uman
wisdom does permit privacy. The first is the case I have mentioned--that
of hide-and-seek, or the police novel, in which it permits privacy only
in order to explode and smash privacy. The author makes first a
fastidious secret of how the Bishop was murdered, only in order that he
may at last declare, as from a high tower, to the whole democracy the
great glad news that he was murdered by the governess. In that case,
ignorance is only valued because being ignorant is the best and purest
preparation for receiving the horrible revelations of high life.
Somewhat in the same way being an agnostic is the best and purest
preparation for receiving the happy revelations of St. John.

This first sort of secrecy we may dismiss, for its whole ultimate object
is not to keep the secret, but to tell it. Then there is a second and
far more important class of things which humanity does agree to hide.
They are so important that they cannot possibly be discussed here. But
every one will know the kind of things I mean. In connection with these,
I wish to remark that though they are, in one sense, a secret, they are
also always a "secret de Polichinelle." Upon sex and such matters we are
in a human freemasonry; the freemasonry is disciplined, but the
freemasonry is free. We are asked to be silent about these things, but
we are not asked to be ignorant about them. On the contrary, the
fundamental human argument is entirely the other way. It is the thing
most common to humanity that is most veiled by humanity. It is exactly
because we all know that it is there that we need not say that it is
there.

Then there is a third class of things on which the best civilisation
does permit privacy, does resent all inquiry or explanation. This is in
the case of things which need not be explained, because they cannot be
explained, things too airy, instinctive, or intangible--caprices, sudden
impulses, and the more innocent kind of prejudice. A man must not be
asked why he is talkative or silent, for the simple reason that he does
not know. A man is not asked (even in Germany) why he walks slow or
quick, simply because he could not answer. A man must take his own road
through a wood, and make his own use of a holiday. And the reason is
this: not because he has a strong reason, but actually because he has a
weak reason; because he has a slight and fleeting feeling about the
matter which he could not explain to a policeman, which perhaps the very
appe