To Know All Is To Forgive All: I. Compton-Burnett’s Ethic of Tolerance

Abstract

Ivy Compton-Burnett’s favourite aphorism, if we can ascertain her favourite by the number of times it occurs in her novels, was the English version of a worldly bit of French philosophy, ‘Tout comprendre, c’est tout pardonner’.⁴ If we take into account all its various revisions and modifying contexts this maxim affords a possible approach, an ethical entryway, into the life and work of Compton-Burnett. At the time of her death in 1969, I. Compton-Burnett (the name under which she published) was a formidable and mysterious figure in British letters, who left as her legacy a formidable corpus of twenty novels. A facsimile of the narrative voice in her novels, her public persona was lofty, enigmatic, detached from current events and political crises, the persona and voice of a staunchly independent and private individual. Her detractors cast her as an archetypal Victorian spinster, obsessed with the limited sphere of a bygone era. Even her devoted circle of friends and admirers knew little about her past, and myths and misconceptions about her life, some encouraged by Compton-Burnett herself, took root and flourished.

To know all is to forgive all, and that would spoil everything.¹

[T]o know all is to forgive all, and other people seem to forgive nothing.²

‘Ah, to know all is to forgive all,’ said Rhoda.

‘I confess I have not found it so, my lady. To forgive, it is best to know as little as possible.’³