Women in Love

Seething mobs of men marched about, their faces lighted up as for holy

war, with a smoke of cupidity. How disentangle the passion for equality

from the passion of cupidity, when begins the fight for equality of

possessions? But the God was the machine. Each man claimed equality in

the Godhead of the great productive machine. Every man equally was part

of this Godhead. But somehow, somewhere, Thomas Crich knew this was

false. When the machine is the Godhead, and production or work is

worship, then the most mechanical mind is purest and highest, the

representative of God on earth. And the rest are subordinate, each

according to his degree.

Riots broke out, Whatmore pit-head was in flames. This was the pit

furthest in the country, near the woods. Soldiers came. From the

windows of Shortlands, on that fatal day, could be seen the flare of

fire in the sky not far off, and now the little colliery train, with

the workmen's carriages which were used to convey the miners to the

distant Whatmore, was crossing the valley full of soldiers, full of

redcoats. Then there was the far-off sound of firing, then the later

news that the mob was dispersed, one man was shot dead, the fire was

put out.

Gerald, who was a boy, was filled with the wildest excitement and

delight. He longed to go with the soldiers to shoot the men. But he was

not allowed to go out of the lodge gates. At the gates were stationed

sentries with guns. Gerald stood near them in delight, whilst gangs of

derisive miners strolled up and down the lanes, calling and jeering: 'Now then, three ha'porth o'coppers, let's see thee shoot thy gun.'

Insults were chalked on the walls and the fences, the servants left.

And all this while Thomas Crich was breaking his heart, and giving away

hundreds of pounds in charity. Everywhere there was free food, a

surfeit of free food. Anybody could have bread for asking, and a loaf

cost only three-ha'pence. Every day there was a free tea somewhere, the

children had never had so many treats in their lives. On Friday

afternoon great basketfuls of buns and cakes were taken into the

schools, and great pitchers of milk, the school children had what they

wanted. They were sick with eating too much cake and milk.

And then it came to an end, and the men went back to work. But it was

never the same as before. There was a new situation created, a new idea

reigned. Even in the machine, there should be equality. No part should

be subordinate to any other part: all should be equal. The instinct for

chaos had entered. Mystic equality lies in abstraction, not in having

or in doing, which are processes. In function and process, one man, one

part, must of necessity be subordinate to another. It is a condition of

being. But the desire for chaos had risen, and the idea of mechanical

equality was the weapon of disruption which should execute the will of

man, the will for chaos.