Lancaster House, London, 1
Lanchester, Elsa, 1
Landau, Dr Moshe, 1
language, Franglais, 1
Sydney English, 1
Le Corbusier, 1, 2
Le Montrachet vineyard, 1
Lebanon, 1
Lee, Martin, 1
Lee Kuan Yew, 1
Leipzig, 1
Leipzig Old Town Hall, 1
Leipzig Opera House, 1
Lenin, Vladimir Ilyich, tomb of, 1
Leningrad, 1
Lepchas, 1
Les Invalides, Paris, 1
Levsky, Vasil, 1
Li River, 1
Liberation Province, Egypt, 1
Lima, 1
Lipskani quarter, Bucharest, 1
Liszt, Franz, 1, 2, 3
Lithuania, 1
London, 1, 2, 3
London Bridge, 1
Long, Dorman, 1
Longo, Roben, 1
