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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d7b82bc --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,4 @@ +*.txt text eol=lf +*.htm text eol=lf +*.html text eol=lf +*.md text eol=lf diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..8e3e418 --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #60866 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/60866) diff --git a/old/60866-0.txt b/old/60866-0.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 909ce51..0000000 --- a/old/60866-0.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,4923 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg EBook of On the Margin, by Aldous Huxley - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most -other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions -whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of -the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at -www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have -to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. - -Title: On the Margin - Notes and Essays - -Author: Aldous Huxley - -Release Date: December 7, 2019 [EBook #60866] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ON THE MARGIN *** - - - - -Produced by MFR, Nigel Blower and the Online Distributed -Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This book was -produced from images made available by the HathiTrust -Digital Library.) - - - - - - - - - - ON THE MARGIN - - -------------- - - ALDOUS HUXLEY - - - - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - BY THE SAME AUTHOR - - -------------- - - MORTAL COILS - CROME YELLOW - LIMBO - LEDA: AND OTHER POEMS - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - ON THE - MARGIN - - -------------- - - NOTES AND ESSAYS - By ALDOUS HUXLEY - - [Illustration: G.H.D. logo] - - NEW YORK - GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - COPYRIGHT, 1923, - - BY GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY - - [Illustration: G.H.D. logo] - - - ON THE MARGIN. II - - ------- - - PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - CONTENTS - - PAGE - I: CENTENARIES 9 - II: ON RE-READING _CANDIDE_ 19 - III: ACCIDIE 25 - IV: SUBJECT-MATTER OF POETRY 32 - V: WATER MUSIC 43 - VI: PLEASURES 48 - VII: MODERN FOLK POETRY 55 - VIII: BIBLIOPHILY 62 - IX: DEMOCRATIC ART 67 - X: ACCUMULATIONS 74 - XI: ON DEVIATING INTO SENSE 80 - XII: POLITE CONVERSATION 86 - XIII: NATIONALITY IN LOVE 94 - XIV: HOW THE DAYS DRAW IN! 100 - XV: TIBET 106 - XVI: BEAUTY IN 1920 112 - XVII: GREAT THOUGHTS 118 - XVIII: ADVERTISEMENT 123 - XIX: EUPHUES REDIVIVUS 129 - XX: THE AUTHOR OF _EMINENT VICTORIANS_ 136 - XXI: EDWARD THOMAS 143 - XXII: A WORDSWORTH ANTHOLOGY 150 - XXIII: VERHAEREN 155 - XXIV: EDWARD LEAR 161 - XXV: SIR CHRISTOPHER WREN 167 - XXVI: BEN JONSON 177 - XXVII: CHAUCER 194 - - -NOTE: Most of these Essays appeared in _The Athenæum_, under the title -“Marginalia” and over the signature AUTOLYCUS. The others were first -printed in _The Weekly Westminster Gazette_, _The London Mercury_ and -_Vanity Fair_ (New York). - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - ON THE MARGIN - - - - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - ON THE MARGIN - - - I: CENTENARIES - -From Bocca di Magra to Bocca d’Arno, mile after mile, the sandy beaches -smoothly, unbrokenly extend. Inland from the beach, behind a sheltering -belt of pines, lies a strip of coastal plain—flat as a slice of Holland -and dyked with slow streams. Corn grows here and the vine, with -plantations of slim poplars interspersed, and fat water-meadows. Here -and there the streams brim over into shallow lakes, whose shores are -fringed with sodden fields of rice. And behind this strip of plain, four -or five miles from the sea, the mountains rise, suddenly and steeply: -the Apuan Alps. Their highest crests are of bare limestone, streaked -here and there with the white marble which brings prosperity to the -little towns that stand at their feet: Massa and Carrara, Serravezza, -Pietrasanta. Half the world’s tombstones are scooped out of these noble -crags. Their lower slopes are grey with olive trees, green with woods of -chestnut. Over their summits repose the enormous sculptured masses of -the clouds. - - From cape to cape, with a bridge-like shape, - Over a torrent sea, - Sunbeam-proof, I hang like a roof,— - The mountains its columns be. - -The landscape fairly quotes Shelley at you. This sea with its luminous -calms and sudden tempests, these dim blue islands hull down on the -horizon, these mountains and their marvellous clouds, these rivers and -woodlands are the very substance of his poetry. Live on this coast for a -little and you will find yourself constantly thinking of that lovely, -that strangely childish poetry, that beautiful and child-like man. -Perhaps his spirit haunts the coast. It was in this sea that he sailed -his flimsy boat, steering with one hand and holding in the other his -little volume of Æschylus. You picture him so on the days of calm. And -on the days of sudden violent storm you think of him, too. The -lightnings cut across the sky, the thunders are like terrible explosions -overhead, the squall comes down with a fury. What news of the flimsy -boat? None, save only that a few days after the storm a young body is -washed ashore, battered, unrecognizable; the little Æschylus in the coat -pocket is all that tells us that this was Shelley. - -I have been spending the summer on this haunted coast. That must be my -excuse for mentioning in so self-absorbed a world as is ours the name of -a poet who has been dead these hundred years. But be reassured. I have -no intention of writing an article about the ineffectual angel beating -in the void his something-or-other wings in vain. I do not mean to add -my croak to the mellifluous chorus of centenary-celebrators. No; the -ghost of Shelley, who walks in Versilia and the Lunigia, by the shores -of the Gulf of Spezia and below Pisa where Arno disembogues, this ghost -with whom I have shaken hands and talked, incites me, not to add a -supererogatory and impertinent encomium, but rather to protest against -the outpourings of the other encomiasts, of the honey-voiced -centenary-chanters. - -The cooing of these persons, ordinarily a specific against insomnia, is -in this case an irritant; it rouses, it exacerbates. For annoying and -disgusting it certainly is, this spectacle of a rebellious youth praised -to fulsomeness, a hundred years after his death, by people who would -hate him and be horrified by him, if he were alive, as much as the -Scotch reviewers hated and were horrified by Shelley. How would these -persons treat a young contemporary who, not content with being a -literary innovator, should use his talent to assault religion and the -established order, should blaspheme against plutocracy and patriotism, -should proclaim himself a Bolshevik, an internationalist, a pacifist, a -conscientious objector? They would say of him that he was a dangerous -young man who ought to be put in his place; and they would either -disparage and denigrate his talent, or else—if they were a little more -subtly respectable—they would never allow his name to get into print in -any of the periodicals which they controlled. But seeing that Shelley -was safely burnt on the sands of Viareggio a hundred years ago, seeing -that he is no longer a live dangerous man but only a dead classic, these -respectable supporters of established literature and established society -join in chorus to praise him, and explain his meaning, and preach -sermons over him. The mellifluous cooing is accompanied by a snuffle, -and there hangs over these centenary celebrations a genial miasma of -hypocrisy and insincerity. The effect of these festal anniversaries in -England is not to rekindle life in the great dead; a centenary is rather -a second burial, a reaffirmation of deadness. A spirit that was once -alive is fossilized and, in the midst of solemn and funereal ceremonies, -the petrified classic is duly niched in the temple of respectability. - -How much better they order these things in Italy! In that country—which -one must ever admire more the more one sees of it—they duly celebrate -their great men; but celebrate them not with a snuffle, not in black -clothes, not with prayer-books in their hands, crape round their hats -and a hatred, in their hearts, of all that has to do with life and -vigour. No, no; they make their dead an excuse for quickening life among -the living; they get fun out of their centenaries. - -Last year the Italians were celebrating the six hundredth anniversary of -Dante’s death. Now, imagine what this celebration would have been like -in England. All the oldest critics and all the young men who aspire to -be old would have written long articles in all the literary papers. That -would have set the tone. After that some noble lord, or even a Prince of -the Blood, would have unveiled a monument designed by Frampton or some -other monumental mason of the Academy. Imbecile speeches in words of not -more than two syllables would then have been pronounced over the ashes -of the world’s most intelligent poet. To his intelligence no reference -would, of course, be made; but his character, ah! his character would -get a glowing press. The most fiery and bitter of men would be held up -as an example to all Sunday-school children. - -After this display of reverence, we should have had a lovely historical -pageant in the rain. A young female dressed in white bunting would have -represented Beatrice, and for the Poet himself some actor manager with a -profile and a voice would have been found. Guelfs and Ghibellines in -fancy dress of the period would go splashing about in the mud, and a -great many verses by Louis Napoleon Parker would be declaimed. And at -the end we should all go home with colds in our heads and suffering from -septic ennui, but with, at the same time, a pleasant feeling of -virtuousness, as though we had been at church. - -See now what happens in Italy. The principal event in the Dante -celebration is an enormous military review. Hundreds of thousands of -wiry little brown men parade the streets of Florence. Young officers of -a fabulous elegance clank along in superbly tailored riding breeches and -glittering top-boots. The whole female population palpitates. It is an -excellent beginning. Speeches are then made, as only in Italy they can -be made—round, rumbling, sonorous speeches, all about Dante the -Italianissimous poet, Dante the irredentist, Dante the prophet of -Greater Italy, Dante the scourge of Jugo-Slavs and Serbs. Immense -enthusiasm. Never having read a line of his works, we feel that Dante is -our personal friend, a brother Fascist. - -After that the real fun begins; we have the _manifestazioni sportive_ of -the centenary celebrations. Innumerable bicycle races are organized. -Fierce young Fascisti with the faces of Roman heroes pay their homage to -the Poet by doing a hundred and eighty kilometres to the hour round the -Circuit of Milan. High speed Fiats and Ansaldos and Lancias race one -another across the Apennines and round the bastions of the Alps. Pigeons -are shot, horses gallop, football is played under the broiling sun. Long -live Dante! - -How infinitely preferable this is to the stuffiness and the snuffle of -an English centenary! Poetry, after all, is life, not death. Bicycle -races may not have very much to do with Dante—though I can fancy him, -his thin face set like metal, whizzing down the spirals of Hell on a -pair of twinkling wheels or climbing laboriously the one-in-three -gradients of Purgatory Mountain on the back of his trusty Sunbeam. No, -they may not have much to do with Dante; but pageants in Anglican -cathedral closes, boring articles by old men who would hate and fear him -if he were alive, speeches by noble lords over monuments made by Royal -Academicians—these, surely, have even less to do with the author of the -_Inferno_. - -It is not merely their great dead whom the Italians celebrate in this -gloriously living fashion. Even their religious festivals have the same -jovial warm-blooded character. This summer, for example, a great feast -took place at Loreto to celebrate the arrival of a new image of the -Virgin to replace the old one which was burnt some little while ago. The -excitement started in Rome, where the image, after being blessed by the -Pope, was taken in a motor-car to the station amid cheering crowds who -shouted, “Evviva Maria” as the Fiat and its sacred burden rolled past. -The arrival of the Virgin in Loreto was the signal for a tremendous -outburst of jollification. The usual bicycle races took place; there -were football matches and pigeon-shooting competitions and Olympic -games. The fun lasted for days. At the end of the festivities two -cardinals went up in aeroplanes and blessed the assembled multitudes—an -incident of which the Pope is said to have remarked that the blessing, -in this case, did indeed come from heaven. - -Rare people! If only we Anglo-Saxons could borrow from the Italians some -of their realism, their love of life for its own sake, of palpable, -solid, immediate things. In this dim land of ours we are accustomed to -pay too much respect to fictitious values; we worship invisibilities and -in our enjoyment of immediate life we are restrained by imaginary -inhibitions. We think too much of the past, of metaphysics, of -tradition, of the ideal future, of decorum and good form; too little of -life and the glittering noisy moment. The Italians are born Futurists. -It did not need Marinetti to persuade them to celebrate Dante with -bicycle races; they would have done it naturally, spontaneously, if no -Futurist propaganda had ever been issued. Marinetti is the product of -modern Italy, not modern Italy of Marinetti. They are all Futurists in -that burningly living Italy where we from the North seek only an escape -into the past. Or rather, they are not Futurists: Marinetti’s label was -badly chosen. They are Presentists. The early Christians preoccupied -with nothing but the welfare of their souls in the life to come were -Futurists, if you like. - -We shall do well to learn something of their lively Presentism. Let us -hope that our great-grandchildren will celebrate the next centenary of -Shelley’s death by aerial regattas and hydroplane races. The living will -be amused and the dead worthily commemorated. The spirit of the man who -delighted, during life, in wind and clouds, in mountain-tops and waters, -in the flight of birds and the gliding of ships, will be rejoiced when -young men celebrate his memory by flying through the air or skimming, -like alighting swans, over the surface of the sea. - - The rocks are cloven, and through the purple night - I see cars drawn by rainbow-winged steeds - Which trample the dim winds; in each there stands - A wild-eyed charioteer urging their flight. - Some look behind, as fiends pursued them there, - And yet I see no shapes but the keen stars; - Others, with burning eyes, lean forth, and drink - With eager lips the wind of their own speed, - As if the thing they loved fled on before, - And now, even now, they clasped it. - -The man who wrote this is surely more suitably celebrated by aeroplane -or even bicycle races than by seven-column articles from the pens of -Messrs.—well, perhaps we had better mention no names. Let us take a leaf -out of the Italian book. - - - - - II: ON RE-READING _CANDIDE_ - - -The furniture vans had unloaded their freight in the new house. We were -installed, or, at least, we were left to make the best of an unbearable -life in the dirt and the confusion. One of the Pre-Raphaelites, I forget -at the moment which, once painted a picture called “The Last Day in the -Old Home.” A touching subject. But it would need a grimmer, harder brush -to depict the horrors of “The First Day in the New Home.” I had sat down -in despair among the tumbled movables when I noticed—with what a thrill -of pleased recognition—the top of a little leather-bound book protruding -from among a mass of bulkier volumes in an uncovered case. It was -_Candide_, my treasured little first edition of 1759, with its -discreetly ridiculous title-page, “_Candide ou L’Optimisme_, Traduit de -l’Allemand de Mr. le Docteur Ralph.” - -Optimism—I had need of a little at the moment, and as Mr. le Docteur -Ralph is notoriously one of the preachers most capable of inspiring it, -I took up the volume and began to read: “Il y avait en Westphalie, dans -le Château de Mr. le Baron de Thunder-ten-tronckh....” I did not put -down the volume till I had reached the final: “Il faut cultiver notre -jardin.” I felt the wiser and the more cheerful for Doctor Ralph’s -ministrations. - -But the remarkable thing about re-reading _Candide_ is not that the book -amuses one, not that it delights and astonishes with its brilliance; -that is only to be expected. No, it evokes a new and, for me at least, -an unanticipated emotion. In the good old days, before the Flood, the -history of Candide’s adventures seemed to us quiet, sheltered, -middle-class people only a delightful phantasy, or at best a -high-spirited exaggeration of conditions which we knew, vaguely and -theoretically, to exist, to have existed, a long way off in space and -time. But read the book to-day; you feel yourself entirely at home in -its pages. It is like reading a record of the facts and opinions of -1922; nothing was ever more applicable, more completely to the point. -The world in which we live is recognizably the world of Candide and -Cunégonde, of Martin and the Old Woman who was a Pope’s daughter and the -betrothed of the sovereign Prince of Massa-Carrara. The only difference -is that the horrors crowd rather more thickly on the world of 1922 than -they did on Candide’s world. The manœuvrings of Bulgare and Abare, the -intestine strife in Morocco, the earthquake and _auto-da-fé_ are but -pale poor things compared with the Great War, the Russian Famine, the -Black and Tans, the Fascisti, and all the other horrors of which we can -proudly boast. “Quand Sa Hautesse envoye un vaisseau en Egypte,” -remarked the Dervish, “s’embarrasse-t-elle si les souris qui sont dans -le vaisseau sont à leur aise ou non?” No; but there are moments when Sa -Hautesse, absent-mindedly no doubt, lets fall into the hold of the -vessel a few dozen of hungry cats; the present seems to be one of them. - -Cats in the hold? There is nothing in that to be surprised at. The -wisdom of Martin and the Old Woman who was once betrothed to the Prince -of Massa-Carrara has become the everyday wisdom of all the world since -1914. In the happy Victorian and Edwardian past, Western Europe, like -Candide, was surprised at everything. It was amazed by the frightful -conduct of King Bomba, amazed by the Turks, amazed by the political -chicanery and loose morals of the Second Empire—(what is all Zola but a -prolonged exclamation of astonishment at the goings-on of his -contemporaries?). After that we were amazed at the disgusting behaviour -of the Boers, while the rest of Europe was amazed at ours. There -followed the widespread astonishment that in this, the so-called -twentieth century, black men should be treated as they were being -treated on the Congo and the Amazon. Then came the war: a great outburst -of indignant astonishment, and afterwards an acquiescence as complete, -as calmly cynical as Martin’s. For we have discovered, in the course of -the somewhat excessively prolonged _histoire à la Candide_ of the last -seven years, that astonishment is a supererogatory emotion. All things -are possible, not merely for Providence, whose ways we had always known, -albeit for some time rather theoretically, to be strange, but also for -men. - -Men, we thought, had grown up from the brutal and rampageous -hobbledehoyism of earlier ages and were now as polite and genteel as -Gibbon himself. We now know better. Create a hobbledehoy environment and -you will have hobbledehoy behaviour; create a Gibbonish environment and -every one will be, more or less, genteel. It seems obvious, now. And now -that we are living in a hobbledehoy world, we have learnt Martin’s -lesson so well that we can look on almost unmoved at the most appalling -natural catastrophes and at exhibitions of human stupidity and -wickedness which would have aroused us in the past to surprise and -indignation. Indeed, we have left Martin behind and are become, with -regard to many things, Pococurante. - -And what is the remedy? Mr. le Docteur Ralph would have us believe that -it consists in the patient cultivation of our gardens. He is probably -right. The only trouble is that the gardens of some of us seem hardly -worth cultivating. The garden of the bank clerk and the factory hand, -the shop-girl’s garden, the garden of the civil servant and the -politician—can one cultivate them with much enthusiasm? Or, again, there -is my garden, the garden of literary journalism. In this little plot I -dig and delve, plant, prune, and finally reap—sparsely enough, goodness -knows!—from one year’s end to another. And to what purpose, to whom for -a good, as the Latin Grammar would say? Ah, there you have me. - -There is a passage in one of Tchekov’s letters which all literary -journalists should inscribe in letters of gold upon their writing desks. -“I send you,” says Tchekov to his correspondent, “Mihailovsky’s article -on Tolstoy.... It’s a good article, but it’s strange: one might write a -thousand such articles and things would not be one step forwarder, and -it would still remain unintelligible why such articles are written.” - -_Il faut cultiver notre jardin._ Yes, but suppose one begins to wonder -why? - - - - - III: ACCIDIE - - -The cœnobites of the Thebaid were subjected to the assaults of many -demons. Most of these evil spirits came furtively with the coming of -night. But there was one, a fiend of deadly subtlety, who was not afraid -to walk by day. The holy men of the desert called him the _dæmon -meridianus_; for his favourite hour of visitation was in the heat of the -day. He would lie in wait for monks grown weary with working in the -oppressive heat, seizing a moment of weakness to force an entrance into -their hearts. And once installed there, what havoc he wrought! For -suddenly it would seem to the poor victim that the day was intolerably -long and life desolatingly empty. He would go to the door of his cell -and look up at the sun and ask himself if a new Joshua had arrested it -midway up the heavens. Then he would go back into the shade and wonder -what good he was doing in that cell or if there was any object in -existence. Then he would look at the sun again and find it indubitably -stationary, and the hour of the communal repast of the evening as remote -as ever. And he would go back to his meditations, to sink, sink through -disgust and lassitude into the black depths of despair and hopeless -unbelief. When that happened the demon smiled and took his departure, -conscious that he had done a good morning’s work. - -Throughout the Middle Ages this demon was known as Acedia, or, in -English, Accidie. Monks were still his favourite victims, but he made -many conquests among the laity also. Along with _gastrimargia_, -_fornicatio_, _philargyria_, _tristitia_, _cenodoxia_, _ira_ and -_superbia_, _acedia_ or _tædium cordis_ is reckoned as one of the eight -principal vices to which man is subject. Inaccurate psychologists of -evil are wont to speak of accidie as though it were plain sloth. But -sloth is only one of the numerous manifestations of the subtle and -complicated vice of accidie. Chaucer’s discourse on it in the “Parson’s -Tale” contains a very precise description of this disastrous vice of the -spirit. “Accidie,” he tells us, “makith a man hevy, thoghtful and -wrawe.” It paralyzes human will, “it forsloweth and forsluggeth” a man -whenever he attempts to act. From accidie comes dread to begin to work -any good deeds, and finally wanhope, or despair. On its way to ultimate -wanhope, accidie produces a whole crop of minor sins, such as idleness, -tardiness, _lâchesse_, coldness, undevotion and “the synne of worldly -sorrow, such as is cleped _tristitia_, that sleth man, as seith seint -Poule.” Those who have sinned by accidie find their everlasting home in -the fifth circle of the Inferno. They are plunged in the same black bog -with the Wrathful, and their sobs and words come bubbling up to the -surface: - - Fitti nel limo dicon: “Tristi fummo - nell’ aer dolce che dal sol s’ allegra, - portando dentro accidioso fummo; - - Or ci attristiam nella belletta negra.” - Quest’ inno si gorgoglian nella strozza, - chè dir nol posson con parola integra. - -Accidie did not disappear with the monasteries and the Middle Ages. The -Renaissance was also subject to it. We find a copious description of the -symptoms of acedia in Burton’s _Anatomy of Melancholy_. The results of -the midday demon’s machinations are now known as the vapours or the -spleen. To the spleen amiable Mr. Matthew Green, of the Custom House, -devoted those eight hundred octosyllables which are his claim to -immortality. For him it is a mere disease to be healed by temperate -diet: - - Hail! water gruel, healing power, - Of easy access to the poor; - -by laughter, reading and the company of unaffected young ladies: - - Mothers, and guardian aunts, forbear - Your impious pains to form the fair, - Nor lay out so much cost and art - But to deflower the virgin heart; - -by the avoidance of party passion, drink, Dissenters and missionaries, -especially missionaries: to whose undertakings Mr. Green always declined -to subscribe: - - I laugh off spleen and keep my pence - From spoiling Indian innocence; - -by refraining from going to law, writing poetry and thinking about one’s -future state. - -_The Spleen_ was published in the thirties of the eighteenth century. -Accidie was still, if not a sin, at least a disease. But a change was at -hand. “The sin of worldly sorrow, such as is cleped _tristitia_,” became -a literary virtue, a spiritual mode. The apostles of melancholy wound -their faint horns, and the Men of Feeling wept. Then came the nineteenth -century and romanticism; and with them the triumph of the meridian -demon. Accidie in its most complicated and most deadly form, a mixture -of boredom, sorrow and despair, was now an inspiration to the greatest -poets and novelists, and it has remained so to this day. The Romantics -called this horrible phenomenon the _mal du siècle_. But the name made -no difference; the thing was still the same. The meridian demon had good -cause to be satisfied during the nineteenth century, for it was then, as -Baudelaire puts it, that - - L’Ennui, fruit de la morne incuriosité, - Prit les proportions de l’immortalité. - -It is a very curious phenomenon, this progress of accidie from the -position of being a deadly sin, deserving of damnation, to the position -first of a disease and finally of an essentially lyrical emotion, -fruitful in the inspiration of much of the most characteristic modern -literature. The sense of universal futility, the feelings of boredom and -despair, with the complementary desire to be “anywhere, anywhere out of -the world,” or at least out of the place in which one happens at the -moment to be, have been the inspiration of poetry and the novel for a -century and more. It would have been inconceivable in Matthew Green’s -day to have written a serious poem about ennui. By Baudelaire’s time -ennui was as suitable a subject for lyric poetry as love; and accidie is -still with us as an inspiration, one of the most serious and poignant of -literary themes. What is the significance of this fact? For clearly the -progress of accidie is a spiritual event of considerable importance. How -is it to be explained? - -It is not as though the nineteenth century invented accidie. Boredom, -hopelessness and despair have always existed, and have been felt as -poignantly in the past as we feel them now. Something has happened to -make these emotions respectable and avowable; they are no longer sinful, -no longer regarded as the mere symptoms of disease. That something that -has happened is surely simply history since 1789. The failure of the -French Revolution and the more spectacular downfall of Napoleon planted -accidie in the heart of every youth of the Romantic generation—and not -in France alone, but all over Europe—who believed in liberty or whose -adolescence had been intoxicated by the ideas of glory and genius. Then -came industrial progress with its prodigious multiplication of filth, -misery, and ill-gotten wealth; the defilement of nature by modern -industry was in itself enough to sadden many sensitive minds. The -discovery that political enfranchisement, so long and stubbornly fought -for, was the merest futility and vanity so long as industrial servitude -remained in force was another of the century’s horrible -disillusionments. - -A more subtle cause of the prevalence of boredom was the -disproportionate growth of the great towns. Habituated to the feverish -existence of these few centres of activity, men found that life outside -them was intolerably insipid. And at the same time they became so much -exhausted by the restlessness of city life that they pined for the -monotonous boredom of the provinces, for exotic islands, even for other -worlds—any haven of rest. And finally, to crown this vast structure of -failures and disillusionments, there came the appalling catastrophe of -the War of 1914. Other epochs have witnessed disasters, have had to -suffer disillusionment; but in no century have the disillusionments -followed on one another’s heels with such unintermitted rapidity as in -the twentieth, for the good reason that in no century has change been so -rapid and so profound. The _mal du siècle_ was an inevitable evil; -indeed, we can claim with a certain pride that we have a right to our -accidie. With us it is not a sin or a disease of the hypochondries; it -is a state of mind which fate has forced upon us. - - - - - IV: SUBJECT-MATTER OF POETRY - - -It should theoretically be possible to make poetry out of anything -whatsoever of which the spirit of man can take cognizance. We find, -however, as a matter of historical fact, that most of the world’s best -poetry has been content with a curiously narrow range of subject-matter. -The poets have claimed as their domain only a small province of our -universe. One of them now and then, more daring or better equipped than -the rest, sets out to extend the boundaries of the kingdom. But for the -most part the poets do not concern themselves with fresh conquests; they -prefer to consolidate their power at home, enjoying quietly their -hereditary possessions. All the world is potentially theirs, but they do -not take it. What is the reason for this, and why is it that poetical -practice does not conform to critical theory? The problem has a peculiar -relevance and importance in these days, when young poetry claims -absolute liberty to speak how it likes of whatsoever it pleases. - -Wordsworth, whose literary criticism, dry and forbidding though its -aspect may be, is always illumined by a penetrating intelligence, -Wordsworth touched upon this problem in his preface to _Lyrical -Ballads_—touched on it and, as usual, had something of value to say -about it. He is speaking here of the most important and the most -interesting of the subjects which may, theoretically, be made into -poetry, but which have, as a matter of fact, rarely or never undergone -the transmutation: he is speaking of the relations between poetry and -that vast world of abstractions and ideas—science and philosophy—into -which so few poets have ever penetrated. “The remotest discoveries of -the chemist, the botanist, or mineralogist, will be as proper objects of -the poet’s art as any upon which he is now employed, if the time should -ever come when these things shall be familiar to us, and the relations -under which they are contemplated shall be manifestly and palpably -material to us as enjoying and suffering beings.” It is a formidable -sentence; but read it well, read the rest of the passage from which it -is taken, and you will find it to be full of critical truth. - -The gist of Wordsworth’s argument is this. All subjects—“the remotest -discoveries of the chemist” are but one example of an unlikely poetic -theme—can serve the poet with material for his art, on one condition: -that he, and to a lesser degree his audience, shall be able to apprehend -the subject with a certain emotion. The subject must somehow be involved -in the poet’s intimate being before he can turn it into poetry. It is -not enough, for example, that he should apprehend it merely through his -senses. (The poetry of pure sensation, of sounds and bright colours, is -common enough nowadays; but amusing as we may find it for the moment, it -cannot hold the interest for long.) It is not enough, at the other end -of the scale, if he apprehends his subject in a purely intellectual -manner. An abstract idea must be felt with a kind of passion, it must -mean something emotionally significant, it must be as immediate and -important to the poet as a personal relationship before he can make -poetry of it. Poetry, in a word, must be written by “enjoying and -suffering beings,” not by beings exclusively dowered with sensations or, -as exclusively, with intellect. - -Wordsworth’s criticism helps us to understand why so few subjects have -ever been made into poetry when everything under the sun, and beyond it, -is theoretically suitable for transmutation into a work of art. Death, -love, religion, nature; the primary emotions and the ultimate personal -mysteries—these form the subject-matter of most of the greatest poetry. -And for obvious reasons. These things are “manifestly and palpably -material to us as enjoying and suffering beings.” But to most men, -including the generality of poets, abstractions and ideas are not -immediately and passionately moving. They are not enjoying or suffering -when they apprehend these things—only thinking. - -The men who do feel passionately about abstractions, the men to whom -ideas are as persons—moving and disquietingly alive—are very seldom -poets. They are men of science and philosophers, preoccupied with the -search for truth and not, like the poet, with the expression and -creation of beauty. It is very rarely that we find a poet who combines -the power and the desire to express himself with that passionate -apprehension of ideas and that passionate curiosity about strange remote -facts which characterize the man of science and the philosopher. If he -possessed the requisite sense of language and the impelling desire to -express himself in terms of beauty, Einstein could write the most -intoxicating lyrics about relativity and the pleasures of pure -mathematics. And if, say, Mr. Yeats understood the Einstein -theory—which, in company with most other living poets, he presumably -does not, any more than the rest of us—if he apprehended it exultingly -as something bold and profound, something vitally important and -marvellously true, he too could give us, out of the Celtic twilight, his -lyrics of relativity. It is those distressing little “ifs” that stand in -the way of this happy consummation. The conditions upon which any but -the most immediately and obviously moving subjects can be made into -poetry are so rarely fulfilled, the combination of poet and man of -science, poet and philosopher, is so uncommon, that the theoretical -universality of the art has only very occasionally been realized in -practice. - -Contemporary poetry in the whole of the western world is insisting, -loudly and emphatically through the mouths of its propagandists, on an -absolute liberty to speak of what it likes how it likes. Nothing could -be better; all that we can now ask is that the poets should put the -theory into practice, and that they should make use of the liberty which -they claim by enlarging the bounds of poetry. - -The propagandists would have us believe that the subject-matter of -contemporary poetry is new and startling, that modern poets are doing -something which has not been done before. “Most of the poets represented -in these pages,” writes Mr. Louis Untermeyer in his _Anthology of Modern -American Poetry_, “have found a fresh and vigorous material in a world -of honest and often harsh reality. They respond to the spirit of their -times; not only have their views changed, their vision has been widened -to include things unknown to the poets of yesterday. They have learned -to distinguish real beauty from mere prettiness, to wring loveliness out -of squalor, to find wonder in neglected places, to search for hidden -truths even in the dark caves of the unconscious.” Translated into -practice this means that contemporary poets can now write, in the words -of Mr. Sandburg, of the “harr and boom of the blast fires,” of “wops and -bohunks.” It means, in fact, that they are at liberty to do what Homer -did—to write freely about the immediately moving facts of everyday life. -Where Homer wrote of horses and the tamers of horses, our contemporaries -write of trains, automobiles, and the various species of wops and -bohunks who control the horsepower. That is all. Much too much stress -has been laid on the newness of the new poetry; its newness is simply a -return from the jewelled exquisiteness of the eighteen-nineties to the -facts and feelings of ordinary life. There is nothing intrinsically -novel or surprising in the introduction into poetry of machinery and -industrialism, of labour unrest and modern psychology: these things -belong to us, they affect us daily as enjoying and suffering beings; -they are a part of our lives, just as the kings, the warriors, the -horses and chariots, the picturesque mythology were part of Homer’s -life. The subject-matter of the new poetry remains the same as that of -the old. The old boundaries have not been extended. There would be real -novelty in the new poetry if it had, for example, taken to itself any of -the new ideas and astonishing facts with which the new science has -endowed the modern world. There would be real novelty in it if it had -worked out a satisfactory artistic method for dealing with abstractions. -It has not. Which simply means that that rare phenomenon, the poet in -whose mind ideas are a passion and a personal moving force, does not -happen to have appeared. - -And how rarely in all the long past he has appeared! There was -Lucretius, the greatest of all the philosophic and scientific poets. In -him the passionate apprehension of ideas, and the desire and ability to -give them expression, combined to produce that strange and beautiful -epic of thought which is without parallel in the whole history of -literature. There was Dante, in whose soul the mediæval Christian -philosophy was a force that shaped and directed every feeling, thought -and action. There was Goethe, who focussed into beautiful expression an -enormous diffusion of knowledge and ideas. And there the list of the -great poets of thought comes to an end. In their task of extending the -boundaries of poetry into the remote and abstract world of ideas, they -have had a few lesser assistants—Donne, for example, a poet only just -less than the greatest; Fulke Greville, that strange, dark-spirited -Elizabethan; John Davidson, who made a kind of poetry out of Darwinism; -and, most interesting poetical interpreter of nineteenth-century -science, Jules Laforgue. - -Which of our contemporaries can claim to have extended the bounds of -poetry to any material extent? It is not enough to have written about -locomotives and telephones, “wops and bohunks,” and all the rest of it. -That is not extending the range of poetry; it is merely asserting its -right to deal with the immediate facts of contemporary life, as Homer -and as Chaucer did. The critics who would have us believe that there is -something essentially unpoetical about a bohunk (whatever a Bohunk may -be), and something essentially poetical about Sir Lancelot of the Lake, -are, of course, simply negligible; they may be dismissed as -contemptuously as we have dismissed the pseudo-classical critics who -opposed the freedoms of the Romantic Revival. And the critics who think -it very new and splendid to bring bohunks into poetry are equally -old-fashioned in their ideas. - -It will not be unprofitable to compare the literary situation in this -early twentieth century of ours with the literary situation of the early -seventeenth century. In both epochs we see a reaction against a rich and -somewhat formalized poetical tradition expressing itself in a -determination to extend the range of subject-matter, to get back to real -life, and to use more natural forms of expression. The difference -between the two epochs lies in the fact that the twentieth-century -revolution has been the product of a number of minor poets, none of them -quite powerful enough to achieve what he theoretically meant to do, -while the seventeenth-century revolution was the work of a single poet -of genius, John Donne. Donne substituted for the rich formalism of -non-dramatic Elizabethan poetry a completely realized new style, the -style of the so-called metaphysical poetry of the seventeenth century. -He was a poet-philosopher-man-of-action whose passionate curiosity about -facts enabled him to make poetry out of the most unlikely aspects of -material life, and whose passionate apprehension of ideas enabled him to -extend the bounds of poetry beyond the frontiers of common life and its -emotions into the void of intellectual abstraction. He put the whole -life and the whole mind of his age into poetry. - -We to-day are metaphysicals without our Donne. Theoretically we are free -to make poetry of everything in the universe; in practice we are kept -within the old limits, for the simple reason that no great man has -appeared to show us how we can use our freedom. A certain amount of the -life of the twentieth century is to be found in our poetry, but precious -little of its mind. We have no poet to-day like that strange old Dean of -St. Paul’s three hundred years ago—no poet who can skip from the heights -of scholastic philosophy to the heights of carnal passion, from the -contemplation of divinity to the contemplation of a flea, from the rapt -examination of self to an enumeration of the most remote external facts -of science, and make all, by his strangely passionate apprehension, into -an intensely lyrical poetry. - -The few poets who do try to make of contemporary ideas the substance of -their poetry, do it in a manner which brings little conviction or -satisfaction to the reader. There is Mr. Noyes, who is writing four -volumes of verse about the human side of science—in his case, alas, all -too human. Then there is Mr. Conrad Aiken. He perhaps is the most -successful exponent in poetry of contemporary ideas. In his case, it is -clear, “the remotest discoveries of the chemist” are apprehended with a -certain passion; all his emotions are tinged by his ideas. The trouble -with Mr. Aiken is that his emotions are apt to degenerate into a kind of -intellectual sentimentality, which expresses itself only too easily in -his prodigiously fluent, highly coloured verse. - -One could lengthen the list of more or less interesting poets who have -tried in recent times to extend the boundaries of their art. But one -would not find among them a single poet of real importance, not one -great or outstanding personality. The twentieth century still awaits its -Lucretius, awaits its own philosophical Dante, its new Goethe, its -Donne, even its up-to-date Laforgue. Will they appear? Or are we to go -on producing a poetry in which there is no more than the dimmest -reflection of that busy and incessant intellectual life which is the -characteristic and distinguishing mark of this age? - - - - - V: WATER MUSIC - - -The house in which I live is haunted by the noise of dripping water. -Always, day and night, summer and winter, something is dripping -somewhere. For many months an unquiet cistern kept up within its iron -bosom a long, hollow-toned soliloquy. Now it is mute; but a new and more -formidable drip has come into existence. From the very summit of the -house a little spout—the overflow, no doubt, of some unknown receptacle -under the roof—lets fall a succession of drops that is almost a -continuous stream. Down it falls, this all but stream, a sheer forty or -fifty feet on to the stones of the basement steps, thence to dribble -ignominiously away into some appointed drain. The cataracts blow their -trumpets from the steep; but my lesser waterfalls play a subtler, I had -almost said a more “modern” music. Lying awake at nights, I listen with -a mixture of pleasure and irritation to its curious cadences. - -The musical range of a dripping tap is about half an octave. But within -the bounds of this major fourth, drops can play the most surprising and -varied melodies. You will hear them climbing laboriously up small -degrees of sound, only to descend at a single leap to the bottom. More -often they wander unaccountably about in varying intervals, familiar or -disconcertingly odd. And with the varying pitch the time also varies, -but within narrower limits. For the laws of hydrostatics, or whatever -other science claims authority over drops, do not allow the dribblings -much licence either to pause or to quicken the pace of their falling. It -is an odd sort of music. One listens to it as one lies in bed, slipping -gradually into sleep, with a curious, uneasy emotion. - -Drip drop, drip drap drep drop. So it goes on, this watery melody, for -ever without an end. Inconclusive, inconsequent, formless, it is always -on the point of deviating into sense and form. Every now and then you -will hear a complete phrase of rounded melody. And then—drip drop, -di-drep, di-drap—the old inconsequence sets in once more. But suppose -there were some significance in it! It is that which troubles my drowsy -mind as I listen at night. Perhaps for those who have ears to hear, this -endless dribbling is as pregnant with thought and emotion, as -significant as a piece of Bach. Drip drop, di-drap, di-drep. So little -would suffice to turn the incoherence into meaning. The music of the -drops is the symbol and type of the whole universe; it is for ever, as -it were, asymptotic to sense, infinitely close to significance, but -never touching it. Never, unless the human mind comes and pulls it -forcibly over the dividing space. If I could understand this wandering -music, if I could detect in it a sequence, if I could force it to some -conclusion—the diapason closing full in God, in mind, I hardly care -what, so long as it closes in something definite—then, I feel, I should -understand the whole incomprehensible machine, from the gaps between the -stars to the policy of the Allies. And growing drowsier and drowsier, I -listen to the ceaseless tune, the hollow soliloquy in the cistern, the -sharp metallic rapping of the drops that fall from the roof upon the -stones below; and surely I begin to discover a meaning, surely I detect -a trace of thought, surely the phrases follow one another with art, -leading on inevitably to some prodigious conclusion. Almost I have it, -almost, almost.... Then, I suppose, I fall definitely to sleep. For the -next thing I am aware of is that the sunlight is streaming in. It is -morning, and the water is still dripping as irritatingly and -persistently as ever. - -Sometimes the incoherence of the drop music is too much to be borne. The -listener insists that the asymptote shall somehow touch the line of -sense. He forces the drops to say something. He demands of them that -they shall play, shall we say, “God Save the King,” or the Hymn to Joy -from the Ninth Symphony, or _Voi che Sapete_. The drops obey -reluctantly; they play what you desire, but with more than the -ineptitude of the child at the piano. Still they play it somehow. But -this is an extremely dangerous method of laying the haunting ghost whose -voice is the drip of water. For once you have given the drops something -to sing or say, they will go on singing and saying it for ever. Sleep -becomes impossible, and at the two or three hundredth repetition of -_Madelon_ or even of an air from _Figaro_ the mind begins to totter -towards insanity. - -Drops, ticking clocks, machinery, everything that throbs or clicks or -hums or hammers, can be made, with a little perseverance, to say -something. In my childhood, I remember, I was told that trains said, “To -Lancashire, to Lancashire, to fetch a pocket handkercher”—and _da capo_ -ad infinitum. They can also repeat, if desired, that useful piece of -information: “To stop the train, pull down the chain.” But it is very -hard to persuade them to add the menacing corollary: “Penalty for -improper use Five Pounds.” Still, with careful tutoring I have succeeded -in teaching a train to repeat even that unrhythmical phrase. - -Dadaist literature always reminds me a little of my falling drops. -Confronted by it, I feel the same uncomfortable emotion as is begotten -in me by the inconsequent music of water. Suppose, after all, that this -apparently accidental sequence of words should contain the secret of art -and life and the universe! It may; who knows? And here am I, left out in -the cold of total incomprehension; and I pore over this literature and -regard it upside down in the hope of discovering that secret. But -somehow I cannot induce the words to take on any meaning whatever. Drip -drop, di-drap, di-drep—Tzara and Picabia let fall their words and I am -baffled. But I can see that there are great possibilities in this type -of literature. For the tired journalist it is ideal, since it is not he, -but the reader who has to do all the work. All he need do is to lean -back in his chair and allow the words to dribble out through the nozzle -of his fountain pen. Drip, drop.... - - - - - VI: PLEASURES - - -We have heard a great deal, since 1914, about the things which are a -menace to civilization. First it was Prussian militarism; then the -Germans at large; then the prolongation of the war; then the shortening -of the same; then, after a time, the Treaty of Versailles; then French -militarism—with, all the while, a running accompaniment of such minor -menaces as Prohibition, Lord Northcliffe, Mr. Bryan, Comstockery.... - -Civilization, however, has resisted the combined attacks of these -enemies wonderfully well. For still, in 1923, it stands not so very far -from where it stood in that “giant age before the flood” of nine years -since. Where, in relation to Neanderthal on the one hand and Athens on -the other, where precisely it stood _then_ is a question which each may -answer according to his taste. The important fact is that these menaces -to our civilization, such as it is—menaces including the largest war and -the stupidest peace known to history—have confined themselves in most -places and up till now to mere threats, barking more furiously than they -bite. - -No, the dangers which confront our civilization are not so much the -external dangers—wild men, wars and the bankruptcy that wars bring after -them. The most alarming dangers are those which menace it from within, -that threaten the mind rather than the body and estate of contemporary -man. - -Of all the various poisons which modern civilization, by a process of -auto-intoxication, brews quietly up within its own bowels, few, it seems -to me, are more deadly (while none appears more harmless) than that -curious and appalling thing that is technically known as “pleasure.” -“Pleasure” (I place the word between inverted commas to show that I -mean, not real pleasure, but the organized activities officially known -by the same name) “pleasure”—what nightmare visions the word evokes! -Like every man of sense and good feeling, I abominate work. But I would -rather put in eight hours a day at a Government office than be condemned -to lead a life of “pleasure”; I would even, I believe, prefer to write a -million words of journalism a year. - -The horrors of modern “pleasure” arise from the fact that every kind of -organized distraction tends to become progressively more and more -imbecile. There was a time when people indulged themselves with -distractions requiring the expense of a certain intellectual effort. In -the seventeenth century, for example, royal personages and their -courtiers took a real delight in listening to erudite sermons (Dr. -Donne’s, for example) and academical disputes on points of theology or -metaphysics. Part of the entertainment offered to the Prince Palatine, -on the occasion of his marriage with James 1.’s daughter, was a -syllogistic argumentation, on I forget what philosophical theme, between -the amiable Lord Keeper Williams and a troop of minor Cambridge -logicians. Imagine the feelings of a contemporary prince, if a loyal -University were to offer him a similar entertainment! - -Royal personages were not the only people who enjoyed intelligent -pleasures. In Elizabethan times every lady and gentleman of ordinary -culture could be relied upon, at demand, to take his or her part in a -madrigal or a motet. Those who know the enormous complexity and subtlety -of sixteenth-century music will realize what this means. To indulge in -their favourite pastime our ancestors had to exert their minds to an -uncommon degree. Even the uneducated vulgar delighted in pleasures -requiring the exercise of a certain intelligence, individuality and -personal initiative. They listened, for example, to _Othello_, _King -Lear_, and _Hamlet_—apparently with enjoyment and comprehension. They -sang and made much music. And far away, in the remote country, the -peasants, year by year, went through the traditional rites—the dances of -spring and summer, the winter mummings, the ceremonies of harvest -home—appropriate to each successive season. Their pleasures were -intelligent and alive, and it was they who, by their own efforts, -entertained themselves. - -We have changed all that. In place of the old pleasures demanding -intelligence and personal initiative, we have vast organizations that -provide us with ready-made distractions—distractions which demand from -pleasure-seekers no personal participation and no intellectual effort of -any sort. To the interminable democracies of the world a million cinemas -bring the same stale balderdash. There have always been fourth-rate -writers and dramatists; but their works, in the past, quickly died -without getting beyond the boundaries of the city or the country in -which they appeared. To-day, the inventions of the scenario-writer go -out from Los Angeles across the whole world. Countless audiences soak -passively in the tepid bath of nonsense. No mental effort is demanded of -them, no participation; they need only sit and keep their eyes open. - -Do the democracies want music? In the old days they would have made it -themselves. Now, they merely turn on the gramophone. Or if they are a -little more up-to-date they adjust their wireless telephone to the right -wave-length and listen-in to the fruity contralto at Marconi House, -singing “The Gleaner’s Slumber Song.” - -And if they want literature, there is the Press. Nominally, it is true, -the Press exists to impart information. But its real function is to -provide, like the cinema, a distraction which shall occupy the mind -without demanding of it the slightest effort or the fatigue of a single -thought. This function, it must be admitted, it fulfils with an -extraordinary success. It is possible to go on for years and years, -reading two papers every working day and one on Sundays without ever -once being called upon to think or to make any other effort than to move -the eyes, not very attentively, down the printed column. - -Certain sections of the community still practise athletic sports in -which individual participation is demanded. Great numbers of the middle -and upper classes play golf and tennis in person and, if they are -sufficiently rich, shoot birds and pursue the fox and go ski-ing in the -Alps. But the vast mass of the community has now come even to sport -vicariously, preferring the watching of football to the fatigues and -dangers of the actual game. All classes, it is true, still dance; but -dance, all the world over, the same steps to the same tunes. The dance -has been scrupulously sterilized of any local or personal individuality. - -These effortless pleasures, these ready-made distractions that are the -same for every one over the face of the whole Western world, are surely -a worse menace to our civilization than ever the Germans were. The -working hours of the day are already, for the great majority of human -beings, occupied in the performance of purely mechanical tasks in which -no mental effort, no individuality, no initiative are required. And now, -in the hours of leisure, we turn to distractions as mechanically -stereotyped and demanding as little intelligence and initiative as does -our work. Add such leisure to such work and the sum is a perfect day -which it is a blessed relief to come to the end of. - -Self-poisoned in this fashion, civilization looks as though it might -easily decline into a kind of premature senility. With a mind almost -atrophied by lack of use, unable to entertain itself and grown so -wearily uninterested in the ready-made distractions offered from without -that nothing but the grossest stimulants of an ever-increasing violence -and crudity can move it, the democracy of the future will sicken of a -chronic and mortal boredom. It will go, perhaps, the way the Romans -went: the Romans who came at last to lose, precisely as we are doing -now, the capacity to distract themselves; the Romans who, like us, lived -on ready-made entertainments in which they had no participation. Their -deadly ennui demanded ever more gladiators, more tightrope-walking -elephants, more rare and far-fetched animals to be slaughtered. Ours -would demand no less; but owing to the existence of a few idealists, -doesn’t get all it asks for. The most violent forms of entertainment can -only be obtained illicitly; to satisfy a taste for slaughter and cruelty -you must become a member of the Ku Klux Klan. Let us not despair, -however; we may still live to see blood flowing across the stage of the -Hippodrome. The force of a boredom clamouring to be alleviated may yet -prove too much for the idealists. - - - - - VII: MODERN FOLK POETRY - - -To all those who are interested in the “folk” and their poetry—the -contemporary folk of the great cities and their urban muse—I would -recommend a little-known journal called _McGlennon’s Pantomime Annual_. -This periodical makes its appearance at some time in the New Year, when -the pantos are slowly withering away under the influence of approaching -spring. I take this opportunity of warning my readers to keep a sharp -look out for the coming of the next issue; it is sure to be worth the -modest twopence which one is asked to pay for it. - -_McGlennon’s Pantomime Annual_ is an anthology of the lyrics of the -panto season’s most popular songs. It is a document of first-class -importance. To the future student of our popular literature _McGlennon_ -will be as precious as the Christie-Miller collection of Elizabethan -broadsheets. In the year 2220 a copy of the _Pantomime Annual_ may very -likely sell for hundreds of pounds at the Sotheby’s of the time. With -laudable forethought I am preserving my copy of last year’s _McGlennon_ -for the enrichment of my distant posterity. - -The Folk Poetry of 1920 may best be classified according to -subject-matter. First, by reason of its tender associations as well as -its mere amount, is the poetry of Passion. Then there is the Poetry of -Filial Devotion. Next, the Poetry of the Home—the dear old earthly Home -in Oregon or Kentucky—and, complementary to it, the Poetry of the -Spiritual Home in other and happier worlds. Here, as well as in the next -section, the popular lyric borrows some of its best effects from -hymnology. There follows the Poetry of Recollection and Regret, and the -Poetry of Nationality, a type devoted almost exclusively to the praises -of Ireland. These types and their variations cover the Folk’s serious -poetry. Their comic vein is less susceptible to analysis. Drink, Wives, -Young Nuts, Honeymoon Couples—these are a few of the stock subjects. - -The Amorous Poetry of the Folk, like the love lyrics of more cultured -poets, is divided into two species: the Poetry of Spiritual Amour and -the more direct and concrete expression of Immediate Desire. _McGlennon_ -provides plenty of examples of both types: - - When love peeps in the window of your heart - -[it might be the first line of a Shakespeare sonnet] - - You seem to walk on air, - Birds sing their sweet songs to you, - No cloud in your skies of blue, - Sunshine all the happy day, etc. - -These rhapsodies tend to become a little tedious. But one feels the warm -touch of reality in - - I want to snuggle, I want to snuggle, - I know a cosy place for two. - I want to snuggle, I want to snuggle, - I want to feel that love is true. - Take me in your arms as lovers do. - Hold me very tight and kiss me too. - I want to snuggle, I want to snuggle, - I want to snuggle close to you. - -This is sound; but it does not come up to the best of the popular -lyrics. The agonized passion expressed in the words and music of “You -Made Me Love You” is something one does not easily forget, though that -great song is as old as the now distant origins of ragtime. - -The Poetry of Filial Devotion is almost as extensive as the Poetry of -Amour. _McGlennon_ teems with such outbursts as this: - - You are a wonderful mother, dear old mother of mine. - You’ll hold a spot down deep in my heart - Till the stars no longer shine. - Your soul shall live on for ever, - On through the fields of time, - For there’ll never be another to me - Like that wonderful mother of mine. - -Even Grandmamma gets a share of this devotion: - - Granny, my own, I seem to hear you calling me; - Granny, my own, you are my sweetest memory ... - If up in heaven angels reign supreme, - Among the angels you must be the Queen. - Granny, my own, I miss you more and more. - -The last lines are particularly rich. What a fascinating heresy, to hold -that the angels reign over their Creator! - -The Poetry of Recollection and Regret owes most, both in words and -music, to the hymn. _McGlennon_ provides a choice example in “Back from -the Land of Yesterday”: - - Back from the land of yesterday, - Back to the friends of yore; - Back through the dark and dreary way - Into the light once more. - Back to the heart that waits for me, - Warmed by the sunshine above; - Back from the old land of yesterday’s dreams - To a new land of life and love. - -What it means, goodness only knows. But one can imagine that, sunk to a -slow music in three-four time—some rich religious waltz-tune—it would be -extremely uplifting and edifying. The decay of regular churchgoing has -inevitably led to this invasion of the music-hall by the hymn. People -still want to feel the good uplifting emotion, and they feel it with a -vengeance when they listen to songs about - - the land of beginning again, - Where skies are always blue ... - Where broken dreams come true. - -The great advantage of the music-hall over the church is that the -uplifting moments do not last too long. - -Finally, there is the great Home motif. “I want to be,” these lyrics -always begin, “I want to be almost anywhere that is not the place where -I happen at the moment to be.” M. Louis Estève has called this longing -“Le Mal de la Province,” which in its turn is closely related to “Le Mal -de l’au-delà.” It is one of the worst symptoms of romanticism. - - Steamer, balançant ta mâture, - Lève l’ancre vers une exotique nature, - -exclaims Mallarmé, and the Folk, whom that most exquisite of poets -loathed and despised, echo his words in a hundred different keys. There -is not a State in America where they don’t want to go. In _McGlennon_ we -find yearnings expressed for California, Ohio, Tennessee, Virginia, and -Georgia. Some sigh for Ireland, Devon, and the East. “Egypt! I am -calling you; oh, life is sweet and joys complete when at your feet I lay -[_sic_].” But the Southern States, the East, Devon, and Killarney are -not enough. The Mal de l’au-delà succeeds the Mal de la Province. The -Folk yearn for extra-mundane worlds. Here, for example, is an expression -of nostalgia for a mystical “Kingdom within your Eyes”: - - Somewhere in somebody’s eyes - Is a place just divine, - Bounded by roses that kiss the dew - In those dear eyes that shine. - Somewhere beyond earthly dreams, - Where love’s flower never dies, - God made the world, and He gave it to me - In that kingdom within your eyes. - -If there is any characteristic which distinguishes contemporary folk -poetry from the folk poetry of other times it is surely its -meaninglessness. Old folk poetry is singularly direct and to the point, -full of pregnant meaning, never vague. Modern folk poetry, as -exemplified in _McGlennon_, is almost perfectly senseless. The -Elizabethan peasant or mechanic would never have consented to sing or -listen to anything so flatulently meaningless as “Back from the Land of -Yesterday” or “The Kingdom within your Eyes.” His taste was for -something clear, definite and pregnant, like “Greensleeves”: - - And every morning when you rose, - I brought you dainties orderly, - To clear your stomach from all woes— - And yet you would not love me. - -Could anything be more logical and to the point? But we, instead of -logic, instead of clarity, are provided by our professional entertainers -with the drivelling imbecility of “Granny, my own.” Can it be that the -standard of intelligence is lower now than it was three hundred years -ago? Have newspapers and cinemas and now the wireless telephone -conspired to rob mankind of whatever sense of reality, whatever power of -individual questioning and criticism he once possessed? I do not venture -to answer. But the fact of _McGlennon_ has somehow got to be explained. -How? I prefer to leave the problem on a note of interrogation. - - - - - VIII: BIBLIOPHILY - - -Bibliophily is on the increase. It is a constatation which I make with -regret; for the bibliophile’s point of view is, to me at least, -unsympathetic and his standard of values unsound. Among the French, -bibliophily would seem to have become a kind of mania, and, what is -more, a highly organized and thoroughly exploited mania. Whenever I get -a new French book I turn at once—for in what disgusts and irritates one -there is always a certain odious fascination—to the fly-leaf. One had -always been accustomed to finding there a brief description of the -“vingt exemplaires sur papier hollande Van Gelder”; nobody objected to -the modest old Dutchman whose paper gave to the author’s presentation -copies so handsome an appearance. But Van Gelder is now a back number. -In this third decade of the twentieth century he has become altogether -too simple and unsophisticated. On the fly-leaf of a _dernière -nouveauté_ I find the following incantation, printed in block capitals -and occupying at least twenty lines: - - Il a été tiré de cet ouvrage, après impositions spéciales, 133 - exemplaires in-4. Tellière sur papier-vergé pur-fil Lafuma-Navarre, au - filigrane de la _Nouvelle Revue Française_, dont 18 exemplaires hors - commerce, marqués de A à R, 100 exemplaires réservés aux Bibliophiles - de la _Nouvelle Revue Française_, numérotés de I à C, 15 exemplaires - numérotés de CI à CXV; 1040 exemplaires sur papier vélin pur-fil - Lafuma-Navarre, dont dix exemplaires hors commerce marqués de a à j, - 800 exemplaires réservés aux amis de l’Edition originale, numérotés de - 1 à 800, 30 exemplaires d’auteur, hors commerce, numérotés de 801 à - 830 et 200 exemplaires numérotés de 831 à 1030, ce tirage constituant - proprement et authentiquement l’Edition originale. - -If I were one of the hundred Bibliophiles of the _Nouvelle Revue -Française_ or even one of the eight hundred Friends of the Original -Edition, I should suggest, with the utmost politeness, that the -publishers might deserve better of their fellow-beings if they spent -less pains on numbering the first edition and more on seeing that it was -properly produced. Personally, I am the friend of any edition which is -reasonably well printed and bound, reasonably correct in the text and -reasonably clean. The consciousness that I possess a numbered copy of an -edition printed on Lafuma-Navarre paper, duly watermarked with the -publisher’s initials, does not make up for the fact that the book is -full of gross printer’s errors and that a whole sheet of sixteen pages -has wandered, during the process of binding, from one end of the volume -to the other—occurrences which are quite unnecessarily frequent in the -history of French book production. - -With the increased attention paid to bibliophilous niceties, has come a -great increase in price. Limited _éditions de luxe_ have become absurdly -common in France, and there are dozens of small publishing concerns -which produce almost nothing else. Authors like Monsieur André Salmon -and Monsieur Max Jacob scarcely ever appear at less than twenty francs a -volume. Even with the exchange this is a formidable price; and yet the -French bibliophiles, for whom twenty francs are really twenty francs, -appear to have an insatiable appetite for these small and beautiful -editions. The War has established a new economic law: the poorer one -becomes the more one can afford to spend on luxuries. - -The ordinary English publisher has never gone in for Van Gelder, -Lafuma-Navarre and numbered editions. Reticent about figures, he leaves -the book collector to estimate the first edition’s future rarity by -guesswork. He creates no artificial scarcity values. The collector of -contemporary English first editions is wholly a speculator; he never -knows what time may have in store. - -In the picture trade for years past nobody has pretended that there was -any particular relation between the price of a picture and its value as -a work of art. A magnificent El Greco is bought for about a tenth of the -sum paid for a Romney that would be condemned by any self-respecting -hanging-committee. We are so well used to this sort of thing in picture -dealing that we have almost ceased to comment on it. But in the book -trade the tendency to create huge artificial values is of a later -growth. The spectacle of a single book being bought for fifteen thousand -pounds is still sufficiently novel to arouse indignation. Moreover, the -book collector who pays vast sums for his treasures has even less excuse -than has the collector of pictures. The value of an old book is wholly a -scarcity value. From a picture one may get a genuine æsthetic pleasure; -in buying a picture one buys the unique right to feel that pleasure. But -nobody can pretend that _Venus and Adonis_ is more delightful when it is -read in a fifteen thousand pound unique copy than when it is read in a -volume that has cost a shilling. On the whole, the printing and general -appearance of the shilling book is likely to be the better of the two. -The purchaser of the fabulously expensive old book is satisfying only -his possessive instinct. The buyer of a picture may also have a genuine -feeling for beauty. - -The triumph and the _reductio ad absurdum_ of bibliophily were witnessed -not long ago at Sotheby’s, when the late Mr. Smith of New York bought -eighty thousand pounds’ worth of books in something under two hours at -the Britwell Court sale. The War, it is said, created forty thousand new -millionaires in America; the New York bookseller can have had no lack of -potential clients. He bought a thousand guinea volume as an ordinary -human being might buy something off the sixpenny shelf in a second-hand -shop. I have seldom witnessed a spectacle which inspired in me an -intenser blast of moral indignation. Moral indignation, of course, is -always to be mistrusted as, wholly or in part, the disguised -manifestation of some ignoble passion. In this case the basic cause of -my indignation was clearly envy. But there was, I flatter myself, a -superstructure of disinterested moral feeling. To debase a book into an -expensive object of luxury is as surely, in Miltonic language, “to kill -the image of God, as it were in the eye” as to burn it. And when one -thinks how those eighty thousand pounds might have been spent.... Ah, -well! - - - - - IX: DEMOCRATIC ART - - -There is intoxication to be found in a crowd. For it is good to be one -of many all doing the same thing—good whatever the thing may be, whether -singing hymns, watching a football match, or applauding the eternal -truths of politicians. Anything will serve as an excuse. It matters not -in whose name your two or three thousand are gathered together; what is -important is the process of gathering. In these last days we have -witnessed a most illuminating example of this tendency in the wild -outburst of mob excitement over the arrival in this country of Mary -Pickford. It is not as though people were really very much interested in -the Little Sweetheart of the World. She is no more than an excuse for -assembling in a crowd and working up a powerful communal emotion. The -newspapers set the excitement going; they built the fire, applied the -match, and cherished the infant flame. The crowds, only too happy to be -kindled, did the rest; they burned. - -I belong to that class of unhappy people who are not easily infected by -crowd excitement. Too often I find myself sadly and coldly unmoved in -the midst of multitudinous emotion. Few sensations are more -disagreeable. The defect is in part temperamental, and in part is due to -that intellectual snobbishness, that fastidious rejection of what is -easy and obvious, which is one of the melancholy consequences of the -acquisition of culture. How often one regrets this asceticism of the -mind! How wistfully sometimes one longs to be able to rid oneself of the -habit of rejection and selection, and to enjoy all the dear, obviously -luscious, idiotic emotions without an afterthought! And indeed, however -much we may admire the Chromatic Fantasia of Bach, we all of us have a -soft spot somewhere in our minds that is sensitive to “Roses in -Picardy.” But the soft spot is surrounded by hard spots; the enjoyment -is never unmixed with critical disapprobation. The excuses for working -up a communal emotion, even communal emotion itself, are rejected as too -gross. We turn from them as a cœnobite of the Thebaid would have turned -from dancing girls or a steaming dish of tripe and onions. - -I have before me now a little book, recently arrived from America, which -points out the way in which the random mob emotion may be systematically -organized into a kind of religion. This volume, _The Will of Song_ (Boni -& Liveright, 70 c.), is the joint production of Messrs. Harry Barnhart -and Percy MacKaye. “How are art and social service to be reconciled?... -How shall the Hermit Soul of the Individual Poet give valid, spontaneous -expression to the Communal Soul of assembled multitudes? How may the -surging Tides of Man be sluiced in Conduits of Art, without losing their -primal glory and momentum?” These questions and many others, involving a -great expense of capital letters, are asked by Mr. MacKaye and answered -in _The Will of Song_, which bears the qualifying sub-title, “A Dramatic -Service of Community Singing.” - -The service is democratically undogmatic. Abstractions, such as Will, -Imagination, Joy, Love and Liberty, some of whom are represented in the -dramatic performance, not by individuals, but by Group Personages -(_i.e._, choruses), chant about Brotherhood in a semi-Biblical -phraseology that is almost wholly empty of content. It is all -delightfully vague and non-committal, like a Cabinet Minister’s speech -about the League of Nations, and, like such a speech, leaves behind it a -comfortable glow, a noble feeling of uplift. But, like Cabinet -Ministers, preachers and all whose profession it is to move the people -by the emission of words, the authors of _The Will of Song_ are well -aware that what matters in a popular work of art is not the intellectual -content so much as the picturesqueness of its form and the emotion with -which it is presented. In the staging—if such a term is not -irreverent—of their service, Messrs. Barnhart and MacKaye have borrowed -from Roman Catholic ritual all its most effective emotion-creators. The -darknesses, the illuminations, the chiming bells, the solemn mysterious -voices, the choral responses—all these traditional devices have been -most scientifically exploited in the Communal Service. - -These are the stage directions which herald the opening of the service: - - As the final song of the Prelude ceases, the assembly hall grows - suddenly dark, and the DARKNESS is filled with fanfare of blowing - TRUMPETS. And now, taking up the trumpets’ refrain, the Orchestra - plays an elemental music, suggestive of rain, wind, thunder and the - rushing of waters; from behind the raised Central Seat great Flashes - of Fire spout upward, and while they are flaring there rises a FLAME - GOLD FIGURE, in a cone of light, who calls with deep, vibrant voice: - “Who has risen up from the heart of the people?” Instantaneous, from - three portions of the assembly, the VOICES OF THREE GROUPS, Men, Women - and Children, answer from the dark in triple unison: “I!” - -Even from the cold print one can see that this opening would be -extremely effective. But doubts assail me. I have a horrid suspicion -that that elemental music would not sweep me off my feet as it ought to. -My fears are justified when, looking up the musical programme, I -discover that the elemental music is by Langey, and that the orchestral -accompaniments that follow are the work of Massenet, Tschaikovsky, -Langey once more, Julia Ward Howe and Sinding. Alas! once more one finds -oneself the slave of one’s habit of selection and rejection. One would -find oneself left out in the cold just because one couldn’t stand -Massenet. Those who have seen Sir James Barrie’s latest play, _Mary -Rose_, will perhaps recall the blasts of music which prelude the piece -and recur at every mystical moment throughout the play. In theory one -ought to have mounted on the wings of that music into a serene -acceptance of Sir James Barrie’s supernatural machinery; one ought to -have been filled by it with deeply religious emotions. In practice, -however, one found oneself shrinking with quivering nerves from the -poignant vulgarity of that _Leitmotif_, isolated by what should have -united one with the author and the rest of the audience. The cœnobite -would like to eat the tripe and onions, but finds by experiment that the -smell of the dish makes him feel rather sick. - -One must not, however, reject such things as _The Will of Song_ as -absolutely and entirely bad. They are useful, they are even good, on -their own plane and for people who belong to a certain order of the -spiritual hierarchy. _The Will of Song_, set to elemental music by -Massenet and Julia Ward Howe, may be a moving spiritual force for people -to whom, shall we say, Wagner means nothing; just as Wagner himself may -be of spiritual importance to people belonging to a slightly higher -caste, but still incapable of understanding or getting any good out of -the highest, the transcendent works of art—out of the Mass in D, for -example, or Sonata Op. 111. - -The democratically minded will ask what right we have to say that the -Mass in D is better than the works of Julia Ward Howe, what right we -have to assign a lower place in the spiritual hierarchy to the admirers -of _The Will of Song_ than to the admirers of Beethoven. They will -insist that there is no hierarchy at all; that every creature possessing -humanity, possessing even life, is as good and as important, by the mere -fact of that possession, as any other creature. It is not altogether -easy to answer these objections. The arguments on both sides are -ultimately based on conviction and faith. The best one can do to -convince the paradoxical democrat of the real superiority of the Mass in -D over _The Will of Song_ is to point out that, in a sense, one contains -the other; that _The Will of Song_ is a part, and a very small part at -that, of a great Whole of human experience, to which the Mass in D much -more nearly approximates. In _The Will of Song_, and its “elemental” -accompaniment one knows exactly how every effect is obtained; its range -of emotional and intellectual experience is extremely limited and -perfectly familiar. But the range of the Mass in D is enormously much -larger; it includes within itself the range of _The Will of Song_, takes -it for granted, so to speak, and reaches out into remoter spheres of -experience. It is in a real sense quantitatively larger than _The Will -of Song_. To the democrat who believes in majorities this is an argument -which must surely prove convincing. - - - - - X: ACCUMULATIONS - - -In the brevity of life and the perishableness of material things the -moral philosophers have always found one of their happiest themes. -“Time, which antiquates Antiquities, hath an Art to make dust of all -things.” There is nothing more moving than those swelling elegiac organ -notes in which they have celebrated the mortality of man and all his -works. Those of us for whom the proper study of mankind is books dwell -with the most poignant melancholy over the destruction of literary -treasures. We think of all the pre-Platonic philosophers of whose -writings only a few sentences remain. We think of Sappho’s poems, all -but completely blotted from our knowledge. We think of the missing -fragments of the “Satyricon,” and of many other precious pages which -once were and are now no more. We complain of the holes that time has -picked in the records of history, bewailing the loss of innumerable -vanished documents. As for buildings, pictures, statues and the -accumulated evidence of whole civilizations, all destroyed as though -they had never been, they do not belong to our literary province, and, -if they did, would be too numerous to catalogue even summarily. - -But because men have once thought and felt in a certain way it does not -follow that they will for ever continue to do so. There seems every -probability that our descendants, some two or three centuries hence, -will wax pathetic in their complaints, not of the fragility, but the -horrible persistence and indestructibility of things. They will feel -themselves smothered by the intolerable accumulation of the years. The -men of to-day are so deeply penetrated with the sense of the -perishableness of matter that they have begun to take immense -precautions to preserve everything they can. Desolated by the -carelessness of our ancestors, we are making very sure that our -descendants shall lack no documents when they come to write our history. -All is systematically kept and catalogued. Old things are carefully -patched and propped into continued existence; things now new are hoarded -up and protected from decay. - -To walk through the book-stores of one of the world’s great libraries is -an experience that cannot fail to set one thinking on the appalling -indestructibility of matter. A few years ago I explored the recently dug -cellars into which the overflow of the Bodleian pours in an unceasing -stream. The cellars extend under the northern half of the great -quadrangle in whose centre stands the Radcliffe Camera. These catacombs -are two storeys deep and lined with impermeable concrete. “The muddy -damps and ropy slime” of the traditional vault are absent in this great -necropolis of letters; huge ventilating pipes breathe blasts of a dry -and heated wind, that makes the place as snug and as unsympathetic to -decay as the deserts of Central Asia. The books stand in metal cases -constructed so as to slide in and out of position on rails. So ingenious -is the arrangement of the cases that it is possible to fill two-thirds -of the available space, solidly, with books. Twenty years or so hence, -when the existing vaults will take no more books, a new cellar can be -dug on the opposite side of the Camera. And when that is full—it is only -a matter of half a century from now—what then? We shrug our shoulders. -After us the deluge. But let us hope that Bodley’s Librarian of 1970 -will have the courage to emend the last word to “bonfire.” To the -bonfire! That is the only satisfactory solution of an intolerable -problem. - -The deliberate preservation of things must be compensated for by their -deliberate and judicious destruction. Otherwise the world will be -overwhelmed by the accumulation of antique objects. Pigs and rabbits and -watercress, when they were first introduced into New Zealand, threatened -to lay waste the country, because there were no compensating forces of -destruction to put a stop to their indefinite multiplication. In the -same way, mere things, once they are set above the natural laws of -decay, will end by burying us, unless we set about methodically to get -rid of the nuisance. The plea that they should all be preserved—every -novel by Nat Gould, every issue of the _Funny Wonder_—as historical -documents is not a sound one. Where too many documents exist it is -impossible to write history at all. “For ignorance,” in the felicitous -words of Mr. Lytton Strachey, “is the first requisite of the -historian—ignorance which simplifies and clarifies, which selects and -omits, with a placid perfection unattainable by the highest art.” Nobody -wants to know everything—the irrelevancies as well as the important -facts—about the past; or in any case nobody ought to desire to know. -Those who do, those who are eaten up by an itch for mere facts and -useless information, are the wretched victims of a vice no less -reprehensible than greed or drunkenness. - -Hand in hand with this judicious process of destruction must go an -elaborate classification of what remains. As Mr. Wells says in his -large, opulent way, “the future world-state’s organization of scientific -research and record compared with that of to-day will be like an ocean -liner beside the dug-out canoe of some early heliolithic wanderer.” With -the vast and indiscriminate multiplication of books and periodicals our -organization of records tends to become ever more heliolithic. Useful -information on any given subject is so widely scattered or may be hidden -in such obscure places that the student is often at a loss to know what -he ought to study or where. An immense international labour of -bibliography and classification must be undertaken at no very distant -date, if future generations of researchers are to make the fullest use -of the knowledge that has already been gained. - -But this constructive labour will be tedious and insipid compared with -the glorious business of destruction. Huge bonfires of paper will blaze -for days and weeks together, whenever the libraries undertake their -periodical purgation. The only danger, and, alas! it is a very real -danger, is that the libraries will infallibly purge themselves of the -wrong books. We all know what librarians are; and not only librarians, -but critics, literary men, general public—everybody, in fact, with the -exception of ourselves—we know what they are like, we know them: there -never was a set of people with such bad taste! Committees will doubtless -be set up to pass judgment on books, awarding acquittals and -condemnations in magisterial fashion. It will be a sort of gigantic -Hawthornden competition. At that thought I find that the flames of my -great bonfires lose much of their imagined lustre. - - - - - XI: ON DEVIATING INTO SENSE - - -There is a story, very dear for some reason to our ancestors, that -Apelles, or I forget what other Greek painter, grown desperate at the -failure of his efforts to portray realistically the foam on a dog’s -mouth, threw his sponge at the picture in a pet, and was rewarded for -his ill-temper by discovering that the resultant smudge was the living -image of the froth whose aspect he had been unable, with all his art, to -recapture. No one will ever know the history of all the happy mistakes, -the accidents and unconscious deviations into genius, that have helped -to enrich the world’s art. They are probably countless. I myself have -deviated more than once into accidental felicities. Recently, for -example, the hazards of careless typewriting caused me to invent a new -portmanteau word of the most brilliantly Laforguian quality. I had meant -to write the phrase “the Human Comedy,” but, by a happy slip, I put my -finger on the letter that stands next to “C” on the universal keyboard. -When I came to read over the completed page I found that I had written -“the Human Vomedy.” Was there ever a criticism of life more succinct and -expressive? To the more sensitive and queasy among the gods the last few -years must indeed have seemed a vomedy of the first order. - -The grossest forms of mistake have played quite a distinguished part in -the history of letters. One thinks, for example, of the name Criseida or -Cressida manufactured out of a Greek accusative, of that Spenserian -misunderstanding of Chaucer which gave currency to the rather ridiculous -substantive “derring-do.” Less familiar, but more deliciously absurd, is -Chaucer’s slip in reading “naves ballatrices” for “naves -bellatrices”—ballet-ships instead of battle-ships—and his translation -“shippes hoppesteres.” But these broad, straightforward howlers are -uninteresting compared with the more subtle deviations into originality -occasionally achieved by authors who were trying their best not to be -original. Nowhere do we find more remarkable examples of accidental -brilliance than among the post-Chaucerian poets, whose very indistinct -knowledge of what precisely _was_ the metre in which they were trying to -write often caused them to produce very striking variations on the -staple English measure. - -Chaucer’s variations from the decasyllable norm were deliberate. So, for -the most part, were those of his disciple Lydgate, whose favourite -“broken-backed” line, lacking the first syllable of the iambus that -follows the cæsura, is metrically of the greatest interest to -contemporary poets. Lydgate’s characteristic line follows this model: - - For speechéless nothing maist thou speed. - -Judiciously employed, the broken-backed line might yield very beautiful -effects. Lydgate, as has been said, was probably pretty conscious of -what he was doing. But his procrustean methods were apt to be a little -indiscriminate, and one wonders sometimes whether he was playing -variations on a known theme or whether he was rather tentatively groping -after the beautiful regularity of his master Chaucer. The later -fifteenth and sixteenth century poets seem to have worked very much in -the dark. The poems of such writers as Hawes and Skelton abound in the -vaguest parodies of the decasyllable line. Anything from seven to -fifteen syllables will serve their turn. With them the variations are -seldom interesting. Chance had not much opportunity of producing subtle -metrical effects with a man like Skelton, whose mind was naturally so -full of jigging doggerel that his variations on the decasyllable are -mostly in the nature of rough skeltonics. I have found interesting -accidental variations on the decasyllable in Heywood, the writer of -moralities. This, from the _Play of Love_, has a real metrical beauty: - - Felt ye but one pang such as I feel many, - One pang of despair or one pang of desire, - One pang of one displeasant look of her eye, - One pang of one word of her mouth as in ire, - Or in restraint of her love which I desire— - One pang of all these, felt once in all your life, - Should quail your opinion and quench all our strife. - -These dactylic resolutions of the third and fourth lines are extremely -interesting. - -But the most remarkable example of accidental metrical invention that I -have yet come across is to be found in the Earl of Surrey’s translation -of Horace’s ode on the golden mean. Surrey was one of the pioneers of -the reaction against the vagueness and uncertain carelessness of the -post-Chaucerians. From the example of Italian poetry he had learned that -a line must have a fixed number of syllables. In all his poems his aim -is always to achieve regularity at whatever cost. To make sure of having -ten syllables in every line it is evident that Surrey made use of his -fingers as well as his ears. We see him at his worst and most laborious -in the first stanza of his translation: - - Of thy life, Thomas, this compass well mark: - Ne by coward dread in shunning storms dark - Not aye with full sails the high seas to beat; - On shallow shores thy keel in peril freat. - -The ten syllables are there all right, but except in the last line there -is no recognizable rhythm of any kind, whether regular or irregular. But -when Surrey comes to the second stanza— - - Auream quisquis mediocritatem - Diligit, tutus caret obsoleti - Sordibus tecti, caret invidenda - Sobrius aula— - -some lucky accident inspires him with the genius to translate in these -words: - - Whoso gladly halseth the golden mean, - Void of dangers advisedly hath his home; - Not with loathsome muck as a den unclean, - Nor palace like, whereat disdain may gloam. - -Not only is this a very good translation, but it is also a very -interesting and subtle metrical experiment. What could be more -felicitous than this stanza made up of three trochaic lines, quickened -by beautiful dactylic resolutions, and a final iambic line of regular -measure—the recognized tonic chord that brings the music to its close? -And yet the tunelessness of the first stanza is enough to prove that -Surrey’s achievement is as much a product of accident as the foam on the -jaws of Apelles’ dog. He was doing his best all the time to write -decasyllabics with the normal iambic beat of the last line. His failures -to do so were sometimes unconscious strokes of genius. - - - - - XII: POLITE CONVERSATION - - -There are some people to whom the most difficult to obey of all the -commandments is that which enjoins us to suffer fools gladly. The -prevalence of folly, its monumental, unchanging permanence and its -almost invariable triumph over intelligence are phenomena which they -cannot contemplate without experiencing a passion of righteous -indignation or, at the least, of ill-temper. Sages like Anatole France, -who can probe and anatomize human stupidity and still remain serenely -detached, are rare. These reflections were suggested by a book recently -published in New York and entitled _The American Credo_. The authors of -this work are those _enfants terribles_ of American criticism, Messrs. -H. L. Mencken and George Jean Nathan. They have compiled a list of four -hundred and eighty-eight articles of faith which form the fundamental -Credo of the American people, prefacing them with a very entertaining -essay on the national mind: - - Truth shifts and changes like a cataract of diamonds; its aspect is - never precisely the same at two successive moments. But error flows - down the channel of history like some great stream of lava or - infinitely lethargic glacier. It is the one relatively fixed thing in - a world of chaos. - -To look through the articles of the Credo is to realize that there is a -good deal of truth in this statement. Such beliefs as the following—not -by any means confined to America alone—are probably at least as old as -the Great Pyramid: - -That if a woman, about to become a mother, plays the piano every day, -her baby will be born a Victor Herbert. - -That the accumulation of great wealth always brings with it great -unhappiness. - -That it is bad luck to kill a spider. - -That water rots the hair and thus causes baldness. - -That if a bride wears an old garter with her new finery, she will have a -happy married life. - -That children were much better behaved twenty years ago than they are -to-day. - -And most of the others in the collection, albeit clothed in forms -distinctively contemporary and American, are simply variations on -notions as immemorial. - -Inevitably, as one reads _The American Credo_, one is reminded of an -abler, a more pitiless and ferocious onslaught on stupidity, I mean -Swift’s “_Complete Collection of Genteel and Ingenious Conversation, -according to the most polite mode and method now used at Court and in -the Best Companies of England_. In three Dialogues. By Simon Wagstaff, -Esq.” I was inspired after reading Messrs. Mencken and Nathan’s work to -refresh my memories of this diabolic picture of the social amenities. -And what a book it is! There is something almost appalling in the way it -goes on and on, a continuous, never-ceasing stream of imbecility. Simon -Wagstaff, it will be remembered, spent the best part of forty years in -collecting and digesting these gems of polite conversation: - - I can faithfully assure the reader that there is not one single witty - phrase in the whole Collection which has not received the Stamp and - Approbation of at least One Hundred Years, and how much longer it is - hard to determine; he may therefore be secure to find them all - genuine, sterling and authentic. - -How genuine, sterling and authentic Mr. Wagstaff’s treasures of polite -conversation are is proved by the great number of them which have -withstood all the ravages of time, and still do as good service to-day -as they did in the early seventeen-hundreds or in the days of Henry -VIII.: “Go, you Girl, and warm some fresh Cream.” “Indeed, Madam, -there’s none left; for the Cat has eaten it all.” “I doubt it was a Cat -with Two Legs.” - -“And, pray, What News, Mr. Neverout?” “Why, Madam, Queen Elizabeth’s -dead.” (It would be interesting to discover at exactly what date Queen -Anne took the place of Queen Elizabeth in this grand old repartee, or -who was the monarch referred to when the Virgin Queen was still alive. -Aspirants to the degree of B. or D.Litt. might do worse than to take -this problem as a subject for their thesis.) - -Some of the choicest phrases have come down in the world since Mr. -Wagstaff’s day. Thus, Miss Notable’s retort to Mr. Neverout, “Go, teach -your Grannam to suck Eggs,” could only be heard now in the dormitory of -a preparatory school. Others have become slightly modified. Mr. Neverout -says, “Well, all Things have an End, and a pudden has two.” I think we -may flatter ourselves that the modern emendation, “except a roly-poly -pudding, which has two,” is an improvement. - -Mr. Wagstaff’s second dialogue, wherein he treats of Polite Conversation -at meals, contains more phrases that testify to the unbroken continuity -of tradition than either of the others. The conversation that centres on -the sirloin of beef is worthy to be recorded in its entirety: - - LADY SMART. Come, Colonel, handle your Arms. Shall I help you to some - Beef? - - COLONEL. If your Ladyship please; and, pray, don’t cut like a - Mother-in-law, but send me a large Slice; for I love to lay a good - Foundation. I vow, ’tis a noble Sir-loyn. - - NEVEROUT. Ay; here’s cut and come again. - - MISS. But, pray; why is it call’d a Sir-loyn? - - LORD SMART. Why, you must know that our King James the First, who - lov’d good Eating, being invited to Dinner by one of his Nobles, and - seeing a large Loyn of Beef at his Table, he drew out his Sword, and, - in a Frolic, knighted it. Few people know the Secret of this. - -How delightful it is to find that we have Mr. Wagstaff’s warrant for -such gems of wisdom as, “Cheese digests everything except itself,” and -“If you eat till you’re cold, you’ll live to grow old”! If they were a -hundred years old in his day they are fully three hundred now. Long may -they survive! I was sorry, however, to notice that one of the best of -Mr. Wagstaff’s phrases has been, in the revolution of time, completely -lost. Indeed, before I had read Aubrey’s “Lives,” Lord Sparkish’s -remark, “Come, box it about; ’twill come to my Father at last,” was -quite incomprehensible to me. The phrase is taken from a story of Sir -Walter Raleigh and his son. - - Sir Walter Raleigh [says Aubrey] being invited to dinner to some great - person where his son was to goe with him, he sayd to his son, “Thou - art expected to-day at dinner to goe along with me, but thou art so - quarrelsome and affronting that I am ashamed to have such a beare in - my company.” Mr. Walter humbled himselfe to his father and promised he - would behave himselfe mighty mannerly. So away they went. He sate next - to his father and was very demure at least halfe dinner time. Then - sayd he, “I this morning, not having the feare of God before my eies, - but by the instigation of the devill, went....” - -At this point Mr. Clark, in his edition, suppresses four lines of -Aubrey’s text; but one can imagine the sort of thing Master Walter said. - - Sir Walter, being strangely surprized and putt out of countenance at - so great a table, gives his son a damned blow over the face. His son, - as rude as he was, would not strike his father, but strikes over the - face the gentleman that sate next to him and sayd, “Box about: ’twill - come to my father anon.” ’Tis now a common-used proverb. - -And so it still deserves to be; how, when and why it became extinct, I -have no idea. Here is another good subject for a thesis. - -There are but few things in Mr. Wagstaff’s dialogue which appear -definitely out of date and strange to us, and these super-annuations can -easily be accounted for. Thus the repeal of the Criminal Laws has made -almost incomprehensible the constant references to hanging made by Mr. -Wagstaff’s personages. The oaths and the occasional mild grossnesses -have gone out of fashion in mixed polite society. Otherwise their -conversation is in all essentials exactly the same as the conversation -of the present day. And this is not to be wondered at; for, as a wise -man has said: - - Speech at the present time retains strong evidence of the survival in - it of the function of herd recognition.... The function of - conversation is ordinarily regarded as being the exchange of ideas and - information. Doubtless it has come to have such a function, but an - objective examination of ordinary conversation shows that the actual - conveyance of ideas takes a very small part in it. As a rule the - exchange seems to consist of ideas which are necessarily common to the - two speakers and are known to be so by each.... Conversation between - persons unknown to one another is apt to be rich in the ritual of - recognition. When one hears or takes part in these elaborate - evolutions, gingerly proffering one after another of one’s marks of - identity, one’s views on the weather, on fresh air and draughts, on - the Government and on uric acid, watching intently for the first low - hint of a growl, which will show one belongs to the wrong pack and - must withdraw, it is impossible not to be reminded of the similar - manœuvres of the dog and to be thankful that Nature has provided us - with a less direct, though perhaps a more tedious, code. - - - - - XIII: NATIONALITY IN LOVE - - -The hazards of indiscriminate rummaging in bookshops have introduced me -to two volumes of verse which seem to me (though I am ordinarily very -sceptical of those grandiose generalizations about racial and national -characteristics, so beloved of a certain class of literary people) to -illustrate very clearly some of the differences between the French and -English mind. The first is a little book published some few months back -and entitled _Les Baisers_.... The publisher says of it in one of those -exquisitely literary puffs which are the glory of the Paris book trade: -“Un volume de vers? Non pas! Simplement des baisers mis en vers, des -baisers variés comme l’heure qui passe, inconstants comme l’Amour -lui-même.... Baisers, baisers, c’est toute leur troublante musique qui -chante dans ces rimes.” The other volume hails from the antipodes and is -called _Songs of Love and Life_. No publisher’s puff accompanies it; but -a coloured picture on the dust-wrapper represents a nymph frantically -clutching at a coy shepherd. A portrait of the authoress serves as a -frontispiece. Both books are erotic in character, and both are very -indifferent in poetical quality. They are only interesting as -illustrations, the more vivid because of their very second-rateness, of -the two characteristic methods of approach, French and English, to the -theme of physical passion. - -The author of _Les Baisers_ approaches his amorous experiences with the -detached manner of a psychologist interested in the mental reactions of -certain corporeal pleasures whose mechanism he has previously studied in -his capacity of physiological observer. His attitude is the same as that -of the writers of those comedies of manners which hold the stage in the -theatres of the boulevards. It is dry, precise, matter-of-fact and -almost scientific. The comedian of the boulevards does not concern -himself with trying to find some sort of metaphysical justification for -the raptures of physical passion, nor is he in any way a propagandist of -sensuality. He is simply an analyst of facts, whose business it is to -get all the wit that is possible out of an equivocal situation. -Similarly, the author of these poems is far too highly sophisticated to -imagine that - - every spirit as it is most pure, - And hath in it the more of heavenly light, - So it the fairer body doth procure - To habit in, and it more fairly dight - With cheerful grace and amiable sight. - For of the soul the body form doth take; - For soul is form and doth the body make. - -He does not try to make us believe that physical pleasures have a divine -justification. Neither has he any wish to “make us grovel, hand and foot -in Belial’s gripe.” He is merely engaged in remembering “des heures et -des entretiens” which were extremely pleasant—hours which strike for -every one, conversations and meetings which are taking place in all -parts of the world and at every moment. - -This attitude towards _volupté_ is sufficiently old in France to have -made possible the evolution of a very precise and definite vocabulary in -which to describe its phenomena. This language is as exact as the -technical jargon of a trade, and as elegant as the Latin of Petronius. -It is a language of which we have no equivalent in our English -literature. It is impossible in English to describe _volupté_ elegantly; -it is hardly possible to write of it without being gross. To begin with, -we do not even possess a word equivalent to _volupté_. “Voluptuousness” -is feeble and almost meaningless; “pleasure” is hopelessly inadequate. -From the first the English writer is at a loss; he cannot even name -precisely the thing he proposes to describe and analyze. But for the -most part he has not much use for such a language. His approach to the -subject is not dispassionate and scientific, and he has no need for -technicalities. The English amorist is inclined to approach the subject -rapturously, passionately, philosophically—almost in any way that is not -the wittily matter-of-fact French way. - -In our rich Australian _Songs of Love and Life_ we see the -rapturous-philosophic approach reduced to something that is very nearly -the absurd. Overcome with the intensities of connubial bliss, the -authoress feels it necessary to find a sort of justification for them by -relating them in some way with the cosmos. God, we are told, - - looking through His hills on you and me, - Feeds Heaven upon the flame of our desire. - -Or again: - - Our passions breathe their own wild harmony, - And pour out music at a clinging kiss. - Sing on, O Soul, our lyric of desire, - For God Himself is in the melody. - -Meanwhile the author of _Les Baisers_, always elegantly _terre-à-terre_, -formulates his more concrete desires in an Alexandrine worthy of Racine: - - Viens. Je veux dégrafer moi-même ton corsage. - -The desire to involve the cosmos in our emotions is by no means confined -to the poetess of _Songs of Love and Life_. In certain cases we are all -apt to invoke the universe in an attempt to explain and account for -emotions whose intensity seems almost inexplicable. This is particularly -true of the emotions aroused in us by the contemplation of beauty. Why -we should feel so strongly when confronted with certain forms and -colours, certain sounds, certain verbal suggestions of form and -harmony—why the thing which we call beauty should move us at -all—goodness only knows. In order to explain the phenomenon, poets have -involved the universe in the matter, asserting that they are moved by -the contemplation of physical beauty because it is the symbol of the -divine. The intensities of physical passion have presented the same -problem. Ashamed of admitting that such feelings can have a purely -sublunary cause, we affirm, like the Australian poetess, that “God -Himself is in the melody.” That, we argue, can be the only explanation -for the violence of the emotion. This view of the matter is particularly -common in a country with fundamental puritanic traditions like England, -where the dry, matter-of-fact attitude of the French seems almost -shocking. The puritan feels bound to justify the facts of beauty and -_volupté_. They must be in some way made moral before he can accept -them. The French unpuritanic mind accepts the facts as they are tendered -to it by experience, at their face value. - - - - - XIV: HOW THE DAYS DRAW IN! - - -The autumn equinox is close upon us with all its presages of mortality, -a shortening day, a colder and longer night. How the days draw in! Fear -of ridicule hardly allows one to make the melancholy constatation. It is -a conversational gambit that, like fool’s mate, can only be used against -the simplest and least experienced of players. And yet how much of the -world’s most moving poetry is nothing but a variation on the theme of -this in-drawing day! The certainty of death has inspired more poetry -than the hope of immortality. The visible transience of frail and lovely -matter has impressed itself more profoundly on the mind of man than the -notion of spiritual permanence. - - Et l’on verra bientôt surgir du sein de l’onde - La première clarté de mon dernier soleil. - -That is an article of faith from which nobody can withhold assent. - -Of late I have found myself almost incapable of enjoying any poetry -whose inspiration is not despair or melancholy. Why, I hardly know. -Perhaps it is due to the chronic horror of the political situation. For -heaven knows, that is quite sufficient to account for a taste for -melancholy verse. The subject of any European government to-day feels -all the sensations of Gulliver in the paws of the Queen of Brobdingnag’s -monkey—the sensations of some small and helpless being at the mercy of -something monstrous and irresponsible and idiotic. There sits the monkey -“on the ridge of a building five hundred yards above the ground, holding -us like a baby in one of his fore paws.” Will he let go? Will he squeeze -us to death? The best we can hope for is to be “let drop on a ridge -tile,” with only enough bruises to keep one in bed for a fortnight. But -it seems very unlikely that some “honest lad will climb up and, putting -us in his breeches pocket, bring us down safe.” However, I divagate a -little from my subject, which is the poetry of melancholy. - -Some day I shall compile an Oxford Book of Depressing Verse, which shall -contain nothing but the most magnificent expressions of melancholy and -despair. All the obvious people will be in it and as many of the obscure -apostles of gloom as vague and miscellaneous reading shall have made -known to me. A duly adequate amount of space, for example, will be -allotted to that all but great poet, Fulke Greville, Lord Brooke. For -dark magnificence there are not many things that can rival that summing -up against life and human destiny at the end of his “Mustapha.” - - Oh, wearisome condition of humanity, - Born under one law to another bound, - Vainly begot and yet forbidden vanity, - Created sick, commanded to be sound. - What meaneth nature by these diverse laws, - Passion and reason, self-division’s cause? - - Is it the mark or majesty of power - To make offences that it may forgive? - Nature herself doth her own self deflower - To hate those errors she herself doth give.... - If nature did not take delight in blood, - She would have made more easy ways to good. - -Milton aimed at justifying the ways of God to man; Fulke Greville -gloomily denounces them. - -Nor shall I omit from my anthology the extraordinary description in the -Prologue to “Alaham” of the Hell of Hells and of Privation, the peculiar -torment of the place: - - Thou monster horrible, under whose ugly doom - Down in eternity’s perpetual night - Man’s temporal sins bear torments infinite, - For change of desolation must I come - To tempt the earth and to profane the light. - A place there is, upon no centre placed, - Deep under depths as far as is the sky - Above the earth, dark, infinitely spaced, - Pluto the king, the kingdom misery. - Privation would reign there, by God not made, - But creature of uncreated sin, - Whose being is all beings to invade, - To have no ending though it did begin; - And so of past, things present and to come, - To give depriving, not tormenting doom. - But horror in the understanding mixed.... - -Like most of his contemporaries in those happy days before the notion of -progress had been invented, Lord Brooke was what Peacock would have -called a “Pejorationist.” His political views (and they were also -Sidney’s) are reflected in his _Life of Sir Philip Sidney_. The best -that a statesman can do, according to these Elizabethan pessimists, is -to patch and prop the decaying fabric of society in the hope of staving -off for a little longer the final inevitable crash. It seems curious to -us, who have learnt to look at the Elizabethan age as the most splendid -in English history, that the men who were the witnesses of these -splendours should have regarded their time as an age of decadence. - -The notion of the Fall was fruitful in despairing poetry. One of the -most remarkable products of this doctrine is a certain “Sonnet Chrétien” -by the seventeenth-century writer, Jean Ogier de Gombauld, surnamed “le -Beau Ténébreux.” - - Cette source de mort, cette homicide peste, - Ce péché dont l’enfer a le monde infecté, - M’a laissé pour tout être un bruit d’avoir été, - Et je suis de moi-même une image funeste. - L’Auteur de l’univers, le Monarque céleste - S’était rendu visible en ma seule beauté. - Ce vieux titre d’honneur qu’autrefois j’ai porté - Et que je porte encore, est tout ce qui me reste. - - Mais c’est fait de ma gloire, et je ne suis plus rien - Qu’un fantôme qui court après l’ombre d’un bien, - Ou qu’un corps animé du seul ver qui le ronge. - Non, je ne suis plus rien quand je veux m’éprouver, - Qu’un esprit ténébreux qui voit tout comme en songe - Et cherche incessament ce qu’il ne peut trouver. - -There are astonishing lines in this, lines that might have been written -by a Baudelaire, if he had been born a Huguenot and two hundred years -before his time. That “carcase animated by the sole gnawing worm” is -something that one would expect to find rotting away among the sombre -and beautiful Flowers of Evil. - -An amusing speculation. If Steinach’s rejuvenating operations on the old -become the normal and accepted thing, what will be the effect on poetry -of this abolition of the depressing process of decay? It may be that the -poetry of melancholy and despair is destined to lose its place in -literature, and that a spirit of what William James called -“healthy-mindedness” will inherit its kingdom. Many “eternal truths” -have already found their way on to the dust-heap of antiquated ideas. It -may be that this last and seemingly most inexorable of them—that life is -short and subject to a dreadful decay—will join the other great -commonplaces which have already perished out of literature. - - The flesh is bruckle, the fiend is slee: - Timor mortis conturbat me:— - -Some day, it may be, these sentiments will seem as hopelessly -superannuated as Milton’s cosmology. - - - - - XV: TIBET - - -In moments of complete despair, when it seems that all is for the worst -in the worst of all possible worlds, it is cheering to discover that -there are places where stupidity reigns even more despotically than in -Western Europe, where civilization is based on principles even more -fantastically unreasonable. Recent experience has shown me that the -depression into which the Peace, Mr. Churchill, the state of -contemporary literature, have conspired to plunge the mind, can be -sensibly relieved by a study, even superficial, of the manners and -customs of Tibet. The spectacle of an ancient and elaborate civilization -of which almost no detail is not entirely idiotic is in the highest -degree comforting and refreshing. It fills us with hopes of the ultimate -success of our own civilization; it restores our wavering -self-satisfaction in being citizens of industrialized Europe. Compared -with Tibet, we are prodigious. Let us cherish the comparison. - -My informant about Tibetan civilization is a certain Japanese monk of -the name of Kawaguchi, who spent three years in Tibet at the beginning -of the present century. His account of the experience has been -translated into English, and published, with the title _Three Years in -Tibet_, by the Theosophical Society. It is one of the great travel books -of the world, and, so far as I am aware, the most interesting book on -Tibet that exists. Kawaguchi enjoyed opportunities in Tibet which no -European traveller could possibly have had. He attended the University -of Lhasa, he enjoyed the acquaintance of the Dalai Lama himself, he was -intimate with one of the four Ministers of Finance, he was the friend of -lama and layman, of all sorts and conditions of Tibetans, from the -highest class to the lowest—the despicable caste of smiths and butchers. -He knew his Tibet intimately; for those three years, indeed, he was for -all practical purposes a Tibetan. This is something which no European -explorer can claim, and it is this which gives Kawaguchi’s book its -unique interest. - -The Japanese, like people of every other nationality except the Chinese, -are not permitted to enter Tibet. Mr. Kawaguchi did not allow this to -stand in the way of his pious mission—for his purpose in visiting Tibet -was to investigate the Buddhist writings and traditions of the place. He -made his way to India, and in a long stay at Darjeeling familiarized -himself with the Tibetan language. He then set out to walk across the -Himalayas. Not daring to affront the strictly guarded gates which bar -the direct route to Lhasa, he penetrated Tibet at its southwestern -corner, underwent prodigious hardships in an uninhabited desert eighteen -thousand feet above sea-level, visited the holy lake of Manosarovara, -and finally, after astonishing adventures, arrived in Lhasa. Here he -lived for nearly three years, passing himself off as a Chinaman. At the -end of that time his secret leaked out, and he was obliged to accelerate -his departure for India. So much for Kawaguchi himself, though I should -have liked to say more of him; for a more charming and sympathetic -character never revealed himself in a book. - -Tibet is so full of fantastic low comedy that one hardly knows where to -begin a catalogue of its absurdities. Shall we start with the Tibetans’ -highly organized service of trained nurses, whose sole duty it is to -prevent their patients from going to sleep? or with the Dalai Lama’s -chief source of income—the sale of pills made of dung, at, literally, a -guinea a box? or with the Tibetan custom of never washing from the -moment of birth, when, however, they are plentifully anointed with -melted butter, to the moment of death? And then there is the University -of Lhasa, which an eminent Cambridge philosopher has compared with the -University of Oxford—somewhat unjustly, perhaps; but let that pass. At -the University of Lhasa the student is instructed in logic and -philosophy; every year of his stay he has to learn by heart from one to -five or six hundred pages of holy texts. He is also taught mathematics, -but in Tibet this art is not carried farther than subtraction. It takes -twenty years to get a degree at the University of Lhasa—twenty years, -and then most of the candidates are ploughed. To obtain a superior Ph.D. -degree, entitling one to become a really holy and eminent lama, forty -years of application to study and to virtue are required. But it is -useless to try to make a catalogue of the delights of Tibet. There are -too many of them for mention in this small space. One can do no more -than glance at a few of the brighter spots in the system. - -There is much to be said for the Tibetan system of taxation. The -Government requires a considerable revenue; for enormous sums have to be -spent in keeping perpetually burning in the principal Buddhist cathedral -of Lhasa an innumerable army of lamps, which may not be fed with -anything cheaper than clarified yak butter. This is the heaviest item of -expenditure. But a great deal of money also goes to supporting the -Tibetan clergy, who must number at least a sixth of the total -population. The money is raised by a poll tax, paid in kind, the amount -of which, fixed by ancient tradition, may, theoretically, never be -altered. Theoretically only; for the Tibetan Government employs in the -collection of taxes no fewer than twenty different standards of weight -and thirty-six different standards of measure. The pound may weigh -anything from half to a pound and a half; and the same with the units of -measure. It is thus possible to calculate with extraordinary nicety, -according to the standard of weight and measure in which your tax is -assessed, where precisely you stand in the Government’s favour. If you -are a notoriously bad character, or even if you are innocent, but live -in a bad district, your tax will have to be paid in measures of the -largest size. If you are virtuous, or, better, if you are rich, of good -family and _bien pensant_, then you will pay by weights which are only -half the nominal weight. For those whom the Government neither hates nor -loves, but regards with more or less contempt or tolerance, there are -the thirty-four intervening degrees. - -Kawaguchi’s final judgment of the Tibetans, after three years’ intimate -acquaintance with them, is not a flattering one: - - The Tibetans are characterized by four serious defects, these being: - filthiness, superstition, unnatural customs (such as polyandry), and - unnatural art. I should be sorely perplexed if I were asked to name - their redeeming points; but if I had to do so, I should mention first - of all the fine climate in the vicinity of Lhasa and Shigatze, their - sonorous and refreshing voices in reading the Text, the animated style - of their catechisms, and their ancient art. - -Certainly a bad lot of vices; but then the Tibetan virtues are not -lightly to be set aside. We English possess none of them: our climate is -abominable, our method of reading the holy texts is painful in the -extreme, our catechisms, at least in my young days, were far from -animated, and our ancient art is very indifferent stuff. But still, in -spite of these defects, in spite of Mr. Churchill and the state of -contemporary literature, we can still look at the Tibetans and feel -reassured. - - - - - XVI: BEAUTY IN 1920 - - -To those who know how to read the signs of the times it will have become -apparent, in the course of these last days and weeks, that the Silly -Season is close upon us. Already—and this in July with the menace of -three or four new wars grumbling on the thunderous horizon—already a -monster of the deep has appeared at a popular seaside resort. Already -Mr. Louis McQuilland has launched in the _Daily Express_ a fierce -onslaught on the younger poets of the Asylum. Already the picture-papers -are more than half filled with photographs of bathing nymphs—photographs -that make one understand the ease with which St. Anthony rebuffed his -temptations. The newspapermen, ramping up and down like wolves, seek -their prey wherever they may find it; and it was with a unanimous howl -of delight that the whole Press went pelting after the hare started by -Mrs. Asquith in a recent instalment of her autobiography. Feebly and -belatedly, let me follow the pack. - -Mrs. Asquith’s denial of beauty to the daughters of the twentieth -century has proved a god-sent giant gooseberry. It has necessitated the -calling in of a whole host of skin-food specialists, portrait-painters -and photographers to deny this far from soft impeachment. A great deal -of space has been agreeably and inexpensively filled. Every one is -satisfied, public, editors, skin-food specialists and all. But by far -the most interesting contribution to the debate was a pictorial one, -which appeared, if I remember rightly, in the _Daily News_. Side by -side, on the same page, we were shown the photographs of three beauties -of the eighteen-eighties and three of the nineteen-twenties. The -comparison was most instructive. For a great gulf separates the two -types of beauty represented by these two sets of photographs. - -I remember in _If_, one of those charming conspiracies of E. V. Lucas -and George Morrow, a series of parodied fashion-plates entitled “If -Faces get any Flatter. Last year’s standard, this year’s Evening -Standard.” The faces of our living specimens of beauty have grown -flatter with those of their fashion-plate sisters. Compare the types of -1880 and 1920. The first is steep-faced, almost Roman in profile; in the -contemporary beauties the face has broadened and shortened, the profile -is less noble, less imposing, more appealingly, more alluringly pretty. -Forty years ago it was the aristocratic type that was appreciated; -to-day the popular taste has shifted from the countess to the soubrette. -Photography confirms the fact that the ladies of the ’eighties looked -like Du Maurier drawings. But among the present young generation one -looks in vain for the type; the Du Maurier damsel is as extinct as the -mesozoic reptile; the Fish girl and other kindred flat-faced species -have taken her place. - -Between the ’thirties and ’fifties another type, the egg-faced girl, -reigned supreme in the affections of the world. From the early portraits -of Queen Victoria to the fashion-plates in the _Ladies’ Keepsake_ this -invariable type prevails—the egg-shaped face, the sleek hair, the -swan-like neck, the round, champagne-bottle shoulders. Compared with the -decorous impassivity of the oviform girl our flat-faced fashion-plates -are terribly abandoned and provocative. And because one expects so much -in the way of respectability from these egg-faces of an earlier age, one -is apt to be shocked when one sees them conducting themselves in ways -that seem unbefitting. One thinks of that enchanting picture of Etty’s, -“Youth on the Prow and Pleasure at the Helm.” The naiads are of the -purest egg-faced type. Their hair is sleek, their shoulders slope and -their faces are as impassive as blanks. And yet they have no clothes on. -It is almost indecent; one imagined that the egg-faced type came into -the world complete with flowing draperies. - -It is not only the face of beauty that alters with the changes of -popular taste. The champagne-bottle shoulders of the oviform girl have -vanished from the modern fashion-plate and from modern life. The -contemporary hand, with its two middle fingers held together and the -forefinger and little finger splayed apart, is another recent product. -Above all, the feet have changed. In the days of the egg-faces no -fashion-plate had more than one foot. This rule will, I think, be found -invariable. That solitary foot projects, generally in a strangely -haphazard way as though it had nothing to do with a leg, from under the -edge of the skirt. And what a foot! It has no relation to those -provocative feet in Suckling’s ballad: - - Her feet beneath her petticoat - Like little mice stole in and out. - -It is an austere foot. It is a small, black, oblong object like a -tea-leaf. No living human being has ever seen a foot like it, for it is -utterly unlike the feet of nineteen-twenty. To-day the fashion-plate is -always a biped. The tea-leaf has been replaced by two feet of rich -baroque design, curved and florid, with insteps like the necks of Arab -horses. Faces may have changed shape, but feet have altered far more -radically. On the text, “the feet of the young women,” it would be -possible to write a profound philosophical sermon. - -And while I am on the subject of feet I would like to mention another -curious phenomenon of the same kind, but affecting, this time, the -standards of male beauty. Examine the pictorial art of the eighteenth -century, and you will find that the shape of the male leg is not what it -was. In those days the calf of the leg was not a muscle that bulged to -its greatest dimensions a little below the back of the knee, to subside, -_decrescendo_, towards the ankle. No, in the eighteenth century the calf -was an even crescent, with its greatest projection opposite the middle -of the shin; the ankle, as we know it, hardly existed. This curious calf -is forced upon one’s attention by almost every minor picture-maker of -the eighteenth century, and even by some of the great masters, as, for -instance, Blake. How it came into existence I do not know. Presumably -the crescent calf was considered, in the art schools, to approach more -nearly to the Platonic Idea of the human leg than did the poor distorted -Appearance of real life. Personally, I prefer my calves with the bulge -at the top and a proper ankle at the bottom. But then I don’t hold much -with the _beau idéal_. - -The process by which one type of beauty becomes popular, imposes its -tyranny for a period and then is displaced by a dissimilar type is a -mysterious one. It may be that patient historical scholars will end by -discovering some law to explain the transformation of the Du Maurier -type into the flat-face type, the tea-leaf foot into the baroque foot, -the crescent calf into the normal calf. As far as one can see at -present, these changes seem to be the result of mere hazard and -arbitrary choice. But a time will doubtless come when it will be found -that these changes of taste are as ineluctably predetermined as any -chemical change. Given the South African War, the accession of Edward -VII. and the Liberal triumph of 1906, it was, no doubt, as inevitable -that Du Maurier should have given place to Fish as that zinc subjected -to sulphuric acid should break up into ZnSO4 + H2. But we leave it to -others to formulate the precise workings of the law. - - - - - XVII: GREAT THOUGHTS - - -To all lovers of unfamiliar quotations, aphorisms, great thoughts and -intellectual gems, I would heartily recommend a heavy volume recently -published in Brussels and entitled _Pensées sur la Science, la Guerre et -sur des sujets très variés_. The book contains some twelve or thirteen -thousand quotations, selected from a treasure of one hundred and -twenty-three thousand great thoughts gleaned and garnered by the -industry of Dr. Maurice Legat—an industry which will be appreciated at -its value by any one who has ever made an attempt to compile a -commonplace book or private anthology of his own. The almost intolerable -labour of copying out extracts can only be avoided by the drastic use of -the scissors; and there are few who can afford the luxury of mutilating -their copies of the best authors. - -For some days I made Dr. Legat’s book my _livre de chevet_. But I had -very soon to give up reading it at night, for I found that the Great -often said things so peculiar that I was kept awake in the effort to -discover their meaning. Why, for example, should it be categorically -stated by Lamennais that “si les animaux connaissaient Dieu, ils -parleraient”? What could Cardinal Maury have meant when he said, -“L’éloquence, compagne ordinaire de la liberté [astonishing -generalization!], est inconnue en Angleterre”? These were mysteries -insoluble enough to counteract the soporific effects of such profound -truths as this, discovered, apparently, in 1846 by Monsieur C. H. D. -Duponchel, “Le plus sage mortel est sujet à l’erreur.” - -Dr. Legat has found some pleasing quotations on the subject of England -and the English. His selection proves with what fatal ease even the most -intelligent minds are lured into making generalizations about national -character, and how grotesque those generalizations always are. -Montesquieu informs us that “dès que sa fortune se délabre, un anglais -tue ou se fait voleur.” Of the better half of this potential murderer -and robber Balzac says, “La femme anglaise est une pauvre créature -verteuse par force, prête à se dépraver.” “La vanité est l’âme de toute -société anglaise,” says Lamartine. Ledru-Rollin is of opinion that all -the riches of England are “des dépouilles volées aux tombeaux.” - -The Goncourts risk a characteristically dashing generalization on the -national characters of England and France: “L’Anglais, filou comme -peuple, est honnête comme individu. Il est le contraire du Français, -honnête comme peuple, et filou comme individu.” If one is going to make -a comparison Voltaire’s is more satisfactory because less pretentious. -Strange are the ways of you Englishmen, - - qui, des mêmes couteaux, - Coupez la tête au roi et la queue aux chevaux. - Nous Français, plus humains, laissons aux rois leurs têtes, - Et la queue à nos bêtes. - -It is unfortunate that history should have vitiated the truth of this -pithy and pregnant statement. - -But the bright spots in this enormous tome are rare. After turning over -a few hundred pages one is compelled, albeit reluctantly, to admit that -the Great Thought or Maxim is nearly the most boring form of literature -that exists. Others, it seems, have anticipated me in this grand -discovery. “Las de m’ennuyer des pensées des autres,” says d’Alembert, -“j’ai voulu leur donner les miennes; mais je puis me flatter de leur -avoir rendu tout l’ennui que j’avais reçu d’eux.” Almost next to -d’Alembert’s statement I find this confession from the pen of J. Roux -(1834-1906): “Emettre des pensées, voilà ma consolation, mon délice, ma -vie!” Happy Monsieur Roux! - -Turning dissatisfied from Dr. Legat’s anthology of thought, I happened -upon the second number of _Proverbe_, a monthly review, four pages in -length, directed by M. Paul Eluard and counting among its contributors -Tristan Tzara of _Dada_ fame, Messrs. Soupault, Breton and Aragon, the -directors of _Littérature_, M. Picabia, M. Ribemont-Dessaignes and -others of the same kidney. Here, on the front page of the March number -of _Proverbe_, I found the very comment on Great Thoughts for which I -had, in my dissatisfaction, been looking. The following six maxims are -printed one below the other: the first of them is a quotation from the -_Intransigeant_; the other five appear to be the work of M. Tzara, who -appends a footnote to this effect: “Je m’appelle dorénavant -exclusivement Monsieur Paul Bourget.” Here they are: - - Il faut violer les règles, oui, mais pour les violer il faut les - connaître. - - Il faut régler la connaissance, oui, mais pour la régler il faut la - violer. - - Il faut connaître les viols, oui, mais pour les connaître il faut les - régler. - - Il faut connaître les règles, oui, mais pour les connaître il faut les - violer. - - Il faut régler les viols, oui, mais pour les régler il faut les - connaître. - - Il faut violer la connaissance, oui, mais pour la violer il faut la - régler. - -It is to be hoped that Dr. Legat will find room for at least a selection -of these profound thoughts in the next edition of his book. “LE passé et -LA pensée n’existent pas,” affirms M. Raymond Duncan on another page of -_Proverbe_. It is precisely after taking too large a dose of “Pensées -sur la Science, la Guerre et sur des sujets très variés” that one half -wishes the statement were in fact true. - - - - - XVIII: ADVERTISEMENT - - -I have always been interested in the subtleties of literary form. This -preoccupation with the outward husk, with the letter of literature, is, -I dare say, the sign of a fundamental spiritual impotence. Gigadibs, the -literary man, can understand the tricks of the trade; but when it is a -question, not of conjuring, but of miracles, he is no more effective -than Mr. Sludge. Still, conjuring is amusing to watch and to practise; -an interest in the machinery of the art requires no further -justification. I have dallied with many literary forms, taking pleasure -in their different intricacies, studying the means by which great -authors of the past have resolved the technical problems presented by -each. Sometimes I have even tried my hand at solving the problems -myself—delightful and salubrious exercise for the mind. And now I have -discovered the most exciting, the most arduous literary form of all, the -most difficult to master, the most pregnant in curious possibilities. I -mean the advertisement. - -Nobody who has not tried to write an advertisement has any idea of the -delights and difficulties presented by this form of literature—or shall -I say of “applied literature,” for the sake of those who still believe -in the romantic superiority of the pure, the disinterested, over the -immediately useful? The problem that confronts the writer of -advertisements is an immensely complicated one, and by reason of its -very arduousness immensely interesting. It is far easier to write ten -passably effective Sonnets, good enough to take in the not too inquiring -critic, than one effective advertisement that will take in a few -thousand of the uncritical buying public. The problem presented by the -Sonnet is child’s play compared with the problem of the advertisement. -In writing a Sonnet one need think only of oneself. If one’s readers -find one boring or obscure, so much the worse for them. But in writing -an advertisement one must think of other people. Advertisement writers -may not be lyrical, or obscure, or in any way esoteric. They must be -universally intelligible. A good advertisement has this in common with -drama and oratory, that it must be immediately comprehensible and -directly moving. But at the same time it must possess all the -succinctness of epigram. - -The orator and the dramatist have “world enough and time” to produce -their effects by cumulative appeals; they can turn all round their -subject, they can repeat; between the heights of their eloquence they -can gracefully practise the art of sinking, knowing that a period of -flatness will only set off the splendour of their impassioned moments. -But the advertiser has no space to spare; he pays too dearly for every -inch. He must play upon the minds of his audience with a small and -limited instrument. He must persuade them to part with their money in a -speech that is no longer than many a lyric by Herrick. Could any problem -be more fascinatingly difficult? No one should be allowed to talk about -the _mot juste_ or the polishing of style who has not tried his hand at -writing an advertisement of something which the public does not want, -but which it must be persuaded into buying. Your _boniment_ must not -exceed a poor hundred and fifty or two hundred words. With what care you -must weigh every syllable! What infinite pains must be taken to fashion -every phrase into a barbed hook that shall stick in the reader’s mind -and draw from its hiding-place within his pocket the reluctant coin! -One’s style and ideas must be lucid and simple enough to be understood -by all; but at the same time, they must not be vulgar. Elegance and an -economical distinction are required; but any trace of literariness in an -advertisement is fatal to its success. - -I do not know whether any one has yet written a history of advertising. -If the book does not already exist it will certainly have to be written. -The story of the development of advertising from its infancy in the -early nineteenth century to its luxuriant maturity in the twentieth is -an essential chapter in the history of democracy. Advertisement begins -abjectly, crawling on its belly like the serpent after the primal curse. -Its abjection is the oily humbleness of the shopkeeper in an -oligarchical society. Those nauseating references to the nobility and -clergy, which are the very staple of early advertisements, are only -possible in an age when the aristocracy and its established Church -effectively ruled the land. The custom of invoking these powers lingered -on long after they had ceased to hold sway. It is now, I fancy, almost -wholly extinct. It may be that certain old-fashioned girls’ schools -still provide education for the daughters of the nobility and clergy; -but I am inclined to doubt it. Advertisers still find it worth while to -parade the names and escutcheons of kings. But anything less than -royalty is, frankly, a “wash-out.” - -The crawling style of advertisement with its mixture of humble appeals -to patrons and its hyperbolical laudation of the goods advertised, was -early varied by the pseudo-scientific style, a simple development of the -quack’s patter at the fair. Balzacians will remember the advertisement -composed by Finot and the Illustrious Gaudissard for César Birotteau’s -“Huile Céphalique.” The type is not yet dead; we still see -advertisements of substances “based on the principles established by the -Academy of Sciences,” substances known “to the ancients, the Romans, the -Greeks and the nations of the North,” but lost and only rediscovered by -the advertiser. The style and manner of these advertisements belonging -to the early and middle periods of the Age of Advertisement continue to -bear the imprint of the once despicable position of commerce. They are -written with the impossible and insincere unctuousness of tradesmen’s -letters. They are horribly uncultured; and when their writers aspire to -something more ambitious than the counting-house style, they fall at -once into the stilted verbiage of self-taught learning. Some of the -earlier efforts to raise the tone of advertisements are very curious. -One remembers those remarkable full-page advertisements of Eno’s Fruit -Salt, loaded with weighty apophthegms from Emerson, Epictetus, Zeno the -Eleatic, Pomponazzi, Slawkenbergius and other founts of human wisdom. -There was noble reading on these strange pages. But they shared with -sermons the defect of being a little dull. - -The art of advertisement writing has flowered with democracy. The lords -of industry and commerce came gradually to understand that the right way -to appeal to the Free Peoples of the World was familiarly, in an honest -man-to-man style. They perceived that exaggeration and hyperbole do not -really pay, that charlatanry must at least have an air of sincerity. -They confided in the public, they appealed to its intelligence in every -kind of flattering way. The technique of the art became at once -immensely more difficult than it had ever been before, until now the -advertisement is, as I have already hinted, one of the most interesting -and difficult of modern literary forms. Its potentialities are not yet -half explored. Already the most interesting and, in some cases, the only -readable part of most American periodicals is the advertisement section. -What does the future hold in store? - - - - - XIX: EUPHUES REDIVIVUS - - -I have recently been fortunate in securing a copy of that very rare and -precious novel _Delina Delaney_, by Amanda M. Ros, authoress of _Irene -Iddesleigh_ and _Poems of Puncture_. Mrs. Ros’s name is only known to a -small and select band of readers. But by these few she is highly prized; -one of her readers, it is said, actually was at the pains to make a -complete manuscript copy of _Delina Delaney_, so great was his -admiration and so hopelessly out of print the book. Let me recommend the -volume, Mrs. Ros’s masterpiece, to the attention of enterprising -publishers. - -_Delina Delaney_ opens with a tremendous, an almost, in its richness of -vituperative eloquence, Rabelaisian denunciation of Mr. Barry Pain, who -had, it seems, treated _Irene Iddesleigh_ with scant respect in his -review of the novel in _Black and White_. “This so-called Barry Pain, by -name, has taken upon himself to criticize a work, the depth of which -fails to reach the solving power of his borrowed, and, he’d have you -believe, varied talent.” But “I care not for the opinion of half-starved -upstarts, who don the garb of a shabby-genteel, and fain would feed the -mind of the people with the worthless scraps of stolen fancies.” So -perish all reviewers! And now for Delina herself. - -The story is a simple one. Delina Delaney, daughter of a fisherman, -loves and is loved by Lord Gifford. The baleful influence of a -dark-haired Frenchwoman, Madame de Maine, daughter of the Count-av-Nevo, -comes between the lovers and their happiness, and Delina undergoes -fearful torments, including three years’ penal servitude, before their -union can take place. It is the manner, rather than the matter, of the -book which is remarkable. Here, for instance, is a fine conversation -between Lord Gifford and his mother, an aristocratic dame who -strenuously objects to his connection with Delina. Returning one day to -Columba Castle she hears an unpleasant piece of news: her son has been -seen kissing Delina in the conservatory. - - “Home again, mother?” he boldly uttered, as he gazed reverently in her - face. - - “Home to Hades!” returned the raging high-bred daughter of - distinguished effeminacy. - - “Ah me! what is the matter?” meekly inquired his lordship. - - “Everything is the matter with a broken-hearted mother of low-minded - offspring,” she answered hotly.... “Henry Edward Ludlow Gifford, son - of my strength, idolized remnant of my inert husband, who at this - moment invisibly offers the scourging whip of fatherly authority to - your backbone of resentment (though for years you think him dead to - your movements) and pillar of maternal trust.” - -Poor Lady Gifford! her son’s behaviour was her undoing. The shock caused -her to lose first her reason and then her life. Her son was heart-broken -at the thought that he was responsible for her downfall: - - “Is it true, O Death,” I cried in my agony, “that you have wrested - from me my mother, Lady Gifford of Columba Castle, and left me here, a - unit figuring on the great blackboard of the past, the shaky surface - of the present and fickle field of the future to track my life-steps, - with gross indifference to her wished-for wish?”... Blind she lay to - the presence of her son, who charged her death-gun with the powder of - accelerated wrath. - -It is impossible to suppose that Mrs. Ros can ever have read _Euphues_ -or the earlier romances of Robert Greene. How then shall we account for -the extraordinary resemblance to Euphuism of her style? how explain -those rich alliterations, those elaborate “kennings” and circumlocutions -of which the fabric of her book is woven? Take away from Lyly his -erudition and his passion for antithesis, and you have Mrs. Ros. Delina -is own sister to Euphues and Pandosto. The fact is that Mrs. Ros -happens, though separated from Euphuism by three hundred years and more, -to have arrived independently at precisely the same stage of development -as Lyly and his disciples. It is possible to see in a growing child a -picture in miniature of all the phases through which humanity has passed -in its development. And, in the same way, the mind of an individual -(especially when that individual has been isolated from the main current -of contemporary thought) may climb, alone, to a point at which, in the -past, a whole generation has rested. In Mrs. Ros we see, as we see in -the Elizabethan novelists, the result of the discovery of art by an -unsophisticated mind and of its first conscious attempt to produce the -artistic. It is remarkable how late in the history of every literature -simplicity is invented. The first attempts of any people to be -consciously literary are always productive of the most elaborate -artificiality. Poetry is always written before prose and always in a -language as remote as possible from the language of ordinary life. The -language and versification of “Beowulf” are far more artificial and -remote from life than those of, say, _The Rape of the Lock_. The -Euphuists were not barbarians making their first discovery of -literature; they were, on the contrary, highly educated. But in one -thing they were unsophisticated: they were discovering prose. They were -realizing that prose could be written with art, and they wrote it as -artificially as they possibly could, just as their Saxon ancestors wrote -poetry. They became intoxicated with their discovery of artifice. It was -some time before the intoxication wore off and men saw that art was -possible without artifice. Mrs. Ros, an Elizabethan born out of her -time, is still under the spell of that magical and delicious -intoxication. - -Mrs. Ros’s artifices are often more remarkable and elaborate even than -Lyly’s. This is how she tells us that Delina earned money by doing -needlework: - - She tried hard to keep herself a stranger to her poor old father’s - slight income by the use of the finest production of steel, whose - blunt edge eyed the reely covering with marked greed, and offered its - sharp dart to faultless fabrics of flaxen fineness. - -And Lord Gifford parts from Delina in these words: - - I am just in time to hear the toll of a parting bell strike its heavy - weight of appalling softness against the weakest fibres of a heart of - love, arousing and tickling its dormant action, thrusting the dart of - evident separation deeper into its tubes of tenderness, and fanning - the flame, already unextinguishable, into volumes of burning blaze. - -But more often Mrs. Ros does not exceed the bounds which Lyly set for -himself. Here, for instance, is a sentence that might have come direct -out of _Euphues_: - - Two days after, she quit Columba Castle and resolved to enter the holy - cloisters of a convent, where, she believed she’d be dead to the built - hopes of wealthy worth, the crooked steps to worldly distinction, and - the designing creaks [_sic_] in the muddy stream of love. - -Or again, this description of the artful charmers who flaunt along the -streets of London is written in the very spirit and language of -_Euphues_: - - Their hair was a light-golden colour, thickly fringed in front, hiding - in many cases the furrows of a life of vice; behind, reared coils, - some of which differed in hue, exhibiting the fact that they were on - patrol for the price of another supply of dye.... The elegance of - their attire had the glow of robbery—the rustle of many a lady’s - silent curse. These tools of brazen effrontery were strangers to the - blush of innocence that tinged many a cheek, as they would gather - round some of God’s ordained, praying in flowery words of decoying - Cockney, that they should break their holy vows by accompanying them - to the halls of adultery. Nothing daunted at the staunch refusal of - different divines, whose modest walk was interrupted by their bold - assertion of loathsome rights, they moved on, while laughs of hidden - rage and defeat flitted across their doll-decked faces, to die as they - next accosted some rustic-looking critics, who, tempted with their - polished twang, their earnest advances, their pitiful entreaties, - yielded, in their ignorance of the ways of a large city, to their - glossy offers, and accompanied, with slight hesitation, these - artificial shells of immorality to their homes of ruin, degradation - and shame. - - - - - XX: THE AUTHOR OF _EMINENT VICTORIANS_ - - -A superlatively civilized Red Indian living apart from the vulgar world -in an elegant and park-like reservation, Mr. Strachey rarely looks over -his walls at the surrounding country. It seethes, he knows, with crowds -of horribly colonial persons. Like the hosts of Midian, the innumerable -“poor whites” prowl and prowl around, but the noble savage pays no -attention to them. - -In his spiritual home—a neat and commodious Georgian mansion in the -style of Leoni or Ware—he sits and reads, he turns over portfolios of -queer old prints, he savours meditatively the literary vintages of -centuries. And occasionally, once in two or three years, he tosses over -his park palings a record of these leisured degustations, a judgment -passed upon his library, a ripe rare book. One time it is Eminent -Victorians; the next it is Queen Victoria herself. To-day he has given -us a miscellaneous collection of _Books and Characters_. - -If Voltaire had lived to the age of two hundred and thirty instead of -shuffling off at a paltry eighty-four, he would have written about the -Victorian epoch, about life and letters at large, very much as Mr. -Strachey has written. That lucid common sense, that sharp illuminating -wit which delight us in the writings of the middle eighteenth -century—these are Mr. Strachey’s characteristics. We know exactly what -he would have been if he had come into the world at the beginning of the -seventeen hundreds; if he is different from the men of that date it is -because he happens to have been born towards the end of the eighteens. - -The sum of knowledge at the disposal of the old Encyclopædists was -singularly small, compared, that is to say, with the knowledge which we -of the twentieth century have inherited. They made mistakes and in their -ignorance they passed what we can see to have been hasty and very -imperfect judgments on men and things. Mr. Strachey is the eighteenth -century grown-up; he is Voltaire at two hundred and thirty. - -Voltaire at sixty would have treated the Victorian era, if it could have -appeared in a prophetical vision before his eyes, in terms of “La -Pucelle”—with ribaldry. He would have had to be much older in knowledge -and inherited experience before he could have approached it in that -spirit of sympathetic irony and ironical sympathy which Mr. Strachey -brings to bear upon it. Mr. Strachey makes us like the old Queen, while -we smile at her; he makes us admire the Prince Consort in spite of the -portentous priggishness—duly insisted on in the biography—which -accompanied his intelligence. With all the untutored barbarity of their -notions, Gordon and Florence Nightingale are presented to us as -sympathetic figures. Their peculiar brand of religion and ethics might -be absurd, but their characters are shown to be interesting and fine. - -It is only in the case of Dr. Arnold that Mr. Strachey permits himself -to be unrestrainedly Voltairean; he becomes a hundred and seventy years -younger as he describes the founder of the modern Public School system. -The irony of that description is tempered by no sympathy. To make the -man appear even more ridiculous, Mr. Strachey adds a stroke or two to -the portrait of his own contriving—little inventions which deepen the -absurdity of the caricature. Thus we read that Arnold’s “outward -appearance was the index of his inward character. The legs, perhaps, -were shorter than they should have been; but the sturdy athletic frame, -especially when it was swathed (as it usually was) in the flowing robes -of a Doctor of Divinity, was full of an imposing vigour.” How -exquisitely right those short legs are! how artistically inevitable! Our -admiration for Mr. Strachey’s art is only increased when we discover -that in attributing to the Doctor this brevity of shank he is justified -by no contemporary document. The short legs are his own contribution. - -Voltaire, then, at two hundred and thirty has learned sympathy. He has -learned that there are other ways of envisaging life than the -common-sense, reasonable way and that people with a crack-brained view -of the universe have a right to be judged as human beings and must not -be condemned out of hand as lunatics or obscurantists. Blake and St. -Francis have as much right to their place in the sun as Gibbon and Hume. -But still, in spite of this lesson, learned and inherited from the -nineteenth century, our Voltaire of eleven score years and ten still -shows a marked preference for the Gibbons and the Humes; he still -understands their attitude towards life a great deal better than he -understands the other fellow’s attitude. - -In his new volume of _Books and Characters_ Mr. Strachey prints an essay -on Blake (written, it may be added parenthetically, some sixteen years -ago), in which he sets out very conscientiously to give that disquieting -poet his due. The essay is interesting, not because it contains anything -particularly novel in the way of criticism, but because it reveals, in -spite of all Mr. Strachey’s efforts to overcome it, in spite of his -admiration for the great artist in Blake, his profound antagonism -towards Blake’s view of life. - -He cannot swallow mysticism; he finds it clearly very difficult to -understand what all this fuss about the soul really signifies. The man -who believes in the absoluteness of good and evil, who sees the universe -as a spiritual entity concerned, in some transcendental fashion, with -morality, the man who regards the human spirit as possessing a somehow -cosmic importance and significance—ah no, decidedly no, even at two -hundred and thirty Voltaire cannot whole-heartedly sympathize with such -a man. - -And that, no doubt, is the reason why Mr. Strachey has generally shrunk -from dealing, in his biographies and his criticisms, with any of these -strange incomprehensible characters. Blake is the only one he had tried -his hand on, and the result is not entirely satisfactory. He is more at -home with the Gibbons and Humes of this world, and when he is not -discussing the reasonable beings he likes to amuse himself with the -eccentrics, like Mr. Creevey or Lady Hester Stanhope. The portentous, -formidable mystics he leaves severely alone. - -One cannot imagine Mr. Strachey coping with Dostoevsky or with any of -the other great explorers of the soul. One cannot imagine him writing a -life of Beethoven. These huge beings are disquieting for a Voltaire who -has learned enough sympathy to be able to recognize their greatness, but -whose temperament still remains unalterably alien. Mr. Strachey is wise -to have nothing to do with them. - -The second-rate mystics (I use the term in its widest and vaguest -sense), the men who believe in the spirituality of the universe and in -the queerer dogmas which have become tangled in that belief, without -possessing the genius which alone can justify such notions in the eyes -of the Voltaireans—these are the objects on which Mr. Strachey likes to -turn his calm and penetrating gaze. Gordon and Florence Nightingale, the -Prince Consort, Clough—they and their beliefs are made to look rather -absurd by the time he has done with them. He reduces their spiritual -struggles to a series of the most comically futile series of gymnastics -in the void. The men of genius who have gone through the same spiritual -struggles, who have believed the same sort of creeds, have had the -unanswerable justification of their genius. These poor absurd creatures -have not. Voltaire in his third century gives them a certain amount of -his newly learned sympathy; but he also gives them a pretty strong dose -of his old irony. - - - - - XXI: EDWARD THOMAS[1] - - -The poetry of Edward Thomas affects one morally as well as æsthetically -and intellectually. We have grown rather shy, in these days of pure -æstheticism, of speaking of those consoling or strengthening qualities -of poetry on which critics of another generation took pleasure in -dwelling. Thomas’s poetry is strengthening and consoling, not because it -justifies God’s ways to man or whispers of reunions beyond the grave, -not because it presents great moral truths in memorable numbers, but in -a more subtle and very much more effective way. Walking through the -streets on these September nights, one notices, wherever there are trees -along the street and lamps close beside the trees, a curious and -beautiful phenomenon. The light of the street lamps striking up into the -trees has power to make the grimed, shabby, and tattered foliage of the -all-but autumn seem brilliantly and transparently green. Within the -magic circle of the light the tree seems to be at that crowning moment -of the spring when the leaves are fully grown, but still luminous with -youth and seemingly almost immaterial in their lightness. Thomas’s -poetry is to the mind what that transfiguring lamplight is to the tired -trees. On minds grown weary in the midst of the intolerable turmoil and -aridity of daily wage-earning existence, it falls with a touch of -momentary rejuvenation. - -The secret of Thomas’s influence lies in the fact that he is genuinely -what so many others of our time quite unjustifiably claim to be, a -nature poet. To be a nature poet it is not enough to affirm vaguely that -God made the country and man made the town, it is not enough to talk -sympathetically about familiar rural objects, it is not enough to be -sonorously poetical about mountains and trees; it is not even enough to -speak of these things with the precision of real knowledge and love. To -be a nature poet a man must have felt profoundly and intimately those -peculiar emotions which nature can inspire, and must be able to express -them in such a way that his reader feels them. The real difficulty that -confronts the would-be poet of nature is that these emotions are of all -emotions the most difficult to pin down and analyze, and the hardest of -all to convey. In “October” Thomas describes what is surely the -characteristic emotion induced by a contact with nature—a kind of -exultant melancholy which is the nearest approach to quiet unpassionate -happiness that the soul can know. Happiness of whatever sort is -extraordinarily hard to analyze and describe. One can think of a hundred -poems, plays, and novels that deal exhaustively with pain and misery to -one that is an analysis and an infectious description of happiness. -Passionate joy is more easily recapturable in art; it is dramatic, -vehemently defined. But quiet happiness, which is at the same time a -kind of melancholy—there you have an emotion which is inexpressible -except by a mind gifted with a diversity of rarely combined qualities. -The poet who would sing of this happiness must combine a rare -penetration with a rare candour and honesty of mind. A man who feels an -emotion that is very difficult to express is often tempted to describe -it in terms of something entirely different. Platonist poets feel a -powerful emotion when confronted by beauty, and, finding it a matter of -the greatest difficulty to say precisely what that emotion is in itself, -proceed to describe it in terms of theology which has nothing whatever -to do with the matter in point. Groping after an expression of the -emotions aroused in him by the contemplation of nature, Wordsworth -sometimes stumbles doubtfully along philosophical byways that are at the -best parallel to the direct road for which he is seeking. Everywhere in -literature this difficulty in finding an expression for any undramatic, -ill-defined emotion is constantly made apparent. - -Thomas’s limpid honesty of mind saves him from the temptation to which -so many others succumb, the temptation to express one thing, because it -is with difficulty describable, in terms of something else. He never -philosophizes the emotions which he feels in the presence of nature and -beauty, but presents them as they stand, transmitting them directly to -his readers without the interposition of any obscuring medium. Rather -than attempt to explain the emotion, to rationalize it into something -that it is not, he will present it for what it is, a problem of which he -does not know the solution. In “Tears” we have an example of this candid -confession of ignorance: - - It seems I have no tears left. They should have fallen— - Their ghosts, if tears have ghosts, did fall—that day - When twenty hounds streamed by me, not yet combed out - But still all equals in their age of gladness - Upon the scent, made one, like a great dragon - In Blooming Meadow that bends towards the sun - And once bore hops: and on that other day - When I stepped out from the double-shadowed Tower - Into an April morning, stirring and sweet - And warm. Strange solitude was there and silence. - A mightier charm than any in the Tower - Possessed the courtyard. They were changing guard, - Soldiers in line, young English countrymen, - Fair-haired and ruddy, in white tunics. Drums - And fifes were playing “The British Grenadiers.” - The men, the music piercing that solitude - And silence, told me truths I had not dreamed, - And have forgotten since their beauty passed. - -The emotion is nameless and indescribable, but the poet has intensely -felt it and transmitted it to us who read his poem, so that we, too, -feel it with the same intensity. Different aspects of this same nameless -emotion of quiet happiness shot with melancholy are the theme of almost -all Thomas’s poems. They bring to us precisely that consolation and -strength which the country and solitude and leisure bring to the spirits -of those long pent in populous cities, but essentialized and distilled -in the form of art. They are the light that makes young again the -tattered leaves. - -Of the purely æsthetic qualities of Thomas’s poetry it is unnecessary to -say much. He devised a curiously bare and candid verse to express with -all possible simplicity and clarity his clear sensations and -emotions.... “This is not,” as Mr. de la Mare says in his foreword to -Thomas’s _Collected Poems_, “this is not a poetry that will drug or -intoxicate.... It must be read slowly, as naturally as if it were prose, -without emphasis.” With this bare verse, devoid of any affectation, -whether of cleverness or a too great simplicity, Thomas could do all -that he wanted. See, for example, with what extraordinary brightness and -precision he could paint a picture: - - Lichen, ivy and moss - Keep evergreen the trees - That stand half flayed and dying, - And the dead trees on their knees - In dog’s mercury and moss: - And the bright twit of the goldfinch drops - Down there as he flits on thistle-tops. - -The same bare precision served him well for describing the interplay of -emotions, as in “After you Speak” or “Like the Touch of Rain.” And with -this verse of his he could also chant the praises of his English -countryside and the character of its people, as typified in -Lob-lie-by-the-fire: - - He has been in England as long as dove and daw, - Calling the wild cherry tree the merry tree, - The rose campion Bridget-in-her-bravery; - And in a tender mood he, as I guess, - Christened one flower Love-in-idleness.... - - - - - XXII: A WORDSWORTH ANTHOLOGY[2] - - -To regard Wordsworth critically, impersonally, is for some of us a -rather difficult matter. With the disintegration of the solid -orthodoxies Wordsworth became for many intelligent, liberal-minded -families the Bible of that sort of pantheism, that dim faith in the -existence of a spiritual world, which filled, somewhat inadequately, the -place of the older dogmas. Brought up as children in the Wordsworthian -tradition, we were taught to believe that a Sunday walk among the hills -was somehow equivalent to church-going: the First Lesson was to be read -among the clouds, the Second in the primroses; the birds and the running -waters sang hymns, and the whole blue landscape preached a sermon “of -moral evil and of good.” From this dim religious education we brought -away a not very well-informed veneration for the name of Wordsworth, a -dutiful conviction about the spirituality of Nature in general, and an -extraordinary superstition about mountains in particular—a superstition -that it took at least three seasons of Alpine Sports to dissipate -entirely. Consequently, on reaching man’s estate, when we actually came -to read our Wordsworth, we found it extremely difficult to appraise his -greatness, so many veils of preconceived ideas had to be pushed aside, -so many inveterate deflections of vision allowed for. However, it became -possible at last to look at Wordsworth as a detached phenomenon in the -world of ideas and not as part of the family tradition of childhood. - -Like many philosophers, and especially philosophers of a mystical tinge -of thought, Wordsworth based his philosophy on his emotions. The -conversion of emotions into intellectual terms is a process that has -been repeated a thousand times in the history of the human mind. We feel -a powerful emotion before a work of art, therefore it partakes of the -divine, is a reconstruction of the Idea of which the natural object is a -poor reflection. Love moves us deeply, therefore human love is a type of -divine love. Nature in her various aspects inspires us with fear, joy, -contentment, despair, therefore nature is a soul that expresses anger, -sympathy, love, and hatred. One could go on indefinitely multiplying -examples of the way in which man objectifies the kingdoms of heaven and -hell that are within him. The process is often a dangerous one. The -mystic who feels within himself the stirrings of inenarrable emotions is -not content with these emotions as they are in themselves. He feels it -necessary to invent a whole cosmogony that will account for them. To him -this philosophy will be true, in so far as it is an expression in -intellectual terms of these emotions. But to those who do not know these -emotions at first hand, it will be simply misleading. The mystical -emotions have what may be termed a conduct value; they enable the man -who feels them to live his life with a serenity and confidence unknown -to other men. But the philosophical terms in which these emotions are -expressed have not necessarily any truth value. This mystical philosophy -will be valuable only in so far as it revives, in the minds of its -students, those conduct-affecting emotions which originally gave it -birth. Accepted at its intellectual face value, such a philosophy may -not only have no worth; it may be actually harmful. - -Into this beautifully printed volume Mr. Cobden-Sanderson has gathered -together most of the passages in Wordsworth’s poetry which possess the -power of reviving the emotions that inspired them. It is astonishing to -find that they fill the best part of two hundred and fifty pages, and -that there are still plenty of poems—“Peter Bell,” for example—that one -would like to see included. “The Prelude” and “Excursion” yield a rich -tribute of what our ancestors would have called “beauties.” There is -that astonishing passage in which the poet describes how, as a boy, he -rowed by moonlight across the lake: - - And, as I rose upon the stroke, my boat - Went heaving through the water like a swan; - When, from behind that craggy steep till then - The horizon’s bound, a huge peak, black and huge, - As if with voluntary power instinct, - Upreared its head. I struck and struck again, - And growing still in stature the grim shape - Towered up between me and the stars, and still, - For so it seemed, with purpose of its own - And measured motion, like a living thing, - Strode after me. - -There is the history of that other fearful moment when - - I heard among the solitary hills - Low breathings coming after me, and sounds - Of undistinguishable motion, steps - Almost as silent as the turf they trod. - -And there are other passages telling of nature in less awful and -menacing aspects, nature the giver of comfort and strong serenity. -Reading these we are able in some measure to live for ourselves the -emotions that were Wordsworth’s. If we can feel his “shadowy -exaltations,” we have got all that Wordsworth can give us. There is no -need to read the theology of his mysticism, the pantheistic explanation -of his emotions. To Peter Bell a primrose by a river’s brim was only a -yellow primrose. Its beauty stirred in him no feeling. But one can be -moved by the sight of the primrose without necessarily thinking, in the -words of Mr. Cobden-Sanderson’s preface, of “the infinite tenderness of -the infinitely great, of the infinitely great which, from out the -infinite and amid its own stupendous tasks, stoops to strew the path of -man, the infinitely little, with sunshine and with flowers.” This is the -theology of our primrose emotion. But it is the emotion itself which is -important, not the theology. The emotion has its own powerful conduct -value, whereas the philosophy derived from it, suspiciously -anthropocentric, possesses, we should imagine, only the smallest value -as truth. - - - - - XXIII: VERHAEREN - - -Verhaeren was one of those men who feel all their life long “l’envie” -(to use his own admirably expressive phrase), “l’envie de tailler en -drapeaux l’étoffe de la vie.” The stuff of life can be put to worse -uses. To cut it into flags is, on the whole, more admirable than to cut -it, shall we say, into cerecloths, or money-bags, or Parisian -underclothing. A flag is a brave, a cheerful and a noble object. These -are qualities for which we are prepared to forgive the flag its -over-emphasis, its lack of subtlety, its touch of childishness. One can -think of a number of writers who have marched through literary history -like an army with banners. There was Victor Hugo, for example—one of -Verhaeren’s admired masters. There was Balzac, to whose views of life -Verhaeren’s was, in some points, curiously akin. Among the minor makers -of oriflammes there is our own Mr. Chesterton, with his heroic air of -being for ever on the point of setting out on a crusade, glorious with -bunting and mounted on a rocking-horse. - -The flag-maker is a man of energy and strong vitality. He likes to -imagine that all that surrounds him is as large, as full of sap and as -vigorous as he feels himself to be. He pictures the world as a place -where the colours are strong and brightly contrasted, where a vigorous -chiaroscuro leaves no doubt as to the true nature of light and darkness, -and where all life pulsates, quivering and taut, like a banner in the -wind. From the first we find in Verhaeren all the characteristics of the -tailor of banners. In his earliest book of verse, _Les Flamands_, we see -him already delighting in such lines as - - Leurs deux poings monstrueux pataugeaient dans la pâte. - -Already too we find him making copious use—or was it abuse?—as Victor -Hugo had done before him, of words like “vaste,” “énorme,” “infini,” -“infiniment,” “infinité,” “univers.” Thus, in “L’Ame de la Ville,” he -talks of an “énorme” viaduct, an “immense” train, a “monstrueux” sun, -even of the “énorme” atmosphere. For Verhaeren all roads lead to the -infinite, wherever and whatever that may be. - - Les grand’routes tracent des croix - A l’infini, à travers bois; - Les grand’routes tracent des croix lointaines - A l’infini, à travers plaines. - -Infinity is one of those notions which are not to be lightly played -with. The makers of flags like it because it can be contrasted so -effectively with the microscopic finitude of man. Writers like Hugo and -Verhaeren talk so often and so easily about infinity that the idea -ceases in their poetry to have any meaning at all. - -I have said that, in certain respects, Verhaeren, in his view of life, -is not unlike Balzac. This resemblance is most marked in some of the -poems of his middle period, especially those in which he deals with -aspects of contemporary life. _Les Villes tentaculaires_ contains poems -which are wholly Balzacian in conception. Take, for example, Verhaeren’s -rhapsody on the Stock Exchange: - - Une fureur réenflammée - Au mirage du moindre espoir - Monte soudain de l’entonnoir - De bruit et de fumée, - Où l’on se bat, à coups de vols, en bas. - Langues sèches, regards aigus, gestes inverses, - Et cervelles, qu’en tourbillons les millions traversent, - Echangent là leur peur et leur terreur ... - Aux fins de mois, quand les débâcles se décident - La mort les paraphe de suicides, - Mais au jour même aux heures blêmes, - Les volontés dans la fièvre revivent, - L’acharnement sournois - Reprend comme autrefois. - -One cannot read these lines without thinking of Balzac’s feverish -money-makers, of the Baron de Nucingen, Du Tillet, the Kellers and all -the lesser misers and usurers, and all their victims. With their -worked-up and rather melodramatic excitement, they breathe the very -spirit of Balzac’s prodigious film-scenario version of life. - -Verhaeren’s flag-making instinct led him to take special delight in all -that is more than ordinarily large and strenuous. He extols and -magnifies the gross violence of the Flemish peasantry, their almost -infinite capacity for taking food and drink, their industry, their -animalism. In true Rooseveltian style, he admired energy for its own -sake. All his romping rhythms were dictated to him by the need to -express this passion for the strenuous. His curious assonances and -alliterations— - - Luttent et s’entrebuttent en disputes— - -arise from this same desire to recapture the sense of violence and -immediate life. - -It is interesting to compare the violence and energy of Verhaeren with -the violence of an earlier poet—Rimbaud, the marvellous boy, if ever -there was one. Rimbaud cut the stuff of life into flags, but into flags -that never fluttered on this earth. His violence penetrated, in some -sort, beyond the bounds of ordinary life. In some of his poems Rimbaud -seems actually to have reached the nameless goal towards which he was -striving, to have arrived at that world of unheard-of spiritual vigour -and beauty whose nature he can only describe in an exclamatory metaphor: - - Millions d’oiseaux d’or, ô future vigueur! - -But the vigour of Verhaeren is never anything so fine and spiritual as -this “million of golden birds.” It is merely the vigour and violence of -ordinary life speeded up to cinema intensity. - -It is a noticeable fact that Verhaeren was generally at his best when he -took a holiday from the making and waving of flags. His Flemish bucolics -and the love poems of _Les Heures_, written for the most part in -traditional form, and for the most part shorter and more concentrated -than his poems of violence and energy, remain the most moving portion of -his work. Very interesting, too, are the poems belonging to that early -phase of doubt and depression which saw the publication of _Les -Débâcles_ and _Les Flambeaux Noirs_. The energy and life of the later -books is there, but in some sort concentrated, preserved and -intensified, because turned inwards upon itself. Of many of the later -poems one feels that they were written much too easily. These must have -been brought very painfully and laboriously to the birth. - - - - - XXIV: EDWARD LEAR - - -There are few writers whose works I care to read more than once, and one -of them is certainly Edward Lear. Nonsense, like poetry, to which it is -closely allied, like philosophic speculation, like every product of the -imagination, is an assertion of man’s spiritual freedom in spite of all -the oppression of circumstance. As long as it remains possible for the -human mind to invent the Quangle Wangle and the Fimble Fowl, to wander -at will over the Great Gromboolian Plain and the hills of the Cnankly -Bore, the victory is ours. The existence of nonsense is the nearest -approach to a proof of that unprovable article of faith, whose truth we -must all assume or perish miserably: that life is worth living. It is -when circumstances combine to prove, with syllogistic cogency, that life -is not worth living that I turn to Lear and find comfort and -refreshment. I read him and I perceive that it is a good thing to be -alive; for I am free, with Lear, to be as inconsequent as I like. - -Lear is a genuine poet. For what is his nonsense except the poetical -imagination a little twisted out of its course? Lear had the true poet’s -feeling for words—words in themselves, precious and melodious, like -phrases of music; personal as human beings. Marlowe talks of -entertaining divine Zenocrate; Milton of the leaves that fall in -Vallombrosa; Lear of the Fimble Fowl with a corkscrew leg, of runcible -spoons, of things meloobious and genteel. Lewis Carroll wrote nonsense -by exaggerating sense—a too logical logic. His coinages of words are -intellectual. Lear, more characteristically a poet, wrote nonsense that -is an excess of imagination, coined words for the sake of their colour -and sound alone. His is the purer nonsense, because more poetical. -Change the key ever so little and the “Dong with a Luminous Nose” would -be one of the most memorable romantic poems of the nineteenth century. -Think, too, of that exquisite “Yonghy Bonghy Bo”! In one of Tennyson’s -later volumes there is a charming little lyric about Catullus, which -begins: - - Row us out from Desenzano, - To your Sirmione row! - So they row’d, and there we landed— - _O venusta Sirmio!_ - -Can one doubt for a moment that he was thinking, when he wrote these -words, of that superb stanza with which the “Yonghy Bonghy” opens: - - On the coast of Coromandel, - Where the early pumpkins blow, - In the middle of the woods, - Dwelt the Yonghy Bonghy Bo. - -Personally, I prefer Lear’s poem; it is the richer and the fuller of the -two. - -Lear’s genius is at its best in the Nonsense Rhymes, or Limericks, as a -later generation has learned to call them. In these I like to think of -him not merely as a poet and a draughtsman—and how unique an artist the -recent efforts of Mr. Nash to rival him have only affirmed—but also as a -profound social philosopher. No study of Lear would be complete without -at least a few remarks on “They” of the Nonsense Rhymes. “They” are the -world, the man in the street; “They” are what the leader-writers in the -twopenny press would call all Right-Thinking Men and Women; “They” are -Public Opinion. The Nonsense Rhymes are, for the most part, nothing more -nor less than episodes selected from the history of that eternal -struggle between the genius or the eccentric and his fellow-beings. -Public Opinion universally abhors eccentricity. There was, for example, -that charming Old Man of Melrose who walked on the tips of his toes. But -“They” said (with their usual inability to appreciate the artist), “It -ain’t pleasant to see you at present, you stupid old man of Melrose.” -Occasionally, when the eccentric happens to be a criminal genius, “They” -are doubtless right. The Old Man with a Gong who bumped on it all the -day long deserved to be smashed. (But “They” also smashed a quite -innocuous Old Man of Whitehaven merely for dancing a quadrille with a -raven.) And there was that Old Person of Buda, whose conduct grew ruder -and ruder; “They” were justified, I dare say, in using a hammer to -silence his clamour. But it raises the whole question of punishment and -of the relation between society and the individual. - -When “They” are not offensive, they content themselves with being -foolishly inquisitive. Thus, “They” ask the Old Man of the Wrekin -whether his boots are made of leather. “They” pester the Old Man in a -Tree with imbecile questions about the Bee which so horribly bored him. -In these encounters the geniuses and the eccentrics often get the better -of the gross and heavy-witted public. The Old Person of Ware who rode on -the back of a bear certainly scored off “Them.” For when “They” asked: -“Does it trot?” He replied, “It does not.” (The picture shows it -galloping _ventre à terre_.) “It’s a Moppsikon Floppsikon bear.” -Sometimes, too, the eccentric actually leads “Them” on to their -discomfiture. One thinks of that Old Man in a Garden, who always begged -every one’s pardon. When “They” asked him, “What for?” he replied, -“You’re a bore, and I trust you’ll go out of my garden.” But “They” -probably ended up by smashing him. - -Occasionally the men of genius adopt a Mallarméen policy. They flee from -the gross besetting crowd. - - La chair est triste, hélas, et j’ai lu tous les livres. - Fuir, là-bas, fuir.... - -It was surely with these words on his lips that the Old Person of Bazing -(whose presence of mind, for all that he was a Symbolist, was amazing) -went out to purchase the steed which he rode at full speed and escaped -from the people of Bazing. He chose the better part; for it is almost -impossible to please the mob. The Old Person of Ealing was thought by -his suburban neighbours to be almost devoid of good feeling, because, if -you please, he drove a small gig with three owls and a pig. And there -was that pathetic Old Man of Thermopylæ (for whom I have a peculiar -sympathy, since he reminds me so poignantly of myself), who never did -anything properly. “They,” said, “If you choose to boil eggs in your -shoes, you shall never remain in Thermopylæ.” The sort of people “They” -like do the stupidest things, have the vulgarest accomplishments. Of the -Old Person of Filey his acquaintance was wont to speak highly because he -danced perfectly well to the sound of a bell. And the people of Shoreham -adored that fellow-citizen of theirs whose habits were marked by decorum -and who bought an umbrella and sate in the cellar. Naturally; it was -only to be expected. - - - - - XXV: SIR CHRISTOPHER WREN - - -That an Englishman should be a very great plastic artist is always -rather surprising. Perhaps it is a matter of mere chance; perhaps it has -something to do with our national character—if such a thing really -exists. But, whatever may be the cause, the fact remains that England -has produced very few artists of first-class importance. The -Renaissance, as it spread, like some marvellous infectious disease of -the spirit, across the face of Europe, manifested itself in different -countries by different symptoms. In Italy, the country of its origin, -the Renaissance was, more than anything, an outburst of painting, -architecture and sculpture. Scholarship and religious reformation were, -in Germany, the typical manifestations of the disease. But when this -gorgeous spiritual measles crossed the English Channel, its symptoms -were almost exclusively literary. The first premonitory touch of the -infection from Italy “brought out” Chaucer. With the next bout of the -disease England produced the Elizabethans. But among all these poets -there was not a single plastic artist whose name we so much as remember. - -And then, suddenly, the seventeenth century gave birth to two English -artists of genius. It produced Inigo Jones and, a little later, Wren. -Wren died, at the age of more than ninety, in the spring of 1723. We are -celebrating to-day his bi-centenary—celebrating it not merely by -antiquarian talk and scholarly appreciations of his style but also (the -signs are not wanting) in a more concrete and living way: by taking a -renewed interest in the art of which he was so great a master and by -reverting in our practice to that fine tradition which he, with his -predecessor, Inigo, inaugurated. - -An anniversary celebration is an act of what Wordsworth would have -called “natural piety”; an act by which past is linked with present and -of the vague, interminable series of the days a single comprehensible -and logical unity is created in our minds. At the coming of the -centenaries we like to remember the great men of the past, not so much -by way of historical exercise, but that we may see precisely where, in -relation to their achievement, we stand at the present time, that we may -appraise the life still left in their spirit and apply to ourselves the -moral of their example. I have no intention in this article of giving a -biography of Wren, a list of his works, or a technical account of his -style and methods. I propose to do no more than describe, in the most -general terms, the nature of his achievement and its significance to -ourselves. - -Wren was a good architect. But since it is important to know precisely -what we are talking about, let us begin by asking ourselves what good -architecture is. Descending with majesty from his private Sinai, Mr. -Ruskin dictated to a whole generation of Englishmen the æsthetic Law. On -monolithic tables that were the Stones of Venice he wrote the great -truths that had been revealed to him. Here is one of them: - - It is to be generally observed that the proportions of buildings have - nothing to do with the style or general merit of their architecture. - An architect trained in the worst schools and utterly devoid of all - meaning or purpose in his work, may yet have such a natural gift of - massing and grouping as will render his structure effective when seen - at a distance. - -Now it is to be generally observed, as he himself would say, that in all -matters connected with art, Ruskin is to be interpreted as we interpret -dreams—that is to say, as signifying precisely the opposite of what he -says. Thus, when we find him saying that good architecture has nothing -to do with proportion or the judicious disposition of masses and that -the general effect counts for nothing at all, we may take it as more or -less definitely proven that good architecture is, in fact, almost -entirely a matter of proportion and massing, and that the general effect -of the whole work counts for nearly everything. Interpreted according to -this simple oneirocritical method, Ruskin’s pontifical pronouncement may -be taken as explaining briefly and clearly the secrets of good -architecture. That is why I have chosen this quotation to be the text of -my discourse on Wren. - -For the qualities which most obviously distinguish Wren’s work are -precisely those which Ruskin so contemptuously disparages and which we, -by our process of interpretation, have singled out as the essentially -architectural qualities. In all that Wren designed—I am speaking of the -works of his maturity; for at the beginning of his career he was still -an unpractised amateur, and at the end, though still on occasion -wonderfully successful, a very old man—we see a faultless proportion, a -felicitous massing and contrasting of forms. He conceived his buildings -as three-dimensional designs which should be seen, from every point of -view, as harmoniously proportioned wholes. (With regard to the exteriors -this, of course, is true only of those buildings which _can_ be seen -from all sides. Like all true architects, Wren preferred to build in -positions where his work could be appreciated three-dimensionally. But -he was also a wonderful maker of façades; witness his Middle Temple -gateway and his houses in King’s Bench Walk.) He possessed in the -highest degree that instinctive sense of proportion and scale which -enabled him to embody his conception in brick and stone. In his great -masterpiece of St. Paul’s every part of the building, seen from within -or without, seems to stand in a certain satisfying and harmonious -relation to every other part. The same is true even of the smallest -works belonging to the period of Wren’s maturity. On its smaller scale -and different plane, such a building as Rochester Guildhall is as -beautiful, because as harmonious in the relation of all its parts, as -St. Paul’s. - -Of Wren’s other purely architectural qualities I shall speak but -briefly. He was, to begin with, an engineer of inexhaustible resource; -one who could always be relied upon to find the best possible solution -to any problem, from blowing up the ruins of old St. Paul’s to providing -the new with a dome that should be at once beautiful and thoroughly -safe. As a designer he exhibited the same practical ingenuity. No -architect has known how to make so much of a difficult site and cheap -materials. The man who built the City churches was a practical genius of -no common order. He was also an artist of profoundly original mind. This -originality reveals itself in the way in which he combines the accepted -features of classical Renaissance architecture into new designs that -were entirely English and his own. The steeples of his City churches -provide us with an obvious example of this originality. His domestic -architecture—that wonderful application of classical principles to the -best in the native tradition—is another. - -But Wren’s most characteristic quality—the quality which gives to his -work, over and above its pure beauty, its own peculiar character and -charm—is a quality rather moral than æsthetic. Of Chelsea Hospital, -Carlyle once remarked that it was “obviously the work of a gentleman.” -The words are illuminating. Everything that Wren did was the work of a -gentleman; that is the secret of its peculiar character. For Wren was a -great gentleman: one who valued dignity and restraint and who, -respecting himself, respected also humanity; one who desired that men -and women should live with the dignity, even the grandeur, befitting -their proud human title; one who despised meanness and oddity as much as -vulgar ostentation; one who admired reason and order, who distrusted all -extravagance and excess. A gentleman, the finished product of an old and -ordered civilization. - -Wren, the restrained and dignified gentleman, stands out most clearly -when we compare him with his Italian contemporaries. The baroque artists -of the seventeenth century were interested above everything in the new, -the startling, the astonishing; they strained after impossible -grandeurs, unheard-of violences. The architectural ideals of which they -dreamed were more suitable for embodiment in theatrical cardboard than -in stone. And indeed, the late seventeenth and early eighteenth century -was the golden age of scene-painting in Italy. The artists who painted -the settings for the elder Scarlatti’s operas, the later Bibienas and -Piranesis, came nearer to reaching the wild Italian ideal than ever mere -architects like Borromini or Bernini, their imaginations cramped by the -stubbornness of stone and the unsleeping activities of gravitations, -could hope to do. - -How vastly different is the baroque theatricality from Wren’s sober -restraint! Wren was a master of the grand style; but he never dreamed of -building for effect alone. He was never theatrical or showy, never -pretentious or vulgar. St. Paul’s is a monument of temperance and -chastity. His great palace at Hampton Court is no gaudy stage-setting -for the farce of absolute monarchy. It is a country gentleman’s -house—more spacious, of course, and with statelier rooms and more -impressive vistas—but still a house meant to be lived in by some one who -was a man as well as a king. But if his palaces might have housed, -without the least incongruity, a well-bred gentleman, conversely his -common houses were always dignified enough, however small, to be palaces -in miniature and the homes of kings. - -In the course of the two hundred years which have elapsed since his -death, Wren’s successors have often departed, with melancholy results, -from the tradition of which he was the founder. They have forgotten, in -their architecture, the art of being gentlemen. Infected by a touch of -the baroque _folie de grandeur_, the architects of the eighteenth -century built houses in imitation of Versailles and Caserta—huge stage -houses, all for show and magnificence and all but impossible to live in. - -The architects of the nineteenth century sinned in a diametrically -opposite way—towards meanness and a negation of art. Senselessly -preoccupied with details, they created the nightmare architecture of -“features.” The sham Gothic of early Victorian times yielded at the end -of the century to the nauseous affectation of “sham-peasantry.” Big -houses were built with all the irregularity and more than the -“quaintness” of cottages; suburban villas took the form of machine-made -imitations of the Tudor peasant’s hut. To all intents and purposes -architecture ceased to exist; Ruskin had triumphed. - -To-day, however, there are signs that architecture is coming back to -that sane and dignified tradition of which Wren was the great exponent. -Architects are building houses for gentlemen to live in. Let us hope -that they will continue to do so. There may be sublimer types of men -than the gentleman: there are saints, for example, and the great -enthusiasts whose thoughts and actions move the world. But for practical -purposes and in a civilized, orderly society, the gentleman remains, -after all, the ideal man. The most profound religious emotions have been -expressed in Gothic architecture. Human ambitions and aspirations have -been most colossally reflected by the Romans and the Italians of the -baroque. But it is in England that the golden mean of reasonableness and -decency—the practical philosophy of the civilized man—has received its -most elegant and dignified expression. The old gentleman who died two -hundred years ago preached on the subject of civilization a number of -sermons in stone. St. Paul’s and Greenwich, Trinity Library and Hampton -Court, Chelsea, Kilmainham, Blackheath and Rochester, St. Stephen’s, -Wallbrook and St. Mary Ab-church, Kensington orangery and Middle Temple -gateway—these are the titles of a few of them. They have much, if we -will but study them, to teach us. - - - - - XXVI: BEN JONSON[3] - - -It comes as something of a surprise to find that the niche reserved for -Ben Jonson in the “English Men of Letters” series has only now been -filled. One expected somehow that he would have been among the first of -the great ones to be enshrined; but no, he has had a long time to wait; -and Adam Smith, and Sydney Smith, and Hazlitt, and Fanny Burney have -gone before him into the temple of fame. Now, however, his monument has -at last been made, with Professor Gregory Smith’s qualified version of -“O rare Ben Jonson!” duly and definitively carved upon it. - -What is it that makes us, almost as a matter of course, number Ben -Jonson among the great? Why should we expect him to be an early -candidate for immortality, or why, indeed, should he be admitted to the -“English Men of Letters” series at all? These are difficult questions to -answer; for when we come to consider the matter we find ourselves unable -to give any very glowing account of Ben or his greatness. It is hard to -say that one likes his work; one cannot honestly call him a good poet or -a supreme dramatist. And yet, unsympathetic as he is, uninteresting as -he often can be, we still go on respecting and admiring him, because, in -spite of everything, we are conscious, obscurely but certainly, that he -was a great man. - -He had little influence on his successors; the comedy of humours died -without any but an abortive issue. Shadwell, the mountain-bellied “Og, -from a treason tavern rolling home,” is not a disciple that any man -would have much pride in claiming. No raking up of literary history will -make Ben Jonson great as a founder of a school or an inspirer of others. -His greatness is a greatness of character. There is something almost -alarming in the spectacle of this formidable figure advancing with -tank-like irresistibility towards the goal he had set himself to attain. -No sirens of romance can seduce him, no shock of opposition unseat him -in his career. He proceeds along the course theoretically mapped out at -the inception of his literary life, never deviating from this narrow way -till the very end—till the time when, in his old age, he wrote that -exquisite pastoral, _The Sad Shepherd_, which is so complete and -absolute a denial of all his lifelong principles. But _The Sad Shepherd_ -is a weakness, albeit a triumphant weakness. Ben, as he liked to look -upon himself, as he has again and again revealed himself to us, is the -artist with principles, protesting against the anarchic absence of -principle among the geniuses and charlatans, the poets and ranters of -his age. - - The true artificer will not run away from nature as he were afraid of - her; or depart from life and the likeness of truth; but speak to the - capacity of his hearers. And though his language differ from the - vulgar somewhat, it shall not fly from all humanity, with the - Tamerlanes and Tamer-Chams of the late age, which had nothing in them - but the scenical strutting and furious vociferation to warrant them to - the ignorant gapers. He knows it is his only art, so to carry it as - none but artificers perceive it. In the meantime, perhaps, he is - called barren, dull, lean, a poor writer, or by what contumelious word - can come in their cheeks, by these men who without labour, judgment, - knowledge, or almost sense, are received or preferred before him. - -In these sentences from _Discoveries_ Ben Jonson paints his own -picture—portrait of the artist as a true artificer—setting forth, in its -most general form, and with no distracting details of the humours or the -moral purpose of art, his own theory of the artist’s true function and -nature. Jonson’s theory was no idle speculation, no mere thing of words -and air, but a creed, a principle, a categorical imperative, -conditioning and informing his whole work. Any study of the poet must, -therefore, begin with the formulation of his theory, and must go on, as -Professor Gregory Smith’s excellent essay does indeed proceed, to show -in detail how the theory was applied and worked out in each individual -composition. - -A good deal of nonsense has been talked at one time or another about -artistic theories. The artist is told that he should have no theories, -that he should warble native wood-notes wild, that he should “sing,” be -wholly spontaneous, should starve his brain and cultivate his heart and -spleen; that an artistic theory cramps the style, stops up the Helicons -of inspiration, and so on, and so on. The foolish and sentimental -conception of the artist, to which these anti-intellectual doctrines are -a corollary, dates from the time of romanticism and survives among the -foolish and sentimental of to-day. A consciously practised theory of art -has never spoiled a good artist, has never dammed up inspiration, but -rather, and in most cases profitably, canalized it. Even the Romantics -had theories and were wild and emotional on principle. - -Theories are above all necessary at moments when old traditions are -breaking up, when all is chaos and in flux. At such moments an artist -formulates his theory and clings to it through thick and thin; clings to -it as the one firm raft of security in the midst of the surrounding -unrest. Thus, when the neo-Classicism, of which Ben was one of the -remote ancestors, was crumbling into the nothingness of _The Loves of -the Plants_ and _The Triumphs of Temper_, Wordsworth found salvation by -the promulgation of a new theory of poetry, which he put into practice -systematically and to the verge of absurdity in _Lyrical Ballads_. -Similarly in the shipwreck of the old tradition of painting we find the -artists of the present day clinging desperately to intellectual formulas -as their only hope in the chaos. The only occasions, in fact, when the -artist can afford entirely to dispense with theory occur in periods when -a well-established tradition reigns supreme and unquestioned. And then -the absence of theory is more apparent than real; for the tradition in -which he is working is a theory, originally formulated by someone else, -which he accepts unconsciously and as though it were the law of Nature -itself. - -The beginning of the seventeenth century was not one of these periods of -placidity and calm acceptance. It was a moment of growth and decay -together, of fermentation. The fabulous efflorescence of the Renaissance -had already grown rank. With that extravagance of energy which -characterized them in all things, the Elizabethans had exaggerated the -traditions of their literature into insincerity. All artistic traditions -end, in due course, by being reduced to the absurd; but the Elizabethans -crammed the growth and decline of a century into a few years. One after -another they transfigured and then destroyed every species of art they -touched. Euphuism, Petrarchism, Spenserism, the sonnet, the drama—some -lasted a little longer than others, but they all exploded in the end, -these beautiful iridescent bubbles blown too big by the enthusiasm of -their makers. - -But in the midst of this unstable luxuriance voices of protest were to -be heard, reactions against the main romantic current were discernible. -Each in his own way and in his own sphere, Donne and Ben Jonson -protested aganst the exaggerations of the age. At a time when sonneteers -in legions were quibbling about the blackness of their ladies’ eyes or -the golden wires of their hair, when Platonists protested in melodious -chorus that they were not in love with “red and white” but with the -ideal and divine beauty of which peach-blossom complexions were but -inadequate shadows, at a time when love-poetry had become, with rare -exceptions, fantastically unreal, Donne called it back, a little grossly -perhaps, to facts with the dry remark: - - Love’s not so pure and abstract as they use - To say, who have no mistress but their muse. - -There have been poets who have written more lyrically than Donne, more -fervently about certain amorous emotions, but not one who has formulated -so rational a philosophy of love as a whole, who has seen all the facts -so clearly and judged them so soundly. Donne laid down no literary -theory. His followers took from him all that was relatively -unimportant—the harshness, itself a protest against Spenserian facility, -the conceits, the sensuality tempered by mysticism—but the important and -original quality of Donne’s work, the psychological realism, they could -not, through sheer incapacity, transfer into their own poetry. Donne’s -immediate influence was on the whole bad. Any influence for good he may -have had has been on poets of a much later date. - -The other great literary Protestant of the time was the curious subject -of our examination, Ben Jonson. Like Donne he was a realist. He had no -use for claptrap, or rant, or romanticism. His aim was to give his -audiences real facts flavoured with sound morality. He failed to be a -great realist, partly because he lacked the imaginative insight to -perceive more than the most obvious and superficial reality, and partly -because he was so much preoccupied with the sound morality that he was -prepared to sacrifice truth to satire; so that in place of characters he -gives us humours, not minds, but personified moral qualities. - -Ben hated romanticism; for, whatever may have been his bodily habits, -however infinite his capacity for drinking sack, he belonged -intellectually to the party of sobriety. In all ages the drunks and the -sobers have confronted one another, each party loud in derision and -condemnation of the defects which it observes in the other. “The -Tamerlanes and Tamer-Chams of the late age” accuse the sober Ben of -being “barren, dull, lean, a poor writer.” Ben retorts that they “have -nothing in them but the scenical strutting and furious vociferation to -warrant them to the ignorant gapers.” At another period it is the -Hernanis and the Rollas who reproach that paragon of dryness, the almost -fiendishly sober Stendhal, with his grocer’s style. Stendhal in his turn -remarks: “En paraissant, vers 1803, le _Génie_ de Chateaubriand m’a -semblé ridicule.” And to-day? We have our sobers and our drunks, our -Hardy and our Belloc, our Santayana and our Chesterton. The distinction -is eternally valid. Our personal sympathies may lie with one or the -other; but it is obvious that we could dispense with neither. Ben, then, -was one of the sobers, protesting with might and main against the -extravagant behaviour of the drunks, an intellectual insisting that -there was no way of arriving at truth except by intellectual processes, -an apotheosis of the Plain Man determined to stand no nonsense about -anything. Ben’s poetical achievement, such as it is, is the achievement -of one who relied on no mysterious inspiration, but on those solid -qualities of sense, perseverance, and sound judgment which any decent -citizen of a decent country may be expected to possess. That he himself -possessed, hidden somewhere in the obscure crypts and recesses of his -mind, other rarer spiritual qualities is proved by the existence of his -additions to _The Spanish Tragedy_—if, indeed, they are his, which there -is no cogent reason to doubt—and his last fragment of a masterpiece, -_The Sad Shepherd_. But these qualities, as Professor Gregory Smith -points out, he seems deliberately to have suppressed; locked them away, -at the bidding of his imperious theory, in the strange dark places from -which, at the beginning and the very end of his career, they emerged. He -might have been a great romantic, one of the sublime inebriates; he -chose rather to be classical and sober. Working solely with the logical -intellect and rejecting as dangerous the aid of those uncontrolled -illogical elements of imagination, he produced work that is in its own -way excellent. It is well-wrought, strong, heavy with learning and what -the Chaucerians would call “high sentence.” The emotional intensity and -brevity excepted, it possesses all the qualities of the French classical -drama. But the quality which characterizes the best Elizabethan and -indeed the best English poetry of all periods, the power of moving in -two worlds at once, it lacks. Jonson, like the French dramatists of the -seventeenth century, moves on a level, directly towards some logical -goal. The road over which his great contemporaries take us is not level; -it is, as it were, tilted and uneven, so that as we proceed along it we -are momently shot off at a tangent from the solid earth of logical -meaning into superior regions where the intellectual laws of gravity -have no control. The mistake of Jonson and the classicists in general -consists in supposing that nothing is of value that is not susceptible -of logical analysis; whereas the truth is that the greatest triumphs of -art take place in a world that is not wholly of the intellect, but lies -somewhere between it and the inenarrable, but, to those who have -penetrated it, supremely real, world of the mystic. In his fear and -dislike of nonsense, Jonson put away from himself not only the -Tamer-Chams and the fustian of the late age, but also most of the beauty -it had created. - -With the romantic emotions of his predecessors and contemporaries Jonson -abandoned much of the characteristically Elizabethan form of their -poetry. That extraordinary melodiousness which distinguishes the -Elizabethan lyric is not to be found in any of Ben’s writing. The poems -by which we remember him—“Cynthia,” “Drink to Me Only,” “It is Not -Growing Like a Tree”—are classically well made (though the cavalier -lyrists were to do better in the same style); but it is not for any -musical qualities that we remember them. One can understand Ben’s -critical contempt for those purely formal devices for producing musical -richness in which the Elizabethans delighted. - - Eyes, why did you bring unto me these graces, - Grac’d to yield wonder out of her true measure, - Measure of all joyes’ stay to phansie traces - Module of pleasure. - -The device is childish in its formality, the words, in their obscurity, -almost devoid of significance. But what matter, since the stanza is a -triumph of sonorous beauty? The Elizabethans devised many ingenuities of -this sort; the minor poets exploited them until they became ridiculous; -the major poets employed them with greater discretion, playing subtle -variations (as in Shakespeare’s sonnets) on the crude theme. When -writers had something to say, their thoughts, poured into these -copiously elaborate forms, were moulded to the grandest, poetical -eloquence. A minor poet, like Lord Brooke, from whose works we have just -quoted a specimen of pure formalism, could produce, in his moments of -inspiration, such magnificent lines as: - - The mind of Man is this world’s true dimension, - And knowledge is the measure of the mind; - -or these, of the nethermost hell: - - A place there is upon no centre placed, - Deepe under depthes, as farre as is the skie - Above the earth; darke, infinitely spaced: - Pluto the king, the kingdome, miserie. - -Even into comic poetry the Elizabethans imported the grand manner. The -anonymous author of - - Tee-hee, tee-hee! Oh sweet delight - He tickles this age, who can - Call Tullia’s ape a marmosite - And Leda’s goose a swan, - -knew the secret of that rich, facile music which all those who wrote in -the grand Elizabethan tradition could produce. Jonson, like Donne, -reacted against the facility and floridity of this technique, but in a -different way. Donne’s protest took the form of a conceited subtlety of -thought combined with a harshness of metre. Jonson’s classical training -inclined him towards clarity, solidity of sense, and economy of form. He -stands, as a lyrist, half-way between the Elizabethans and the cavalier -song-writers; he has broken away from the old tradition, but has not yet -made himself entirely at home in the new. At the best he achieves a -minor perfection of point and neatness. At the worst he falls into that -dryness and dulness with which he knew he could be reproached. - -We have seen from the passage concerning the true artificer that Jonson -fully realized the risk he was running. He recurs more than once in -_Discoveries_ to the same theme, “Some men to avoid redundancy run into -that [a “thin, flagging, poor, starved” style]; and while they strive to -have no ill-blood or juice, they lose their good.” The good that Jonson -lost was a great one. And in the same way we see to-day how a fear of -becoming sentimental, or “chocolate-boxy,” drives many of the younger -poets and artists to shrink from treating of the great emotions or the -obvious lavish beauty of the earth. But to eschew a good because the -corruption of it is very bad is surely a sign of weakness and a folly. - -Having lost the realm of romantic beauty—lost it deliberately and of set -purpose—Ben Jonson devoted the whole of his immense energy to portraying -and reforming the ugly world of fact. But his reforming satiric -intentions interfered, as we have already shown, with his realistic -intentions, and instead of recreating in his art the actual world of -men, he invented the wholly intellectual and therefore wholly unreal -universe of Humours. It is an odd new world, amusing to look at from the -safe distance that separates stage from stalls; but not a place one -could ever wish to live in—one’s neighbours, fools, knaves, hypocrites, -and bears would make the most pleasing prospect intolerable. And over it -all is diffused the atmosphere of Jonson’s humour. It is a curious kind -of humour, very different from anything that passes under that name -to-day, from the humour of _Punch_, or _A Kiss for Cinderella_. One has -only to read _Volpone_—or, better still, go to see it when it is acted -this year by the Phœnix Society for the revival of old plays—to realize -that Ben’s conception of a joke differed materially from ours. Humour -has never been the same since Rousseau invented humanitarianism. -Syphilis and broken legs were still a great deal more comic in -Smollett’s day than in our own. There is a cruelty, a heartlessness -about much of the older humour which is sometimes shocking, sometimes, -in its less extreme forms, pleasantly astringent and stimulating after -the orgies of quaint pathos and sentimental comedy in which we are -nowadays forced to indulge. There is not a pathetic line in _Volpone_; -all the characters are profoundly unpleasant, and the fun is almost as -grim as fun can be. Its heartlessness is not the brilliant, cynical -heartlessness of the later Restoration comedy, but something ponderous -and vast. It reminds us of one of those enormous, painful jokes which -fate sometimes plays on humanity. There is no alleviation, no purging by -pity and terror. It requires a very hearty sense of humour to digest it. -We have reason to admire our ancestors for their ability to enjoy this -kind of comedy as it should be enjoyed. It would get very little -appreciation from a London audience of to-day. - -In the other comedies the fun is not so grim; but there is a certain -hardness and brutality about them all—due, of course, ultimately to the -fact that the characters are not human, but rather marionettes of wood -and metal that collide and belabour one another, like the ferocious -puppets of the Punch and Judy show, without feeling the painfulness of -the proceeding. Shakespeare’s comedy is not heartless, because the -characters are human and sensitive. Our modern sentimentality is a -corruption, a softening of genuine humanity. We need a few more Jonsons -and Congreves, some more plays like _Volpone_, or that inimitable -_Marriage à la Mode_ of Dryden, in which the curtain goes up on a lady -singing the outrageously cynical song that begins: - - Why should a foolish marriage vow, - That long ago was made, - Constrain us to each other now - When pleasure is decayed? - -Too much heartlessness is intolerable (how soon one turns, revolted, -from the literature of the Restoration!), but a little of it now and -then is bracing, a tonic for relaxed sensibilities. A little ruthless -laughter clears the air as nothing else can do; it is good for us, every -now and then, to see our ideals laughed at, our conception of nobility -caricatured; it is good for solemnity’s nose to be tweaked, it is good -for human pomposity to be made to look mean and ridiculous. It should be -the great social function—as Marinetti has pointed out—of the music -halls, to provide this cruel and unsparing laughter, to make a -buffoonery of all the solemnly accepted grandeurs and nobilities. A good -dose of this mockery, administered twice a year at the equinoxes, should -purge our minds of much waste matter, make nimble our spirits and -brighten the eye to look more clearly and truthfully on the world about -us. - -Ben’s reduction of human beings to a series of rather unpleasant Humours -is sound and medicinal. Humours do not, of course, exist in actuality; -they are true only as caricatures are true. There are times when we -wonder whether a caricature is not, after all, truer than a photograph; -there are others when it seems a stupid lie. But at all times a -caricature is disquieting; and it is very good for most of us to be made -uncomfortable. - - - - - XXVII: CHAUCER - - -There are few things more melancholy than the spectacle of literary -fossilization. A great writer comes into being, lives, labours and dies. -Time passes; year by year the sediment of muddy comment and criticism -thickens round the great man’s bones. The sediment sets firm; what was -once a living organism becomes a thing of marble. On the attainment of -total fossilization the great man has become a classic. It becomes -increasingly difficult for the members of each succeeding generation to -remember that the stony objects which fill the museum cases were once -alive. It is often a work of considerable labour to reconstruct the -living animal from the fossil shape. But the trouble is generally worth -taking. And in no case is it more worth while than in Chaucer’s. - -With Chaucer the ordinary fossilizing process, to which every classical -author is subject, has been complicated by the petrifaction of his -language. Five hundred years have almost sufficed to turn the most -living of poets into a substitute on the modern sides of schools for the -mental gymnastic of Latin and Greek. Prophetically, Chaucer saw the fate -that awaited him and appealed against his doom: - - Ye know eke that, in form of speech is change - Within a thousand year, and wordes tho - That hadden price, now wonder nice and strange - Us thinketh them; and yet they spake them so, - And sped as well in love as men now do. - -The body of his poetry may have grown old, but its spirit is still young -and immortal. To know that spirit—and not to know it is to ignore -something that is of unique importance in the history of our -literature—it is necessary to make the effort of becoming familiar with -the body it informs and gives life to. The antique language and -versification, so “wonder nice and strange” to our ears, are obstacles -in the path of most of those who read for pleasure’s sake (not that any -reader worthy of the name ever reads for anything else but pleasure); to -the pedants they are an end in themselves. Theirs is the carcass, but -not the soul. Between those who are daunted by his superficial -difficulties and those who take too much delight in them Chaucer finds -but few sympathetic readers. I hope in these pages to be able to give a -few of the reasons that make Chaucer so well worth reading. - -Chaucer’s art is, by its very largeness and objectiveness, extremely -difficult to subject to critical analysis. Confronted by it, Dryden -could only exclaim, “Here is God’s plenty!”—and the exclamation proves, -when all is said, to be the most adequate and satisfying of all -criticisms. All that the critic can hope to do is to expand and to -illustrate Dryden’s exemplary brevity. - -“God’s plenty!”—the phrase is a peculiarly happy one. It calls up a -vision of the prodigal earth, of harvest fields, of innumerable beasts -and birds, of teeming life. And it is in the heart of this living and -material world of Nature that Chaucer lives. He is the poet of earth, -supremely content to walk, desiring no wings. Many English poets have -loved the earth for the sake of something—a dream, a reality, call it -which you will—that lies behind it. But there have been few, and, except -for Chaucer, no poets of greatness, who have been in love with earth for -its own sake, with Nature in the sense of something inevitably material, -something that is the opposite of the supernatural. Supreme over -everything in this world he sees the natural order, the “law of kind,” -as he calls it. The teachings of most of the great prophets and poets -are simply protests against the law of kind. Chaucer does not protest, -he accepts. It is precisely this acceptance that makes him unique among -English poets. He does not go to Nature as the symbol of some further -spiritual reality; hills, flowers, sea, and clouds are not, for him, -transparencies through which the workings of a great soul are visible. -No, they are opaque; he likes them for what they are, things pleasant -and beautiful, and not the less delicious because they are definitely of -the earth earthy. Human beings, in the same way, he takes as he finds, -noble and beastish, but, on the whole, wonderfully decent. He has none -of that strong ethical bias which is usually to be found in the English -mind. He is not horrified by the behaviour of his fellow-beings, and he -has no desire to reform them. Their characters, their motives interest -him, and he stands looking on at them, a happy spectator. This serenity -of detachment, this placid acceptance of things and people as they are, -is emphasized if we compare the poetry of Chaucer with that of his -contemporary, Langland, or whoever it was that wrote _Piers Plowman_. - -The historians tell us that the later years of the fourteenth century -were among the most disagreeable periods of our national history. -English prosperity was at a very low ebb. The Black Death had -exterminated nearly a third of the working population of the islands, a -fact which, aggravated by the frenzied legislation of the Government, -had led to the unprecedented labour troubles that culminated in the -peasants’ revolt. Clerical corruption and lawlessness were rife. All -things considered, even our own age is preferable to that in which -Chaucer lived. Langland does not spare denunciation; he is appalled by -the wickedness about him, scandalized at the openly confessed vices that -have almost ceased to pay to virtue the tribute of hypocrisy. -Indignation is the inspiration of _Piers Plowman_, the righteous -indignation of the prophet. But to read Chaucer one would imagine that -there was nothing in fourteenth-century England to be indignant about. -It is true that the Pardoner, the Friar, the Shipman, the Miller, and, -in fact, most of the Canterbury pilgrims are rogues and scoundrels; but, -then, they are such “merry harlots” too. It is true that the Monk -prefers hunting to praying, that, in these latter days when fairies are -no more, “there is none other incubus” but the friar, that “purse is the -Archdeacon’s hell,” and the Summoner a villain of the first magnitude; -but Chaucer can only regard these things as primarily humorous. The fact -of people not practising what they preach is an unfailing source of -amusement to him. Where Langland cries aloud in anger, threatening the -world with hell-fire, Chaucer looks on and smiles. To the great -political crisis of his time he makes but one reference, and that a -comic one: - - So hideous was the noyse, ah _benedicite_! - Certes he Jakke Straw, and his meyné, - Ne maden schoutes never half so schrille, - Whan that they wolden eny Flemyng kille, - As thilke day was mad upon the fox. - -Peasants may revolt, priests break their vows, lawyers lie and cheat, -and the world in general indulge its sensual appetites; why try and -prevent them, why protest? After all, they are all simply being natural, -they are all following the law of kind. A reasonable man, like himself, -“flees fro the pres and dwelles with soothfastnesse.” But reasonable men -are few, and it is the nature of human beings to be the unreasonable -sport of instinct and passion, just as it is the nature of the daisy to -open its eye to the sun and of the goldfinch to be a spritely and -“gaylard” creature. The law of kind has always and in everything -dominated; there is no rubbing nature against the hair. For - - God it wot, there may no man embrace - As to destreyne a thing, the which nature - Hath naturelly set in a creature. - Take any brid, and put him in a cage, - And do all thine entent and thy corrage - To foster it tendrely with meat and drynke, - And with alle the deyntees thou canst bethinke, - And keep it all so kyndly as thou may; - Although his cage of gold be never so gay, - Yet hath this brid, by twenty thousand fold, - Lever in a forest, that is wyld and cold, - Gon ete wormes, and such wrecchidnes; - For ever this brid will doon his busynes - To scape out of his cage when that he may; - His liberté the brid desireth aye ... - Lo, heer hath kynd his dominacioun, - And appetyt flemeth (banishes) discrescioun. - Also a she wolf hath a vilayne kynde, - The lewideste wolf that she may fynde, - Or least of reputacioun, him will sche take, - In tyme whan hir lust to have a make. - Alle this ensaumples tell I by these men - That ben untrewe, and nothing by wommen. - -(As the story from which these lines are quoted happens to be about an -unfaithful wife, it seems that, in making the female sex immune from the -action of the law of kind, Chaucer is indulging a little in irony.) - - For men han ever a licorous appetit - On lower thing to parforme her delit - Than on her wyves, ben they never so faire, - Ne never so trewe, ne so debonaire. - -Nature, deplorable as some of its manifestations may be, must always and -inevitably assert itself. The law of kind has power even over immortal -souls. This fact is the source of the poet’s constantly expressed -dislike of celibacy and asceticism. The doctrine that upholds the -superiority of the state of virginity over that of wedlock is, to begin -with (he holds), a danger to the race. It encourages a process which we -may be permitted to call dysgenics—the carrying on of the species by the -worst members. The Host’s words to the Monk are memorable: - - Allas! why wearest thou so wide a cope? - God give me sorwe! and I were a pope - Nought only thou, but every mighty man, - Though he were shore brode upon his pan (head) - Should han a wife; for all this world is lorn; - Religioun hath take up all the corn - Of tredyng, and we burel (humble) men ben shrimpes; - Of feble trees there cometh wrecchid impes. - This maketh that our heires ben so sclendere - And feble, that they may not wel engendre. - -But it is not merely dangerous; it is anti-natural. That is the theme of -the Wife of Bath’s Prologue. Counsels of perfection are all very well -when they are given to those - - That wolde lyve parfytly; - But, lordyngs, by your leve, that am not I. - -The bulk of us must live as the law of kind enjoins. - -It is characteristic of Chaucer’s conception of the world, that the -highest praise he can bestow on anything is to assert of it, that it -possesses in the highest degree the qualities of its own particular -kind. Thus of Cressida he says: - - She was not with the least of her stature, - But all her limbes so well answering - Weren to womanhood, that creature - Nas never lesse mannish in seeming. - -The horse of brass in the _Squire’s Tale_ is - - So well proportioned to be strong, - Right as it were a steed of Lombardye, - Thereto so _horsely_ and so quick of eye. - -Everything that is perfect of its kind is admirable, even though the -kind may not be an exalted one. It is, for instance, a joy to see the -way in which the Canon sweats: - - A cloote-leaf (dock leaf) he had under his hood - For sweat, and for to keep his head from heat. - But it was joye for to see him sweat; - His forehead dropped as a stillatorie - Were full of plantain or of peritorie. - -The Canon is supreme in the category of sweaters, the very type and idea -of perspiring humanity; therefore he is admirable and joyous to behold, -even as a horse that is supremely horsely or a woman less mannish than -anything one could imagine. In the same way it is a delight to behold -the Pardoner preaching to the people. In its own kind his charlatanism -is perfect and deserves admiration: - - Mine handes and my tonge gon so yerne, - That it is joye to see my busynesse. - -This manner of saying of things that they are joyous, or, very often, -heavenly, is typical of Chaucer. He looks out on the world with a -delight that never grows old or weary. The sights and sounds of daily -life, all the lavish beauty of the earth fill him with a pleasure which -he can only express by calling it a “joy” or a “heaven.” It “joye was to -see” Cressida and her maidens playing together; and - - So aungellyke was her native beauté - That like a thing immortal seemede she, - As doth an heavenish parfit creature. - -The peacock has angel’s feathers; a girl’s voice is heavenly to hear: - - Antigone the shene - Gan on a Trojan song to singen clear, - That it an heaven was her voice to hear. - -One could go on indefinitely multiplying quotations that testify to -Chaucer’s exquisite sensibility to sensuous beauty and his immediate, -almost exclamatory response to it. Above all, he is moved by the beauty -of “young, fresh folkes, he and she”; by the grace and swiftness of -living things, birds and animals; by flowers and placid, luminous, -park-like landscapes. - -It is interesting to note how frequently Chaucer speaks of animals. Like -many other sages, he perceives that an animal is, in a certain sense, -more human in character than a man. For an animal bears the same -relation to a man as a caricature to a portrait. In a way a caricature -is truer than a portrait. It reveals all the weaknesses and absurdities -that flesh is heir to. The portrait brings out the greatness and dignity -of the spirit that inhabits the often ridiculous flesh. It is not merely -that Chaucer has written regular fables, though the _Nun’s Priest’s -Tale_ puts him among the great fabulists of the world, and there is also -much definitely fabular matter in the _Parliament of Fowls_. No, his -references to the beasts are not confined to his animal stories alone; -they are scattered broadcast throughout his works. He relies for much of -his psychology and for much of his most vivid description on the -comparison of man, in his character and appearance (which with Chaucer -are always indissolubly blended), with the beasts. Take, for example, -that enchanting simile in which Troilus, stubbornly anti-natural in -refusing to love as the law of kind enjoins him, is compared to the -corn-fed horse, who has to be taught good behaviour and sound philosophy -under the whip: - - As proude Bayard ginneth for to skip - Out of the way, so pricketh him his corn, - Till he a lash have of the longe whip, - Then thinketh he, “Though I prance all biforn, - First in the trace, full fat and newe shorn, - Yet am I but an horse, and horses’ law - I must endure and with my feeres draw.” - -Or, again, women with too pronounced a taste for fine apparel are -likened to the cat: - - And if the cattes skin be sleek and gay, - She will not dwell in housé half a day, - But forth she will, ere any day be dawet - To show her skin and gon a caterwrawet. - -In his descriptions of the personal appearance of his characters Chaucer -makes constant use of animal characteristics. Human beings, both -beautiful and hideous, are largely described in terms of animals. It is -interesting to see how often in that exquisite description of Alisoun, -the carpenter’s wife, Chaucer produces his clearest and sharpest effects -by a reference to some beast or bird: - - Fair was this younge wife, and therewithal - As any weasel her body gent and small ... - But of her song it was as loud and yern - As is the swallow chittering on a barn. - Thereto she coulde skip and make a game - As any kid or calf following his dame. - Her mouth was sweet as bragot is or meath, - Or hoard of apples, laid in hay or heath. - Wincing she was, as is a jolly colt, - Long as a mast and upright as a bolt. - -Again and again in Chaucer’s poems do we find such similitudes, and the -result is always a picture of extraordinary precision and liveliness. -Here, for example, are a few: - - Gaylard he was as goldfinch in the shaw, - -or, - - Such glaring eyen had he as an hare; - -or, - - As piled (bald) as an ape was his skull. - -The self-indulgent friars are - - Like Jovinian, - Fat as a whale, and walken as a swan. - -The Pardoner describes his own preaching in these words: - - Then pain I me to stretche forth my neck - And east and west upon the people I beck, - As doth a dove, sitting on a barn. - -Very often, too, Chaucer derives his happiest metaphors from birds and -beasts. Of Troy in its misfortune and decline he says: Fortune - - Gan pull away the feathers bright of Troy - From day to day. - -Love-sick Troilus soliloquizes thus: - - He said: “O fool, now art thou in the snare - That whilom japedest at lovés pain, - Now art thou hent, now gnaw thin owné chain.” - -The metaphor of Troy’s bright feathers reminds me of a very beautiful -simile borrowed from the life of the plants: - - And as in winter leavés been bereft, - Each after other, till the tree be bare, - So that there nis but bark and branches left, - Lieth Troilus, bereft of each welfare, - Ybounden in the blacke bark of care. - -And this, in turn, reminds me of that couplet in which Chaucer compares -a girl to a flowering pear-tree: - - She was well more blissful on to see - Than is the newe parjonette tree. - -Chaucer is as much at home among the stars as he is among the birds and -beasts and flowers of earth. There are some literary men of to-day who -are not merely not ashamed to confess their total ignorance of all facts -of a “scientific” order, but even make a boast of it. Chaucer would have -regarded such persons with pity and contempt. His own knowledge of -astronomy was wide and exact. Those whose education has been as horribly -imperfect as my own will always find some difficulty in following him as -he moves with easy assurance through the heavens. Still, it is possible -without knowing any mathematics to appreciate Chaucer’s descriptions of -the great pageant of the sun and stars as they march in triumph from -mansion to mansion through the year. He does not always trouble to take -out his astrolabe and measure the progress of “Phebus, with his rosy -cart”; he can record the god’s movements in more general terms than may -be understood even by the literary man of nineteen hundred and -twenty-three. Here, for example, is a description of “the colde frosty -seisoun of Decembre,” in which matters celestial and earthly are mingled -to make a picture of extraordinary richness: - - Phebus wox old and hewed like latoun, - That in his hoté declinacioun - Shone as the burned gold, with streames bright; - But now in Capricorn adown he light, - Where as he shone full pale; I dare well sayn - The bitter frostes with the sleet and rain - Destroyed hath the green in every yerd. - Janus sit by the fire with double beard, - And drinketh of his bugle horn the wine; - Beforn him stont the brawn of tusked swine, - And “_noel_” cryeth every lusty man. - -In astrology he does not seem to have believed. The magnificent passage -in the _Man of Law’s Tale_, where it is said that - - In the starres, clearer than is glass, - Is written, God wot, whoso can it read, - The death of every man withouten drede, - -is balanced by the categorical statement found in the scientific and -educational treatise on the astrolabe, that judicial astrology is mere -deceit. - -His scepticism with regard to astrology is not surprising. Highly as he -prizes authority, he prefers the evidence of experience, and where that -evidence is lacking he is content to profess a quiet agnosticism. His -respect for the law of kind is accompanied by a complementary mistrust -of all that does not appear to belong to the natural order of things. -There are moments when he doubts even the fundamental beliefs of the -Church: - - A thousand sythes have I herd men telle - That there is joye in heaven and peyne in helle; - And I accorde well that it be so. - But natheless, this wot I well also - That there is none that dwelleth in this countree - That either hath in helle or heaven y-be. - -Of the fate of the spirit after death he speaks in much the same style: - - His spiryt changed was, and wente there - As I came never, I cannot tellen where; - Therefore I stint, I nam no divinistre; - Of soules fynde I not in this registre, - Ne me list not th’ opiniouns to telle - Of hem, though that they witten where they dwelle. - -He has no patience with superstitions. Belief in dreams, in auguries, -fear of the “ravenes qualm or schrychynge of thise owles” are all -unbefitting to a self-respecting man: - - To trowen on it bothe false and foul is; - Alas, alas, so noble a creature - As is a man shall dreaden such ordure! - -By an absurd pun he turns all Calchas’s magic arts of prophecy to -ridicule: - - So when this Calkas knew by calkulynge, - And eke by answer of this Apollo - That Grekes sholden such a people bringe, - Through which that Troye muste ben fordo, - He cast anon out of the town to go. - -It would not be making a fanciful comparison to say that Chaucer in many -respects resembles Anatole France. Both men possess a profound love of -this world for its own sake, coupled with a profound and gentle -scepticism about all that lies beyond this world. To both of them the -lavish beauty of Nature is a never-failing and all-sufficient source of -happiness. Neither of them are ascetics; in pain and privation they see -nothing but evil. To both of them the notion that self-denial and -self-mortification are necessarily righteous and productive of good is -wholly alien. Both of them are apostles of sweetness and light, of -humanity and reasonableness. Unbounded tolerance of human weakness and a -pity, not the less sincere for being a little ironical, characterize -them both. Deep knowledge of the evils and horrors of this -unintelligible world makes them all the more attached to its kindly -beauty. But in at least one important respect Chaucer shows himself to -be the greater, the completer spirit. He possesses, what Anatole France -does not, an imaginative as well as an intellectual comprehension of -things. Faced by the multitudinous variety of human character, Anatole -France exhibits a curious impotence of imagination. He does not -understand characters in the sense that, say, Tolstoy understands them; -he cannot, by the power of imagination, get inside them, become what he -contemplates. None of the persons of his creation are complete -characters; they cannot be looked at from every side; they are -portrayed, as it were, in the flat and not in three dimensions. But -Chaucer has the power of getting into someone else’s character. His -understanding of the men and women of whom he writes is complete; his -slightest character sketches are always solid and three-dimensional. The -Prologue to the _Canterbury Tales_, in which the effects are almost -entirely produced by the description of external physical features, -furnishes us with the most obvious example of his three-dimensional -drawing. Or, again, take that description in the Merchant’s tale of old -January and his young wife May after their wedding night. It is wholly a -description of external details, yet the result is not a superficial -picture. We are given a glimpse of the characters in their entirety: - - Thus laboureth he till that the day gan dawe. - And then he taketh a sop in fine clarré, - And upright in his bed then sitteth he. - And after that he sang full loud and clear, - And kissed his wife and made wanton cheer. - He was all coltish, full of ragerye, - And full of jargon as a flecked pye. - The slacké skin about his necké shaketh, - While that he sang, so chanteth he and craketh. - But God wot what that May thought in her heart, - When she him saw up sitting in his shirt, - In his night cap and with his necké lean; - She praiseth not his playing worth a bean. - -But these are all slight sketches. For full-length portraits of -character we must turn to _Troilus and Cressida_, a work which, though -it was written before the fullest maturity of Chaucer’s powers, is in -many ways his most remarkable achievement, and one, moreover, which has -never been rivalled for beauty and insight in the whole field of English -narrative poetry. When one sees with what certainty and precision -Chaucer describes every movement of Cressida’s spirit from the first -movement she hears of Troilus’ love for her to the moment when she is -unfaithful to him, one can only wonder why the novel of character should -have been so slow to make its appearance. It was not until the -eighteenth century that narrative artists, using prose as their medium -instead of verse, began to rediscover the secrets that were familiar to -Chaucer in the fourteenth. - -_Troilus and Cressida_ was written, as we have said, before Chaucer had -learnt to make the fullest use of his powers. In colouring it is -fainter, less sharp and brilliant than the best of the _Canterbury -Tales_. The character studies are there, carefully and accurately worked -out; but we miss the bright vividness of presentation with which Chaucer -was to endow his later art. The characters are all alive and completely -seen and understood. But they move, as it were, behind a veil—the veil -of that poetic convention which had, in the earliest poems, almost -completely shrouded Chaucer’s genius, and which, as he grew up, as he -adventured and discovered, grew thinner and thinner, and finally -vanished like gauzy mist in the sunlight. When _Troilus and Cressida_ -was written the mist had not completely dissipated, and the figures of -his creation, complete in conception and execution as they are, are seen -a little dimly because of the interposed veil. - -The only moment in the poem when Chaucer’s insight seems to fail him is -at the very end; he has to account for Cressida’s unfaithfulness, and he -is at a loss to know how he shall do it. Shakespeare, when he re-handled -the theme, had no such difficulty. His version of the story, planned on -much coarser lines than Chaucer’s, leads obviously and inevitably to the -fore-ordained conclusion; his Cressida is a minx who simply lives up to -her character. What could be more simple? But to Chaucer the problem is -not so simple. His Cressida is not a minx. From the moment he first sets -eyes on her Chaucer, like his own unhappy Troilus, falls head over ears -in love. Beautiful, gentle, gay; possessing, it is true, somewhat -“tendre wittes,” but making up for her lack of skill in ratiocination by -the “sudden avysements” of intuition; vain, but not disagreeably so, of -her good looks and of her power over so great and noble a knight as -Troilus; slow to feel love, but once she has yielded, rendering back to -Troilus passion for passion; in a word, the “least mannish” of all -possible creatures—she is to Chaucer the ideal of gracious and courtly -womanhood. But, alas, the old story tells us that Cressida jilted her -Troilus for that gross prize-fighter of a man, Diomed. The woman whom -Chaucer has made his ideal proves to be no better than she should be; -there is a flaw in the crystal. Chaucer is infinitely reluctant to admit -the fact. But the old story is specific in its statement; indeed, its -whole point consists in Cressida’s infidelity. Called upon to explain -his heroine’s fall, Chaucer is completely at a loss. He makes a few -half-hearted attempts to solve the problem, and then gives it up, -falling back on authority. The old clerks say it was so, therefore it -must be so, and that’s that. The fact is that Chaucer pitched his -version of the story in a different key from that which is found in the -“olde bokes,” with the result that the note on which he is compelled by -his respect for authority to close is completely out of harmony with the -rest of the music. It is this that accounts for the chief, and indeed -the only, defect of the poem—its hurried and boggled conclusion. - -I cannot leave Cressida without some mention of the doom which was -prepared for her by one of Chaucer’s worthiest disciples, Robert -Henryson, in some ways the best of the Scottish poets of the fifteenth -and sixteenth centuries. Shocked by the fact that, in Chaucer’s poem, -Cressida receives no punishment for her infidelity, Henryson composed a -short sequel, _The Testament of Cresseid_, to show that poetic justice -was duly performed. Diomed, we are told, grew weary as soon as he had -“all his appetyte and mair, fulfillit on this fair ladie” and cast her -off, to become a common drab. - - O fair Cresseid! the flour and _A per se_ - Of Troy and Greece, how wast thow fortunait! - To change in filth all thy feminitie - And be with fleshly lust sa maculait, - And go amang the Grekis, air and late - So giglot-like. - -In her misery she curses Venus and Cupid for having caused her to love -only to lead her to this degradation: - - The seed of love was sowen in my face - And ay grew green through your supply and grace. - But now, alas! that seed with frost is slain, - And I fra lovers left, and all forlane. - -In revenge Cupid and his mother summon a council of gods and condemn the -_A per se_ of Greece and Troy to be a hideous leper. And so she goes -forth with the other lepers, armed with bowl and clapper, to beg her -bread. One day Troilus rides past the place where she is sitting by the -roadside near the gates of Troy: - - Then upon him she cast up both her een, - And with ane blenk it cam into his thocht, - That he some time before her face had seen, - But she was in such plight he knew her nocht, - Yet then her look into his mind it brocht - The sweet visage and amorous blenking - Of fair Cresseid, one sometime his own darling. - -He throws her an alms and the poor creature dies. And so the moral sense -is satisfied. There is a good deal of superfluous mythology and -unnecessary verbiage in _The Testament of Cresseid_, but the main lines -of the poem are firmly and powerfully drawn. Of all the disciples of -Chaucer, from Hoccleve and the Monk of Bury down to Mr. Masefield, -Henryson may deservedly claim to stand the highest. - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - FOOTNOTES - - -Footnote 1: - - _Collected Poems_, by Edward Thomas: with a Foreword by W. de la Mare. - Selwyn & Blount. - -Footnote 2: - - _Wordsworth: an Anthology_, edited, with a Preface, by T. J. - Cobden-Sanderson. R. Cobden-Sanderson. - -Footnote 3: - - _Ben Jonson_, by G. Gregory Smith. (English Men of Letters Series.) - Macmillan, 1919. - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - -Transcriber’s Notes - -The following minor changes have been made: - - The word “poety” was changed to “poetry” on page 42. - - A comma was added after “C” on page 63. - - Accents were added to “numérotés” on page 63 and “Où” on page 157. - - - - - -End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of On the Margin, by Aldous Huxley - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ON THE MARGIN *** - -***** This file should be named 60866-0.txt or 60866-0.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/6/0/8/6/60866/ - -Produced by MFR, Nigel Blower and the Online Distributed -Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This book was -produced from images made available by the HathiTrust -Digital Library.) - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will -be renamed. - -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, -so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United -States without permission and without paying copyright -royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of -the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at -www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have -to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. - -Title: On the Margin - Notes and Essays - -Author: Aldous Huxley - -Release Date: December 7, 2019 [EBook #60866] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ON THE MARGIN *** - - - - -Produced by MFR, Nigel Blower and the Online Distributed -Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This book was -produced from images made available by the HathiTrust -Digital Library.) - - - - - - -</pre> - - -<div> - <h1 class='c000'>ON THE MARGIN</h1> -</div> -<hr class='c001' /> - -<div class='nf-center-c1'> - <div class='nf-center'> - <div>ALDOUS HUXLEY</div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class='chapter'> - -<div class='pbb'> - <hr class='pb c002' /> -</div> - -</div> - -<div class='nf-center-c1'> - <div class='nf-center'> - <div><span class='small'>BY THE SAME AUTHOR</span></div> - </div> -</div> - -<hr class='c003' /> -<div class='lg-container-b'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line in6'>MORTAL COILS</div> - <div class='line in6'>CROME YELLOW</div> - <div class='line in6'>LIMBO</div> - <div class='line in6'>LEDA: <span class='small'>AND OTHER POEMS</span></div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class='chapter'> - -<div class='pbb'> - <hr class='pb c004' /> -</div> - -</div> - -<div class='nf-center-c1'> - <div class='nf-center'> - <div><span class='xxlarge'>ON THE</span></div> - <div><span class='xxlarge'>MARGIN</span></div> - </div> -</div> - -<hr class='c003' /> - -<div class='nf-center-c1'> - <div class='nf-center'> - <div><span class='large'>NOTES AND ESSAYS</span></div> - <div><span class='large'>By ALDOUS HUXLEY</span></div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class='figcenter id001'> -<img src='images/ghd.jpg' alt='G.H.D. logo' class='ig001' /> -</div> - -<div class='nf-center-c1'> - <div class='nf-center'> - <div><span class='large'>NEW YORK</span></div> - <div><span class='large'>GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY</span></div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class='chapter'> - -<div class='pbb'> - <hr class='pb c004' /> -</div> - -</div> - -<div class='nf-center-c1'> -<div class='nf-center c002'> - <div><span class='small'>COPYRIGHT, 1923,</span></div> - <div class='c004'><span class='small'>BY GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY</span></div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class='figcenter id001'> -<img src='images/detail.jpg' alt='G.H.D. logo' class='ig001' /> -</div> - -<div class='nf-center-c1'> -<div class='nf-center c005'> - <div><span class='small'>ON THE MARGIN. II</span></div> - </div> -</div> - -<hr class='c006' /> - -<div class='nf-center-c1'> - <div class='nf-center'> - <div><span class='small'>PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA</span></div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class='chapter'> - -<div class='pbb'> - <hr class='pb c004' /> -</div> - -</div> - -<div> - <span class='pageno' id='Page_v'>v</span> - <h2 class='c007'>CONTENTS</h2> -</div> - -<table class='table0' summary=''> - <tr> - <th class='c008'></th> - <th class='c009'> </th> - <th class='c010'><span class='small'>PAGE</span></th> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class='c008'><abbr title='1'>I</abbr>:</td> - <td class='c009'>CENTENARIES</td> - <td class='c010'><a href='#Page_9'>9</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class='c008'><abbr title='2'>II</abbr>:</td> - <td class='c009'>ON RE-READING <i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">CANDIDE</span></i></td> - <td class='c010'><a href='#Page_19'>19</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class='c008'><abbr title='3'>III</abbr>:</td> - <td class='c009'>ACCIDIE</td> - <td class='c010'><a href='#Page_25'>25</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class='c008'><abbr title='4'>IV</abbr>:</td> - <td class='c009'>SUBJECT-MATTER OF POETRY</td> - <td class='c010'><a href='#Page_32'>32</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class='c008'><abbr title='5'>V</abbr>:</td> - <td class='c009'>WATER MUSIC</td> - <td class='c010'><a href='#Page_43'>43</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class='c008'><abbr title='6'>VI</abbr>:</td> - <td class='c009'>PLEASURES</td> - <td class='c010'><a href='#Page_48'>48</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class='c008'><abbr title='7'>VII</abbr>:</td> - <td class='c009'>MODERN FOLK POETRY</td> - <td class='c010'><a href='#Page_55'>55</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class='c008'><abbr title='8'>VIII</abbr>:</td> - <td class='c009'>BIBLIOPHILY</td> - <td class='c010'><a href='#Page_62'>62</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class='c008'><abbr title='9'>IX</abbr>:</td> - <td class='c009'>DEMOCRATIC ART</td> - <td class='c010'><a href='#Page_67'>67</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class='c008'><abbr title='10'>X</abbr>:</td> - <td class='c009'>ACCUMULATIONS</td> - <td class='c010'><a href='#Page_74'>74</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class='c008'><abbr title='11'>XI</abbr>:</td> - <td class='c009'>ON DEVIATING INTO SENSE</td> - <td class='c010'><a href='#Page_80'>80</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class='c008'><abbr title='12'>XII</abbr>:</td> - <td class='c009'>POLITE CONVERSATION</td> - <td class='c010'><a href='#Page_86'>86</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class='c008'><abbr title='13'>XIII</abbr>:</td> - <td class='c009'>NATIONALITY IN LOVE</td> - <td class='c010'><a href='#Page_94'>94</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class='c008'><abbr title='14'>XIV</abbr>:</td> - <td class='c009'>HOW THE DAYS DRAW IN!</td> - <td class='c010'><a href='#Page_100'>100</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class='c008'><abbr title='15'>XV</abbr>:</td> - <td class='c009'>TIBET</td> - <td class='c010'><a href='#Page_106'>106</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class='c008'><abbr title='16'>XVI</abbr>:</td> - <td class='c009'>BEAUTY IN 1920</td> - <td class='c010'><a href='#Page_112'>112</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class='c008'><abbr title='17'>XVII</abbr>:</td> - <td class='c009'>GREAT THOUGHTS</td> - <td class='c010'><a href='#Page_118'>118</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class='c008'><abbr title='18'>XVIII</abbr>:</td> - <td class='c009'>ADVERTISEMENT</td> - <td class='c010'><a href='#Page_123'>123</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class='c008'><abbr title='19'>XIX</abbr>:</td> - <td class='c009'>EUPHUES REDIVIVUS</td> - <td class='c010'><a href='#Page_129'>129</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class='c008'><span class='pageno' id='Page_vi'>vi</span><abbr title='20'>XX</abbr>:</td> - <td class='c009'>THE AUTHOR OF <i>EMINENT VICTORIANS</i></td> - <td class='c010'><a href='#Page_136'>136</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class='c008'><abbr title='21'>XXI</abbr>:</td> - <td class='c009'>EDWARD THOMAS</td> - <td class='c010'><a href='#Page_143'>143</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class='c008'><abbr title='22'>XXII</abbr>:</td> - <td class='c009'>A WORDSWORTH ANTHOLOGY</td> - <td class='c010'><a href='#Page_150'>150</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class='c008'><abbr title='23'>XXIII</abbr>:</td> - <td class='c009'>VERHAEREN</td> - <td class='c010'><a href='#Page_155'>155</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class='c008'><abbr title='24'>XXIV</abbr>:</td> - <td class='c009'>EDWARD LEAR</td> - <td class='c010'><a href='#Page_161'>161</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class='c008'><abbr title='25'>XXV</abbr>:</td> - <td class='c009'>SIR CHRISTOPHER WREN</td> - <td class='c010'><a href='#Page_167'>167</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class='c008'><abbr title='26'>XXVI</abbr>:</td> - <td class='c009'>BEN JONSON</td> - <td class='c010'><a href='#Page_177'>177</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class='c008'><abbr title='27'>XXVII</abbr>:</td> - <td class='c009'>CHAUCER</td> - <td class='c010'><a href='#Page_194'>194</a></td> - </tr> -</table> - -<p class='c011'><span class='sc'>Note</span>: Most of these Essays appeared in <i>The -Athenæum</i>, under the title “Marginalia” and over -the signature <span class='fss'>AUTOLYCUS</span>. The others were first -printed in <i>The Weekly Westminster Gazette</i>, <i>The -London Mercury</i> and <i>Vanity Fair</i> (New York).</p> - -<div class='chapter'> - -<div class='pbb'> - <hr class='pb c004' /> -</div> - -</div> - -<div class='nf-center-c1'> -<div class='nf-center c002'> - <div><span class='xlarge'>ON THE MARGIN</span></div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class='chapter'> - -<div class='pbb'> - <hr class='pb c002' /> -</div> - -</div> - -<div class='nf-center-c1'> -<div class='nf-center c002'> - <div><span class='pageno' id='Page_9'>9</span><span class='xxlarge'>ON THE MARGIN</span></div> - </div> -</div> - -<div> - <h2 class='c012'><abbr title='1'>I</abbr>: CENTENARIES</h2> -</div> - -<p class='c011'>From Bocca di Magra to Bocca d’Arno, -mile after mile, the sandy beaches -smoothly, unbrokenly extend. Inland from -the beach, behind a sheltering belt of pines, -lies a strip of coastal plain—flat as a slice -of Holland and dyked with slow streams. -Corn grows here and the vine, with plantations -of slim poplars interspersed, and fat -water-meadows. Here and there the streams -brim over into shallow lakes, whose shores -are fringed with sodden fields of rice. And -behind this strip of plain, four or five miles -from the sea, the mountains rise, suddenly -and steeply: the Apuan Alps. Their highest -crests are of bare limestone, streaked here -and there with the white marble which brings -prosperity to the little towns that stand at -their feet: Massa and Carrara, Serravezza, -Pietrasanta. Half the world’s tombstones -are scooped out of these noble crags. Their -lower slopes are grey with olive trees, green -<span class='pageno' id='Page_10'>10</span>with woods of chestnut. Over their summits -repose the enormous sculptured masses -of the clouds.</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>From cape to cape, with a bridge-like shape,</div> - <div class='line in2'>Over a torrent sea,</div> - <div class='line'>Sunbeam-proof, I hang like a roof,—</div> - <div class='line in2'>The mountains its columns be.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c013'>The landscape fairly quotes Shelley at you. -This sea with its luminous calms and sudden -tempests, these dim blue islands hull -down on the horizon, these mountains and -their marvellous clouds, these rivers and -woodlands are the very substance of his -poetry. Live on this coast for a little and -you will find yourself constantly thinking of -that lovely, that strangely childish poetry, -that beautiful and child-like man. Perhaps -his spirit haunts the coast. It was in this -sea that he sailed his flimsy boat, steering -with one hand and holding in the other his -little volume of Æschylus. You picture him -so on the days of calm. And on the days -of sudden violent storm you think of him, -too. The lightnings cut across the sky, the -thunders are like terrible explosions overhead, -the squall comes down with a fury. -What news of the flimsy boat? None, save -only that a few days after the storm a young -body is washed ashore, battered, unrecognizable; -<span class='pageno' id='Page_11'>11</span>the little Æschylus in the coat pocket -is all that tells us that this was Shelley.</p> - -<p class='c013'>I have been spending the summer on this -haunted coast. That must be my excuse for -mentioning in so self-absorbed a world as is -ours the name of a poet who has been dead -these hundred years. But be reassured. I -have no intention of writing an article about -the ineffectual angel beating in the void his -something-or-other wings in vain. I do not -mean to add my croak to the mellifluous -chorus of centenary-celebrators. No; the -ghost of Shelley, who walks in Versilia and -the Lunigia, by the shores of the Gulf of -Spezia and below Pisa where Arno disembogues, -this ghost with whom I have shaken -hands and talked, incites me, not to add a -supererogatory and impertinent encomium, -but rather to protest against the outpourings -of the other encomiasts, of the honey-voiced -centenary-chanters.</p> - -<p class='c013'>The cooing of these persons, ordinarily a -specific against insomnia, is in this case an -irritant; it rouses, it exacerbates. For annoying -and disgusting it certainly is, this -spectacle of a rebellious youth praised to -fulsomeness, a hundred years after his death, -by people who would hate him and be horrified -by him, if he were alive, as much as -the Scotch reviewers hated and were horrified -<span class='pageno' id='Page_12'>12</span>by Shelley. How would these persons -treat a young contemporary who, not content -with being a literary innovator, should -use his talent to assault religion and the established -order, should blaspheme against -plutocracy and patriotism, should proclaim -himself a Bolshevik, an internationalist, a -pacifist, a conscientious objector? They -would say of him that he was a dangerous -young man who ought to be put in his place; -and they would either disparage and denigrate -his talent, or else—if they were a little -more subtly respectable—they would -never allow his name to get into print in -any of the periodicals which they controlled. -But seeing that Shelley was safely burnt on -the sands of Viareggio a hundred years ago, -seeing that he is no longer a live dangerous -man but only a dead classic, these respectable -supporters of established literature and established -society join in chorus to praise him, -and explain his meaning, and preach sermons -over him. The mellifluous cooing is accompanied -by a snuffle, and there hangs over -these centenary celebrations a genial miasma -of hypocrisy and insincerity. The effect of -these festal anniversaries in England is not -to rekindle life in the great dead; a centenary -is rather a second burial, a reaffirmation of -deadness. A spirit that was once alive is -<span class='pageno' id='Page_13'>13</span>fossilized and, in the midst of solemn and -funereal ceremonies, the petrified classic is -duly niched in the temple of respectability.</p> - -<p class='c013'>How much better they order these things -in Italy! In that country—which one must -ever admire more the more one sees of it—they -duly celebrate their great men; but celebrate -them not with a snuffle, not in black -clothes, not with prayer-books in their hands, -crape round their hats and a hatred, in their -hearts, of all that has to do with life and -vigour. No, no; they make their dead an -excuse for quickening life among the living; -they get fun out of their centenaries.</p> - -<p class='c013'>Last year the Italians were celebrating the -six hundredth anniversary of Dante’s death. -Now, imagine what this celebration would -have been like in England. All the oldest -critics and all the young men who aspire to -be old would have written long articles in -all the literary papers. That would have set -the tone. After that some noble lord, or even -a Prince of the Blood, would have unveiled -a monument designed by Frampton or some -other monumental mason of the Academy. -Imbecile speeches in words of not more than -two syllables would then have been pronounced -over the ashes of the world’s most -intelligent poet. To his intelligence no reference -would, of course, be made; but his -<span class='pageno' id='Page_14'>14</span>character, ah! his character would get a -glowing press. The most fiery and bitter of -men would be held up as an example to all -Sunday-school children.</p> - -<p class='c013'>After this display of reverence, we should -have had a lovely historical pageant in the -rain. A young female dressed in white bunting -would have represented Beatrice, and for -the Poet himself some actor manager with -a profile and a voice would have been found. -Guelfs and Ghibellines in fancy dress of the -period would go splashing about in the mud, -and a great many verses by Louis Napoleon -Parker would be declaimed. And at the end -we should all go home with colds in our -heads and suffering from septic ennui, but -with, at the same time, a pleasant feeling of -virtuousness, as though we had been at -church.</p> - -<p class='c013'>See now what happens in Italy. The principal -event in the Dante celebration is an -enormous military review. Hundreds of -thousands of wiry little brown men parade -the streets of Florence. Young officers of a -fabulous elegance clank along in superbly -tailored riding breeches and glittering top-boots. -The whole female population palpitates. -It is an excellent beginning. -Speeches are then made, as only in Italy -they can be made—round, rumbling, sonorous -<span class='pageno' id='Page_15'>15</span>speeches, all about Dante the Italianissimous -poet, Dante the irredentist, Dante -the prophet of Greater Italy, Dante the -scourge of Jugo-Slavs and Serbs. Immense -enthusiasm. Never having read a line of -his works, we feel that Dante is our personal -friend, a brother Fascist.</p> - -<p class='c013'>After that the real fun begins; we have -the <i><span lang="it" xml:lang="it">manifestazioni sportive</span></i> of the centenary -celebrations. Innumerable bicycle races are -organized. Fierce young Fascisti with the -faces of Roman heroes pay their homage -to the Poet by doing a hundred and eighty -kilometres to the hour round the Circuit of -Milan. High speed Fiats and Ansaldos and -Lancias race one another across the Apennines -and round the bastions of the Alps. -Pigeons are shot, horses gallop, football is -played under the broiling sun. Long live -Dante!</p> - -<p class='c013'>How infinitely preferable this is to the -stuffiness and the snuffle of an English centenary! -Poetry, after all, is life, not death. -Bicycle races may not have very much to -do with Dante—though I can fancy him, his -thin face set like metal, whizzing down the -spirals of Hell on a pair of twinkling wheels -or climbing laboriously the one-in-three -gradients of Purgatory Mountain on the -back of his trusty Sunbeam. No, they may -<span class='pageno' id='Page_16'>16</span>not have much to do with Dante; but -pageants in Anglican cathedral closes, boring -articles by old men who would hate and -fear him if he were alive, speeches by noble -lords over monuments made by Royal -Academicians—these, surely, have even less -to do with the author of the <i>Inferno</i>.</p> - -<p class='c013'>It is not merely their great dead whom the -Italians celebrate in this gloriously living -fashion. Even their religious festivals have -the same jovial warm-blooded character. -This summer, for example, a great feast took -place at Loreto to celebrate the arrival of a -new image of the Virgin to replace the old -one which was burnt some little while ago. -The excitement started in Rome, where the -image, after being blessed by the Pope, was -taken in a motor-car to the station amid -cheering crowds who shouted, “Evviva -Maria” as the Fiat and its sacred burden -rolled past. The arrival of the Virgin in -Loreto was the signal for a tremendous outburst -of jollification. The usual bicycle -races took place; there were football matches -and pigeon-shooting competitions and -Olympic games. The fun lasted for days. -At the end of the festivities two cardinals -went up in aeroplanes and blessed the assembled -multitudes—an incident of which the -Pope is said to have remarked that the blessing, -<span class='pageno' id='Page_17'>17</span>in this case, did indeed come from -heaven.</p> - -<p class='c013'>Rare people! If only we Anglo-Saxons -could borrow from the Italians some of their -realism, their love of life for its own sake, -of palpable, solid, immediate things. In this -dim land of ours we are accustomed to pay -too much respect to fictitious values; we worship -invisibilities and in our enjoyment of -immediate life we are restrained by imaginary -inhibitions. We think too much of the -past, of metaphysics, of tradition, of the -ideal future, of decorum and good form; too -little of life and the glittering noisy moment. -The Italians are born Futurists. It did not -need Marinetti to persuade them to celebrate -Dante with bicycle races; they would have -done it naturally, spontaneously, if no Futurist -propaganda had ever been issued. -Marinetti is the product of modern Italy, not -modern Italy of Marinetti. They are all -Futurists in that burningly living Italy where -we from the North seek only an escape into -the past. Or rather, they are not Futurists: -Marinetti’s label was badly chosen. They -are Presentists. The early Christians preoccupied -with nothing but the welfare of their -souls in the life to come were Futurists, if -you like.</p> - -<p class='c013'>We shall do well to learn something of -<span class='pageno' id='Page_18'>18</span>their lively Presentism. Let us hope that our -great-grandchildren will celebrate the next -centenary of Shelley’s death by aerial regattas -and hydroplane races. The living will -be amused and the dead worthily commemorated. -The spirit of the man who delighted, -during life, in wind and clouds, in mountain-tops -and waters, in the flight of birds and the -gliding of ships, will be rejoiced when young -men celebrate his memory by flying through -the air or skimming, like alighting swans, -over the surface of the sea.</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>The rocks are cloven, and through the purple night</div> - <div class='line'>I see cars drawn by rainbow-winged steeds</div> - <div class='line'>Which trample the dim winds; in each there stands</div> - <div class='line'>A wild-eyed charioteer urging their flight.</div> - <div class='line'>Some look behind, as fiends pursued them there,</div> - <div class='line'>And yet I see no shapes but the keen stars;</div> - <div class='line'>Others, with burning eyes, lean forth, and drink</div> - <div class='line'>With eager lips the wind of their own speed,</div> - <div class='line'>As if the thing they loved fled on before,</div> - <div class='line'>And now, even now, they clasped it.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c013'>The man who wrote this is surely more suitably -celebrated by aeroplane or even bicycle -races than by seven-column articles from the -pens of Messrs.—well, perhaps we had better -mention no names. Let us take a leaf out of -the Italian book.</p> - -<div class='chapter'> - <span class='pageno' id='Page_19'>19</span> - <h2 class='c007'><abbr title='2'>II</abbr>: ON RE-READING <i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">CANDIDE</span></i></h2> -</div> - -<p class='c011'>The furniture vans had unloaded their -freight in the new house. We were -installed, or, at least, we were left to make -the best of an unbearable life in the dirt and -the confusion. One of the Pre-Raphaelites, -I forget at the moment which, once painted -a picture called “The Last Day in the Old -Home.” A touching subject. But it would -need a grimmer, harder brush to depict the -horrors of “The First Day in the New -Home.” I had sat down in despair among -the tumbled movables when I noticed—with -what a thrill of pleased recognition—the top -of a little leather-bound book protruding -from among a mass of bulkier volumes in an -uncovered case. It was <i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Candide</span></i>, my treasured -little first edition of 1759, with its discreetly -ridiculous title-page, “<span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr"><i>Candide ou -L’Optimisme</i>, Traduit de l’Allemand de Mr. -le Docteur Ralph.</span>”</p> - -<p class='c013'>Optimism—I had need of a little at the -moment, and as <span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Mr. le Docteur Ralph</span> is -notoriously one of the preachers most capable -of inspiring it, I took up the volume and -began to read: “<span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Il y avait en Westphalie, -<span class='pageno' id='Page_20'>20</span>dans le Château de Mr. le Baron de Thunder-ten-tronckh....</span>” -I did not put down -the volume till I had reached the final: “Il -faut cultiver notre jardin.” I felt the wiser -and the more cheerful for Doctor Ralph’s -ministrations.</p> - -<p class='c013'>But the remarkable thing about re-reading -<i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Candide</span></i> is not that the book amuses one, not -that it delights and astonishes with its brilliance; -that is only to be expected. No, it -evokes a new and, for me at least, an unanticipated -emotion. In the good old days, -before the Flood, the history of Candide’s -adventures seemed to us quiet, sheltered, -middle-class people only a delightful phantasy, -or at best a high-spirited exaggeration -of conditions which we knew, vaguely and -theoretically, to exist, to have existed, a long -way off in space and time. But read the -book to-day; you feel yourself entirely at -home in its pages. It is like reading a record -of the facts and opinions of 1922; nothing -was ever more applicable, more completely -to the point. The world in which we -live is recognizably the world of <span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Candide</span> -and <span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Cunégonde</span>, of Martin and the Old -Woman who was a Pope’s daughter and the -betrothed of the sovereign Prince of Massa-Carrara. -The only difference is that the -horrors crowd rather more thickly on the -<span class='pageno' id='Page_21'>21</span>world of 1922 than they did on Candide’s -world. The manœuvrings of Bulgare and -Abare, the intestine strife in Morocco, the -earthquake and <i><span lang="pt" xml:lang="pt">auto-da-fé</span></i> are but pale poor -things compared with the Great War, the -Russian Famine, the Black and Tans, the -Fascisti, and all the other horrors of which -we can proudly boast. “<span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Quand Sa Hautesse -envoye un vaisseau en Egypte,</span>” remarked -the Dervish, “<span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">s’embarrasse-t-elle si les souris -qui sont dans le vaisseau sont à leur aise ou -non?</span>” No; but there are moments when -Sa Hautesse, absent-mindedly no doubt, lets -fall into the hold of the vessel a few dozen -of hungry cats; the present seems to be one -of them.</p> - -<p class='c013'>Cats in the hold? There is nothing in -that to be surprised at. The wisdom of Martin -and the Old Woman who was once betrothed -to the Prince of Massa-Carrara has -become the everyday wisdom of all the -world since 1914. In the happy Victorian -and Edwardian past, Western Europe, like -Candide, was surprised at everything. It -was amazed by the frightful conduct of King -Bomba, amazed by the Turks, amazed by -the political chicanery and loose morals of -the Second Empire—(what is all Zola but -a prolonged exclamation of astonishment at -the goings-on of his contemporaries?). -<span class='pageno' id='Page_22'>22</span>After that we were amazed at the disgusting -behaviour of the Boers, while the rest of -Europe was amazed at ours. There followed -the widespread astonishment that in this, the -so-called twentieth century, black men -should be treated as they were being treated -on the Congo and the Amazon. Then came -the war: a great outburst of indignant astonishment, -and afterwards an acquiescence as -complete, as calmly cynical as Martin’s. For -we have discovered, in the course of the -somewhat excessively prolonged <i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">histoire à la -Candide</span></i> of the last seven years, that astonishment -is a supererogatory emotion. All -things are possible, not merely for Providence, -whose ways we had always known, -albeit for some time rather theoretically, to -be strange, but also for men.</p> - -<p class='c013'>Men, we thought, had grown up from the -brutal and rampageous hobbledehoyism of -earlier ages and were now as polite and genteel -as Gibbon himself. We now know better. -Create a hobbledehoy environment and -you will have hobbledehoy behaviour; create -a Gibbonish environment and every one will -be, more or less, genteel. It seems obvious, -now. And now that we are living in a hobbledehoy -world, we have learnt Martin’s lesson -so well that we can look on almost unmoved -at the most appalling natural catastrophes -<span class='pageno' id='Page_23'>23</span>and at exhibitions of human stupidity -and wickedness which would have aroused -us in the past to surprise and indignation. -Indeed, we have left Martin behind and are -become, with regard to many things, Pococurante.</p> - -<p class='c013'>And what is the remedy? <span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Mr. le Docteur -Ralph</span> would have us believe that it consists -in the patient cultivation of our gardens. -He is probably right. The only trouble is -that the gardens of some of us seem hardly -worth cultivating. The garden of the bank -clerk and the factory hand, the shop-girl’s -garden, the garden of the civil servant and -the politician—can one cultivate them with -much enthusiasm? Or, again, there is my -garden, the garden of literary journalism. -In this little plot I dig and delve, plant, -prune, and finally reap—sparsely enough, -goodness knows!—from one year’s end to another. -And to what purpose, to whom for a -good, as the Latin Grammar would say? Ah, -there you have me.</p> - -<p class='c013'>There is a passage in one of Tchekov’s letters -which all literary journalists should inscribe -in letters of gold upon their writing -desks. “I send you,” says Tchekov to his -correspondent, “Mihailovsky’s article on -Tolstoy.... It’s a good article, but it’s -strange: one might write a thousand such -<span class='pageno' id='Page_24'>24</span>articles and things would not be one step -forwarder, and it would still remain unintelligible -why such articles are written.”</p> - -<p class='c013'><i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Il faut cultiver notre jardin.</span></i> Yes, but -suppose one begins to wonder why?</p> - -<div class='chapter'> - <span class='pageno' id='Page_25'>25</span> - <h2 class='c007'><abbr title='3'>III</abbr>: ACCIDIE</h2> -</div> - -<p class='c011'>The cœnobites of the Thebaid were subjected -to the assaults of many demons. -Most of these evil spirits came furtively with -the coming of night. But there was one, a -fiend of deadly subtlety, who was not afraid -to walk by day. The holy men of the desert -called him the <i>dæmon meridianus</i>; for his -favourite hour of visitation was in the heat -of the day. He would lie in wait for monks -grown weary with working in the oppressive -heat, seizing a moment of weakness to force -an entrance into their hearts. And once installed -there, what havoc he wrought! For -suddenly it would seem to the poor victim -that the day was intolerably long and life -desolatingly empty. He would go to the -door of his cell and look up at the sun and -ask himself if a new Joshua had arrested it -midway up the heavens. Then he would go -back into the shade and wonder what good -he was doing in that cell or if there was any -object in existence. Then he would look at -the sun again and find it indubitably stationary, -and the hour of the communal repast of -the evening as remote as ever. And he would -<span class='pageno' id='Page_26'>26</span>go back to his meditations, to sink, sink -through disgust and lassitude into the black -depths of despair and hopeless unbelief. -When that happened the demon smiled and -took his departure, conscious that he had -done a good morning’s work.</p> - -<p class='c013'>Throughout the Middle Ages this demon -was known as Acedia, or, in English, Accidie. -Monks were still his favourite victims, but -he made many conquests among the laity -also. Along with <i>gastrimargia</i>, <i>fornicatio</i>, -<i>philargyria</i>, <i>tristitia</i>, <i>cenodoxia</i>, <i>ira</i> and <i>superbia</i>, -<i>acedia</i> or <i>tædium cordis</i> is reckoned -as one of the eight principal vices to which -man is subject. Inaccurate psychologists of -evil are wont to speak of accidie as though -it were plain sloth. But sloth is only one of -the numerous manifestations of the subtle -and complicated vice of accidie. Chaucer’s -discourse on it in the “Parson’s Tale” contains -a very precise description of this disastrous -vice of the spirit. “Accidie,” he tells -us, “makith a man hevy, thoghtful and -wrawe.” It paralyzes human will, “it forsloweth -and forsluggeth” a man whenever -he attempts to act. From accidie comes -dread to begin to work any good deeds, and -finally wanhope, or despair. On its way to -ultimate wanhope, accidie produces a whole -crop of minor sins, such as idleness, tardiness, -<span class='pageno' id='Page_27'>27</span><i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">lâchesse</span></i>, coldness, undevotion and “the -synne of worldly sorrow, such as is cleped -<i>tristitia</i>, that sleth man, as seith seint Poule.” -Those who have sinned by accidie find their -everlasting home in the fifth circle of the -Inferno. They are plunged in the same black -bog with the Wrathful, and their sobs and -words come bubbling up to the surface:</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'><span lang="it" xml:lang="it">Fitti nel limo dicon: “Tristi fummo</span></div> - <div class='line in2'><span lang="it" xml:lang="it">nell’ aer dolce che dal sol s’ allegra,</span></div> - <div class='line in2'><span lang="it" xml:lang="it">portando dentro accidioso fummo;</span></div> - </div> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'><span lang="it" xml:lang="it">Or ci attristiam nella belletta negra.”</span></div> - <div class='line in2'><span lang="it" xml:lang="it">Quest’ inno si gorgoglian nella strozza,</span></div> - <div class='line in2'><span lang="it" xml:lang="it">chè dir nol posson con parola integra.</span></div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c013'>Accidie did not disappear with the monasteries -and the Middle Ages. The Renaissance -was also subject to it. We find a copious -description of the symptoms of acedia -in Burton’s <i>Anatomy of Melancholy</i>. The -results of the midday demon’s machinations -are now known as the vapours or the spleen. -To the spleen amiable Mr. Matthew Green, -of the Custom House, devoted those eight -hundred octosyllables which are his claim to -immortality. For him it is a mere disease -to be healed by temperate diet:</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>Hail! water gruel, healing power,</div> - <div class='line'>Of easy access to the poor;</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c013'><span class='pageno' id='Page_28'>28</span>by laughter, reading and the company of unaffected -young ladies:</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>Mothers, and guardian aunts, forbear</div> - <div class='line'>Your impious pains to form the fair,</div> - <div class='line'>Nor lay out so much cost and art</div> - <div class='line'>But to deflower the virgin heart;</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c013'>by the avoidance of party passion, drink, -Dissenters and missionaries, especially missionaries: -to whose undertakings Mr. Green -always declined to subscribe:</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>I laugh off spleen and keep my pence</div> - <div class='line'>From spoiling Indian innocence;</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c013'>by refraining from going to law, writing -poetry and thinking about one’s future state.</p> - -<p class='c013'><i>The Spleen</i> was published in the thirties -of the eighteenth century. Accidie was still, -if not a sin, at least a disease. But a change -was at hand. “The sin of worldly sorrow, -such as is cleped <i>tristitia</i>,” became a literary -virtue, a spiritual mode. The apostles of -melancholy wound their faint horns, and the -Men of Feeling wept. Then came the nineteenth -century and romanticism; and with -them the triumph of the meridian demon. -Accidie in its most complicated and most -deadly form, a mixture of boredom, sorrow -and despair, was now an inspiration to the -<span class='pageno' id='Page_29'>29</span>greatest poets and novelists, and it has remained -so to this day. The Romantics called -this horrible phenomenon the <i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">mal du siècle</span></i>. -But the name made no difference; the thing -was still the same. The meridian demon had -good cause to be satisfied during the nineteenth -century, for it was then, as Baudelaire -puts it, that</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">L’Ennui, fruit de la morne incuriosité,</span></div> - <div class='line'><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Prit les proportions de l’immortalité.</span></div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c013'>It is a very curious phenomenon, this -progress of accidie from the position of being -a deadly sin, deserving of damnation, to the -position first of a disease and finally of an -essentially lyrical emotion, fruitful in the -inspiration of much of the most characteristic -modern literature. The sense of universal -futility, the feelings of boredom and -despair, with the complementary desire to be -“anywhere, anywhere out of the world,” or -at least out of the place in which one happens -at the moment to be, have been the inspiration -of poetry and the novel for a century -and more. It would have been inconceivable -in Matthew Green’s day to have -written a serious poem about ennui. By -Baudelaire’s time ennui was as suitable a -subject for lyric poetry as love; and accidie -<span class='pageno' id='Page_30'>30</span>is still with us as an inspiration, one of the -most serious and poignant of literary themes. -What is the significance of this fact? For -clearly the progress of accidie is a spiritual -event of considerable importance. How is -it to be explained?</p> - -<p class='c013'>It is not as though the nineteenth century -invented accidie. Boredom, hopelessness and -despair have always existed, and have been -felt as poignantly in the past as we feel -them now. Something has happened to -make these emotions respectable and avowable; -they are no longer sinful, no longer -regarded as the mere symptoms of disease. -That something that has happened is surely -simply history since 1789. The failure of -the French Revolution and the more spectacular -downfall of Napoleon planted accidie -in the heart of every youth of the Romantic -generation—and not in France alone, but all -over Europe—who believed in liberty or -whose adolescence had been intoxicated by -the ideas of glory and genius. Then came industrial -progress with its prodigious multiplication -of filth, misery, and ill-gotten -wealth; the defilement of nature by modern -industry was in itself enough to sadden many -sensitive minds. The discovery that political -enfranchisement, so long and stubbornly -fought for, was the merest futility and -<span class='pageno' id='Page_31'>31</span>vanity so long as industrial servitude remained -in force was another of the century’s -horrible disillusionments.</p> - -<p class='c013'>A more subtle cause of the prevalence of -boredom was the disproportionate growth of -the great towns. Habituated to the feverish -existence of these few centres of activity, -men found that life outside them was intolerably -insipid. And at the same time -they became so much exhausted by the restlessness -of city life that they pined for the -monotonous boredom of the provinces, for -exotic islands, even for other worlds—any -haven of rest. And finally, to crown this -vast structure of failures and disillusionments, -there came the appalling catastrophe -of the War of 1914. Other epochs have witnessed -disasters, have had to suffer disillusionment; -but in no century have the disillusionments -followed on one another’s -heels with such unintermitted rapidity as in -the twentieth, for the good reason that in -no century has change been so rapid and so -profound. The <i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">mal du siècle</span></i> was an inevitable -evil; indeed, we can claim with a certain -pride that we have a right to our accidie. -With us it is not a sin or a disease of the -hypochondries; it is a state of mind which -fate has forced upon us.</p> - -<div class='chapter'> - <span class='pageno' id='Page_32'>32</span> - <h2 class='c007'><abbr title='4'>IV</abbr>: SUBJECT-MATTER OF POETRY</h2> -</div> - -<p class='c011'>It should theoretically be possible to make -poetry out of anything whatsoever of -which the spirit of man can take cognizance. -We find, however, as a matter of historical -fact, that most of the world’s best poetry has -been content with a curiously narrow range -of subject-matter. The poets have claimed -as their domain only a small province -of our universe. One of them now and -then, more daring or better equipped than -the rest, sets out to extend the boundaries -of the kingdom. But for the most part the -poets do not concern themselves with fresh -conquests; they prefer to consolidate their -power at home, enjoying quietly their hereditary -possessions. All the world is potentially -theirs, but they do not take it. What -is the reason for this, and why is it that -poetical practice does not conform to critical -theory? The problem has a peculiar relevance -and importance in these days, when -young poetry claims absolute liberty to speak -how it likes of whatsoever it pleases.</p> - -<p class='c013'>Wordsworth, whose literary criticism, dry -and forbidding though its aspect may be, is -<span class='pageno' id='Page_33'>33</span>always illumined by a penetrating intelligence, -Wordsworth touched upon this problem -in his preface to <i>Lyrical Ballads</i>—touched -on it and, as usual, had something -of value to say about it. He is speaking here -of the most important and the most interesting -of the subjects which may, theoretically, -be made into poetry, but which have, as a -matter of fact, rarely or never undergone the -transmutation: he is speaking of the relations -between poetry and that vast world of abstractions -and ideas—science and philosophy—into -which so few poets have ever penetrated. -“The remotest discoveries of the -chemist, the botanist, or mineralogist, will -be as proper objects of the poet’s art as any -upon which he is now employed, if the time -should ever come when these things shall be -familiar to us, and the relations under which -they are contemplated shall be manifestly -and palpably material to us as enjoying and -suffering beings.” It is a formidable sentence; -but read it well, read the rest of the -passage from which it is taken, and you will -find it to be full of critical truth.</p> - -<p class='c013'>The gist of Wordsworth’s argument is -this. All subjects—“the remotest discoveries -of the chemist” are but one example of -an unlikely poetic theme—can serve the poet -with material for his art, on one condition: -<span class='pageno' id='Page_34'>34</span>that he, and to a lesser degree his audience, -shall be able to apprehend the subject with a -certain emotion. The subject must somehow -be involved in the poet’s intimate being before -he can turn it into poetry. It is not -enough, for example, that he should apprehend -it merely through his senses. (The -poetry of pure sensation, of sounds and -bright colours, is common enough nowadays; -but amusing as we may find it for the moment, -it cannot hold the interest for long.) -It is not enough, at the other end of the -scale, if he apprehends his subject in a purely -intellectual manner. An abstract idea must -be felt with a kind of passion, it must mean -something emotionally significant, it must -be as immediate and important to the poet -as a personal relationship before he can -make poetry of it. Poetry, in a word, must -be written by “enjoying and suffering beings,” -not by beings exclusively dowered -with sensations or, as exclusively, with intellect.</p> - -<p class='c013'>Wordsworth’s criticism helps us to understand -why so few subjects have ever been -made into poetry when everything under the -sun, and beyond it, is theoretically suitable -for transmutation into a work of art. Death, -love, religion, nature; the primary emotions -and the ultimate personal mysteries—these -<span class='pageno' id='Page_35'>35</span>form the subject-matter of most of the greatest -poetry. And for obvious reasons. These -things are “manifestly and palpably material -to us as enjoying and suffering beings.” -But to most men, including the generality of -poets, abstractions and ideas are not immediately -and passionately moving. They are -not enjoying or suffering when they apprehend -these things—only thinking.</p> - -<p class='c013'>The men who do feel passionately about -abstractions, the men to whom ideas are as -persons—moving and disquietingly alive—are -very seldom poets. They are men of -science and philosophers, preoccupied with -the search for truth and not, like the poet, -with the expression and creation of beauty. -It is very rarely that we find a poet who -combines the power and the desire to express -himself with that passionate apprehension of -ideas and that passionate curiosity about -strange remote facts which characterize the -man of science and the philosopher. If he -possessed the requisite sense of language and -the impelling desire to express himself in -terms of beauty, Einstein could write the -most intoxicating lyrics about relativity and -the pleasures of pure mathematics. And if, -say, Mr. Yeats understood the Einstein theory—which, -in company with most other -living poets, he presumably does not, any -<span class='pageno' id='Page_36'>36</span>more than the rest of us—if he apprehended -it exultingly as something bold and profound, -something vitally important and marvellously -true, he too could give us, out of -the Celtic twilight, his lyrics of relativity. -It is those distressing little “ifs” that stand -in the way of this happy consummation. -The conditions upon which any but the most -immediately and obviously moving subjects -can be made into poetry are so rarely fulfilled, -the combination of poet and man of -science, poet and philosopher, is so uncommon, -that the theoretical universality of the -art has only very occasionally been realized -in practice.</p> - -<p class='c013'>Contemporary poetry in the whole of the -western world is insisting, loudly and emphatically -through the mouths of its propagandists, -on an absolute liberty to speak -of what it likes how it likes. Nothing could -be better; all that we can now ask is that the -poets should put the theory into practice, and -that they should make use of the liberty -which they claim by enlarging the bounds of -poetry.</p> - -<p class='c013'>The propagandists would have us believe -that the subject-matter of contemporary -poetry is new and startling, that modern -poets are doing something which has not been -done before. “Most of the poets represented -<span class='pageno' id='Page_37'>37</span>in these pages,” writes Mr. Louis Untermeyer -in his <i>Anthology of Modern American -Poetry</i>, “have found a fresh and vigorous -material in a world of honest and often harsh -reality. They respond to the spirit of their -times; not only have their views changed, -their vision has been widened to include -things unknown to the poets of yesterday. -They have learned to distinguish real beauty -from mere prettiness, to wring loveliness out -of squalor, to find wonder in neglected places, -to search for hidden truths even in the dark -caves of the unconscious.” Translated into -practice this means that contemporary poets -can now write, in the words of Mr. Sandburg, -of the “harr and boom of the blast -fires,” of “wops and bohunks.” It means, in -fact, that they are at liberty to do what -Homer did—to write freely about the immediately -moving facts of everyday life. -Where Homer wrote of horses and the tamers -of horses, our contemporaries write of -trains, automobiles, and the various species -of wops and bohunks who control the horsepower. -That is all. Much too much stress -has been laid on the newness of the new -poetry; its newness is simply a return from -the jewelled exquisiteness of the eighteen-nineties -to the facts and feelings of ordinary -life. There is nothing intrinsically novel or -<span class='pageno' id='Page_38'>38</span>surprising in the introduction into poetry of -machinery and industrialism, of labour unrest -and modern psychology: these things belong -to us, they affect us daily as enjoying -and suffering beings; they are a part of our -lives, just as the kings, the warriors, the -horses and chariots, the picturesque mythology -were part of Homer’s life. The subject-matter -of the new poetry remains the same -as that of the old. The old boundaries have -not been extended. There would be real -novelty in the new poetry if it had, for example, -taken to itself any of the new ideas -and astonishing facts with which the new -science has endowed the modern world. -There would be real novelty in it if it had -worked out a satisfactory artistic method for -dealing with abstractions. It has not. -Which simply means that that rare phenomenon, -the poet in whose mind ideas are a -passion and a personal moving force, does -not happen to have appeared.</p> - -<p class='c013'>And how rarely in all the long past he -has appeared! There was Lucretius, the -greatest of all the philosophic and scientific -poets. In him the passionate apprehension -of ideas, and the desire and ability to give -them expression, combined to produce that -strange and beautiful epic of thought which -is without parallel in the whole history of -<span class='pageno' id='Page_39'>39</span>literature. There was Dante, in whose soul -the mediæval Christian philosophy was a -force that shaped and directed every feeling, -thought and action. There was Goethe, who -focussed into beautiful expression an enormous -diffusion of knowledge and ideas. And -there the list of the great poets of thought -comes to an end. In their task of extending -the boundaries of poetry into the remote and -abstract world of ideas, they have had a few -lesser assistants—Donne, for example, a poet -only just less than the greatest; Fulke Greville, -that strange, dark-spirited Elizabethan; -John Davidson, who made a kind -of poetry out of Darwinism; and, most interesting -poetical interpreter of nineteenth-century -science, Jules Laforgue.</p> - -<p class='c013'>Which of our contemporaries can claim to -have extended the bounds of poetry to any -material extent? It is not enough to have -written about locomotives and telephones, -“wops and bohunks,” and all the rest of it. -That is not extending the range of poetry; -it is merely asserting its right to deal with -the immediate facts of contemporary life, as -Homer and as Chaucer did. The critics who -would have us believe that there is something -essentially unpoetical about a bohunk (whatever -a Bohunk may be), and something essentially -poetical about Sir Lancelot of the -<span class='pageno' id='Page_40'>40</span>Lake, are, of course, simply negligible; they -may be dismissed as contemptuously as we -have dismissed the pseudo-classical critics -who opposed the freedoms of the Romantic -Revival. And the critics who think it very -new and splendid to bring bohunks into -poetry are equally old-fashioned in their -ideas.</p> - -<p class='c013'>It will not be unprofitable to compare the -literary situation in this early twentieth century -of ours with the literary situation of the -early seventeenth century. In both epochs we -see a reaction against a rich and somewhat -formalized poetical tradition expressing itself -in a determination to extend the range of -subject-matter, to get back to real life, and -to use more natural forms of expression. The -difference between the two epochs lies in the -fact that the twentieth-century revolution -has been the product of a number of minor -poets, none of them quite powerful enough -to achieve what he theoretically meant to do, -while the seventeenth-century revolution -was the work of a single poet of genius, John -Donne. Donne substituted for the rich -formalism of non-dramatic Elizabethan poetry -a completely realized new style, the -style of the so-called metaphysical poetry of -the seventeenth century. He was a poet-philosopher-man-of-action -whose passionate -<span class='pageno' id='Page_41'>41</span>curiosity about facts enabled him to make -poetry out of the most unlikely aspects of -material life, and whose passionate apprehension -of ideas enabled him to extend the -bounds of poetry beyond the frontiers of -common life and its emotions into the void -of intellectual abstraction. He put the whole -life and the whole mind of his age into -poetry.</p> - -<p class='c013'>We to-day are metaphysicals without our -Donne. Theoretically we are free to make -poetry of everything in the universe; in practice -we are kept within the old limits, for the -simple reason that no great man has appeared -to show us how we can use our freedom. A -certain amount of the life of the twentieth -century is to be found in our poetry, but -precious little of its mind. We have no poet -to-day like that strange old Dean of St. -Paul’s three hundred years ago—no poet who -can skip from the heights of scholastic philosophy -to the heights of carnal passion, from -the contemplation of divinity to the contemplation -of a flea, from the rapt examination -of self to an enumeration of the most remote -external facts of science, and make all, by -his strangely passionate apprehension, into -an intensely lyrical poetry.</p> - -<p class='c013'>The few poets who do try to make of contemporary -ideas the substance of their poetry, -<span class='pageno' id='Page_42'>42</span>do it in a manner which brings little conviction -or satisfaction to the reader. There is -Mr. Noyes, who is writing four volumes of -verse about the human side of science—in his -case, alas, all too human. Then there is Mr. -Conrad Aiken. He perhaps is the most successful -exponent in <a id='tnpoety'></a>poetry of contemporary -ideas. In his case, it is clear, “the remotest -discoveries of the chemist” are apprehended -with a certain passion; all his emotions are -tinged by his ideas. The trouble with Mr. -Aiken is that his emotions are apt to degenerate -into a kind of intellectual sentimentality, -which expresses itself only too easily in -his prodigiously fluent, highly coloured verse.</p> - -<p class='c013'>One could lengthen the list of more or -less interesting poets who have tried in recent -times to extend the boundaries of their -art. But one would not find among them a -single poet of real importance, not one great -or outstanding personality. The twentieth -century still awaits its Lucretius, awaits its -own philosophical Dante, its new Goethe, its -Donne, even its up-to-date Laforgue. Will -they appear? Or are we to go on producing -a poetry in which there is no more than the -dimmest reflection of that busy and incessant -intellectual life which is the characteristic -and distinguishing mark of this age?</p> - -<div class='chapter'> - <span class='pageno' id='Page_43'>43</span> - <h2 class='c007'><abbr title='5'>V</abbr>: WATER MUSIC</h2> -</div> - -<p class='c011'>The house in which I live is haunted by -the noise of dripping water. Always, -day and night, summer and winter, something -is dripping somewhere. For many -months an unquiet cistern kept up within its -iron bosom a long, hollow-toned soliloquy. -Now it is mute; but a new and more formidable -drip has come into existence. From the -very summit of the house a little spout—the -overflow, no doubt, of some unknown receptacle -under the roof—lets fall a succession of -drops that is almost a continuous stream. -Down it falls, this all but stream, a sheer -forty or fifty feet on to the stones of the -basement steps, thence to dribble ignominiously -away into some appointed drain. The -cataracts blow their trumpets from the steep; -but my lesser waterfalls play a subtler, I had -almost said a more “modern” music. Lying -awake at nights, I listen with a mixture of -pleasure and irritation to its curious cadences.</p> - -<p class='c013'>The musical range of a dripping tap is -about half an octave. But within the bounds -of this major fourth, drops can play the most -<span class='pageno' id='Page_44'>44</span>surprising and varied melodies. You will -hear them climbing laboriously up small degrees -of sound, only to descend at a single -leap to the bottom. More often they wander -unaccountably about in varying intervals, -familiar or disconcertingly odd. And with -the varying pitch the time also varies, but -within narrower limits. For the laws of -hydrostatics, or whatever other science -claims authority over drops, do not allow -the dribblings much licence either to pause -or to quicken the pace of their falling. It -is an odd sort of music. One listens to it -as one lies in bed, slipping gradually into -sleep, with a curious, uneasy emotion.</p> - -<p class='c013'>Drip drop, drip drap drep drop. So it -goes on, this watery melody, for ever without -an end. Inconclusive, inconsequent, formless, -it is always on the point of deviating -into sense and form. Every now and then -you will hear a complete phrase of rounded -melody. And then—drip drop, di-drep, di-drap—the -old inconsequence sets in once -more. But suppose there were some significance -in it! It is that which troubles my -drowsy mind as I listen at night. Perhaps -for those who have ears to hear, this endless -dribbling is as pregnant with thought and -emotion, as significant as a piece of Bach. -Drip drop, di-drap, di-drep. So little would -<span class='pageno' id='Page_45'>45</span>suffice to turn the incoherence into meaning. -The music of the drops is the symbol and -type of the whole universe; it is for ever, as it -were, asymptotic to sense, infinitely close to -significance, but never touching it. Never, -unless the human mind comes and pulls it -forcibly over the dividing space. If I could -understand this wandering music, if I could -detect in it a sequence, if I could force it to -some conclusion—the diapason closing full -in God, in mind, I hardly care what, so long -as it closes in something definite—then, I -feel, I should understand the whole incomprehensible -machine, from the gaps between -the stars to the policy of the Allies. And -growing drowsier and drowsier, I listen to -the ceaseless tune, the hollow soliloquy in -the cistern, the sharp metallic rapping of the -drops that fall from the roof upon the stones -below; and surely I begin to discover a meaning, -surely I detect a trace of thought, surely -the phrases follow one another with art, leading -on inevitably to some prodigious conclusion. -Almost I have it, almost, almost.... Then, -I suppose, I fall definitely to sleep. -For the next thing I am aware of is that the -sunlight is streaming in. It is morning, and -the water is still dripping as irritatingly and -persistently as ever.</p> - -<p class='c013'>Sometimes the incoherence of the drop -<span class='pageno' id='Page_46'>46</span>music is too much to be borne. The listener -insists that the asymptote shall somehow -touch the line of sense. He forces the drops -to say something. He demands of them that -they shall play, shall we say, “God Save the -King,” or the Hymn to Joy from the Ninth -Symphony, or <i><span lang="it" xml:lang="it">Voi che Sapete</span></i>. The drops -obey reluctantly; they play what you desire, -but with more than the ineptitude of the -child at the piano. Still they play it somehow. -But this is an extremely dangerous -method of laying the haunting ghost whose -voice is the drip of water. For once you -have given the drops something to sing or -say, they will go on singing and saying it -for ever. Sleep becomes impossible, and at -the two or three hundredth repetition of -<i>Madelon</i> or even of an air from <i>Figaro</i> the -mind begins to totter towards insanity.</p> - -<p class='c013'>Drops, ticking clocks, machinery, everything -that throbs or clicks or hums or hammers, -can be made, with a little perseverance, -to say something. In my childhood, I remember, -I was told that trains said, “To Lancashire, -to Lancashire, to fetch a pocket -handkercher”—and <i><span lang="it" xml:lang="it">da capo</span></i> ad infinitum. -They can also repeat, if desired, that useful -piece of information: “To stop the train, pull -down the chain.” But it is very hard to -persuade them to add the menacing corollary: -<span class='pageno' id='Page_47'>47</span>“Penalty for improper use Five Pounds.” -Still, with careful tutoring I have succeeded -in teaching a train to repeat even that unrhythmical -phrase.</p> - -<p class='c013'>Dadaist literature always reminds me a -little of my falling drops. Confronted by -it, I feel the same uncomfortable emotion as -is begotten in me by the inconsequent music -of water. Suppose, after all, that this apparently -accidental sequence of words should -contain the secret of art and life and the universe! -It may; who knows? And here am -I, left out in the cold of total incomprehension; -and I pore over this literature and regard -it upside down in the hope of discovering -that secret. But somehow I cannot induce -the words to take on any meaning whatever. -Drip drop, di-drap, di-drep—Tzara -and Picabia let fall their words and I am -baffled. But I can see that there are great -possibilities in this type of literature. For -the tired journalist it is ideal, since it is not -he, but the reader who has to do all the work. -All he need do is to lean back in his chair -and allow the words to dribble out through -the nozzle of his fountain pen. Drip, -drop....</p> - -<div class='chapter'> - <span class='pageno' id='Page_48'>48</span> - <h2 class='c007'><abbr title='6'>VI</abbr>: PLEASURES</h2> -</div> - -<p class='c011'>We have heard a great deal, since 1914, -about the things which are a menace -to civilization. First it was Prussian militarism; -then the Germans at large; then the -prolongation of the war; then the shortening -of the same; then, after a time, the Treaty of -Versailles; then French militarism—with, all -the while, a running accompaniment of such -minor menaces as Prohibition, Lord Northcliffe, -Mr. Bryan, Comstockery....</p> - -<p class='c013'>Civilization, however, has resisted the -combined attacks of these enemies wonderfully -well. For still, in 1923, it stands not -so very far from where it stood in that “giant -age before the flood” of nine years since. -Where, in relation to Neanderthal on the -one hand and Athens on the other, where -precisely it stood <i>then</i> is a question which -each may answer according to his taste. The -important fact is that these menaces to our -civilization, such as it is—menaces including -the largest war and the stupidest peace known -to history—have confined themselves in most -places and up till now to mere threats, barking -more furiously than they bite.</p> - -<p class='c013'><span class='pageno' id='Page_49'>49</span>No, the dangers which confront our civilization -are not so much the external dangers—wild -men, wars and the bankruptcy that -wars bring after them. The most alarming -dangers are those which menace it from -within, that threaten the mind rather -than the body and estate of contemporary -man.</p> - -<p class='c013'>Of all the various poisons which modern -civilization, by a process of auto-intoxication, -brews quietly up within its own bowels, -few, it seems to me, are more deadly (while -none appears more harmless) than that curious -and appalling thing that is technically -known as “pleasure.” “Pleasure” (I place -the word between inverted commas to show -that I mean, not real pleasure, but the organized -activities officially known by the same -name) “pleasure”—what nightmare visions -the word evokes! Like every man of sense -and good feeling, I abominate work. But I -would rather put in eight hours a day at a -Government office than be condemned to lead -a life of “pleasure”; I would even, I believe, -prefer to write a million words of journalism -a year.</p> - -<p class='c013'>The horrors of modern “pleasure” arise -from the fact that every kind of organized -distraction tends to become progressively -more and more imbecile. There was a time -<span class='pageno' id='Page_50'>50</span>when people indulged themselves with distractions -requiring the expense of a certain -intellectual effort. In the seventeenth century, -for example, royal personages and their -courtiers took a real delight in listening to -erudite sermons (Dr. Donne’s, for example) -and academical disputes on points of theology -or metaphysics. Part of the entertainment -offered to the Prince Palatine, on the -occasion of his marriage with James 1.’s -daughter, was a syllogistic argumentation, on -I forget what philosophical theme, between -the amiable Lord Keeper Williams and a -troop of minor Cambridge logicians. Imagine -the feelings of a contemporary prince, -if a loyal University were to offer him a -similar entertainment!</p> - -<p class='c013'>Royal personages were not the only people -who enjoyed intelligent pleasures. In Elizabethan -times every lady and gentleman of -ordinary culture could be relied upon, at demand, -to take his or her part in a madrigal -or a motet. Those who know the enormous -complexity and subtlety of sixteenth-century -music will realize what this means. To indulge -in their favourite pastime our ancestors -had to exert their minds to an uncommon -degree. Even the uneducated vulgar delighted -in pleasures requiring the exercise of -a certain intelligence, individuality and personal -<span class='pageno' id='Page_51'>51</span>initiative. They listened, for example, -to <i>Othello</i>, <i>King Lear</i>, and <i>Hamlet</i>—apparently -with enjoyment and comprehension. -They sang and made much music. And far -away, in the remote country, the peasants, -year by year, went through the traditional -rites—the dances of spring and summer, the -winter mummings, the ceremonies of harvest -home—appropriate to each successive season. -Their pleasures were intelligent and alive, -and it was they who, by their own efforts, -entertained themselves.</p> - -<p class='c013'>We have changed all that. In place of -the old pleasures demanding intelligence and -personal initiative, we have vast organizations -that provide us with ready-made distractions—distractions -which demand from -pleasure-seekers no personal participation -and no intellectual effort of any sort. To -the interminable democracies of the world a -million cinemas bring the same stale balderdash. -There have always been fourth-rate -writers and dramatists; but their works, in -the past, quickly died without getting beyond -the boundaries of the city or the country in -which they appeared. To-day, the inventions -of the scenario-writer go out from Los -Angeles across the whole world. Countless -audiences soak passively in the tepid bath of -nonsense. No mental effort is demanded of -<span class='pageno' id='Page_52'>52</span>them, no participation; they need only sit -and keep their eyes open.</p> - -<p class='c013'>Do the democracies want music? In the -old days they would have made it themselves. -Now, they merely turn on the gramophone. -Or if they are a little more up-to-date they -adjust their wireless telephone to the right -wave-length and listen-in to the fruity contralto -at Marconi House, singing “The -Gleaner’s Slumber Song.”</p> - -<p class='c013'>And if they want literature, there is the -Press. Nominally, it is true, the Press exists -to impart information. But its real function -is to provide, like the cinema, a distraction -which shall occupy the mind without demanding -of it the slightest effort or the fatigue -of a single thought. This function, it -must be admitted, it fulfils with an extraordinary -success. It is possible to go on -for years and years, reading two papers every -working day and one on Sundays without -ever once being called upon to think or to -make any other effort than to move the eyes, -not very attentively, down the printed -column.</p> - -<p class='c013'>Certain sections of the community still -practise athletic sports in which individual -participation is demanded. Great numbers -of the middle and upper classes play golf -and tennis in person and, if they are sufficiently -<span class='pageno' id='Page_53'>53</span>rich, shoot birds and pursue the fox -and go ski-ing in the Alps. But the vast mass -of the community has now come even to -sport vicariously, preferring the watching of -football to the fatigues and dangers of the -actual game. All classes, it is true, still -dance; but dance, all the world over, the -same steps to the same tunes. The dance has -been scrupulously sterilized of any local or -personal individuality.</p> - -<p class='c013'>These effortless pleasures, these ready-made -distractions that are the same for every -one over the face of the whole Western world, -are surely a worse menace to our civilization -than ever the Germans were. The working -hours of the day are already, for the great -majority of human beings, occupied in the -performance of purely mechanical tasks in -which no mental effort, no individuality, no -initiative are required. And now, in the -hours of leisure, we turn to distractions as -mechanically stereotyped and demanding as -little intelligence and initiative as does our -work. Add such leisure to such work and -the sum is a perfect day which it is a blessed -relief to come to the end of.</p> - -<p class='c013'>Self-poisoned in this fashion, civilization -looks as though it might easily decline into -a kind of premature senility. With a mind -almost atrophied by lack of use, unable to -<span class='pageno' id='Page_54'>54</span>entertain itself and grown so wearily uninterested -in the ready-made distractions offered -from without that nothing but the -grossest stimulants of an ever-increasing violence -and crudity can move it, the democracy -of the future will sicken of a chronic -and mortal boredom. It will go, perhaps, -the way the Romans went: the Romans who -came at last to lose, precisely as we are doing -now, the capacity to distract themselves; -the Romans who, like us, lived on ready-made -entertainments in which they had no -participation. Their deadly ennui demanded -ever more gladiators, more tightrope-walking -elephants, more rare and far-fetched -animals to be slaughtered. Ours would demand -no less; but owing to the existence of -a few idealists, doesn’t get all it asks for. -The most violent forms of entertainment can -only be obtained illicitly; to satisfy a taste -for slaughter and cruelty you must become -a member of the Ku Klux Klan. Let us not -despair, however; we may still live to see -blood flowing across the stage of the Hippodrome. -The force of a boredom clamouring -to be alleviated may yet prove too much -for the idealists.</p> - -<div class='chapter'> - <span class='pageno' id='Page_55'>55</span> - <h2 class='c007'><abbr title='7'>VII</abbr>: MODERN FOLK POETRY</h2> -</div> - -<p class='c011'>To all those who are interested in the -“folk” and their poetry—the contemporary -folk of the great cities and their urban -muse—I would recommend a little-known -journal called <i>McGlennon’s Pantomime -Annual</i>. This periodical makes its -appearance at some time in the New Year, -when the pantos are slowly withering away -under the influence of approaching spring. -I take this opportunity of warning my readers -to keep a sharp look out for the coming -of the next issue; it is sure to be worth the -modest twopence which one is asked to pay -for it.</p> - -<p class='c013'><i>McGlennon’s Pantomime Annual</i> is an -anthology of the lyrics of the panto season’s -most popular songs. It is a document of -first-class importance. To the future student -of our popular literature <i>McGlennon</i> will be -as precious as the Christie-Miller collection -of Elizabethan broadsheets. In the year -2220 a copy of the <i>Pantomime Annual</i> may -very likely sell for hundreds of pounds at -the Sotheby’s of the time. With laudable -<span class='pageno' id='Page_56'>56</span>forethought I am preserving my copy of last -year’s <i>McGlennon</i> for the enrichment of my -distant posterity.</p> - -<p class='c013'>The Folk Poetry of 1920 may best be -classified according to subject-matter. First, -by reason of its tender associations as well -as its mere amount, is the poetry of Passion. -Then there is the Poetry of Filial Devotion. -Next, the Poetry of the Home—the -dear old earthly Home in Oregon or Kentucky—and, -complementary to it, the Poetry -of the Spiritual Home in other and happier -worlds. Here, as well as in the next section, -the popular lyric borrows some of its best -effects from hymnology. There follows the -Poetry of Recollection and Regret, and the -Poetry of Nationality, a type devoted almost -exclusively to the praises of Ireland. -These types and their variations cover the -Folk’s serious poetry. Their comic vein is -less susceptible to analysis. Drink, Wives, -Young Nuts, Honeymoon Couples—these -are a few of the stock subjects.</p> - -<p class='c013'>The Amorous Poetry of the Folk, like -the love lyrics of more cultured poets, is -divided into two species: the Poetry of Spiritual -Amour and the more direct and concrete -expression of Immediate Desire. <i>McGlennon</i> -provides plenty of examples of both -types:</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'><span class='pageno' id='Page_57'>57</span>When love peeps in the window of your heart</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c013'>[it might be the first line of a Shakespeare -sonnet]</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>You seem to walk on air,</div> - <div class='line'>Birds sing their sweet songs to you,</div> - <div class='line'>No cloud in your skies of blue,</div> - <div class='line'>Sunshine all the happy day, etc.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c013'>These rhapsodies tend to become a little -tedious. But one feels the warm touch of -reality in</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>I want to snuggle, I want to snuggle,</div> - <div class='line'>I know a cosy place for two.</div> - <div class='line'>I want to snuggle, I want to snuggle,</div> - <div class='line'>I want to feel that love is true.</div> - <div class='line'>Take me in your arms as lovers do.</div> - <div class='line'>Hold me very tight and kiss me too.</div> - <div class='line'>I want to snuggle, I want to snuggle,</div> - <div class='line'>I want to snuggle close to you.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c013'>This is sound; but it does not come up to -the best of the popular lyrics. The agonized -passion expressed in the words and music of -“You Made Me Love You” is something one -does not easily forget, though that great song -is as old as the now distant origins of ragtime.</p> - -<p class='c013'>The Poetry of Filial Devotion is almost -as extensive as the Poetry of Amour. <i>McGlennon</i> -teems with such outbursts as this:</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'><span class='pageno' id='Page_58'>58</span>You are a wonderful mother, dear old mother of mine.</div> - <div class='line'>You’ll hold a spot down deep in my heart</div> - <div class='line'>Till the stars no longer shine.</div> - <div class='line'>Your soul shall live on for ever,</div> - <div class='line'>On through the fields of time,</div> - <div class='line'>For there’ll never be another to me</div> - <div class='line'>Like that wonderful mother of mine.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c013'>Even Grandmamma gets a share of this devotion:</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>Granny, my own, I seem to hear you calling me;</div> - <div class='line'>Granny, my own, you are my sweetest memory ...</div> - <div class='line'>If up in heaven angels reign supreme,</div> - <div class='line'>Among the angels you must be the Queen.</div> - <div class='line'>Granny, my own, I miss you more and more.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c013'>The last lines are particularly rich. What -a fascinating heresy, to hold that the angels -reign over their Creator!</p> - -<p class='c013'>The Poetry of Recollection and Regret -owes most, both in words and music, to the -hymn. <i>McGlennon</i> provides a choice example -in “Back from the Land of Yesterday”:</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>Back from the land of yesterday,</div> - <div class='line in2'>Back to the friends of yore;</div> - <div class='line'>Back through the dark and dreary way</div> - <div class='line in2'>Into the light once more.</div> - <div class='line'>Back to the heart that waits for me,</div> - <div class='line in2'>Warmed by the sunshine above;</div> - <div class='line'>Back from the old land of yesterday’s dreams</div> - <div class='line in2'>To a new land of life and love.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c013'><span class='pageno' id='Page_59'>59</span>What it means, goodness only knows. But -one can imagine that, sunk to a slow music in -three-four time—some rich religious waltz-tune—it -would be extremely uplifting and -edifying. The decay of regular churchgoing -has inevitably led to this invasion of the -music-hall by the hymn. People still want -to feel the good uplifting emotion, and they -feel it with a vengeance when they listen to -songs about</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line in6'>the land of beginning again,</div> - <div class='line'>Where skies are always blue ...</div> - <div class='line'>Where broken dreams come true.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c013'>The great advantage of the music-hall over -the church is that the uplifting moments do -not last too long.</p> - -<p class='c013'>Finally, there is the great Home motif. -“I want to be,” these lyrics always begin, “I -want to be almost anywhere that is not the -place where I happen at the moment to be.” -<span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">M. Louis Estève</span> has called this longing <span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">“Le -Mal de la Province,”</span> which in its turn is -closely related to <span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">“Le Mal de l’au-delà.”</span> It -is one of the worst symptoms of romanticism.</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Steamer, balançant ta mâture,</span></div> - <div class='line'><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Lève l’ancre vers une exotique nature,</span></div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c013'>exclaims <span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Mallarmé</span>, and the Folk, whom that -most exquisite of poets loathed and despised, -<span class='pageno' id='Page_60'>60</span>echo his words in a hundred different keys. -There is not a State in America where they -don’t want to go. In <i>McGlennon</i> we find -yearnings expressed for California, Ohio, -Tennessee, Virginia, and Georgia. Some -sigh for Ireland, Devon, and the East. -“Egypt! I am calling you; oh, life is sweet -and joys complete when at your feet I lay -[<i>sic</i>].” But the Southern States, the East, -Devon, and Killarney are not enough. The -Mal de l’au-delà succeeds the Mal de la -Province. The Folk yearn for extra-mundane -worlds. Here, for example, is an expression -of nostalgia for a mystical “Kingdom -within your Eyes”:</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>Somewhere in somebody’s eyes</div> - <div class='line in2'>Is a place just divine,</div> - <div class='line'>Bounded by roses that kiss the dew</div> - <div class='line in2'>In those dear eyes that shine.</div> - <div class='line'>Somewhere beyond earthly dreams,</div> - <div class='line in2'>Where love’s flower never dies,</div> - <div class='line'>God made the world, and He gave it to me</div> - <div class='line in2'>In that kingdom within your eyes.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c013'>If there is any characteristic which distinguishes -contemporary folk poetry from the -folk poetry of other times it is surely its -meaninglessness. Old folk poetry is singularly -direct and to the point, full of pregnant -meaning, never vague. Modern folk -poetry, as exemplified in <i>McGlennon</i>, is almost -<span class='pageno' id='Page_61'>61</span>perfectly senseless. The Elizabethan -peasant or mechanic would never have consented -to sing or listen to anything so flatulently -meaningless as “Back from the Land -of Yesterday” or “The Kingdom within your -Eyes.” His taste was for something clear, -definite and pregnant, like “Greensleeves”:</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>And every morning when you rose,</div> - <div class='line in2'>I brought you dainties orderly,</div> - <div class='line'>To clear your stomach from all woes—</div> - <div class='line in2'>And yet you would not love me.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c013'>Could anything be more logical and to the -point? But we, instead of logic, instead of -clarity, are provided by our professional entertainers -with the drivelling imbecility of -“Granny, my own.” Can it be that the standard -of intelligence is lower now than it was -three hundred years ago? Have newspapers -and cinemas and now the wireless telephone -conspired to rob mankind of whatever sense -of reality, whatever power of individual -questioning and criticism he once possessed? -I do not venture to answer. But the fact -of <i>McGlennon</i> has somehow got to be explained. -How? I prefer to leave the problem -on a note of interrogation.</p> - -<div class='chapter'> - <span class='pageno' id='Page_62'>62</span> - <h2 class='c007'><abbr title='8'>VIII</abbr>: BIBLIOPHILY</h2> -</div> - -<p class='c011'>Bibliophily is on the increase. It is -a constatation which I make with regret; -for the bibliophile’s point of view is, to me -at least, unsympathetic and his standard of -values unsound. Among the French, bibliophily -would seem to have become a kind -of mania, and, what is more, a highly organized -and thoroughly exploited mania. -Whenever I get a new French book I turn at -once—for in what disgusts and irritates one -there is always a certain odious fascination—to -the fly-leaf. One had always been accustomed -to finding there a brief description -of the “vingt exemplaires sur papier hollande -Van Gelder”; nobody objected to the -modest old Dutchman whose paper gave to -the author’s presentation copies so handsome -an appearance. But Van Gelder is now a -back number. In this third decade of the -twentieth century he has become altogether -too simple and unsophisticated. On the fly-leaf -of a <i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">dernière nouveauté</span></i> I find the following -incantation, printed in block capitals -and occupying at least twenty lines:</p> - -<div><span class='pageno' id='Page_63'>63</span></div> -<div class='bq'> - -<p class='c013'><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Il a été tiré de cet ouvrage, après impositions -spéciales, 133 exemplaires in-4. Tellière sur papier-vergé -pur-fil Lafuma-Navarre, au filigrane de -la <i>Nouvelle Revue Française</i>, dont 18 exemplaires -hors commerce, marqués de A à R, 100 exemplaires -réservés aux Bibliophiles de la <i>Nouvelle Revue -Française</i>, numérotés de I à <a id='tncomma'></a><abbr class='spell'>C</abbr>, 15 exemplaires numérotés -de <abbr class='spell'>CI</abbr> à <abbr class='spell'>CXV</abbr>; 1040 exemplaires sur papier -vélin pur-fil Lafuma-Navarre, dont dix exemplaires -hors commerce marqués de <abbr class='spell'>a</abbr> à <abbr class='spell'>j</abbr>, 800 exemplaires -réservés aux amis de l’Edition originale, <a id='tnnum'></a>numérotés -de 1 à 800, 30 exemplaires d’auteur, hors commerce, -numérotés de 801 à 830 et 200 exemplaires numérotés -de 831 à 1030, ce tirage constituant proprement -et authentiquement l’Edition originale.</span></p> - -</div> - -<p class='c013'>If I were one of the hundred Bibliophiles -of the <i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Nouvelle Revue Française</span></i> or even one -of the eight hundred Friends of the Original -Edition, I should suggest, with the utmost -politeness, that the publishers might deserve -better of their fellow-beings if they spent -less pains on numbering the first edition and -more on seeing that it was properly produced. -Personally, I am the friend of any edition -which is reasonably well printed and bound, -reasonably correct in the text and reasonably -clean. The consciousness that I possess a -numbered copy of an edition printed on -Lafuma-Navarre paper, duly watermarked -with the publisher’s initials, does not make -up for the fact that the book is full of gross -printer’s errors and that a whole sheet of sixteen -<span class='pageno' id='Page_64'>64</span>pages has wandered, during the process -of binding, from one end of the volume to -the other—occurrences which are quite unnecessarily -frequent in the history of French -book production.</p> - -<p class='c013'>With the increased attention paid to -bibliophilous niceties, has come a great increase -in price. Limited <i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">éditions de luxe</span></i> have -become absurdly common in France, and -there are dozens of small publishing concerns -which produce almost nothing else. Authors -like Monsieur André Salmon and Monsieur -Max Jacob scarcely ever appear at less than -twenty francs a volume. Even with the exchange -this is a formidable price; and yet the -French bibliophiles, for whom twenty francs -are really twenty francs, appear to have an -insatiable appetite for these small and beautiful -editions. The War has established a -new economic law: the poorer one becomes -the more one can afford to spend on luxuries.</p> - -<p class='c013'>The ordinary English publisher has never -gone in for Van Gelder, Lafuma-Navarre -and numbered editions. Reticent about figures, -he leaves the book collector to estimate -the first edition’s future rarity by guesswork. -He creates no artificial scarcity values. -The collector of contemporary English -first editions is wholly a speculator; he never -knows what time may have in store.</p> - -<p class='c013'><span class='pageno' id='Page_65'>65</span>In the picture trade for years past nobody -has pretended that there was any particular -relation between the price of a picture and -its value as a work of art. A magnificent -El Greco is bought for about a tenth of the -sum paid for a Romney that would be condemned -by any self-respecting hanging-committee. -We are so well used to this sort of -thing in picture dealing that we have almost -ceased to comment on it. But in the book -trade the tendency to create huge artificial -values is of a later growth. The spectacle -of a single book being bought for fifteen -thousand pounds is still sufficiently novel to -arouse indignation. Moreover, the book collector -who pays vast sums for his treasures -has even less excuse than has the collector -of pictures. The value of an old book is -wholly a scarcity value. From a picture one -may get a genuine æsthetic pleasure; in buying -a picture one buys the unique right to -feel that pleasure. But nobody can pretend -that <i>Venus and Adonis</i> is more delightful -when it is read in a fifteen thousand pound -unique copy than when it is read in a volume -that has cost a shilling. On the whole, the -printing and general appearance of the -shilling book is likely to be the better of the -two. The purchaser of the fabulously expensive -old book is satisfying only his possessive -<span class='pageno' id='Page_66'>66</span>instinct. The buyer of a picture may -also have a genuine feeling for beauty.</p> - -<p class='c013'>The triumph and the <i><span lang="la" xml:lang="la">reductio ad absurdum</span></i> -of bibliophily were witnessed not long ago -at Sotheby’s, when the late Mr. Smith of -New York bought eighty thousand pounds’ -worth of books in something under two hours -at the Britwell Court sale. The War, it is said, -created forty thousand new millionaires in -America; the New York bookseller can have -had no lack of potential clients. He bought -a thousand guinea volume as an ordinary human -being might buy something off the sixpenny -shelf in a second-hand shop. I have -seldom witnessed a spectacle which inspired -in me an intenser blast of moral indignation. -Moral indignation, of course, is always to be -mistrusted as, wholly or in part, the disguised -manifestation of some ignoble passion. In -this case the basic cause of my indignation -was clearly envy. But there was, I flatter -myself, a superstructure of disinterested -moral feeling. To debase a book into an -expensive object of luxury is as surely, in -Miltonic language, “to kill the image of God, -as it were in the eye” as to burn it. And -when one thinks how those eighty thousand -pounds might have been spent.... Ah, -well!</p> - -<div class='chapter'> - <span class='pageno' id='Page_67'>67</span> - <h2 class='c007'><abbr title='9'>IX</abbr>: DEMOCRATIC ART</h2> -</div> - -<p class='c011'>There is intoxication to be found in a -crowd. For it is good to be one of -many all doing the same thing—good whatever -the thing may be, whether singing -hymns, watching a football match, or applauding -the eternal truths of politicians. -Anything will serve as an excuse. It matters -not in whose name your two or three -thousand are gathered together; what is important -is the process of gathering. In these -last days we have witnessed a most illuminating -example of this tendency in the wild -outburst of mob excitement over the arrival -in this country of Mary Pickford. It is not -as though people were really very much interested -in the Little Sweetheart of the -World. She is no more than an excuse for -assembling in a crowd and working up a -powerful communal emotion. The newspapers -set the excitement going; they built the -fire, applied the match, and cherished the infant -flame. The crowds, only too happy to -be kindled, did the rest; they burned.</p> - -<p class='c013'>I belong to that class of unhappy people -who are not easily infected by crowd excitement. -<span class='pageno' id='Page_68'>68</span>Too often I find myself sadly and -coldly unmoved in the midst of multitudinous -emotion. Few sensations are more -disagreeable. The defect is in part temperamental, -and in part is due to that intellectual -snobbishness, that fastidious rejection of -what is easy and obvious, which is one of the -melancholy consequences of the acquisition -of culture. How often one regrets this asceticism -of the mind! How wistfully sometimes -one longs to be able to rid oneself of -the habit of rejection and selection, and to -enjoy all the dear, obviously luscious, idiotic -emotions without an afterthought! And -indeed, however much we may admire the -Chromatic Fantasia of Bach, we all of us -have a soft spot somewhere in our minds -that is sensitive to “Roses in Picardy.” But -the soft spot is surrounded by hard spots; -the enjoyment is never unmixed with critical -disapprobation. The excuses for working -up a communal emotion, even communal -emotion itself, are rejected as too gross. We -turn from them as a cœnobite of the Thebaid -would have turned from dancing girls or a -steaming dish of tripe and onions.</p> - -<p class='c013'>I have before me now a little book, recently -arrived from America, which points -out the way in which the random mob emotion -may be systematically organized into a -<span class='pageno' id='Page_69'>69</span>kind of religion. This volume, <i>The Will of -Song</i> (Boni & Liveright, 70 c.), is the joint -production of Messrs. Harry Barnhart and -Percy MacKaye. “How are art and social -service to be reconciled?... How shall -the Hermit Soul of the Individual Poet give -valid, spontaneous expression to the Communal -Soul of assembled multitudes? How -may the surging Tides of Man be sluiced in -Conduits of Art, without losing their primal -glory and momentum?” These questions -and many others, involving a great expense -of capital letters, are asked by Mr. MacKaye -and answered in <i>The Will of Song</i>, which -bears the qualifying sub-title, “A Dramatic -Service of Community Singing.”</p> - -<p class='c013'>The service is democratically undogmatic. -Abstractions, such as Will, Imagination, -Joy, Love and Liberty, some of whom are -represented in the dramatic performance, -not by individuals, but by Group Personages -(<i>i.e.</i>, choruses), chant about Brotherhood in -a semi-Biblical phraseology that is almost -wholly empty of content. It is all delightfully -vague and non-committal, like a Cabinet -Minister’s speech about the League of -Nations, and, like such a speech, leaves behind -it a comfortable glow, a noble feeling -of uplift. But, like Cabinet Ministers, -preachers and all whose profession it is to -<span class='pageno' id='Page_70'>70</span>move the people by the emission of words, -the authors of <i>The Will of Song</i> are well -aware that what matters in a popular work -of art is not the intellectual content so much -as the picturesqueness of its form and the -emotion with which it is presented. In the -staging—if such a term is not irreverent—of -their service, Messrs. Barnhart and MacKaye -have borrowed from Roman Catholic -ritual all its most effective emotion-creators. -The darknesses, the illuminations, the chiming -bells, the solemn mysterious voices, the -choral responses—all these traditional devices -have been most scientifically exploited -in the Communal Service.</p> - -<p class='c013'>These are the stage directions which herald -the opening of the service:</p> - -<div class='bq'> - -<p class='c013'>As the final song of the Prelude ceases, the assembly -hall grows suddenly dark, and the <span class='sc'>Darkness</span> -is filled with fanfare of blowing <span class='sc'>Trumpets</span>. -And now, taking up the trumpets’ refrain, the Orchestra -plays an elemental music, suggestive of rain, -wind, thunder and the rushing of waters; from behind -the raised Central Seat great Flashes of Fire -spout upward, and while they are flaring there -rises a <span class='sc'>Flame Gold Figure</span>, in a cone of light, -who calls with deep, vibrant voice: “Who has risen -up from the heart of the people?” Instantaneous, -from three portions of the assembly, the <span class='sc'>Voices of -Three Groups</span>, Men, Women and Children, answer -from the dark in triple unison: “I!”</p> - -</div> - -<p class='c013'><span class='pageno' id='Page_71'>71</span>Even from the cold print one can see that -this opening would be extremely effective. -But doubts assail me. I have a horrid suspicion -that that elemental music would not -sweep me off my feet as it ought to. My -fears are justified when, looking up the musical -programme, I discover that the elemental -music is by Langey, and that the orchestral -accompaniments that follow are the work -of Massenet, Tschaikovsky, Langey once -more, Julia Ward Howe and Sinding. Alas! -once more one finds oneself the slave of one’s -habit of selection and rejection. One would -find oneself left out in the cold just because -one couldn’t stand Massenet. Those who -have seen Sir James Barrie’s latest play, -<i>Mary Rose</i>, will perhaps recall the blasts of -music which prelude the piece and recur at -every mystical moment throughout the play. -In theory one ought to have mounted on the -wings of that music into a serene acceptance -of Sir James Barrie’s supernatural machinery; -one ought to have been filled by it with -deeply religious emotions. In practice, however, -one found oneself shrinking with quivering -nerves from the poignant vulgarity of -that <i><span lang="de" xml:lang="de">Leitmotif</span></i>, isolated by what should have -united one with the author and the rest of -the audience. The cœnobite would like to -eat the tripe and onions, but finds by experiment -<span class='pageno' id='Page_72'>72</span>that the smell of the dish makes him -feel rather sick.</p> - -<p class='c013'>One must not, however, reject such things -as <i>The Will of Song</i> as absolutely and entirely -bad. They are useful, they are even -good, on their own plane and for people -who belong to a certain order of the spiritual -hierarchy. <i>The Will of Song</i>, set to elemental -music by Massenet and Julia Ward -Howe, may be a moving spiritual force for -people to whom, shall we say, Wagner means -nothing; just as Wagner himself may be of -spiritual importance to people belonging to -a slightly higher caste, but still incapable of -understanding or getting any good out of -the highest, the transcendent works of art—out -of the Mass in D, for example, or Sonata -Op. 111.</p> - -<p class='c013'>The democratically minded will ask what -right we have to say that the Mass in D is -better than the works of Julia Ward Howe, -what right we have to assign a lower place -in the spiritual hierarchy to the admirers of -<i>The Will of Song</i> than to the admirers of -Beethoven. They will insist that there is -no hierarchy at all; that every creature possessing -humanity, possessing even life, is as -good and as important, by the mere fact of -that possession, as any other creature. It is -not altogether easy to answer these objections. -<span class='pageno' id='Page_73'>73</span>The arguments on both sides are ultimately -based on conviction and faith. The -best one can do to convince the paradoxical -democrat of the real superiority of the Mass -in D over <i>The Will of Song</i> is to point out -that, in a sense, one contains the other; that -<i>The Will of Song</i> is a part, and a very small -part at that, of a great Whole of human experience, -to which the Mass in D much more -nearly approximates. In <i>The Will of Song</i>, -and its “elemental” accompaniment one -knows exactly how every effect is obtained; -its range of emotional and intellectual experience -is extremely limited and perfectly familiar. -But the range of the Mass in D is -enormously much larger; it includes within -itself the range of <i>The Will of Song</i>, takes -it for granted, so to speak, and reaches out -into remoter spheres of experience. It is in -a real sense quantitatively larger than <i>The -Will of Song</i>. To the democrat who believes -in majorities this is an argument which must -surely prove convincing.</p> - -<div class='chapter'> - <span class='pageno' id='Page_74'>74</span> - <h2 class='c007'><abbr title='10'>X</abbr>: ACCUMULATIONS</h2> -</div> - -<p class='c011'>In the brevity of life and the perishableness -of material things the moral philosophers -have always found one of their happiest -themes. “Time, which antiquates Antiquities, -hath an Art to make dust of all things.” -There is nothing more moving than those -swelling elegiac organ notes in which they -have celebrated the mortality of man and all -his works. Those of us for whom the proper -study of mankind is books dwell with the -most poignant melancholy over the destruction -of literary treasures. We think of all -the pre-Platonic philosophers of whose writings -only a few sentences remain. We think -of Sappho’s poems, all but completely blotted -from our knowledge. We think of the -missing fragments of the “Satyricon,” and -of many other precious pages which once -were and are now no more. We complain -of the holes that time has picked in the records -of history, bewailing the loss of innumerable -vanished documents. As for buildings, -pictures, statues and the accumulated -evidence of whole civilizations, all destroyed -as though they had never been, they do not -<span class='pageno' id='Page_75'>75</span>belong to our literary province, and, if they -did, would be too numerous to catalogue -even summarily.</p> - -<p class='c013'>But because men have once thought and -felt in a certain way it does not follow that -they will for ever continue to do so. There -seems every probability that our descendants, -some two or three centuries hence, will wax -pathetic in their complaints, not of the fragility, -but the horrible persistence and indestructibility -of things. They will feel themselves -smothered by the intolerable accumulation -of the years. The men of to-day are -so deeply penetrated with the sense of the -perishableness of matter that they have begun -to take immense precautions to preserve -everything they can. Desolated by the carelessness -of our ancestors, we are making very -sure that our descendants shall lack no documents -when they come to write our history. -All is systematically kept and catalogued. -Old things are carefully patched and propped -into continued existence; things now new -are hoarded up and protected from decay.</p> - -<p class='c013'>To walk through the book-stores of one of -the world’s great libraries is an experience -that cannot fail to set one thinking on the -appalling indestructibility of matter. A few -years ago I explored the recently dug cellars -into which the overflow of the Bodleian pours -<span class='pageno' id='Page_76'>76</span>in an unceasing stream. The cellars extend -under the northern half of the great quadrangle -in whose centre stands the Radcliffe -Camera. These catacombs are two storeys -deep and lined with impermeable concrete. -“The muddy damps and ropy slime” of the -traditional vault are absent in this great -necropolis of letters; huge ventilating pipes -breathe blasts of a dry and heated wind, that -makes the place as snug and as unsympathetic -to decay as the deserts of Central Asia. The -books stand in metal cases constructed so as -to slide in and out of position on rails. So -ingenious is the arrangement of the cases that -it is possible to fill two-thirds of the available -space, solidly, with books. Twenty -years or so hence, when the existing vaults -will take no more books, a new cellar can -be dug on the opposite side of the Camera. -And when that is full—it is only a matter of -half a century from now—what then? We -shrug our shoulders. After us the deluge. -But let us hope that Bodley’s Librarian of -1970 will have the courage to emend the last -word to “bonfire.” To the bonfire! That -is the only satisfactory solution of an intolerable -problem.</p> - -<p class='c013'>The deliberate preservation of things must -be compensated for by their deliberate and -judicious destruction. Otherwise the world -<span class='pageno' id='Page_77'>77</span>will be overwhelmed by the accumulation of -antique objects. Pigs and rabbits and watercress, -when they were first introduced into -New Zealand, threatened to lay waste the -country, because there were no compensating -forces of destruction to put a stop to their -indefinite multiplication. In the same way, -mere things, once they are set above the natural -laws of decay, will end by burying us, -unless we set about methodically to get rid -of the nuisance. The plea that they should -all be preserved—every novel by Nat Gould, -every issue of the <i>Funny Wonder</i>—as historical -documents is not a sound one. Where -too many documents exist it is impossible to -write history at all. “For ignorance,” in the -felicitous words of Mr. Lytton Strachey, “is -the first requisite of the historian—ignorance -which simplifies and clarifies, which selects -and omits, with a placid perfection unattainable -by the highest art.” Nobody wants -to know everything—the irrelevancies as -well as the important facts—about the past; -or in any case nobody ought to desire to -know. Those who do, those who are eaten -up by an itch for mere facts and useless information, -are the wretched victims of a vice -no less reprehensible than greed or drunkenness.</p> - -<p class='c013'>Hand in hand with this judicious process -<span class='pageno' id='Page_78'>78</span>of destruction must go an elaborate classification -of what remains. As Mr. Wells says -in his large, opulent way, “the future world-state’s -organization of scientific research and -record compared with that of to-day will be -like an ocean liner beside the dug-out canoe -of some early heliolithic wanderer.” With -the vast and indiscriminate multiplication of -books and periodicals our organization of -records tends to become ever more heliolithic. -Useful information on any given subject -is so widely scattered or may be hidden -in such obscure places that the student is -often at a loss to know what he ought to -study or where. An immense international -labour of bibliography and classification -must be undertaken at no very distant date, -if future generations of researchers are to -make the fullest use of the knowledge that -has already been gained.</p> - -<p class='c013'>But this constructive labour will be tedious -and insipid compared with the glorious business -of destruction. Huge bonfires of paper -will blaze for days and weeks together, whenever -the libraries undertake their periodical -purgation. The only danger, and, alas! it is -a very real danger, is that the libraries will -infallibly purge themselves of the wrong -books. We all know what librarians are; -and not only librarians, but critics, literary -<span class='pageno' id='Page_79'>79</span>men, general public—everybody, in fact, -with the exception of ourselves—we know -what they are like, we know them: there -never was a set of people with such bad -taste! Committees will doubtless be set up -to pass judgment on books, awarding acquittals -and condemnations in magisterial fashion. -It will be a sort of gigantic Hawthornden -competition. At that thought I -find that the flames of my great bonfires lose -much of their imagined lustre.</p> - -<div class='chapter'> - <span class='pageno' id='Page_80'>80</span> - <h2 class='c007'><abbr title='11'>XI</abbr>: ON DEVIATING INTO SENSE</h2> -</div> - -<p class='c011'>There is a story, very dear for some -reason to our ancestors, that Apelles, -or I forget what other Greek painter, grown -desperate at the failure of his efforts to portray -realistically the foam on a dog’s mouth, -threw his sponge at the picture in a pet, and -was rewarded for his ill-temper by discovering -that the resultant smudge was the living -image of the froth whose aspect he had been -unable, with all his art, to recapture. No -one will ever know the history of all the -happy mistakes, the accidents and unconscious -deviations into genius, that have -helped to enrich the world’s art. They are -probably countless. I myself have deviated -more than once into accidental felicities. -Recently, for example, the hazards of careless -typewriting caused me to invent a new -portmanteau word of the most brilliantly -Laforguian quality. I had meant to write -the phrase “the Human Comedy,” but, by a -happy slip, I put my finger on the letter -that stands next to “C” on the universal keyboard. -When I came to read over the completed -page I found that I had written “the -<span class='pageno' id='Page_81'>81</span>Human Vomedy.” Was there ever a criticism -of life more succinct and expressive? -To the more sensitive and queasy among the -gods the last few years must indeed have -seemed a vomedy of the first order.</p> - -<p class='c013'>The grossest forms of mistake have -played quite a distinguished part in the history -of letters. One thinks, for example, of -the name Criseida or Cressida manufactured -out of a Greek accusative, of that Spenserian -misunderstanding of Chaucer which gave -currency to the rather ridiculous substantive -“derring-do.” Less familiar, but more deliciously -absurd, is Chaucer’s slip in reading -“naves ballatrices” for “naves bellatrices”—ballet-ships -instead of battle-ships—and his -translation “shippes hoppesteres.” But these -broad, straightforward howlers are uninteresting -compared with the more subtle deviations -into originality occasionally achieved -by authors who were trying their best not to -be original. Nowhere do we find more remarkable -examples of accidental brilliance -than among the post-Chaucerian poets, whose -very indistinct knowledge of what precisely -<i>was</i> the metre in which they were trying to -write often caused them to produce very -striking variations on the staple English -measure.</p> - -<p class='c013'>Chaucer’s variations from the decasyllable -<span class='pageno' id='Page_82'>82</span>norm were deliberate. So, for the most -part, were those of his disciple Lydgate, -whose favourite “broken-backed” line, lacking -the first syllable of the iambus that follows -the cæsura, is metrically of the greatest -interest to contemporary poets. Lydgate’s -characteristic line follows this model:</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>For speechéless nothing maist thou speed.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c013'>Judiciously employed, the broken-backed -line might yield very beautiful effects. Lydgate, -as has been said, was probably pretty -conscious of what he was doing. But his -procrustean methods were apt to be a little -indiscriminate, and one wonders sometimes -whether he was playing variations on a -known theme or whether he was rather tentatively -groping after the beautiful regularity -of his master Chaucer. The later fifteenth -and sixteenth century poets seem to -have worked very much in the dark. The -poems of such writers as Hawes and Skelton -abound in the vaguest parodies of the decasyllable -line. Anything from seven to fifteen -syllables will serve their turn. With -them the variations are seldom interesting. -Chance had not much opportunity of producing -subtle metrical effects with a man like -Skelton, whose mind was naturally so full -<span class='pageno' id='Page_83'>83</span>of jigging doggerel that his variations on -the decasyllable are mostly in the nature of -rough skeltonics. I have found interesting -accidental variations on the decasyllable in -Heywood, the writer of moralities. This, -from the <i>Play of Love</i>, has a real metrical -beauty:</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>Felt ye but one pang such as I feel many,</div> - <div class='line'>One pang of despair or one pang of desire,</div> - <div class='line'>One pang of one displeasant look of her eye,</div> - <div class='line'>One pang of one word of her mouth as in ire,</div> - <div class='line'>Or in restraint of her love which I desire—</div> - <div class='line'>One pang of all these, felt once in all your life,</div> - <div class='line'>Should quail your opinion and quench all our strife.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c013'>These dactylic resolutions of the third and -fourth lines are extremely interesting.</p> - -<p class='c013'>But the most remarkable example of accidental -metrical invention that I have yet -come across is to be found in the Earl of -Surrey’s translation of Horace’s ode on the -golden mean. Surrey was one of the pioneers -of the reaction against the vagueness and -uncertain carelessness of the post-Chaucerians. -From the example of Italian poetry -he had learned that a line must have a fixed -number of syllables. In all his poems his -aim is always to achieve regularity at whatever -cost. To make sure of having ten syllables -in every line it is evident that Surrey -<span class='pageno' id='Page_84'>84</span>made use of his fingers as well as his ears. -We see him at his worst and most laborious -in the first stanza of his translation:</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>Of thy life, Thomas, this compass well mark:</div> - <div class='line'>Ne by coward dread in shunning storms dark</div> - <div class='line'>Not aye with full sails the high seas to beat;</div> - <div class='line'>On shallow shores thy keel in peril freat.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c013'>The ten syllables are there all right, but -except in the last line there is no recognizable -rhythm of any kind, whether regular or -irregular. But when Surrey comes to the -second stanza—</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'><span lang="la" xml:lang="la">Auream quisquis mediocritatem</span></div> - <div class='line'><span lang="la" xml:lang="la">Diligit, tutus caret obsoleti</span></div> - <div class='line'><span lang="la" xml:lang="la">Sordibus tecti, caret invidenda</span></div> - <div class='line in2'><span lang="la" xml:lang="la">Sobrius aula—</span></div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c013'>some lucky accident inspires him with the -genius to translate in these words:</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>Whoso gladly halseth the golden mean,</div> - <div class='line'>Void of dangers advisedly hath his home;</div> - <div class='line'>Not with loathsome muck as a den unclean,</div> - <div class='line'>Nor palace like, whereat disdain may gloam.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c013'>Not only is this a very good translation, but -it is also a very interesting and subtle metrical -experiment. What could be more -felicitous than this stanza made up of three -<span class='pageno' id='Page_85'>85</span>trochaic lines, quickened by beautiful dactylic -resolutions, and a final iambic line of -regular measure—the recognized tonic -chord that brings the music to its close? -And yet the tunelessness of the first stanza -is enough to prove that Surrey’s achievement -is as much a product of accident as the foam -on the jaws of Apelles’ dog. He was doing -his best all the time to write decasyllabics -with the normal iambic beat of the last line. -His failures to do so were sometimes unconscious -strokes of genius.</p> - -<div class='chapter'> - <span class='pageno' id='Page_86'>86</span> - <h2 class='c007'><abbr title='12'>XII</abbr>: POLITE CONVERSATION</h2> -</div> - -<p class='c011'>There are some people to whom the -most difficult to obey of all the commandments -is that which enjoins us to suffer -fools gladly. The prevalence of folly, its -monumental, unchanging permanence and its -almost invariable triumph over intelligence -are phenomena which they cannot contemplate -without experiencing a passion of -righteous indignation or, at the least, of ill-temper. -Sages like Anatole France, who can -probe and anatomize human stupidity and -still remain serenely detached, are rare. -These reflections were suggested by a book -recently published in New York and entitled -<i>The American Credo</i>. The authors of this -work are those <i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">enfants terribles</span></i> of American -criticism, Messrs. H. L. Mencken and -George Jean Nathan. They have compiled -a list of four hundred and eighty-eight articles -of faith which form the fundamental -Credo of the American people, prefacing -them with a very entertaining essay on the -national mind:</p> - -<div class='bq'> - -<p class='c013'>Truth shifts and changes like a cataract of diamonds; -its aspect is never precisely the same at two -<span class='pageno' id='Page_87'>87</span>successive moments. But error flows down the -channel of history like some great stream of lava -or infinitely lethargic glacier. It is the one relatively -fixed thing in a world of chaos.</p> - -</div> - -<p class='c013'>To look through the articles of the Credo is -to realize that there is a good deal of truth -in this statement. Such beliefs as the following—not -by any means confined to -America alone—are probably at least as old -as the Great Pyramid:</p> - -<p class='c013'>That if a woman, about to become a -mother, plays the piano every day, her baby -will be born a Victor Herbert.</p> - -<p class='c013'>That the accumulation of great wealth always -brings with it great unhappiness.</p> - -<p class='c013'>That it is bad luck to kill a spider.</p> - -<p class='c013'>That water rots the hair and thus causes -baldness.</p> - -<p class='c013'>That if a bride wears an old garter with -her new finery, she will have a happy married -life.</p> - -<p class='c013'>That children were much better behaved -twenty years ago than they are to-day.</p> - -<p class='c013'>And most of the others in the collection, -albeit clothed in forms distinctively contemporary -and American, are simply variations -on notions as immemorial.</p> - -<p class='c013'>Inevitably, as one reads <i>The American -Credo</i>, one is reminded of an abler, a more -pitiless and ferocious onslaught on stupidity, -<span class='pageno' id='Page_88'>88</span>I mean Swift’s “<i>Complete Collection of Genteel -and Ingenious Conversation, according -to the most polite mode and method now -used at Court and in the Best Companies of -England</i>. In three Dialogues. By Simon -Wagstaff, Esq.” I was inspired after reading -Messrs. Mencken and Nathan’s work to -refresh my memories of this diabolic picture -of the social amenities. And what a book it -is! There is something almost appalling in -the way it goes on and on, a continuous, -never-ceasing stream of imbecility. Simon -Wagstaff, it will be remembered, spent the -best part of forty years in collecting and -digesting these gems of polite conversation:</p> - -<div class='bq'> - -<p class='c013'>I can faithfully assure the reader that there is -not one single witty phrase in the whole Collection -which has not received the Stamp and Approbation -of at least One Hundred Years, and how much -longer it is hard to determine; he may therefore be -secure to find them all genuine, sterling and -authentic.</p> - -</div> - -<p class='c013'>How genuine, sterling and authentic Mr. -Wagstaff’s treasures of polite conversation -are is proved by the great number of them -which have withstood all the ravages of -time, and still do as good service to-day as -they did in the early seventeen-hundreds or -in the days of Henry <span class='fss'>VIII.</span>: “Go, you Girl, -<span class='pageno' id='Page_89'>89</span>and warm some fresh Cream.” “Indeed, -Madam, there’s none left; for the Cat has -eaten it all.” “I doubt it was a Cat with -Two Legs.”</p> - -<p class='c013'>“And, pray, What News, Mr. Neverout?” -“Why, Madam, Queen Elizabeth’s -dead.” (It would be interesting to discover -at exactly what date Queen Anne took the -place of Queen Elizabeth in this grand old -repartee, or who was the monarch referred to -when the Virgin Queen was still alive. -Aspirants to the degree of B. or D.Litt. -might do worse than to take this problem as -a subject for their thesis.)</p> - -<p class='c013'>Some of the choicest phrases have come -down in the world since Mr. Wagstaff’s day. -Thus, Miss Notable’s retort to Mr. Neverout, -“Go, teach your Grannam to suck -Eggs,” could only be heard now in the -dormitory of a preparatory school. Others -have become slightly modified. Mr. Neverout -says, “Well, all Things have an End, -and a pudden has two.” I think we may -flatter ourselves that the modern emendation, -“except a roly-poly pudding, which has -two,” is an improvement.</p> - -<p class='c013'>Mr. Wagstaff’s second dialogue, wherein -he treats of Polite Conversation at meals, -contains more phrases that testify to the unbroken -continuity of tradition than either of -<span class='pageno' id='Page_90'>90</span>the others. The conversation that centres -on the sirloin of beef is worthy to be recorded -in its entirety:</p> - -<div class='bq'> - -<p class='c013'><span class='sc'>Lady Smart.</span> Come, Colonel, handle your Arms. -Shall I help you to some Beef?</p> - -<p class='c013'><span class='sc'>Colonel.</span> If your Ladyship please; and, pray, -don’t cut like a Mother-in-law, but send me a large -Slice; for I love to lay a good Foundation. I vow, -’tis a noble Sir-loyn.</p> - -<p class='c013'><span class='sc'>Neverout.</span> Ay; here’s cut and come again.</p> - -<p class='c013'><span class='sc'>Miss.</span> But, pray; why is it call’d a Sir-loyn?</p> - -<p class='c013'><span class='sc'>Lord Smart.</span> Why, you must know that our -King James the First, who lov’d good Eating, being -invited to Dinner by one of his Nobles, and -seeing a large Loyn of Beef at his Table, he drew -out his Sword, and, in a Frolic, knighted it. Few -people know the Secret of this.</p> - -</div> - -<p class='c013'>How delightful it is to find that we have -Mr. Wagstaff’s warrant for such gems of wisdom -as, “Cheese digests everything except -itself,” and “If you eat till you’re cold, -you’ll live to grow old”! If they were a -hundred years old in his day they are fully -three hundred now. Long may they survive! -I was sorry, however, to notice that -one of the best of Mr. Wagstaff’s phrases has -been, in the revolution of time, completely -lost. Indeed, before I had read Aubrey’s -“Lives,” Lord Sparkish’s remark, “Come, box -it about; ’twill come to my Father at last,” -<span class='pageno' id='Page_91'>91</span>was quite incomprehensible to me. The -phrase is taken from a story of Sir Walter -Raleigh and his son.</p> - -<div class='bq'> - -<p class='c013'>Sir Walter Raleigh [says Aubrey] being invited -to dinner to some great person where his son was -to goe with him, he sayd to his son, “Thou art expected -to-day at dinner to goe along with me, but -thou art so quarrelsome and affronting that I am -ashamed to have such a beare in my company.” -Mr. Walter humbled himselfe to his father and -promised he would behave himselfe mighty mannerly. -So away they went. He sate next to his -father and was very demure at least halfe dinner -time. Then sayd he, “I this morning, not having -the feare of God before my eies, but by the instigation -of the devill, went....”</p> - -</div> - -<p class='c013'>At this point Mr. Clark, in his edition, suppresses -four lines of Aubrey’s text; but one -can imagine the sort of thing Master Walter -said.</p> - -<div class='bq'> - -<p class='c013'>Sir Walter, being strangely surprized and putt out -of countenance at so great a table, gives his son a -damned blow over the face. His son, as rude as -he was, would not strike his father, but strikes over -the face the gentleman that sate next to him and -sayd, “Box about: ’twill come to my father anon.” -’Tis now a common-used proverb.</p> - -</div> - -<p class='c013'>And so it still deserves to be; how, when and -why it became extinct, I have no idea. Here -is another good subject for a thesis.</p> - -<p class='c013'><span class='pageno' id='Page_92'>92</span>There are but few things in Mr. Wagstaff’s -dialogue which appear definitely out -of date and strange to us, and these super-annuations -can easily be accounted for. -Thus the repeal of the Criminal Laws has -made almost incomprehensible the constant -references to hanging made by Mr. Wagstaff’s -personages. The oaths and the occasional -mild grossnesses have gone out of -fashion in mixed polite society. Otherwise -their conversation is in all essentials exactly -the same as the conversation of the present -day. And this is not to be wondered at; for, -as a wise man has said:</p> - -<div class='bq'> - -<p class='c013'>Speech at the present time retains strong evidence -of the survival in it of the function of herd recognition.... -The function of conversation is ordinarily -regarded as being the exchange of ideas and -information. Doubtless it has come to have such -a function, but an objective examination of ordinary -conversation shows that the actual conveyance -of ideas takes a very small part in it. As a -rule the exchange seems to consist of ideas which -are necessarily common to the two speakers and -are known to be so by each.... Conversation between -persons unknown to one another is apt to -be rich in the ritual of recognition. When one -hears or takes part in these elaborate evolutions, -gingerly proffering one after another of one’s marks -of identity, one’s views on the weather, on fresh -air and draughts, on the Government and on uric -acid, watching intently for the first low hint of a -<span class='pageno' id='Page_93'>93</span>growl, which will show one belongs to the wrong -pack and must withdraw, it is impossible not to -be reminded of the similar manœuvres of the dog -and to be thankful that Nature has provided us with -a less direct, though perhaps a more tedious, code.</p> - -</div> - -<div class='chapter'> - <span class='pageno' id='Page_94'>94</span> - <h2 class='c007'><abbr title='13'>XIII</abbr>: NATIONALITY IN LOVE</h2> -</div> - -<p class='c011'>The hazards of indiscriminate rummaging -in bookshops have introduced me -to two volumes of verse which seem to me -(though I am ordinarily very sceptical of -those grandiose generalizations about racial -and national characteristics, so beloved of a -certain class of literary people) to illustrate -very clearly some of the differences between -the French and English mind. The first is -a little book published some few months back -and entitled <i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Les Baisers</span></i>.... The publisher -says of it in one of those exquisitely -literary puffs which are the glory of the -Paris book trade: <span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">“Un volume de vers? Non -pas! Simplement des baisers mis en vers, -des baisers variés comme l’heure qui passe, -inconstants comme l’Amour lui-même.... -Baisers, baisers, c’est toute leur troublante -musique qui chante dans ces rimes.”</span> The -other volume hails from the antipodes and -is called <i>Songs of Love and Life</i>. No publisher’s -puff accompanies it; but a coloured -picture on the dust-wrapper represents a -nymph frantically clutching at a coy shepherd. -A portrait of the authoress serves as a -frontispiece. Both books are erotic in character, -<span class='pageno' id='Page_95'>95</span>and both are very indifferent in poetical -quality. They are only interesting as -illustrations, the more vivid because of their -very second-rateness, of the two characteristic -methods of approach, French and English, -to the theme of physical passion.</p> - -<p class='c013'>The author of <i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Les Baisers</span></i> approaches his -amorous experiences with the detached manner -of a psychologist interested in the mental -reactions of certain corporeal pleasures -whose mechanism he has previously studied -in his capacity of physiological observer. His -attitude is the same as that of the writers -of those comedies of manners which hold the -stage in the theatres of the boulevards. It -is dry, precise, matter-of-fact and almost -scientific. The comedian of the boulevards -does not concern himself with trying to find -some sort of metaphysical justification for -the raptures of physical passion, nor is he -in any way a propagandist of sensuality. He -is simply an analyst of facts, whose business -it is to get all the wit that is possible out of -an equivocal situation. Similarly, the author -of these poems is far too highly sophisticated -to imagine that</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line in6'>every spirit as it is most pure,</div> - <div class='line'>And hath in it the more of heavenly light,</div> - <div class='line'>So it the fairer body doth procure</div> - <div class='line'><span class='pageno' id='Page_96'>96</span>To habit in, and it more fairly dight</div> - <div class='line'>With cheerful grace and amiable sight.</div> - <div class='line'>For of the soul the body form doth take;</div> - <div class='line'>For soul is form and doth the body make.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c013'>He does not try to make us believe that -physical pleasures have a divine justification. -Neither has he any wish to “make us -grovel, hand and foot in Belial’s gripe.” He -is merely engaged in remembering <span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">“des heures -et des entretiens”</span> which were extremely -pleasant—hours which strike for every one, -conversations and meetings which are taking -place in all parts of the world and at every -moment.</p> - -<p class='c013'>This attitude towards <i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">volupté</span></i> is sufficiently -old in France to have made possible -the evolution of a very precise and definite -vocabulary in which to describe its phenomena. -This language is as exact as the technical -jargon of a trade, and as elegant as the -Latin of Petronius. It is a language of which -we have no equivalent in our English literature. -It is impossible in English to describe -<i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">volupté</span></i> elegantly; it is hardly possible -to write of it without being gross. To -begin with, we do not even possess a word -equivalent to <i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">volupté</span></i>. “Voluptuousness” is -feeble and almost meaningless; “pleasure” -is hopelessly inadequate. From the first the -English writer is at a loss; he cannot even -<span class='pageno' id='Page_97'>97</span>name precisely the thing he proposes to describe -and analyze. But for the most part -he has not much use for such a language. -His approach to the subject is not dispassionate -and scientific, and he has no need for -technicalities. The English amorist is inclined -to approach the subject rapturously, -passionately, philosophically—almost in any -way that is not the wittily matter-of-fact -French way.</p> - -<p class='c013'>In our rich Australian <i>Songs of Love and -Life</i> we see the rapturous-philosophic approach -reduced to something that is very -nearly the absurd. Overcome with the intensities -of connubial bliss, the authoress -feels it necessary to find a sort of justification -for them by relating them in some way -with the cosmos. God, we are told,</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line in4'>looking through His hills on you and me,</div> - <div class='line'>Feeds Heaven upon the flame of our desire.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c013'>Or again:</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>Our passions breathe their own wild harmony,</div> - <div class='line'>And pour out music at a clinging kiss.</div> - <div class='line'>Sing on, O Soul, our lyric of desire,</div> - <div class='line'>For God Himself is in the melody.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c013'>Meanwhile the author of <i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Les Baisers</span></i>, always -elegantly <i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">terre-à-terre</span></i>, formulates his -<span class='pageno' id='Page_98'>98</span>more concrete desires in an Alexandrine -worthy of Racine:</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Viens. Je veux dégrafer moi-même ton corsage.</span></div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c013'>The desire to involve the cosmos in our -emotions is by no means confined to the -poetess of <i>Songs of Love and Life</i>. In certain -cases we are all apt to invoke the universe -in an attempt to explain and account -for emotions whose intensity seems almost -inexplicable. This is particularly true of -the emotions aroused in us by the contemplation -of beauty. Why we should feel so -strongly when confronted with certain forms -and colours, certain sounds, certain verbal -suggestions of form and harmony—why the -thing which we call beauty should move us -at all—goodness only knows. In order to -explain the phenomenon, poets have involved -the universe in the matter, asserting that they -are moved by the contemplation of physical -beauty because it is the symbol of the divine. -The intensities of physical passion -have presented the same problem. Ashamed -of admitting that such feelings can have a -purely sublunary cause, we affirm, like the -Australian poetess, that “God Himself is in -the melody.” That, we argue, can be the -only explanation for the violence of the emotion. -<span class='pageno' id='Page_99'>99</span>This view of the matter is particularly -common in a country with fundamental puritanic -traditions like England, where the dry, -matter-of-fact attitude of the French seems -almost shocking. The puritan feels bound -to justify the facts of beauty and <i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">volupté</span></i>. -They must be in some way made moral before -he can accept them. The French unpuritanic -mind accepts the facts as they are -tendered to it by experience, at their face -value.</p> - -<div class='chapter'> - <span class='pageno' id='Page_100'>100</span> - <h2 class='c007'><abbr title='14'>XIV</abbr>: HOW THE DAYS DRAW IN!</h2> -</div> - -<p class='c011'>The autumn equinox is close upon us -with all its presages of mortality, a -shortening day, a colder and longer night. -How the days draw in! Fear of ridicule -hardly allows one to make the melancholy -constatation. It is a conversational gambit -that, like fool’s mate, can only be used -against the simplest and least experienced of -players. And yet how much of the world’s -most moving poetry is nothing but a variation -on the theme of this in-drawing day! -The certainty of death has inspired more -poetry than the hope of immortality. The -visible transience of frail and lovely matter -has impressed itself more profoundly on -the mind of man than the notion of spiritual -permanence.</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Et l’on verra bientôt surgir du sein de l’onde</span></div> - <div class='line'><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">La première clarté de mon dernier soleil.</span></div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c013'>That is an article of faith from which nobody -can withhold assent.</p> - -<p class='c013'>Of late I have found myself almost incapable -of enjoying any poetry whose inspiration -is not despair or melancholy. Why, I -<span class='pageno' id='Page_101'>101</span>hardly know. Perhaps it is due to the -chronic horror of the political situation. For -heaven knows, that is quite sufficient to account -for a taste for melancholy verse. -The subject of any European government -to-day feels all the sensations of Gulliver in -the paws of the Queen of Brobdingnag’s -monkey—the sensations of some small and -helpless being at the mercy of something -monstrous and irresponsible and idiotic. -There sits the monkey “on the ridge of a -building five hundred yards above the -ground, holding us like a baby in one of his -fore paws.” Will he let go? Will he -squeeze us to death? The best we can hope -for is to be “let drop on a ridge tile,” with -only enough bruises to keep one in bed for -a fortnight. But it seems very unlikely that -some “honest lad will climb up and, putting -us in his breeches pocket, bring us down -safe.” However, I divagate a little from my -subject, which is the poetry of melancholy.</p> - -<p class='c013'>Some day I shall compile an Oxford Book -of Depressing Verse, which shall contain -nothing but the most magnificent expressions -of melancholy and despair. All the obvious -people will be in it and as many of the obscure -apostles of gloom as vague and miscellaneous -reading shall have made known to -me. A duly adequate amount of space, for -<span class='pageno' id='Page_102'>102</span>example, will be allotted to that all but -great poet, Fulke Greville, Lord Brooke. -For dark magnificence there are not many -things that can rival that summing up -against life and human destiny at the end of -his “Mustapha.”</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>Oh, wearisome condition of humanity,</div> - <div class='line'>Born under one law to another bound,</div> - <div class='line'>Vainly begot and yet forbidden vanity,</div> - <div class='line'>Created sick, commanded to be sound.</div> - <div class='line in2'>What meaneth nature by these diverse laws,</div> - <div class='line in2'>Passion and reason, self-division’s cause?</div> - </div> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>Is it the mark or majesty of power</div> - <div class='line'>To make offences that it may forgive?</div> - <div class='line'>Nature herself doth her own self deflower</div> - <div class='line'>To hate those errors she herself doth give....</div> - <div class='line in2'>If nature did not take delight in blood,</div> - <div class='line in2'>She would have made more easy ways to good.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c013'>Milton aimed at justifying the ways of God -to man; Fulke Greville gloomily denounces -them.</p> - -<p class='c013'>Nor shall I omit from my anthology the -extraordinary description in the Prologue to -“Alaham” of the Hell of Hells and of Privation, -the peculiar torment of the place:</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>Thou monster horrible, under whose ugly doom</div> - <div class='line'>Down in eternity’s perpetual night</div> - <div class='line'>Man’s temporal sins bear torments infinite,</div> - <div class='line'>For change of desolation must I come</div> - <div class='line'><span class='pageno' id='Page_103'>103</span>To tempt the earth and to profane the light.</div> - <div class='line'>A place there is, upon no centre placed,</div> - <div class='line'>Deep under depths as far as is the sky</div> - <div class='line'>Above the earth, dark, infinitely spaced,</div> - <div class='line'>Pluto the king, the kingdom misery.</div> - <div class='line'>Privation would reign there, by God not made,</div> - <div class='line'>But creature of uncreated sin,</div> - <div class='line'>Whose being is all beings to invade,</div> - <div class='line'>To have no ending though it did begin;</div> - <div class='line'>And so of past, things present and to come,</div> - <div class='line'>To give depriving, not tormenting doom.</div> - <div class='line'>But horror in the understanding mixed....</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c013'>Like most of his contemporaries in those -happy days before the notion of progress -had been invented, Lord Brooke was what -Peacock would have called a “Pejorationist.” -His political views (and they were -also Sidney’s) are reflected in his <i>Life of -Sir Philip Sidney</i>. The best that a statesman -can do, according to these Elizabethan -pessimists, is to patch and prop the decaying -fabric of society in the hope of staving off -for a little longer the final inevitable crash. -It seems curious to us, who have learnt to -look at the Elizabethan age as the most -splendid in English history, that the men -who were the witnesses of these splendours -should have regarded their time as an age -of decadence.</p> - -<p class='c013'>The notion of the Fall was fruitful in -despairing poetry. One of the most remarkable -<span class='pageno' id='Page_104'>104</span>products of this doctrine is a certain -“<span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Sonnet Chrétien</span>” by the seventeenth-century -writer, <span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Jean Ogier de Gombauld</span>, surnamed -“<span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">le Beau Ténébreux</span>.”</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Cette source de mort, cette homicide peste,</span></div> - <div class='line'><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Ce péché dont l’enfer a le monde infecté,</span></div> - <div class='line'><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">M’a laissé pour tout être un bruit d’avoir été,</span></div> - <div class='line'><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Et je suis de moi-même une image funeste.</span></div> - <div class='line'><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">L’Auteur de l’univers, le Monarque céleste</span></div> - <div class='line'><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">S’était rendu visible en ma seule beauté.</span></div> - <div class='line'><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Ce vieux titre d’honneur qu’autrefois j’ai porté</span></div> - <div class='line'><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Et que je porte encore, est tout ce qui me reste.</span></div> - </div> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Mais c’est fait de ma gloire, et je ne suis plus rien</span></div> - <div class='line'><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Qu’un fantôme qui court après l’ombre d’un bien,</span></div> - <div class='line'><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Ou qu’un corps animé du seul ver qui le ronge.</span></div> - <div class='line'><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Non, je ne suis plus rien quand je veux m’éprouver,</span></div> - <div class='line'><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Qu’un esprit ténébreux qui voit tout comme en songe</span></div> - <div class='line'><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Et cherche incessament ce qu’il ne peut trouver.</span></div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c013'>There are astonishing lines in this, lines that -might have been written by a Baudelaire, if -he had been born a Huguenot and two hundred -years before his time. That “carcase -animated by the sole gnawing worm” is -something that one would expect to find rotting -away among the sombre and beautiful -Flowers of Evil.</p> - -<p class='c013'>An amusing speculation. If Steinach’s -rejuvenating operations on the old become -<span class='pageno' id='Page_105'>105</span>the normal and accepted thing, what will be -the effect on poetry of this abolition of the -depressing process of decay? It may be that -the poetry of melancholy and despair is destined -to lose its place in literature, and that -a spirit of what William James called -“healthy-mindedness” will inherit its kingdom. -Many “eternal truths” have already -found their way on to the dust-heap of antiquated -ideas. It may be that this last and -seemingly most inexorable of them—that life -is short and subject to a dreadful decay—will -join the other great commonplaces which -have already perished out of literature.</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>The flesh is bruckle, the fiend is slee:</div> - <div class='line in2'><span lang="la" xml:lang="la">Timor mortis conturbat me:—</span></div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c013'>Some day, it may be, these sentiments will -seem as hopelessly superannuated as Milton’s -cosmology.</p> - -<div class='chapter'> - <span class='pageno' id='Page_106'>106</span> - <h2 class='c007'><abbr title='15'>XV</abbr>: TIBET</h2> -</div> - -<p class='c011'>In moments of complete despair, when it -seems that all is for the worst in the worst -of all possible worlds, it is cheering to discover -that there are places where stupidity -reigns even more despotically than in Western -Europe, where civilization is based on -principles even more fantastically unreasonable. -Recent experience has shown me that -the depression into which the Peace, Mr. -Churchill, the state of contemporary literature, -have conspired to plunge the mind, can -be sensibly relieved by a study, even superficial, -of the manners and customs of Tibet. -The spectacle of an ancient and elaborate -civilization of which almost no detail is not -entirely idiotic is in the highest degree comforting -and refreshing. It fills us with hopes -of the ultimate success of our own civilization; -it restores our wavering self-satisfaction -in being citizens of industrialized Europe. -Compared with Tibet, we are prodigious. -Let us cherish the comparison.</p> - -<p class='c013'>My informant about Tibetan civilization -is a certain Japanese monk of the name of -Kawaguchi, who spent three years in Tibet -<span class='pageno' id='Page_107'>107</span>at the beginning of the present century. His -account of the experience has been translated -into English, and published, with the -title <i>Three Years in Tibet</i>, by the Theosophical -Society. It is one of the great travel -books of the world, and, so far as I am aware, -the most interesting book on Tibet that exists. -Kawaguchi enjoyed opportunities in -Tibet which no European traveller could possibly -have had. He attended the University -of Lhasa, he enjoyed the acquaintance of the -Dalai Lama himself, he was intimate with -one of the four Ministers of Finance, he was -the friend of lama and layman, of all sorts -and conditions of Tibetans, from the highest -class to the lowest—the despicable caste of -smiths and butchers. He knew his Tibet intimately; -for those three years, indeed, he -was for all practical purposes a Tibetan. -This is something which no European explorer -can claim, and it is this which gives -Kawaguchi’s book its unique interest.</p> - -<p class='c013'>The Japanese, like people of every other -nationality except the Chinese, are not permitted -to enter Tibet. Mr. Kawaguchi did -not allow this to stand in the way of his -pious mission—for his purpose in visiting -Tibet was to investigate the Buddhist writings -and traditions of the place. He made -his way to India, and in a long stay at -<span class='pageno' id='Page_108'>108</span>Darjeeling familiarized himself with the -Tibetan language. He then set out to walk -across the Himalayas. Not daring to affront -the strictly guarded gates which bar the direct -route to Lhasa, he penetrated Tibet at its -southwestern corner, underwent prodigious -hardships in an uninhabited desert eighteen -thousand feet above sea-level, visited the -holy lake of Manosarovara, and finally, -after astonishing adventures, arrived in -Lhasa. Here he lived for nearly three years, -passing himself off as a Chinaman. At the -end of that time his secret leaked out, and -he was obliged to accelerate his departure -for India. So much for Kawaguchi himself, -though I should have liked to say more of -him; for a more charming and sympathetic -character never revealed himself in a book.</p> - -<p class='c013'>Tibet is so full of fantastic low comedy -that one hardly knows where to begin a catalogue -of its absurdities. Shall we start with -the Tibetans’ highly organized service of -trained nurses, whose sole duty it is to prevent -their patients from going to sleep? or -with the Dalai Lama’s chief source of income—the -sale of pills made of dung, at, -literally, a guinea a box? or with the Tibetan -custom of never washing from the moment -of birth, when, however, they are plentifully -anointed with melted butter, to the -<span class='pageno' id='Page_109'>109</span>moment of death? And then there is the -University of Lhasa, which an eminent Cambridge -philosopher has compared with the -University of Oxford—somewhat unjustly, -perhaps; but let that pass. At the University -of Lhasa the student is instructed in logic -and philosophy; every year of his stay he -has to learn by heart from one to five or six -hundred pages of holy texts. He is also -taught mathematics, but in Tibet this art is -not carried farther than subtraction. It -takes twenty years to get a degree at the -University of Lhasa—twenty years, and -then most of the candidates are ploughed. -To obtain a superior Ph.D. degree, entitling -one to become a really holy and eminent -lama, forty years of application to study and -to virtue are required. But it is useless to -try to make a catalogue of the delights of -Tibet. There are too many of them for mention -in this small space. One can do no -more than glance at a few of the brighter -spots in the system.</p> - -<p class='c013'>There is much to be said for the Tibetan -system of taxation. The Government requires -a considerable revenue; for enormous -sums have to be spent in keeping perpetually -burning in the principal Buddhist cathedral -of Lhasa an innumerable army of lamps, -which may not be fed with anything cheaper -<span class='pageno' id='Page_110'>110</span>than clarified yak butter. This is the heaviest -item of expenditure. But a great deal of -money also goes to supporting the Tibetan -clergy, who must number at least a sixth of -the total population. The money is raised -by a poll tax, paid in kind, the amount of -which, fixed by ancient tradition, may, theoretically, -never be altered. Theoretically -only; for the Tibetan Government employs -in the collection of taxes no fewer than -twenty different standards of weight and -thirty-six different standards of measure. -The pound may weigh anything from half -to a pound and a half; and the same with the -units of measure. It is thus possible to calculate -with extraordinary nicety, according -to the standard of weight and measure in -which your tax is assessed, where precisely -you stand in the Government’s favour. If -you are a notoriously bad character, or even -if you are innocent, but live in a bad district, -your tax will have to be paid in measures of -the largest size. If you are virtuous, or, better, -if you are rich, of good family and <i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">bien -pensant</span></i>, then you will pay by weights -which are only half the nominal weight. -For those whom the Government neither -hates nor loves, but regards with more or less -contempt or tolerance, there are the thirty-four -intervening degrees.</p> - -<p class='c013'><span class='pageno' id='Page_111'>111</span>Kawaguchi’s final judgment of the Tibetans, -after three years’ intimate acquaintance -with them, is not a flattering one:</p> - -<div class='bq'> - -<p class='c013'>The Tibetans are characterized by four serious -defects, these being: filthiness, superstition, unnatural -customs (such as polyandry), and unnatural -art. I should be sorely perplexed if I were asked -to name their redeeming points; but if I had to do -so, I should mention first of all the fine climate in -the vicinity of Lhasa and Shigatze, their sonorous -and refreshing voices in reading the Text, the animated -style of their catechisms, and their ancient -art.</p> - -</div> - -<p class='c013'>Certainly a bad lot of vices; but then the -Tibetan virtues are not lightly to be set aside. -We English possess none of them: our climate -is abominable, our method of reading -the holy texts is painful in the extreme, our -catechisms, at least in my young days, were -far from animated, and our ancient art is -very indifferent stuff. But still, in spite of -these defects, in spite of Mr. Churchill and -the state of contemporary literature, we can -still look at the Tibetans and feel reassured.</p> - -<div class='chapter'> - <span class='pageno' id='Page_112'>112</span> - <h2 class='c007'><abbr title='16'>XVI</abbr>: BEAUTY IN 1920</h2> -</div> - -<p class='c011'>To those who know how to read the signs -of the times it will have become apparent, -in the course of these last days and -weeks, that the Silly Season is close upon us. -Already—and this in July with the menace -of three or four new wars grumbling on the -thunderous horizon—already a monster of -the deep has appeared at a popular seaside -resort. Already Mr. Louis McQuilland has -launched in the <i>Daily Express</i> a fierce onslaught -on the younger poets of the Asylum. -Already the picture-papers are more than -half filled with photographs of bathing -nymphs—photographs that make one understand -the ease with which St. Anthony rebuffed -his temptations. The newspapermen, -ramping up and down like wolves, seek -their prey wherever they may find it; and it -was with a unanimous howl of delight that -the whole Press went pelting after the hare -started by Mrs. Asquith in a recent instalment -of her autobiography. Feebly and belatedly, -let me follow the pack.</p> - -<p class='c013'>Mrs. Asquith’s denial of beauty to the -daughters of the twentieth century has -<span class='pageno' id='Page_113'>113</span>proved a god-sent giant gooseberry. It has -necessitated the calling in of a whole host of -skin-food specialists, portrait-painters and -photographers to deny this far from soft impeachment. -A great deal of space has been -agreeably and inexpensively filled. Every -one is satisfied, public, editors, skin-food -specialists and all. But by far the most interesting -contribution to the debate was a -pictorial one, which appeared, if I remember -rightly, in the <i>Daily News</i>. Side by side, on -the same page, we were shown the photographs -of three beauties of the eighteen-eighties -and three of the nineteen-twenties. -The comparison was most instructive. For -a great gulf separates the two types of -beauty represented by these two sets of photographs.</p> - -<p class='c013'>I remember in <i>If</i>, one of those charming -conspiracies of E. V. Lucas and George Morrow, -a series of parodied fashion-plates entitled -“If Faces get any Flatter. Last year’s -standard, this year’s Evening Standard.” -The faces of our living specimens of beauty -have grown flatter with those of their fashion-plate -sisters. Compare the types of 1880 -and 1920. The first is steep-faced, almost -Roman in profile; in the contemporary beauties -the face has broadened and shortened, -the profile is less noble, less imposing, more -<span class='pageno' id='Page_114'>114</span>appealingly, more alluringly pretty. Forty -years ago it was the aristocratic type that was -appreciated; to-day the popular taste has -shifted from the countess to the soubrette. -Photography confirms the fact that the ladies -of the ’eighties looked like Du Maurier drawings. -But among the present young generation -one looks in vain for the type; the Du -Maurier damsel is as extinct as the mesozoic -reptile; the Fish girl and other kindred flat-faced -species have taken her place.</p> - -<p class='c013'>Between the ’thirties and ’fifties another -type, the egg-faced girl, reigned supreme in -the affections of the world. From the early -portraits of Queen Victoria to the fashion-plates -in the <i>Ladies’ Keepsake</i> this invariable -type prevails—the egg-shaped face, the sleek -hair, the swan-like neck, the round, champagne-bottle -shoulders. Compared with the -decorous impassivity of the oviform girl our -flat-faced fashion-plates are terribly abandoned -and provocative. And because one expects -so much in the way of respectability -from these egg-faces of an earlier age, one is -apt to be shocked when one sees them conducting -themselves in ways that seem unbefitting. -One thinks of that enchanting picture -of Etty’s, “Youth on the Prow and -Pleasure at the Helm.” The naiads are of -the purest egg-faced type. Their hair is -<span class='pageno' id='Page_115'>115</span>sleek, their shoulders slope and their faces are -as impassive as blanks. And yet they have -no clothes on. It is almost indecent; one imagined -that the egg-faced type came into the -world complete with flowing draperies.</p> - -<p class='c013'>It is not only the face of beauty that alters -with the changes of popular taste. The -champagne-bottle shoulders of the oviform -girl have vanished from the modern fashion-plate -and from modern life. The contemporary -hand, with its two middle fingers held -together and the forefinger and little finger -splayed apart, is another recent product. -Above all, the feet have changed. In the -days of the egg-faces no fashion-plate had -more than one foot. This rule will, I think, -be found invariable. That solitary foot projects, -generally in a strangely haphazard way -as though it had nothing to do with a leg, -from under the edge of the skirt. And what -a foot! It has no relation to those provocative -feet in Suckling’s ballad:</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>Her feet beneath her petticoat</div> - <div class='line'>Like little mice stole in and out.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c013'>It is an austere foot. It is a small, black, -oblong object like a tea-leaf. No living human -being has ever seen a foot like it, for it -is utterly unlike the feet of nineteen-twenty. -<span class='pageno' id='Page_116'>116</span>To-day the fashion-plate is always a biped. -The tea-leaf has been replaced by two feet -of rich baroque design, curved and florid, -with insteps like the necks of Arab horses. -Faces may have changed shape, but feet have -altered far more radically. On the text, “the -feet of the young women,” it would be possible -to write a profound philosophical -sermon.</p> - -<p class='c013'>And while I am on the subject of feet I -would like to mention another curious phenomenon -of the same kind, but affecting, this -time, the standards of male beauty. Examine -the pictorial art of the eighteenth century, -and you will find that the shape of the -male leg is not what it was. In those days -the calf of the leg was not a muscle that -bulged to its greatest dimensions a little below -the back of the knee, to subside, <i><span lang="it" xml:lang="it">decrescendo</span></i>, -towards the ankle. No, in the eighteenth -century the calf was an even crescent, -with its greatest projection opposite the middle -of the shin; the ankle, as we know it, -hardly existed. This curious calf is forced -upon one’s attention by almost every minor -picture-maker of the eighteenth century, and -even by some of the great masters, as, for -instance, Blake. How it came into existence -I do not know. Presumably the crescent calf -was considered, in the art schools, to approach -<span class='pageno' id='Page_117'>117</span>more nearly to the Platonic Idea of -the human leg than did the poor distorted -Appearance of real life. Personally, I prefer -my calves with the bulge at the top and a -proper ankle at the bottom. But then I don’t -hold much with the <i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">beau idéal</span></i>.</p> - -<p class='c013'>The process by which one type of beauty -becomes popular, imposes its tyranny for a -period and then is displaced by a dissimilar -type is a mysterious one. It may be that patient -historical scholars will end by discovering -some law to explain the transformation -of the Du Maurier type into the flat-face -type, the tea-leaf foot into the baroque foot, -the crescent calf into the normal calf. As -far as one can see at present, these changes -seem to be the result of mere hazard and arbitrary -choice. But a time will doubtless come -when it will be found that these changes of -taste are as ineluctably predetermined as any -chemical change. Given the South African -War, the accession of Edward <span class='fss'>VII.</span> and the -Liberal triumph of 1906, it was, no doubt, as -inevitable that Du Maurier should have -given place to Fish as that zinc subjected to -sulphuric acid should break up into ZnSO4 + -H2. But we leave it to others to formulate -the precise workings of the law.</p> - -<div class='chapter'> - <span class='pageno' id='Page_118'>118</span> - <h2 class='c007'><abbr title='17'>XVII</abbr>: GREAT THOUGHTS</h2> -</div> - -<p class='c011'>To all lovers of unfamiliar quotations, -aphorisms, great thoughts and intellectual -gems, I would heartily recommend a -heavy volume recently published in Brussels -and entitled <i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Pensées sur la Science, la Guerre -et sur des sujets très variés</span></i>. The book contains -some twelve or thirteen thousand quotations, -selected from a treasure of one hundred -and twenty-three thousand great -thoughts gleaned and garnered by the industry -of Dr. Maurice Legat—an industry -which will be appreciated at its value by any -one who has ever made an attempt to compile -a commonplace book or private anthology -of his own. The almost intolerable labour -of copying out extracts can only be -avoided by the drastic use of the scissors; -and there are few who can afford the luxury -of mutilating their copies of the best authors.</p> - -<p class='c013'>For some days I made Dr. Legat’s book -my <i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">livre de chevet</span></i>. But I had very soon to -give up reading it at night, for I found that -the Great often said things so peculiar that -I was kept awake in the effort to discover -<span class='pageno' id='Page_119'>119</span>their meaning. Why, for example, should it -be categorically stated by Lamennais that <span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">“si -les animaux connaissaient Dieu, ils parleraient”</span>? -What could Cardinal Maury -have meant when he said, “L’éloquence, -compagne ordinaire de la liberté [astonishing -generalization!], est inconnue en Angleterre”? -These were mysteries insoluble -enough to counteract the soporific effects of -such profound truths as this, discovered, apparently, -in 1846 by Monsieur C. H. D. -Duponchel, <span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">“Le plus sage mortel est sujet à -l’erreur.”</span></p> - -<p class='c013'>Dr. Legat has found some pleasing quotations -on the subject of England and the English. -His selection proves with what fatal -ease even the most intelligent minds are -lured into making generalizations about national -character, and how grotesque those -generalizations always are. Montesquieu informs -us that <span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">“dès que sa fortune se délabre, -un anglais tue ou se fait voleur.”</span> Of the -better half of this potential murderer and -robber Balzac says, <span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">“La femme anglaise est -une pauvre créature verteuse par force, prête -à se dépraver.”</span> <span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">“La vanité est l’âme de -toute société anglaise,”</span> says Lamartine. -Ledru-Rollin is of opinion that all the riches -of England are <span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">“des dépouilles volées aux -tombeaux.”</span></p> - -<p class='c013'><span class='pageno' id='Page_120'>120</span>The Goncourts risk a characteristically -dashing generalization on the national characters -of England and France: <span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">“L’Anglais, -filou comme peuple, est honnête comme individu. -Il est le contraire du Français, honnête -comme peuple, et filou comme individu.”</span> -If one is going to make a comparison Voltaire’s -is more satisfactory because less pretentious. -Strange are the ways of you Englishmen,</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line in18'><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">qui, des mêmes couteaux,</span></div> - <div class='line'><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Coupez la tête au roi et la queue aux chevaux.</span></div> - <div class='line'><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Nous Français, plus humains, laissons aux rois leurs têtes,</span></div> - <div class='line'><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Et la queue à nos bêtes.</span></div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c013'>It is unfortunate that history should have -vitiated the truth of this pithy and pregnant -statement.</p> - -<p class='c013'>But the bright spots in this enormous tome -are rare. After turning over a few hundred -pages one is compelled, albeit reluctantly, to -admit that the Great Thought or Maxim is -nearly the most boring form of literature that -exists. Others, it seems, have anticipated -me in this grand discovery. <span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">“Las de m’ennuyer -des pensées des autres,”</span> says d’Alembert, -<span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">“j’ai voulu leur donner les miennes; -mais je puis me flatter de leur avoir rendu -tout l’ennui que j’avais reçu d’eux.”</span> Almost -<span class='pageno' id='Page_121'>121</span>next to d’Alembert’s statement I find this -confession from the pen of J. Roux (1834-1906): -<span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">“Emettre des pensées, voilà ma consolation, -mon délice, ma vie!”</span> Happy Monsieur -Roux!</p> - -<p class='c013'>Turning dissatisfied from Dr. Legat’s anthology -of thought, I happened upon the second -number of <i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Proverbe</span></i>, a monthly review, -four pages in length, directed by M. Paul -Eluard and counting among its contributors -Tristan Tzara of <i>Dada</i> fame, Messrs. Soupault, -Breton and Aragon, the directors of -<i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Littérature</span></i>, M. Picabia, M. Ribemont-Dessaignes -and others of the same kidney. -Here, on the front page of the March number -of <i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Proverbe</span></i>, I found the very comment -on Great Thoughts for which I had, in my -dissatisfaction, been looking. The following -six maxims are printed one below the -other: the first of them is a quotation from -the <i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Intransigeant</span></i>; the other five appear to -be the work of M. Tzara, who appends a -footnote to this effect: <span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">“Je m’appelle dorénavant -exclusivement Monsieur Paul Bourget.”</span> -Here they are:</p> - -<div class='bq'> - -<p class='c013'><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Il faut violer les règles, oui, mais pour les violer -il faut les connaître.</span></p> - -<p class='c013'><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Il faut régler la connaissance, oui, mais pour la -régler il faut la violer.</span></p> - -<p class='c013'><span class='pageno' id='Page_122'>122</span><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Il faut connaître les viols, oui, mais pour les -connaître il faut les régler.</span></p> - -<p class='c013'><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Il faut connaître les règles, oui, mais pour les -connaître il faut les violer.</span></p> - -<p class='c013'><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Il faut régler les viols, oui, mais pour les régler -il faut les connaître.</span></p> - -<p class='c013'><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Il faut violer la connaissance, oui, mais pour la -violer il faut la régler.</span></p> - -</div> - -<p class='c013'>It is to be hoped that Dr. Legat will find -room for at least a selection of these profound -thoughts in the next edition of his -book. <span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">“<span class='sc'>Le</span> passé et <span class='sc'>La</span> pensée n’existent -pas,”</span> affirms M. Raymond Duncan on another -page of <i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Proverbe</span></i>. It is precisely after -taking too large a dose of <span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">“Pensées sur la -Science, la Guerre et sur des sujets très -variés”</span> that one half wishes the statement -were in fact true.</p> - -<div class='chapter'> - <span class='pageno' id='Page_123'>123</span> - <h2 class='c007'><abbr title='18'>XVIII</abbr>: ADVERTISEMENT</h2> -</div> - -<p class='c011'>I have always been interested in the -subtleties of literary form. This preoccupation -with the outward husk, with the -letter of literature, is, I dare say, the sign of -a fundamental spiritual impotence. Gigadibs, -the literary man, can understand the -tricks of the trade; but when it is a question, -not of conjuring, but of miracles, he is no -more effective than Mr. Sludge. Still, conjuring -is amusing to watch and to practise; -an interest in the machinery of the art requires -no further justification. I have dallied -with many literary forms, taking pleasure -in their different intricacies, studying the -means by which great authors of the past -have resolved the technical problems presented -by each. Sometimes I have even tried -my hand at solving the problems myself—delightful -and salubrious exercise for the -mind. And now I have discovered the most -exciting, the most arduous literary form of -all, the most difficult to master, the most -pregnant in curious possibilities. I mean the -advertisement.</p> - -<p class='c013'>Nobody who has not tried to write an -<span class='pageno' id='Page_124'>124</span>advertisement has any idea of the delights -and difficulties presented by this form of -literature—or shall I say of “applied literature,” -for the sake of those who still believe -in the romantic superiority of the pure, the -disinterested, over the immediately useful? -The problem that confronts the writer of -advertisements is an immensely complicated -one, and by reason of its very arduousness -immensely interesting. It is far easier to -write ten passably effective Sonnets, good -enough to take in the not too inquiring critic, -than one effective advertisement that will -take in a few thousand of the uncritical buying -public. The problem presented by the -Sonnet is child’s play compared with the -problem of the advertisement. In writing a -Sonnet one need think only of oneself. If -one’s readers find one boring or obscure, so -much the worse for them. But in writing an -advertisement one must think of other people. -Advertisement writers may not be -lyrical, or obscure, or in any way esoteric. -They must be universally intelligible. A -good advertisement has this in common with -drama and oratory, that it must be immediately -comprehensible and directly moving. -But at the same time it must possess all the -succinctness of epigram.</p> - -<p class='c013'>The orator and the dramatist have “world -<span class='pageno' id='Page_125'>125</span>enough and time” to produce their effects by -cumulative appeals; they can turn all round -their subject, they can repeat; between the -heights of their eloquence they can gracefully -practise the art of sinking, knowing that -a period of flatness will only set off the -splendour of their impassioned moments. -But the advertiser has no space to spare; he -pays too dearly for every inch. He must -play upon the minds of his audience with -a small and limited instrument. He must -persuade them to part with their money in a -speech that is no longer than many a lyric -by Herrick. Could any problem be more -fascinatingly difficult? No one should be -allowed to talk about the <i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">mot juste</span></i> or the -polishing of style who has not tried his hand -at writing an advertisement of something -which the public does not want, but which -it must be persuaded into buying. Your -<i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">boniment</span></i> must not exceed a poor hundred -and fifty or two hundred words. With what -care you must weigh every syllable! What -infinite pains must be taken to fashion every -phrase into a barbed hook that shall stick in -the reader’s mind and draw from its hiding-place -within his pocket the reluctant coin! -One’s style and ideas must be lucid and simple -enough to be understood by all; but at -the same time, they must not be vulgar. -<span class='pageno' id='Page_126'>126</span>Elegance and an economical distinction are -required; but any trace of literariness in an -advertisement is fatal to its success.</p> - -<p class='c013'>I do not know whether any one has yet -written a history of advertising. If the book -does not already exist it will certainly have -to be written. The story of the development -of advertising from its infancy in the early -nineteenth century to its luxuriant maturity -in the twentieth is an essential chapter in -the history of democracy. Advertisement begins -abjectly, crawling on its belly like the -serpent after the primal curse. Its abjection -is the oily humbleness of the shopkeeper in -an oligarchical society. Those nauseating -references to the nobility and clergy, which -are the very staple of early advertisements, -are only possible in an age when the aristocracy -and its established Church effectively -ruled the land. The custom of invoking -these powers lingered on long after they had -ceased to hold sway. It is now, I fancy, almost -wholly extinct. It may be that certain -old-fashioned girls’ schools still provide education -for the daughters of the nobility and -clergy; but I am inclined to doubt it. Advertisers -still find it worth while to parade -the names and escutcheons of kings. But -anything less than royalty is, frankly, a -“wash-out.”</p> - -<p class='c013'><span class='pageno' id='Page_127'>127</span>The crawling style of advertisement with -its mixture of humble appeals to patrons and -its hyperbolical laudation of the goods advertised, -was early varied by the pseudo-scientific -style, a simple development of the -quack’s patter at the fair. Balzacians will -remember the advertisement composed by -Finot and the Illustrious Gaudissard for -César Birotteau’s <span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">“Huile Céphalique.”</span> The -type is not yet dead; we still see advertisements -of substances “based on the principles -established by the Academy of Sciences,” -substances known “to the ancients, the Romans, -the Greeks and the nations of the -North,” but lost and only rediscovered by the -advertiser. The style and manner of these advertisements -belonging to the early and middle -periods of the Age of Advertisement continue -to bear the imprint of the once despicable -position of commerce. They are written -with the impossible and insincere unctuousness -of tradesmen’s letters. They are horribly -uncultured; and when their writers aspire -to something more ambitious than the counting-house -style, they fall at once into the -stilted verbiage of self-taught learning. -Some of the earlier efforts to raise the tone -of advertisements are very curious. One remembers -those remarkable full-page advertisements -of Eno’s Fruit Salt, loaded with -<span class='pageno' id='Page_128'>128</span>weighty apophthegms from Emerson, Epictetus, -Zeno the Eleatic, Pomponazzi, Slawkenbergius -and other founts of human wisdom. -There was noble reading on these -strange pages. But they shared with sermons -the defect of being a little dull.</p> - -<p class='c013'>The art of advertisement writing has flowered -with democracy. The lords of industry -and commerce came gradually to understand -that the right way to appeal to the Free Peoples -of the World was familiarly, in an honest -man-to-man style. They perceived that -exaggeration and hyperbole do not really -pay, that charlatanry must at least have an -air of sincerity. They confided in the public, -they appealed to its intelligence in every kind -of flattering way. The technique of the art -became at once immensely more difficult than -it had ever been before, until now the advertisement -is, as I have already hinted, one -of the most interesting and difficult of modern -literary forms. Its potentialities are not -yet half explored. Already the most interesting -and, in some cases, the only readable -part of most American periodicals is the advertisement -section. What does the future -hold in store?</p> - -<div class='chapter'> - <span class='pageno' id='Page_129'>129</span> - <h2 class='c007'><abbr title='19'>XIX</abbr>: EUPHUES REDIVIVUS</h2> -</div> - -<p class='c011'>I have recently been fortunate in securing -a copy of that very rare and precious -novel <i>Delina Delaney</i>, by Amanda M. Ros, -authoress of <i>Irene Iddesleigh</i> and <i>Poems of -Puncture</i>. Mrs. Ros’s name is only known -to a small and select band of readers. But -by these few she is highly prized; one of her -readers, it is said, actually was at the pains -to make a complete manuscript copy of <i>Delina -Delaney</i>, so great was his admiration and -so hopelessly out of print the book. Let me -recommend the volume, Mrs. Ros’s masterpiece, -to the attention of enterprising publishers.</p> - -<p class='c013'><i>Delina Delaney</i> opens with a tremendous, -an almost, in its richness of vituperative eloquence, -Rabelaisian denunciation of Mr. -Barry Pain, who had, it seems, treated -<i>Irene Iddesleigh</i> with scant respect in his -review of the novel in <i>Black and White</i>. -“This so-called Barry Pain, by name, has -taken upon himself to criticize a work, the -depth of which fails to reach the solving -power of his borrowed, and, he’d have you -believe, varied talent.” But “I care not for -<span class='pageno' id='Page_130'>130</span>the opinion of half-starved upstarts, who don -the garb of a shabby-genteel, and fain would -feed the mind of the people with the worthless -scraps of stolen fancies.” So perish all -reviewers! And now for Delina herself.</p> - -<p class='c013'>The story is a simple one. Delina Delaney, -daughter of a fisherman, loves and is -loved by Lord Gifford. The baleful influence -of a dark-haired Frenchwoman, Madame -de Maine, daughter of the Count-av-Nevo, -comes between the lovers and their -happiness, and Delina undergoes fearful torments, -including three years’ penal servitude, -before their union can take place. It -is the manner, rather than the matter, of the -book which is remarkable. Here, for instance, -is a fine conversation between Lord -Gifford and his mother, an aristocratic dame -who strenuously objects to his connection -with Delina. Returning one day to Columba -Castle she hears an unpleasant piece of news: -her son has been seen kissing Delina in the -conservatory.</p> - -<div class='bq'> - -<p class='c013'>“Home again, mother?” he boldly uttered, as he -gazed reverently in her face.</p> - -<p class='c013'>“Home to Hades!” returned the raging high-bred -daughter of distinguished effeminacy.</p> - -<p class='c013'>“Ah me! what is the matter?” meekly inquired -his lordship.</p> - -<p class='c013'>“Everything is the matter with a broken-hearted -<span class='pageno' id='Page_131'>131</span>mother of low-minded offspring,” she answered -hotly.... “Henry Edward Ludlow Gifford, son -of my strength, idolized remnant of my inert husband, -who at this moment invisibly offers the -scourging whip of fatherly authority to your backbone -of resentment (though for years you think -him dead to your movements) and pillar of maternal -trust.”</p> - -</div> - -<p class='c013'>Poor Lady Gifford! her son’s behaviour -was her undoing. The shock caused her to -lose first her reason and then her life. Her -son was heart-broken at the thought that he -was responsible for her downfall:</p> - -<div class='bq'> - -<p class='c013'>“Is it true, O Death,” I cried in my agony, “that -you have wrested from me my mother, Lady Gifford -of Columba Castle, and left me here, a unit figuring -on the great blackboard of the past, the shaky -surface of the present and fickle field of the future -to track my life-steps, with gross indifference to -her wished-for wish?”... Blind she lay to the -presence of her son, who charged her death-gun with -the powder of accelerated wrath.</p> - -</div> - -<p class='c013'>It is impossible to suppose that Mrs. Ros -can ever have read <i>Euphues</i> or the earlier -romances of Robert Greene. How then shall -we account for the extraordinary resemblance -to Euphuism of her style? how explain those -rich alliterations, those elaborate “kennings” -and circumlocutions of which the fabric of -her book is woven? Take away from Lyly -<span class='pageno' id='Page_132'>132</span>his erudition and his passion for antithesis, -and you have Mrs. Ros. Delina is own sister -to Euphues and Pandosto. The fact is -that Mrs. Ros happens, though separated -from Euphuism by three hundred years and -more, to have arrived independently at precisely -the same stage of development as Lyly -and his disciples. It is possible to see in a -growing child a picture in miniature of all the -phases through which humanity has passed -in its development. And, in the same way, -the mind of an individual (especially when -that individual has been isolated from the -main current of contemporary thought) may -climb, alone, to a point at which, in the past, -a whole generation has rested. In Mrs. Ros -we see, as we see in the Elizabethan novelists, -the result of the discovery of art by an unsophisticated -mind and of its first conscious -attempt to produce the artistic. It is remarkable -how late in the history of every -literature simplicity is invented. The first -attempts of any people to be consciously literary -are always productive of the most elaborate -artificiality. Poetry is always written -before prose and always in a language as remote -as possible from the language of ordinary -life. The language and versification of -“Beowulf” are far more artificial and remote -from life than those of, say, <i>The Rape of the -<span class='pageno' id='Page_133'>133</span>Lock</i>. The Euphuists were not barbarians -making their first discovery of literature; -they were, on the contrary, highly educated. -But in one thing they were unsophisticated: -they were discovering prose. -They were realizing that prose could be written -with art, and they wrote it as artificially -as they possibly could, just as their Saxon -ancestors wrote poetry. They became intoxicated -with their discovery of artifice. It was -some time before the intoxication wore off -and men saw that art was possible without -artifice. Mrs. Ros, an Elizabethan born out -of her time, is still under the spell of that -magical and delicious intoxication.</p> - -<p class='c013'>Mrs. Ros’s artifices are often more remarkable -and elaborate even than Lyly’s. This is -how she tells us that Delina earned money -by doing needlework:</p> - -<div class='bq'> - -<p class='c013'>She tried hard to keep herself a stranger to her -poor old father’s slight income by the use of the -finest production of steel, whose blunt edge eyed the -reely covering with marked greed, and offered its -sharp dart to faultless fabrics of flaxen fineness.</p> - -</div> - -<p class='c013'>And Lord Gifford parts from Delina in -these words:</p> - -<div class='bq'> - -<p class='c013'>I am just in time to hear the toll of a parting -bell strike its heavy weight of appalling softness -<span class='pageno' id='Page_134'>134</span>against the weakest fibres of a heart of love, arousing -and tickling its dormant action, thrusting the -dart of evident separation deeper into its tubes of -tenderness, and fanning the flame, already unextinguishable, -into volumes of burning blaze.</p> - -</div> - -<p class='c013'>But more often Mrs. Ros does not exceed -the bounds which Lyly set for himself. -Here, for instance, is a sentence that might -have come direct out of <i>Euphues</i>:</p> - -<div class='bq'> - -<p class='c013'>Two days after, she quit Columba Castle and resolved -to enter the holy cloisters of a convent, -where, she believed she’d be dead to the built hopes -of wealthy worth, the crooked steps to worldly distinction, -and the designing creaks [<i>sic</i>] in the -muddy stream of love.</p> - -</div> - -<p class='c013'>Or again, this description of the artful -charmers who flaunt along the streets of London -is written in the very spirit and language -of <i>Euphues</i>:</p> - -<div class='bq'> - -<p class='c013'>Their hair was a light-golden colour, thickly -fringed in front, hiding in many cases the furrows -of a life of vice; behind, reared coils, some of which -differed in hue, exhibiting the fact that they were -on patrol for the price of another supply of dye.... -The elegance of their attire had the glow of -robbery—the rustle of many a lady’s silent curse. -These tools of brazen effrontery were strangers to -the blush of innocence that tinged many a cheek, as -they would gather round some of God’s ordained, -praying in flowery words of decoying Cockney, that -<span class='pageno' id='Page_135'>135</span>they should break their holy vows by accompanying -them to the halls of adultery. Nothing daunted at -the staunch refusal of different divines, whose modest -walk was interrupted by their bold assertion -of loathsome rights, they moved on, while laughs -of hidden rage and defeat flitted across their doll-decked -faces, to die as they next accosted some -rustic-looking critics, who, tempted with their polished -twang, their earnest advances, their pitiful -entreaties, yielded, in their ignorance of the ways -of a large city, to their glossy offers, and accompanied, -with slight hesitation, these artificial shells -of immorality to their homes of ruin, degradation -and shame.</p> - -</div> - -<div class='chapter'> - <span class='pageno' id='Page_136'>136</span> - <h2 class='c007'><abbr title='20'>XX</abbr>: THE AUTHOR OF <i>EMINENT VICTORIANS</i></h2> -</div> - -<p class='c011'>A superlatively civilized Red Indian -living apart from the vulgar world -in an elegant and park-like reservation, Mr. -Strachey rarely looks over his walls at the -surrounding country. It seethes, he knows, -with crowds of horribly colonial persons. -Like the hosts of Midian, the innumerable -“poor whites” prowl and prowl around, but -the noble savage pays no attention to them.</p> - -<p class='c013'>In his spiritual home—a neat and commodious -Georgian mansion in the style of -Leoni or Ware—he sits and reads, he turns -over portfolios of queer old prints, he savours -meditatively the literary vintages of -centuries. And occasionally, once in two or -three years, he tosses over his park palings a -record of these leisured degustations, a judgment -passed upon his library, a ripe rare -book. One time it is Eminent Victorians; -the next it is Queen Victoria herself. To-day -he has given us a miscellaneous collection -of <i>Books and Characters</i>.</p> - -<p class='c013'>If Voltaire had lived to the age of two -hundred and thirty instead of shuffling off -<span class='pageno' id='Page_137'>137</span>at a paltry eighty-four, he would have written -about the Victorian epoch, about life and -letters at large, very much as Mr. Strachey -has written. That lucid common sense, that -sharp illuminating wit which delight us in -the writings of the middle eighteenth century—these -are Mr. Strachey’s characteristics. -We know exactly what he would have -been if he had come into the world at the -beginning of the seventeen hundreds; if he -is different from the men of that date it is -because he happens to have been born towards -the end of the eighteens.</p> - -<p class='c013'>The sum of knowledge at the disposal of -the old Encyclopædists was singularly small, -compared, that is to say, with the knowledge -which we of the twentieth century have inherited. -They made mistakes and in their -ignorance they passed what we can see to -have been hasty and very imperfect judgments -on men and things. Mr. Strachey is -the eighteenth century grown-up; he is Voltaire -at two hundred and thirty.</p> - -<p class='c013'>Voltaire at sixty would have treated the -Victorian era, if it could have appeared in -a prophetical vision before his eyes, in terms -of “La Pucelle”—with ribaldry. He would -have had to be much older in knowledge and -inherited experience before he could have approached -it in that spirit of sympathetic -<span class='pageno' id='Page_138'>138</span>irony and ironical sympathy which Mr. -Strachey brings to bear upon it. Mr. -Strachey makes us like the old Queen, while -we smile at her; he makes us admire the -Prince Consort in spite of the portentous -priggishness—duly insisted on in the biography—which -accompanied his intelligence. -With all the untutored barbarity of their notions, -Gordon and Florence Nightingale are -presented to us as sympathetic figures. -Their peculiar brand of religion and ethics -might be absurd, but their characters are -shown to be interesting and fine.</p> - -<p class='c013'>It is only in the case of Dr. Arnold that -Mr. Strachey permits himself to be unrestrainedly -Voltairean; he becomes a hundred -and seventy years younger as he describes -the founder of the modern Public School system. -The irony of that description is tempered -by no sympathy. To make the man -appear even more ridiculous, Mr. Strachey -adds a stroke or two to the portrait of his -own contriving—little inventions which -deepen the absurdity of the caricature. Thus -we read that Arnold’s “outward appearance -was the index of his inward character. The -legs, perhaps, were shorter than they should -have been; but the sturdy athletic frame, especially -when it was swathed (as it usually -was) in the flowing robes of a Doctor of -<span class='pageno' id='Page_139'>139</span>Divinity, was full of an imposing vigour.” -How exquisitely right those short legs are! -how artistically inevitable! Our admiration -for Mr. Strachey’s art is only increased -when we discover that in attributing to the -Doctor this brevity of shank he is justified -by no contemporary document. The short -legs are his own contribution.</p> - -<p class='c013'>Voltaire, then, at two hundred and thirty -has learned sympathy. He has learned that -there are other ways of envisaging life than -the common-sense, reasonable way and that -people with a crack-brained view of the universe -have a right to be judged as human -beings and must not be condemned out of -hand as lunatics or obscurantists. Blake and -St. Francis have as much right to their place -in the sun as Gibbon and Hume. But still, -in spite of this lesson, learned and inherited -from the nineteenth century, our Voltaire of -eleven score years and ten still shows a -marked preference for the Gibbons and the -Humes; he still understands their attitude -towards life a great deal better than he understands -the other fellow’s attitude.</p> - -<p class='c013'>In his new volume of <i>Books and Characters</i> -Mr. Strachey prints an essay on Blake (written, -it may be added parenthetically, some -sixteen years ago), in which he sets out very -conscientiously to give that disquieting poet -<span class='pageno' id='Page_140'>140</span>his due. The essay is interesting, not because -it contains anything particularly novel in the -way of criticism, but because it reveals, in -spite of all Mr. Strachey’s efforts to overcome -it, in spite of his admiration for the -great artist in Blake, his profound antagonism -towards Blake’s view of life.</p> - -<p class='c013'>He cannot swallow mysticism; he finds it -clearly very difficult to understand what all -this fuss about the soul really signifies. The -man who believes in the absoluteness of good -and evil, who sees the universe as a spiritual -entity concerned, in some transcendental -fashion, with morality, the man who regards -the human spirit as possessing a somehow -cosmic importance and significance—ah no, -decidedly no, even at two hundred and thirty -Voltaire cannot whole-heartedly sympathize -with such a man.</p> - -<p class='c013'>And that, no doubt, is the reason why Mr. -Strachey has generally shrunk from dealing, -in his biographies and his criticisms, with -any of these strange incomprehensible characters. -Blake is the only one he had tried -his hand on, and the result is not entirely -satisfactory. He is more at home with the -Gibbons and Humes of this world, and when -he is not discussing the reasonable beings he -likes to amuse himself with the eccentrics, -like Mr. Creevey or Lady Hester Stanhope. -<span class='pageno' id='Page_141'>141</span>The portentous, formidable mystics he leaves -severely alone.</p> - -<p class='c013'>One cannot imagine Mr. Strachey coping -with Dostoevsky or with any of the other -great explorers of the soul. One cannot imagine -him writing a life of Beethoven. -These huge beings are disquieting for a Voltaire -who has learned enough sympathy to be -able to recognize their greatness, but whose -temperament still remains unalterably alien. -Mr. Strachey is wise to have nothing to do -with them.</p> - -<p class='c013'>The second-rate mystics (I use the term -in its widest and vaguest sense), the men -who believe in the spirituality of the universe -and in the queerer dogmas which have -become tangled in that belief, without possessing -the genius which alone can justify -such notions in the eyes of the Voltaireans—these -are the objects on which Mr. Strachey -likes to turn his calm and penetrating gaze. -Gordon and Florence Nightingale, the -Prince Consort, Clough—they and their beliefs -are made to look rather absurd by the -time he has done with them. He reduces -their spiritual struggles to a series of the -most comically futile series of gymnastics in -the void. The men of genius who have gone -through the same spiritual struggles, who -have believed the same sort of creeds, have -<span class='pageno' id='Page_142'>142</span>had the unanswerable justification of their -genius. These poor absurd creatures have -not. Voltaire in his third century gives them -a certain amount of his newly learned sympathy; -but he also gives them a pretty strong -dose of his old irony.</p> - -<div class='chapter'> - <span class='pageno' id='Page_143'>143</span> - <h2 class='c007'><abbr title='21'>XXI</abbr>: EDWARD THOMAS<a id='r1' /><a href='#f1' class='c014'><sup>[1]</sup></a></h2> -</div> - -<p class='c011'>The poetry of Edward Thomas affects -one morally as well as æsthetically and -intellectually. We have grown rather shy, -in these days of pure æstheticism, of speaking -of those consoling or strengthening qualities -of poetry on which critics of another -generation took pleasure in dwelling. -Thomas’s poetry is strengthening and consoling, -not because it justifies God’s ways to -man or whispers of reunions beyond the -grave, not because it presents great moral -truths in memorable numbers, but in a more -subtle and very much more effective way. -Walking through the streets on these September -nights, one notices, wherever there are -trees along the street and lamps close beside -the trees, a curious and beautiful phenomenon. -The light of the street lamps striking -up into the trees has power to make the -grimed, shabby, and tattered foliage of the -all-but autumn seem brilliantly and transparently -green. Within the magic circle of -the light the tree seems to be at that crowning -<span class='pageno' id='Page_144'>144</span>moment of the spring when the leaves -are fully grown, but still luminous with -youth and seemingly almost immaterial in -their lightness. Thomas’s poetry is to the -mind what that transfiguring lamplight is to -the tired trees. On minds grown weary in -the midst of the intolerable turmoil and -aridity of daily wage-earning existence, it -falls with a touch of momentary rejuvenation.</p> - -<p class='c013'>The secret of Thomas’s influence lies in -the fact that he is genuinely what so many -others of our time quite unjustifiably claim -to be, a nature poet. To be a nature poet -it is not enough to affirm vaguely that God -made the country and man made the town, -it is not enough to talk sympathetically about -familiar rural objects, it is not enough to be -sonorously poetical about mountains and -trees; it is not even enough to speak of these -things with the precision of real knowledge -and love. To be a nature poet a man must -have felt profoundly and intimately those -peculiar emotions which nature can inspire, -and must be able to express them in such a -way that his reader feels them. The real -difficulty that confronts the would-be poet -of nature is that these emotions are of all -emotions the most difficult to pin down and -analyze, and the hardest of all to convey. -<span class='pageno' id='Page_145'>145</span>In “October” Thomas describes what is -surely the characteristic emotion induced by -a contact with nature—a kind of exultant -melancholy which is the nearest approach to -quiet unpassionate happiness that the soul -can know. Happiness of whatever sort is -extraordinarily hard to analyze and describe. -One can think of a hundred poems, plays, -and novels that deal exhaustively with pain -and misery to one that is an analysis and an -infectious description of happiness. Passionate -joy is more easily recapturable in -art; it is dramatic, vehemently defined. But -quiet happiness, which is at the same time a -kind of melancholy—there you have an emotion -which is inexpressible except by a mind -gifted with a diversity of rarely combined -qualities. The poet who would sing of this -happiness must combine a rare penetration -with a rare candour and honesty of mind. -A man who feels an emotion that is very -difficult to express is often tempted to describe -it in terms of something entirely different. -Platonist poets feel a powerful emotion -when confronted by beauty, and, finding -it a matter of the greatest difficulty to -say precisely what that emotion is in itself, -proceed to describe it in terms of theology -which has nothing whatever to do with the -matter in point. Groping after an expression -<span class='pageno' id='Page_146'>146</span>of the emotions aroused in him by the -contemplation of nature, Wordsworth sometimes -stumbles doubtfully along philosophical -byways that are at the best parallel -to the direct road for which he is seeking. -Everywhere in literature this difficulty in -finding an expression for any undramatic, ill-defined -emotion is constantly made apparent.</p> - -<p class='c013'>Thomas’s limpid honesty of mind saves -him from the temptation to which so many -others succumb, the temptation to express one -thing, because it is with difficulty describable, -in terms of something else. He never -philosophizes the emotions which he feels in -the presence of nature and beauty, but presents -them as they stand, transmitting them -directly to his readers without the interposition -of any obscuring medium. Rather than -attempt to explain the emotion, to rationalize -it into something that it is not, he will -present it for what it is, a problem of which -he does not know the solution. In “Tears” -we have an example of this candid confession -of ignorance:</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>It seems I have no tears left. They should have fallen—</div> - <div class='line'>Their ghosts, if tears have ghosts, did fall—that day</div> - <div class='line'>When twenty hounds streamed by me, not yet combed out</div> - <div class='line'><span class='pageno' id='Page_147'>147</span>But still all equals in their age of gladness</div> - <div class='line'>Upon the scent, made one, like a great dragon</div> - <div class='line'>In Blooming Meadow that bends towards the sun</div> - <div class='line'>And once bore hops: and on that other day</div> - <div class='line'>When I stepped out from the double-shadowed Tower</div> - <div class='line'>Into an April morning, stirring and sweet</div> - <div class='line'>And warm. Strange solitude was there and silence.</div> - <div class='line'>A mightier charm than any in the Tower</div> - <div class='line'>Possessed the courtyard. They were changing guard,</div> - <div class='line'>Soldiers in line, young English countrymen,</div> - <div class='line'>Fair-haired and ruddy, in white tunics. Drums</div> - <div class='line'>And fifes were playing “The British Grenadiers.”</div> - <div class='line'>The men, the music piercing that solitude</div> - <div class='line'>And silence, told me truths I had not dreamed,</div> - <div class='line'>And have forgotten since their beauty passed.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c013'>The emotion is nameless and indescribable, -but the poet has intensely felt it and transmitted -it to us who read his poem, so that -we, too, feel it with the same intensity. -Different aspects of this same nameless emotion -of quiet happiness shot with melancholy -are the theme of almost all Thomas’s poems. -They bring to us precisely that consolation -and strength which the country and solitude -and leisure bring to the spirits of those long -pent in populous cities, but essentialized and -distilled in the form of art. They are the light -that makes young again the tattered leaves.</p> - -<p class='c013'>Of the purely æsthetic qualities of -Thomas’s poetry it is unnecessary to say -<span class='pageno' id='Page_148'>148</span>much. He devised a curiously bare and candid -verse to express with all possible simplicity -and clarity his clear sensations and -emotions.... “This is not,” as Mr. de la -Mare says in his foreword to Thomas’s <i>Collected -Poems</i>, “this is not a poetry that will -drug or intoxicate.... It must be read -slowly, as naturally as if it were prose, without -emphasis.” With this bare verse, devoid -of any affectation, whether of cleverness -or a too great simplicity, Thomas could -do all that he wanted. See, for example, -with what extraordinary brightness and precision -he could paint a picture:</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>Lichen, ivy and moss</div> - <div class='line'>Keep evergreen the trees</div> - <div class='line'>That stand half flayed and dying,</div> - <div class='line'>And the dead trees on their knees</div> - <div class='line'>In dog’s mercury and moss:</div> - <div class='line'>And the bright twit of the goldfinch drops</div> - <div class='line'>Down there as he flits on thistle-tops.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c013'>The same bare precision served him well for -describing the interplay of emotions, as in -“After you Speak” or “Like the Touch of -Rain.” And with this verse of his he could -also chant the praises of his English countryside -and the character of its people, as typified -in Lob-lie-by-the-fire:</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'><span class='pageno' id='Page_149'>149</span>He has been in England as long as dove and daw,</div> - <div class='line'>Calling the wild cherry tree the merry tree,</div> - <div class='line'>The rose campion Bridget-in-her-bravery;</div> - <div class='line'>And in a tender mood he, as I guess,</div> - <div class='line'>Christened one flower Love-in-idleness....</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class='chapter'> - <span class='pageno' id='Page_150'>150</span> - <h2 class='c007'><abbr title='22'>XXII</abbr>: A WORDSWORTH ANTHOLOGY<a id='r2' /><a href='#f2' class='c014'><sup>[2]</sup></a></h2> -</div> - -<p class='c011'>To regard Wordsworth critically, impersonally, -is for some of us a rather difficult -matter. With the disintegration of -the solid orthodoxies Wordsworth became -for many intelligent, liberal-minded families -the Bible of that sort of pantheism, that dim -faith in the existence of a spiritual world, -which filled, somewhat inadequately, the -place of the older dogmas. Brought up as -children in the Wordsworthian tradition, we -were taught to believe that a Sunday walk -among the hills was somehow equivalent to -church-going: the First Lesson was to be read -among the clouds, the Second in the primroses; -the birds and the running waters sang -hymns, and the whole blue landscape -preached a sermon “of moral evil and of -good.” From this dim religious education -we brought away a not very well-informed -veneration for the name of Wordsworth, a -dutiful conviction about the spirituality of -Nature in general, and an extraordinary superstition -<span class='pageno' id='Page_151'>151</span>about mountains in particular—a -superstition that it took at least three seasons -of Alpine Sports to dissipate entirely. Consequently, -on reaching man’s estate, when we -actually came to read our Wordsworth, we -found it extremely difficult to appraise his -greatness, so many veils of preconceived -ideas had to be pushed aside, so many inveterate -deflections of vision allowed for. -However, it became possible at last to look -at Wordsworth as a detached phenomenon -in the world of ideas and not as part of the -family tradition of childhood.</p> - -<p class='c013'>Like many philosophers, and especially -philosophers of a mystical tinge of thought, -Wordsworth based his philosophy on his -emotions. The conversion of emotions into -intellectual terms is a process that has been -repeated a thousand times in the history of -the human mind. We feel a powerful emotion -before a work of art, therefore it partakes -of the divine, is a reconstruction of the -Idea of which the natural object is a poor -reflection. Love moves us deeply, therefore -human love is a type of divine love. Nature -in her various aspects inspires us with -fear, joy, contentment, despair, therefore nature -is a soul that expresses anger, sympathy, -love, and hatred. One could go on indefinitely -multiplying examples of the way in -<span class='pageno' id='Page_152'>152</span>which man objectifies the kingdoms of -heaven and hell that are within him. The -process is often a dangerous one. The mystic -who feels within himself the stirrings of -inenarrable emotions is not content with -these emotions as they are in themselves. -He feels it necessary to invent a whole cosmogony -that will account for them. To him -this philosophy will be true, in so far as it is -an expression in intellectual terms of these -emotions. But to those who do not know -these emotions at first hand, it will be simply -misleading. The mystical emotions have -what may be termed a conduct value; they -enable the man who feels them to live his -life with a serenity and confidence unknown -to other men. But the philosophical terms -in which these emotions are expressed have -not necessarily any truth value. This mystical -philosophy will be valuable only in so -far as it revives, in the minds of its students, -those conduct-affecting emotions which originally -gave it birth. Accepted at its intellectual -face value, such a philosophy may not -only have no worth; it may be actually harmful.</p> - -<p class='c013'>Into this beautifully printed volume Mr. -Cobden-Sanderson has gathered together -most of the passages in Wordsworth’s poetry -which possess the power of reviving the emotions -<span class='pageno' id='Page_153'>153</span>that inspired them. It is astonishing -to find that they fill the best part of two -hundred and fifty pages, and that there are -still plenty of poems—“Peter Bell,” for example—that -one would like to see included. -“The Prelude” and “Excursion” yield a rich -tribute of what our ancestors would have -called “beauties.” There is that astonishing -passage in which the poet describes how, as -a boy, he rowed by moonlight across the -lake:</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>And, as I rose upon the stroke, my boat</div> - <div class='line'>Went heaving through the water like a swan;</div> - <div class='line'>When, from behind that craggy steep till then</div> - <div class='line'>The horizon’s bound, a huge peak, black and huge,</div> - <div class='line'>As if with voluntary power instinct,</div> - <div class='line'>Upreared its head. I struck and struck again,</div> - <div class='line'>And growing still in stature the grim shape</div> - <div class='line'>Towered up between me and the stars, and still,</div> - <div class='line'>For so it seemed, with purpose of its own</div> - <div class='line'>And measured motion, like a living thing,</div> - <div class='line'>Strode after me.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c013'>There is the history of that other fearful -moment when</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>I heard among the solitary hills</div> - <div class='line'>Low breathings coming after me, and sounds</div> - <div class='line'>Of undistinguishable motion, steps</div> - <div class='line'>Almost as silent as the turf they trod.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c013'>And there are other passages telling of nature -in less awful and menacing aspects, nature -<span class='pageno' id='Page_154'>154</span>the giver of comfort and strong serenity. -Reading these we are able in some measure -to live for ourselves the emotions that were -Wordsworth’s. If we can feel his “shadowy -exaltations,” we have got all that -Wordsworth can give us. There is no need -to read the theology of his mysticism, the -pantheistic explanation of his emotions. To -Peter Bell a primrose by a river’s brim was -only a yellow primrose. Its beauty stirred -in him no feeling. But one can be moved -by the sight of the primrose without necessarily -thinking, in the words of Mr. Cobden-Sanderson’s -preface, of “the infinite tenderness -of the infinitely great, of the infinitely -great which, from out the infinite and amid -its own stupendous tasks, stoops to strew the -path of man, the infinitely little, with sunshine -and with flowers.” This is the theology -of our primrose emotion. But it is the -emotion itself which is important, not the -theology. The emotion has its own powerful -conduct value, whereas the philosophy -derived from it, suspiciously anthropocentric, -possesses, we should imagine, only the smallest -value as truth.</p> - -<div class='chapter'> - <span class='pageno' id='Page_155'>155</span> - <h2 class='c007'><abbr title='23'>XXIII</abbr>: VERHAEREN</h2> -</div> - -<p class='c011'>Verhaeren was one of those men who -feel all their life long “l’envie” (to -use his own admirably expressive phrase), -“l’envie de tailler en drapeaux l’étoffe de la -vie.” The stuff of life can be put to worse -uses. To cut it into flags is, on the whole, -more admirable than to cut it, shall we say, -into cerecloths, or money-bags, or Parisian -underclothing. A flag is a brave, a cheerful -and a noble object. These are qualities for -which we are prepared to forgive the flag its -over-emphasis, its lack of subtlety, its touch -of childishness. One can think of a number -of writers who have marched through literary -history like an army with banners. There -was Victor Hugo, for example—one of Verhaeren’s -admired masters. There was Balzac, -to whose views of life Verhaeren’s was, -in some points, curiously akin. Among the -minor makers of oriflammes there is our own -Mr. Chesterton, with his heroic air of being -for ever on the point of setting out on a crusade, -glorious with bunting and mounted on -a rocking-horse.</p> - -<p class='c013'>The flag-maker is a man of energy and -<span class='pageno' id='Page_156'>156</span>strong vitality. He likes to imagine that all -that surrounds him is as large, as full of sap -and as vigorous as he feels himself to be. He -pictures the world as a place where the colours -are strong and brightly contrasted, -where a vigorous chiaroscuro leaves no doubt -as to the true nature of light and darkness, -and where all life pulsates, quivering and -taut, like a banner in the wind. From the -first we find in Verhaeren all the characteristics -of the tailor of banners. In his earliest -book of verse, <i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Les Flamands</span></i>, we see him already -delighting in such lines as</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>Leurs deux poings monstrueux pataugeaient dans la pâte.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c013'>Already too we find him making copious -use—or was it abuse?—as Victor Hugo had -done before him, of words like <span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">“vaste,” -“énorme,” “infini,” “infiniment,” “infinité,” -“univers.”</span> Thus, in <span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">“L’Ame de la Ville,”</span> he -talks of an <span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">“énorme”</span> viaduct, an <span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">“immense”</span> -train, a <span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">“monstrueux”</span> sun, even of the -<span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">“énorme”</span> atmosphere. For Verhaeren all -roads lead to the infinite, wherever and whatever -that may be.</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Les grand’routes tracent des croix</span></div> - <div class='line'><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">A l’infini, à travers bois;</span></div> - <div class='line'><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Les grand’routes tracent des croix lointaines</span></div> - <div class='line'><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">A l’infini, à travers plaines.</span></div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c013'><span class='pageno' id='Page_157'>157</span>Infinity is one of those notions which are -not to be lightly played with. The makers -of flags like it because it can be contrasted -so effectively with the microscopic finitude -of man. Writers like Hugo and Verhaeren -talk so often and so easily about infinity that -the idea ceases in their poetry to have any -meaning at all.</p> - -<p class='c013'>I have said that, in certain respects, Verhaeren, -in his view of life, is not unlike -Balzac. This resemblance is most marked -in some of the poems of his middle period, -especially those in which he deals with aspects -of contemporary life. <i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Les Villes tentaculaires</span></i> -contains poems which are wholly -Balzacian in conception. Take, for example, -Verhaeren’s rhapsody on the Stock Exchange:</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Une fureur réenflammée</span></div> - <div class='line'><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Au mirage du moindre espoir</span></div> - <div class='line'><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Monte soudain de l’entonnoir</span></div> - <div class='line'><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">De bruit et de fumée,</span></div> - <div class='line'><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr"><a id='tnou'></a>Où l’on se bat, à coups de vols, en bas.</span></div> - <div class='line'><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Langues sèches, regards aigus, gestes inverses,</span></div> - <div class='line'><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Et cervelles, qu’en tourbillons les millions traversent,</span></div> - <div class='line'><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Echangent là leur peur et leur terreur ...</span></div> - <div class='line'><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Aux fins de mois, quand les débâcles se décident</span></div> - <div class='line'><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">La mort les paraphe de suicides,</span></div> - <div class='line'><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Mais au jour même aux heures blêmes,</span></div> - <div class='line'><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Les volontés dans la fièvre revivent,</span></div> - <div class='line'><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">L’acharnement sournois</span></div> - <div class='line'><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Reprend comme autrefois.</span></div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c013'><span class='pageno' id='Page_158'>158</span>One cannot read these lines without thinking -of Balzac’s feverish money-makers, of -the Baron de Nucingen, Du Tillet, the Kellers -and all the lesser misers and usurers, and -all their victims. With their worked-up and -rather melodramatic excitement, they breathe -the very spirit of Balzac’s prodigious film-scenario -version of life.</p> - -<p class='c013'>Verhaeren’s flag-making instinct led him -to take special delight in all that is more -than ordinarily large and strenuous. He extols -and magnifies the gross violence of the -Flemish peasantry, their almost infinite capacity -for taking food and drink, their industry, -their animalism. In true Rooseveltian -style, he admired energy for its own -sake. All his romping rhythms were dictated -to him by the need to express this passion for -the strenuous. His curious assonances and -alliterations—</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Luttent et s’entrebuttent en disputes—</span></div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c013'>arise from this same desire to recapture the -sense of violence and immediate life.</p> - -<p class='c013'>It is interesting to compare the violence -and energy of Verhaeren with the violence -of an earlier poet—Rimbaud, the marvellous -boy, if ever there was one. Rimbaud cut the -stuff of life into flags, but into flags that -<span class='pageno' id='Page_159'>159</span>never fluttered on this earth. His violence -penetrated, in some sort, beyond the bounds -of ordinary life. In some of his poems Rimbaud -seems actually to have reached the -nameless goal towards which he was striving, -to have arrived at that world of unheard-of -spiritual vigour and beauty whose nature he -can only describe in an exclamatory metaphor:</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Millions d’oiseaux d’or, ô future vigueur!</span></div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c013'>But the vigour of Verhaeren is never anything -so fine and spiritual as this “million of -golden birds.” It is merely the vigour and -violence of ordinary life speeded up to cinema -intensity.</p> - -<p class='c013'>It is a noticeable fact that Verhaeren was -generally at his best when he took a holiday -from the making and waving of flags. His -Flemish bucolics and the love poems of <i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Les -Heures</span></i>, written for the most part in traditional -form, and for the most part shorter and -more concentrated than his poems of violence -and energy, remain the most moving portion -of his work. Very interesting, too, are the -poems belonging to that early phase of doubt -and depression which saw the publication of -<i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Les Débâcles</span></i> and <i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Les Flambeaux Noirs</span></i>. The -energy and life of the later books is there, -<span class='pageno' id='Page_160'>160</span>but in some sort concentrated, preserved and -intensified, because turned inwards upon itself. -Of many of the later poems one feels -that they were written much too easily. -These must have been brought very painfully -and laboriously to the birth.</p> - -<div class='chapter'> - <span class='pageno' id='Page_161'>161</span> - <h2 class='c007'><abbr title='24'>XXIV</abbr>: EDWARD LEAR</h2> -</div> - -<p class='c011'>There are few writers whose works I -care to read more than once, and one -of them is certainly Edward Lear. Nonsense, -like poetry, to which it is closely allied, -like philosophic speculation, like every -product of the imagination, is an assertion -of man’s spiritual freedom in spite of all the -oppression of circumstance. As long as it -remains possible for the human mind to invent -the Quangle Wangle and the Fimble -Fowl, to wander at will over the Great -Gromboolian Plain and the hills of the -Cnankly Bore, the victory is ours. The existence -of nonsense is the nearest approach -to a proof of that unprovable article of faith, -whose truth we must all assume or perish -miserably: that life is worth living. It is -when circumstances combine to prove, with -syllogistic cogency, that life is not worth living -that I turn to Lear and find comfort and -refreshment. I read him and I perceive that -it is a good thing to be alive; for I am free, -with Lear, to be as inconsequent as I like.</p> - -<p class='c013'>Lear is a genuine poet. For what is his -nonsense except the poetical imagination a -<span class='pageno' id='Page_162'>162</span>little twisted out of its course? Lear had the -true poet’s feeling for words—words in themselves, -precious and melodious, like phrases -of music; personal as human beings. Marlowe -talks of entertaining divine Zenocrate; -Milton of the leaves that fall in Vallombrosa; -Lear of the Fimble Fowl with a corkscrew -leg, of runcible spoons, of things meloobious -and genteel. Lewis Carroll wrote -nonsense by exaggerating sense—a too logical -logic. His coinages of words are intellectual. -Lear, more characteristically a poet, wrote -nonsense that is an excess of imagination, -coined words for the sake of their colour and -sound alone. His is the purer nonsense, because -more poetical. Change the key ever so -little and the “Dong with a Luminous Nose” -would be one of the most memorable romantic -poems of the nineteenth century. Think, -too, of that exquisite “Yonghy Bonghy Bo”! -In one of Tennyson’s later volumes there is -a charming little lyric about Catullus, which -begins:</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>Row us out from Desenzano,</div> - <div class='line in2'>To your Sirmione row!</div> - <div class='line'>So they row’d, and there we landed—</div> - <div class='line in2'><i><span lang="la" xml:lang="la">O venusta Sirmio!</span></i></div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c013'>Can one doubt for a moment that he was -thinking, when he wrote these words, of that -<span class='pageno' id='Page_163'>163</span>superb stanza with which the “Yonghy -Bonghy” opens:</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>On the coast of Coromandel,</div> - <div class='line in2'>Where the early pumpkins blow,</div> - <div class='line'>In the middle of the woods,</div> - <div class='line in2'>Dwelt the Yonghy Bonghy Bo.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c013'>Personally, I prefer Lear’s poem; it is the -richer and the fuller of the two.</p> - -<p class='c013'>Lear’s genius is at its best in the Nonsense -Rhymes, or Limericks, as a later generation -has learned to call them. In these I like to -think of him not merely as a poet and a -draughtsman—and how unique an artist the -recent efforts of Mr. Nash to rival him have -only affirmed—but also as a profound social -philosopher. No study of Lear would -be complete without at least a few remarks -on “They” of the Nonsense Rhymes. “They” -are the world, the man in the street; “They” -are what the leader-writers in the twopenny -press would call all Right-Thinking Men and -Women; “They” are Public Opinion. The -Nonsense Rhymes are, for the most part, -nothing more nor less than episodes selected -from the history of that eternal struggle between -the genius or the eccentric and his -fellow-beings. Public Opinion universally -abhors eccentricity. There was, for example, -that charming Old Man of Melrose who -<span class='pageno' id='Page_164'>164</span>walked on the tips of his toes. But “They” -said (with their usual inability to appreciate -the artist), “It ain’t pleasant to see you at -present, you stupid old man of Melrose.” -Occasionally, when the eccentric happens to -be a criminal genius, “They” are doubtless -right. The Old Man with a Gong who -bumped on it all the day long deserved to be -smashed. (But “They” also smashed a quite -innocuous Old Man of Whitehaven merely -for dancing a quadrille with a raven.) And -there was that Old Person of Buda, whose -conduct grew ruder and ruder; “They” were -justified, I dare say, in using a hammer to -silence his clamour. But it raises the whole -question of punishment and of the relation -between society and the individual.</p> - -<p class='c013'>When “They” are not offensive, they content -themselves with being foolishly inquisitive. -Thus, “They” ask the Old Man of the -Wrekin whether his boots are made of -leather. “They” pester the Old Man in a -Tree with imbecile questions about the Bee -which so horribly bored him. In these encounters -the geniuses and the eccentrics often -get the better of the gross and heavy-witted -public. The Old Person of Ware who rode -on the back of a bear certainly scored off -“Them.” For when “They” asked: “Does -it trot?” He replied, “It does not.” (The -<span class='pageno' id='Page_165'>165</span>picture shows it galloping <i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">ventre à terre</span></i>.) -“It’s a Moppsikon Floppsikon bear.” Sometimes, -too, the eccentric actually leads -“Them” on to their discomfiture. One -thinks of that Old Man in a Garden, who -always begged every one’s pardon. When -“They” asked him, “What for?” he replied, -“You’re a bore, and I trust you’ll go out of -my garden.” But “They” probably ended -up by smashing him.</p> - -<p class='c013'>Occasionally the men of genius adopt a -Mallarméen policy. They flee from the gross -besetting crowd.</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">La chair est triste, hélas, et j’ai lu tous les livres.</span></div> - <div class='line'><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Fuir, là-bas, fuir....</span></div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c013'>It was surely with these words on his lips -that the Old Person of Bazing (whose presence -of mind, for all that he was a Symbolist, -was amazing) went out to purchase the steed -which he rode at full speed and escaped from -the people of Bazing. He chose the better -part; for it is almost impossible to please -the mob. The Old Person of Ealing was -thought by his suburban neighbours to be -almost devoid of good feeling, because, if -you please, he drove a small gig with three -owls and a pig. And there was that pathetic -Old Man of Thermopylæ (for whom I have -a peculiar sympathy, since he reminds me so -<span class='pageno' id='Page_166'>166</span>poignantly of myself), who never did anything -properly. “They,” said, “If you choose -to boil eggs in your shoes, you shall never -remain in Thermopylæ.” The sort of people -“They” like do the stupidest things, have the -vulgarest accomplishments. Of the Old Person -of Filey his acquaintance was wont to -speak highly because he danced perfectly well -to the sound of a bell. And the people of -Shoreham adored that fellow-citizen of theirs -whose habits were marked by decorum and -who bought an umbrella and sate in the -cellar. Naturally; it was only to be expected.</p> - -<div class='chapter'> - <span class='pageno' id='Page_167'>167</span> - <h2 class='c007'><abbr title='25'>XXV</abbr>: SIR CHRISTOPHER WREN</h2> -</div> - -<p class='c011'>That an Englishman should be a very -great plastic artist is always rather -surprising. Perhaps it is a matter of mere -chance; perhaps it has something to do with -our national character—if such a thing -really exists. But, whatever may be the -cause, the fact remains that England has -produced very few artists of first-class importance. -The Renaissance, as it spread, -like some marvellous infectious disease of -the spirit, across the face of Europe, manifested -itself in different countries by different -symptoms. In Italy, the country of its -origin, the Renaissance was, more than anything, -an outburst of painting, architecture -and sculpture. Scholarship and religious -reformation were, in Germany, the typical -manifestations of the disease. But when -this gorgeous spiritual measles crossed the -English Channel, its symptoms were almost -exclusively literary. The first premonitory -touch of the infection from Italy -“brought out” Chaucer. With the next bout -of the disease England produced the Elizabethans. -But among all these poets there -<span class='pageno' id='Page_168'>168</span>was not a single plastic artist whose name we -so much as remember.</p> - -<p class='c013'>And then, suddenly, the seventeenth century -gave birth to two English artists of -genius. It produced Inigo Jones and, a little -later, Wren. Wren died, at the age of more -than ninety, in the spring of 1723. We are -celebrating to-day his bi-centenary—celebrating -it not merely by antiquarian talk and -scholarly appreciations of his style but also -(the signs are not wanting) in a more concrete -and living way: by taking a renewed -interest in the art of which he was so great -a master and by reverting in our practice to -that fine tradition which he, with his predecessor, -Inigo, inaugurated.</p> - -<p class='c013'>An anniversary celebration is an act of -what Wordsworth would have called “natural -piety”; an act by which past is linked -with present and of the vague, interminable -series of the days a single comprehensible and -logical unity is created in our minds. At the -coming of the centenaries we like to remember -the great men of the past, not so much -by way of historical exercise, but that we may -see precisely where, in relation to their -achievement, we stand at the present time, -that we may appraise the life still left in -their spirit and apply to ourselves the moral -of their example. I have no intention in this -<span class='pageno' id='Page_169'>169</span>article of giving a biography of Wren, a list -of his works, or a technical account of his -style and methods. I propose to do no more -than describe, in the most general terms, the -nature of his achievement and its significance -to ourselves.</p> - -<p class='c013'>Wren was a good architect. But since it -is important to know precisely what we are -talking about, let us begin by asking ourselves -what good architecture is. Descending -with majesty from his private Sinai, Mr. -Ruskin dictated to a whole generation of -Englishmen the æsthetic Law. On monolithic -tables that were the Stones of Venice -he wrote the great truths that had been revealed -to him. Here is one of them:</p> - -<div class='bq'> - -<p class='c013'>It is to be generally observed that the proportions -of buildings have nothing to do with the style or -general merit of their architecture. An architect -trained in the worst schools and utterly devoid of -all meaning or purpose in his work, may yet have -such a natural gift of massing and grouping as will -render his structure effective when seen at a distance.</p> - -</div> - -<p class='c013'>Now it is to be generally observed, as he -himself would say, that in all matters connected -with art, Ruskin is to be interpreted -as we interpret dreams—that is to say, as -signifying precisely the opposite of what he -says. Thus, when we find him saying that -<span class='pageno' id='Page_170'>170</span>good architecture has nothing to do with proportion -or the judicious disposition of masses -and that the general effect counts for nothing -at all, we may take it as more or less definitely -proven that good architecture is, in fact, almost -entirely a matter of proportion and -massing, and that the general effect of the -whole work counts for nearly everything. -Interpreted according to this simple oneirocritical -method, Ruskin’s pontifical pronouncement -may be taken as explaining -briefly and clearly the secrets of good architecture. -That is why I have chosen this -quotation to be the text of my discourse on -Wren.</p> - -<p class='c013'>For the qualities which most obviously -distinguish Wren’s work are precisely those -which Ruskin so contemptuously disparages -and which we, by our process of interpretation, -have singled out as the essentially -architectural qualities. In all that Wren designed—I -am speaking of the works of -his maturity; for at the beginning of his -career he was still an unpractised amateur, -and at the end, though still on occasion wonderfully -successful, a very old man—we see -a faultless proportion, a felicitous massing -and contrasting of forms. He conceived his -buildings as three-dimensional designs which -should be seen, from every point of view, as -<span class='pageno' id='Page_171'>171</span>harmoniously proportioned wholes. (With -regard to the exteriors this, of course, is true -only of those buildings which <i>can</i> be seen -from all sides. Like all true architects, Wren -preferred to build in positions where his -work could be appreciated three-dimensionally. -But he was also a wonderful maker -of façades; witness his Middle Temple gateway -and his houses in King’s Bench Walk.) -He possessed in the highest degree that instinctive -sense of proportion and scale which -enabled him to embody his conception in -brick and stone. In his great masterpiece -of St. Paul’s every part of the building, seen -from within or without, seems to stand in a -certain satisfying and harmonious relation to -every other part. The same is true even of -the smallest works belonging to the period of -Wren’s maturity. On its smaller scale and -different plane, such a building as Rochester -Guildhall is as beautiful, because as harmonious -in the relation of all its parts, as -St. Paul’s.</p> - -<p class='c013'>Of Wren’s other purely architectural qualities -I shall speak but briefly. He was, to begin -with, an engineer of inexhaustible resource; -one who could always be relied upon -to find the best possible solution to any problem, -from blowing up the ruins of old St. -Paul’s to providing the new with a dome that -<span class='pageno' id='Page_172'>172</span>should be at once beautiful and thoroughly -safe. As a designer he exhibited the same -practical ingenuity. No architect has known -how to make so much of a difficult site and -cheap materials. The man who built the -City churches was a practical genius of no -common order. He was also an artist of profoundly -original mind. This originality reveals -itself in the way in which he combines -the accepted features of classical Renaissance -architecture into new designs that were entirely -English and his own. The steeples of -his City churches provide us with an obvious -example of this originality. His domestic -architecture—that wonderful application of -classical principles to the best in the native -tradition—is another.</p> - -<p class='c013'>But Wren’s most characteristic quality—the -quality which gives to his work, over -and above its pure beauty, its own peculiar -character and charm—is a quality rather -moral than æsthetic. Of Chelsea Hospital, -Carlyle once remarked that it was “obviously -the work of a gentleman.” The words -are illuminating. Everything that Wren did -was the work of a gentleman; that is the secret -of its peculiar character. For Wren was -a great gentleman: one who valued dignity -and restraint and who, respecting himself, -respected also humanity; one who desired -<span class='pageno' id='Page_173'>173</span>that men and women should live with the -dignity, even the grandeur, befitting their -proud human title; one who despised meanness -and oddity as much as vulgar ostentation; -one who admired reason and order, who -distrusted all extravagance and excess. A -gentleman, the finished product of an old and -ordered civilization.</p> - -<p class='c013'>Wren, the restrained and dignified gentleman, -stands out most clearly when we compare -him with his Italian contemporaries. -The baroque artists of the seventeenth century -were interested above everything in the -new, the startling, the astonishing; they -strained after impossible grandeurs, unheard-of -violences. The architectural ideals of -which they dreamed were more suitable for -embodiment in theatrical cardboard than in -stone. And indeed, the late seventeenth and -early eighteenth century was the golden age -of scene-painting in Italy. The artists who -painted the settings for the elder Scarlatti’s -operas, the later Bibienas and Piranesis, -came nearer to reaching the wild Italian ideal -than ever mere architects like Borromini or -Bernini, their imaginations cramped by the -stubbornness of stone and the unsleeping -activities of gravitations, could hope to do.</p> - -<p class='c013'>How vastly different is the baroque theatricality -from Wren’s sober restraint! Wren -<span class='pageno' id='Page_174'>174</span>was a master of the grand style; but he never -dreamed of building for effect alone. He -was never theatrical or showy, never pretentious -or vulgar. St. Paul’s is a monument -of temperance and chastity. His great palace -at Hampton Court is no gaudy stage-setting -for the farce of absolute monarchy. -It is a country gentleman’s house—more spacious, -of course, and with statelier rooms -and more impressive vistas—but still a house -meant to be lived in by some one who was -a man as well as a king. But if his palaces -might have housed, without the least incongruity, -a well-bred gentleman, conversely his -common houses were always dignified enough, -however small, to be palaces in miniature -and the homes of kings.</p> - -<p class='c013'>In the course of the two hundred years -which have elapsed since his death, Wren’s -successors have often departed, with melancholy -results, from the tradition of which he -was the founder. They have forgotten, in -their architecture, the art of being gentlemen. -Infected by a touch of the baroque -<i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">folie de grandeur</span></i>, the architects of the -eighteenth century built houses in imitation -of Versailles and Caserta—huge stage -houses, all for show and magnificence and all -but impossible to live in.</p> - -<p class='c013'>The architects of the nineteenth century -<span class='pageno' id='Page_175'>175</span>sinned in a diametrically opposite way—towards -meanness and a negation of art. -Senselessly preoccupied with details, they -created the nightmare architecture of “features.” -The sham Gothic of early Victorian -times yielded at the end of the century to -the nauseous affectation of “sham-peasantry.” -Big houses were built with all the -irregularity and more than the “quaintness” -of cottages; suburban villas took the form -of machine-made imitations of the Tudor -peasant’s hut. To all intents and purposes -architecture ceased to exist; Ruskin had triumphed.</p> - -<p class='c013'>To-day, however, there are signs that -architecture is coming back to that sane and -dignified tradition of which Wren was the -great exponent. Architects are building -houses for gentlemen to live in. Let us hope -that they will continue to do so. There may -be sublimer types of men than the gentleman: -there are saints, for example, and the -great enthusiasts whose thoughts and actions -move the world. But for practical purposes -and in a civilized, orderly society, the gentleman -remains, after all, the ideal man. The -most profound religious emotions have been -expressed in Gothic architecture. Human -ambitions and aspirations have been most -colossally reflected by the Romans and the -<span class='pageno' id='Page_176'>176</span>Italians of the baroque. But it is in England -that the golden mean of reasonableness and -decency—the practical philosophy of the -civilized man—has received its most elegant -and dignified expression. The old gentleman -who died two hundred years ago preached -on the subject of civilization a number of -sermons in stone. St. Paul’s and Greenwich, -Trinity Library and Hampton Court, Chelsea, -Kilmainham, Blackheath and Rochester, -St. Stephen’s, Wallbrook and St. Mary -Ab-church, Kensington orangery and Middle -Temple gateway—these are the titles of a -few of them. They have much, if we will -but study them, to teach us.</p> - -<div class='chapter'> - <span class='pageno' id='Page_177'>177</span> - <h2 class='c007'><abbr title='26'>XXVI</abbr>: BEN JONSON<a id='r3' /><a href='#f3' class='c014'><sup>[3]</sup></a></h2> -</div> - -<p class='c011'>It comes as something of a surprise to find -that the niche reserved for Ben Jonson -in the “English Men of Letters” series has -only now been filled. One expected somehow -that he would have been among the first -of the great ones to be enshrined; but no, -he has had a long time to wait; and Adam -Smith, and Sydney Smith, and Hazlitt, and -Fanny Burney have gone before him into the -temple of fame. Now, however, his monument -has at last been made, with Professor -Gregory Smith’s qualified version of “O rare -Ben Jonson!” duly and definitively carved -upon it.</p> - -<p class='c013'>What is it that makes us, almost as a -matter of course, number Ben Jonson among -the great? Why should we expect him to -be an early candidate for immortality, or -why, indeed, should he be admitted to the -“English Men of Letters” series at all? -These are difficult questions to answer; for -when we come to consider the matter we -find ourselves unable to give any very glowing -account of Ben or his greatness. It is -<span class='pageno' id='Page_178'>178</span>hard to say that one likes his work; one cannot -honestly call him a good poet or a supreme -dramatist. And yet, unsympathetic -as he is, uninteresting as he often can be, we -still go on respecting and admiring him, because, -in spite of everything, we are conscious, -obscurely but certainly, that he was -a great man.</p> - -<p class='c013'>He had little influence on his successors; -the comedy of humours died without any but -an abortive issue. Shadwell, the mountain-bellied -“Og, from a treason tavern rolling -home,” is not a disciple that any man would -have much pride in claiming. No raking up -of literary history will make Ben Jonson -great as a founder of a school or an inspirer -of others. His greatness is a greatness of -character. There is something almost alarming -in the spectacle of this formidable figure -advancing with tank-like irresistibility towards -the goal he had set himself to attain. -No sirens of romance can seduce him, no -shock of opposition unseat him in his career. -He proceeds along the course theoretically -mapped out at the inception of his literary -life, never deviating from this narrow way -till the very end—till the time when, in his -old age, he wrote that exquisite pastoral, <i>The -Sad Shepherd</i>, which is so complete and absolute -a denial of all his lifelong principles. -<span class='pageno' id='Page_179'>179</span>But <i>The Sad Shepherd</i> is a weakness, albeit -a triumphant weakness. Ben, as he liked to -look upon himself, as he has again and again -revealed himself to us, is the artist with principles, -protesting against the anarchic absence -of principle among the geniuses and -charlatans, the poets and ranters of his age.</p> - -<div class='bq'> - -<p class='c013'>The true artificer will not run away from nature -as he were afraid of her; or depart from life and -the likeness of truth; but speak to the capacity -of his hearers. And though his language differ -from the vulgar somewhat, it shall not fly from all -humanity, with the Tamerlanes and Tamer-Chams -of the late age, which had nothing in them but the -scenical strutting and furious vociferation to warrant -them to the ignorant gapers. He knows it is -his only art, so to carry it as none but artificers -perceive it. In the meantime, perhaps, he is called -barren, dull, lean, a poor writer, or by what contumelious -word can come in their cheeks, by these -men who without labour, judgment, knowledge, or -almost sense, are received or preferred before him.</p> - -</div> - -<p class='c013'>In these sentences from <i>Discoveries</i> Ben -Jonson paints his own picture—portrait of -the artist as a true artificer—setting forth, -in its most general form, and with no distracting -details of the humours or the moral -purpose of art, his own theory of the artist’s -true function and nature. Jonson’s theory -was no idle speculation, no mere thing of -words and air, but a creed, a principle, a -<span class='pageno' id='Page_180'>180</span>categorical imperative, conditioning and informing -his whole work. Any study of the -poet must, therefore, begin with the formulation -of his theory, and must go on, as Professor -Gregory Smith’s excellent essay does indeed -proceed, to show in detail how the -theory was applied and worked out in each -individual composition.</p> - -<p class='c013'>A good deal of nonsense has been talked -at one time or another about artistic theories. -The artist is told that he should have no -theories, that he should warble native wood-notes -wild, that he should “sing,” be wholly -spontaneous, should starve his brain and cultivate -his heart and spleen; that an artistic -theory cramps the style, stops up the Helicons -of inspiration, and so on, and so on. -The foolish and sentimental conception of -the artist, to which these anti-intellectual -doctrines are a corollary, dates from the time -of romanticism and survives among the foolish -and sentimental of to-day. A consciously -practised theory of art has never spoiled a -good artist, has never dammed up inspiration, -but rather, and in most cases profitably, -canalized it. Even the Romantics had -theories and were wild and emotional on -principle.</p> - -<p class='c013'>Theories are above all necessary at moments -when old traditions are breaking up, -<span class='pageno' id='Page_181'>181</span>when all is chaos and in flux. At such moments -an artist formulates his theory and -clings to it through thick and thin; clings -to it as the one firm raft of security in the -midst of the surrounding unrest. Thus, -when the neo-Classicism, of which Ben was -one of the remote ancestors, was crumbling -into the nothingness of <i>The Loves of the -Plants</i> and <i>The Triumphs of Temper</i>, -Wordsworth found salvation by the promulgation -of a new theory of poetry, which he -put into practice systematically and to the -verge of absurdity in <i>Lyrical Ballads</i>. Similarly -in the shipwreck of the old tradition of -painting we find the artists of the present -day clinging desperately to intellectual formulas -as their only hope in the chaos. The -only occasions, in fact, when the artist can -afford entirely to dispense with theory occur -in periods when a well-established tradition -reigns supreme and unquestioned. And then -the absence of theory is more apparent than -real; for the tradition in which he is working -is a theory, originally formulated by someone -else, which he accepts unconsciously and as -though it were the law of Nature itself.</p> - -<p class='c013'>The beginning of the seventeenth century -was not one of these periods of placidity and -calm acceptance. It was a moment of growth -and decay together, of fermentation. The -<span class='pageno' id='Page_182'>182</span>fabulous efflorescence of the Renaissance had -already grown rank. With that extravagance -of energy which characterized them in -all things, the Elizabethans had exaggerated -the traditions of their literature into insincerity. -All artistic traditions end, in due -course, by being reduced to the absurd; but -the Elizabethans crammed the growth and -decline of a century into a few years. One -after another they transfigured and then destroyed -every species of art they touched. -Euphuism, Petrarchism, Spenserism, the sonnet, -the drama—some lasted a little longer -than others, but they all exploded in the end, -these beautiful iridescent bubbles blown too -big by the enthusiasm of their makers.</p> - -<p class='c013'>But in the midst of this unstable luxuriance -voices of protest were to be heard, reactions -against the main romantic current -were discernible. Each in his own way and -in his own sphere, Donne and Ben Jonson -protested aganst the exaggerations of the age. -At a time when sonneteers in legions were -quibbling about the blackness of their ladies’ -eyes or the golden wires of their hair, when -Platonists protested in melodious chorus that -they were not in love with “red and white” -but with the ideal and divine beauty of which -peach-blossom complexions were but inadequate -shadows, at a time when love-poetry -<span class='pageno' id='Page_183'>183</span>had become, with rare exceptions, fantastically -unreal, Donne called it back, a little -grossly perhaps, to facts with the dry remark:</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>Love’s not so pure and abstract as they use</div> - <div class='line'>To say, who have no mistress but their muse.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c013'>There have been poets who have written -more lyrically than Donne, more fervently -about certain amorous emotions, but not one -who has formulated so rational a philosophy -of love as a whole, who has seen all the facts -so clearly and judged them so soundly. -Donne laid down no literary theory. His -followers took from him all that was relatively -unimportant—the harshness, itself a -protest against Spenserian facility, the conceits, -the sensuality tempered by mysticism—but -the important and original quality of -Donne’s work, the psychological realism, they -could not, through sheer incapacity, transfer -into their own poetry. Donne’s immediate -influence was on the whole bad. Any influence -for good he may have had has been on -poets of a much later date.</p> - -<p class='c013'>The other great literary Protestant of the -time was the curious subject of our examination, -Ben Jonson. Like Donne he was a -realist. He had no use for claptrap, or rant, -or romanticism. His aim was to give his -<span class='pageno' id='Page_184'>184</span>audiences real facts flavoured with sound -morality. He failed to be a great realist, -partly because he lacked the imaginative insight -to perceive more than the most obvious -and superficial reality, and partly because he -was so much preoccupied with the sound -morality that he was prepared to sacrifice -truth to satire; so that in place of characters -he gives us humours, not minds, but personified -moral qualities.</p> - -<p class='c013'>Ben hated romanticism; for, whatever may -have been his bodily habits, however infinite -his capacity for drinking sack, he belonged -intellectually to the party of sobriety. In all -ages the drunks and the sobers have confronted -one another, each party loud in derision -and condemnation of the defects which -it observes in the other. “The Tamerlanes -and Tamer-Chams of the late age” accuse the -sober Ben of being “barren, dull, lean, a poor -writer.” Ben retorts that they “have nothing -in them but the scenical strutting and -furious vociferation to warrant them to the -ignorant gapers.” At another period it is -the Hernanis and the Rollas who reproach -that paragon of dryness, the almost fiendishly -sober Stendhal, with his grocer’s style. -Stendhal in his turn remarks: “En paraissant, -vers 1803, le <i>Génie</i> de Chateaubriand m’a -semblé ridicule.” And to-day? We have -<span class='pageno' id='Page_185'>185</span>our sobers and our drunks, our Hardy and -our Belloc, our Santayana and our Chesterton. -The distinction is eternally valid. Our -personal sympathies may lie with one or the -other; but it is obvious that we could dispense -with neither. Ben, then, was one of -the sobers, protesting with might and main -against the extravagant behaviour of the -drunks, an intellectual insisting that there -was no way of arriving at truth except by intellectual -processes, an apotheosis of the -Plain Man determined to stand no nonsense -about anything. Ben’s poetical achievement, -such as it is, is the achievement of one who -relied on no mysterious inspiration, but on -those solid qualities of sense, perseverance, -and sound judgment which any decent citizen -of a decent country may be expected to possess. -That he himself possessed, hidden -somewhere in the obscure crypts and recesses -of his mind, other rarer spiritual qualities is -proved by the existence of his additions to -<i>The Spanish Tragedy</i>—if, indeed, they are -his, which there is no cogent reason to doubt—and -his last fragment of a masterpiece, -<i>The Sad Shepherd</i>. But these qualities, as -Professor Gregory Smith points out, he seems -deliberately to have suppressed; locked them -away, at the bidding of his imperious theory, -in the strange dark places from which, at the -<span class='pageno' id='Page_186'>186</span>beginning and the very end of his career, -they emerged. He might have been a great -romantic, one of the sublime inebriates; he -chose rather to be classical and sober. Working -solely with the logical intellect and rejecting -as dangerous the aid of those uncontrolled -illogical elements of imagination, he -produced work that is in its own way excellent. -It is well-wrought, strong, heavy with -learning and what the Chaucerians would -call “high sentence.” The emotional intensity -and brevity excepted, it possesses all -the qualities of the French classical drama. -But the quality which characterizes the best -Elizabethan and indeed the best English -poetry of all periods, the power of moving -in two worlds at once, it lacks. Jonson, like -the French dramatists of the seventeenth -century, moves on a level, directly towards -some logical goal. The road over which his -great contemporaries take us is not level; it -is, as it were, tilted and uneven, so that as -we proceed along it we are momently shot -off at a tangent from the solid earth of -logical meaning into superior regions where -the intellectual laws of gravity have no control. -The mistake of Jonson and the classicists -in general consists in supposing that -nothing is of value that is not susceptible of -logical analysis; whereas the truth is that -<span class='pageno' id='Page_187'>187</span>the greatest triumphs of art take place in a -world that is not wholly of the intellect, but -lies somewhere between it and the inenarrable, -but, to those who have penetrated it, -supremely real, world of the mystic. In his -fear and dislike of nonsense, Jonson put -away from himself not only the Tamer-Chams -and the fustian of the late age, but -also most of the beauty it had created.</p> - -<p class='c013'>With the romantic emotions of his -predecessors and contemporaries Jonson -abandoned much of the characteristically -Elizabethan form of their poetry. That extraordinary -melodiousness which distinguishes -the Elizabethan lyric is not to be -found in any of Ben’s writing. The poems -by which we remember him—“Cynthia,” -“Drink to Me Only,” “It is Not Growing -Like a Tree”—are classically well made -(though the cavalier lyrists were to do better -in the same style); but it is not for any musical -qualities that we remember them. One -can understand Ben’s critical contempt for -those purely formal devices for producing -musical richness in which the Elizabethans -delighted.</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>Eyes, why did you bring unto me these graces,</div> - <div class='line'>Grac’d to yield wonder out of her true measure,</div> - <div class='line'>Measure of all joyes’ stay to phansie traces</div> - <div class='line in8'>Module of pleasure.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c013'><span class='pageno' id='Page_188'>188</span>The device is childish in its formality, the -words, in their obscurity, almost devoid of -significance. But what matter, since the -stanza is a triumph of sonorous beauty? The -Elizabethans devised many ingenuities of -this sort; the minor poets exploited them until -they became ridiculous; the major poets -employed them with greater discretion, playing -subtle variations (as in Shakespeare’s sonnets) -on the crude theme. When writers -had something to say, their thoughts, poured -into these copiously elaborate forms, were -moulded to the grandest, poetical eloquence. -A minor poet, like Lord Brooke, from whose -works we have just quoted a specimen of -pure formalism, could produce, in his moments -of inspiration, such magnificent lines -as:</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>The mind of Man is this world’s true dimension,</div> - <div class='line in2'>And knowledge is the measure of the mind;</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c013'>or these, of the nethermost hell:</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>A place there is upon no centre placed,</div> - <div class='line'>Deepe under depthes, as farre as is the skie</div> - <div class='line'>Above the earth; darke, infinitely spaced:</div> - <div class='line'>Pluto the king, the kingdome, miserie.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c013'>Even into comic poetry the Elizabethans imported -the grand manner. The anonymous -author of</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'><span class='pageno' id='Page_189'>189</span>Tee-hee, tee-hee! Oh sweet delight</div> - <div class='line'>He tickles this age, who can</div> - <div class='line'>Call Tullia’s ape a marmosite</div> - <div class='line'>And Leda’s goose a swan,</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c013'>knew the secret of that rich, facile music -which all those who wrote in the grand -Elizabethan tradition could produce. Jonson, -like Donne, reacted against the facility -and floridity of this technique, but in a different -way. Donne’s protest took the form -of a conceited subtlety of thought combined -with a harshness of metre. Jonson’s classical -training inclined him towards clarity, solidity -of sense, and economy of form. He -stands, as a lyrist, half-way between the -Elizabethans and the cavalier song-writers; -he has broken away from the old tradition, -but has not yet made himself entirely at -home in the new. At the best he achieves a -minor perfection of point and neatness. At -the worst he falls into that dryness and dulness -with which he knew he could be reproached.</p> - -<p class='c013'>We have seen from the passage concerning -the true artificer that Jonson fully realized -the risk he was running. He recurs -more than once in <i>Discoveries</i> to the same -theme, “Some men to avoid redundancy run -into that [a “thin, flagging, poor, starved” -style]; and while they strive to have no ill-blood -<span class='pageno' id='Page_190'>190</span>or juice, they lose their good.” The -good that Jonson lost was a great one. And -in the same way we see to-day how a fear of -becoming sentimental, or “chocolate-boxy,” -drives many of the younger poets and artists -to shrink from treating of the great emotions -or the obvious lavish beauty of the -earth. But to eschew a good because the -corruption of it is very bad is surely a sign -of weakness and a folly.</p> - -<p class='c013'>Having lost the realm of romantic beauty—lost -it deliberately and of set purpose—Ben -Jonson devoted the whole of his immense -energy to portraying and reforming -the ugly world of fact. But his reforming -satiric intentions interfered, as we have already -shown, with his realistic intentions, -and instead of recreating in his art the actual -world of men, he invented the wholly intellectual -and therefore wholly unreal universe -of Humours. It is an odd new world, amusing -to look at from the safe distance that -separates stage from stalls; but not a place -one could ever wish to live in—one’s neighbours, -fools, knaves, hypocrites, and bears -would make the most pleasing prospect intolerable. -And over it all is diffused the atmosphere -of Jonson’s humour. It is a curious -kind of humour, very different from anything -that passes under that name to-day, -<span class='pageno' id='Page_191'>191</span>from the humour of <i>Punch</i>, or <i>A Kiss for -Cinderella</i>. One has only to read <i><span lang="it" xml:lang="it">Volpone</span></i>—or, -better still, go to see it when it is acted -this year by the Phœnix Society for the revival -of old plays—to realize that Ben’s conception -of a joke differed materially from -ours. Humour has never been the same -since Rousseau invented humanitarianism. -Syphilis and broken legs were still a great -deal more comic in Smollett’s day than in -our own. There is a cruelty, a heartlessness -about much of the older humour which is -sometimes shocking, sometimes, in its less extreme -forms, pleasantly astringent and stimulating -after the orgies of quaint pathos and -sentimental comedy in which we are nowadays -forced to indulge. There is not a -pathetic line in <i><span lang="it" xml:lang="it">Volpone</span></i>; all the characters -are profoundly unpleasant, and the fun is -almost as grim as fun can be. Its heartlessness -is not the brilliant, cynical heartlessness -of the later Restoration comedy, but -something ponderous and vast. It reminds -us of one of those enormous, painful jokes -which fate sometimes plays on humanity. -There is no alleviation, no purging by pity -and terror. It requires a very hearty sense -of humour to digest it. We have reason to -admire our ancestors for their ability to enjoy -this kind of comedy as it should be enjoyed. -<span class='pageno' id='Page_192'>192</span>It would get very little appreciation -from a London audience of to-day.</p> - -<p class='c013'>In the other comedies the fun is not so -grim; but there is a certain hardness and -brutality about them all—due, of course, -ultimately to the fact that the characters are -not human, but rather marionettes of wood -and metal that collide and belabour one another, -like the ferocious puppets of the Punch -and Judy show, without feeling the painfulness -of the proceeding. Shakespeare’s -comedy is not heartless, because the characters -are human and sensitive. Our modern -sentimentality is a corruption, a softening -of genuine humanity. We need a few more -Jonsons and Congreves, some more plays like -<i><span lang="it" xml:lang="it">Volpone</span></i>, or that inimitable <i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Marriage à la -Mode</span></i> of Dryden, in which the curtain goes -up on a lady singing the outrageously cynical -song that begins:</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>Why should a foolish marriage vow,</div> - <div class='line in2'>That long ago was made,</div> - <div class='line'>Constrain us to each other now</div> - <div class='line in2'>When pleasure is decayed?</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c013'>Too much heartlessness is intolerable (how -soon one turns, revolted, from the literature -of the Restoration!), but a little of it now -and then is bracing, a tonic for relaxed sensibilities. -A little ruthless laughter clears -<span class='pageno' id='Page_193'>193</span>the air as nothing else can do; it is good for -us, every now and then, to see our ideals -laughed at, our conception of nobility caricatured; -it is good for solemnity’s nose to be -tweaked, it is good for human pomposity to -be made to look mean and ridiculous. It -should be the great social function—as Marinetti -has pointed out—of the music halls, -to provide this cruel and unsparing laughter, -to make a buffoonery of all the solemnly accepted -grandeurs and nobilities. A good dose -of this mockery, administered twice a year at -the equinoxes, should purge our minds of -much waste matter, make nimble our spirits -and brighten the eye to look more clearly -and truthfully on the world about us.</p> - -<p class='c013'>Ben’s reduction of human beings to a series -of rather unpleasant Humours is sound and -medicinal. Humours do not, of course, exist -in actuality; they are true only as caricatures -are true. There are times when we -wonder whether a caricature is not, after all, -truer than a photograph; there are others -when it seems a stupid lie. But at all times -a caricature is disquieting; and it is very -good for most of us to be made uncomfortable.</p> - -<div class='chapter'> - <span class='pageno' id='Page_194'>194</span> - <h2 class='c007'><abbr title='27'>XXVII</abbr>: CHAUCER</h2> -</div> - -<p class='c011'>There are few things more melancholy -than the spectacle of literary fossilization. -A great writer comes into being, lives, -labours and dies. Time passes; year by year -the sediment of muddy comment and criticism -thickens round the great man’s bones. -The sediment sets firm; what was once a living -organism becomes a thing of marble. On -the attainment of total fossilization the great -man has become a classic. It becomes increasingly -difficult for the members of each -succeeding generation to remember that the -stony objects which fill the museum cases -were once alive. It is often a work of considerable -labour to reconstruct the living animal -from the fossil shape. But the trouble -is generally worth taking. And in no case -is it more worth while than in Chaucer’s.</p> - -<p class='c013'>With Chaucer the ordinary fossilizing -process, to which every classical author is -subject, has been complicated by the petrifaction -of his language. Five hundred years -have almost sufficed to turn the most living -of poets into a substitute on the modern sides -of schools for the mental gymnastic of Latin -and Greek. Prophetically, Chaucer saw the -<span class='pageno' id='Page_195'>195</span>fate that awaited him and appealed against -his doom:</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>Ye know eke that, in form of speech is change</div> - <div class='line'>Within a thousand year, and wordes tho</div> - <div class='line'>That hadden price, now wonder nice and strange</div> - <div class='line'>Us thinketh them; and yet they spake them so,</div> - <div class='line'>And sped as well in love as men now do.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c013'>The body of his poetry may have grown old, -but its spirit is still young and immortal. -To know that spirit—and not to know it is -to ignore something that is of unique importance -in the history of our literature—it is -necessary to make the effort of becoming familiar -with the body it informs and gives -life to. The antique language and versification, -so “wonder nice and strange” to our -ears, are obstacles in the path of most of -those who read for pleasure’s sake (not that -any reader worthy of the name ever reads -for anything else but pleasure); to the pedants -they are an end in themselves. Theirs -is the carcass, but not the soul. Between -those who are daunted by his superficial difficulties -and those who take too much delight -in them Chaucer finds but few sympathetic -readers. I hope in these pages to be able to -give a few of the reasons that make Chaucer -so well worth reading.</p> - -<p class='c013'>Chaucer’s art is, by its very largeness and -<span class='pageno' id='Page_196'>196</span>objectiveness, extremely difficult to subject -to critical analysis. Confronted by it, Dryden -could only exclaim, “Here is God’s -plenty!”—and the exclamation proves, when -all is said, to be the most adequate and satisfying -of all criticisms. All that the critic -can hope to do is to expand and to illustrate -Dryden’s exemplary brevity.</p> - -<p class='c013'>“God’s plenty!”—the phrase is a peculiarly -happy one. It calls up a vision of the -prodigal earth, of harvest fields, of innumerable -beasts and birds, of teeming life. And -it is in the heart of this living and material -world of Nature that Chaucer lives. He is -the poet of earth, supremely content to walk, -desiring no wings. Many English poets have -loved the earth for the sake of something—a -dream, a reality, call it which you will—that -lies behind it. But there have been few, -and, except for Chaucer, no poets of greatness, -who have been in love with earth for its -own sake, with Nature in the sense of something -inevitably material, something that is -the opposite of the supernatural. Supreme -over everything in this world he sees the -natural order, the “law of kind,” as he calls -it. The teachings of most of the great prophets -and poets are simply protests against the -law of kind. Chaucer does not protest, he -accepts. It is precisely this acceptance that -<span class='pageno' id='Page_197'>197</span>makes him unique among English poets. He -does not go to Nature as the symbol of some -further spiritual reality; hills, flowers, sea, -and clouds are not, for him, transparencies -through which the workings of a great soul -are visible. No, they are opaque; he likes -them for what they are, things pleasant and -beautiful, and not the less delicious because -they are definitely of the earth earthy. Human -beings, in the same way, he takes as he -finds, noble and beastish, but, on the whole, -wonderfully decent. He has none of that -strong ethical bias which is usually to be -found in the English mind. He is not horrified -by the behaviour of his fellow-beings, -and he has no desire to reform them. Their -characters, their motives interest him, and -he stands looking on at them, a happy spectator. -This serenity of detachment, this placid -acceptance of things and people as they are, -is emphasized if we compare the poetry of -Chaucer with that of his contemporary, Langland, -or whoever it was that wrote <i>Piers -Plowman</i>.</p> - -<p class='c013'>The historians tell us that the later years -of the fourteenth century were among the -most disagreeable periods of our national history. -English prosperity was at a very low -ebb. The Black Death had exterminated -nearly a third of the working population of -<span class='pageno' id='Page_198'>198</span>the islands, a fact which, aggravated by the -frenzied legislation of the Government, had -led to the unprecedented labour troubles that -culminated in the peasants’ revolt. Clerical -corruption and lawlessness were rife. All -things considered, even our own age is preferable -to that in which Chaucer lived. Langland -does not spare denunciation; he is appalled -by the wickedness about him, scandalized -at the openly confessed vices that have -almost ceased to pay to virtue the tribute of -hypocrisy. Indignation is the inspiration of -<i>Piers Plowman</i>, the righteous indignation of -the prophet. But to read Chaucer one would -imagine that there was nothing in fourteenth-century -England to be indignant about. It -is true that the Pardoner, the Friar, the Shipman, -the Miller, and, in fact, most of the -Canterbury pilgrims are rogues and scoundrels; -but, then, they are such “merry harlots” -too. It is true that the Monk prefers -hunting to praying, that, in these latter days -when fairies are no more, “there is none other -incubus” but the friar, that “purse is the -Archdeacon’s hell,” and the Summoner a villain -of the first magnitude; but Chaucer can -only regard these things as primarily humorous. -The fact of people not practising what -they preach is an unfailing source of amusement -to him. Where Langland cries aloud -<span class='pageno' id='Page_199'>199</span>in anger, threatening the world with hell-fire, -Chaucer looks on and smiles. To the great -political crisis of his time he makes but one -reference, and that a comic one:</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>So hideous was the noyse, ah <i>benedicite</i>!</div> - <div class='line'>Certes he Jakke Straw, and his meyné,</div> - <div class='line'>Ne maden schoutes never half so schrille,</div> - <div class='line'>Whan that they wolden eny Flemyng kille,</div> - <div class='line'>As thilke day was mad upon the fox.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c013'>Peasants may revolt, priests break their -vows, lawyers lie and cheat, and the world -in general indulge its sensual appetites; why -try and prevent them, why protest? After -all, they are all simply being natural, they -are all following the law of kind. A reasonable -man, like himself, “flees fro the pres and -dwelles with soothfastnesse.” But reasonable -men are few, and it is the nature of human -beings to be the unreasonable sport of -instinct and passion, just as it is the nature -of the daisy to open its eye to the sun and of -the goldfinch to be a spritely and “gaylard” -creature. The law of kind has always and -in everything dominated; there is no rubbing -nature against the hair. For</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>God it wot, there may no man embrace</div> - <div class='line'>As to destreyne a thing, the which nature</div> - <div class='line'>Hath naturelly set in a creature.</div> - <div class='line'>Take any brid, and put him in a cage,</div> - <div class='line'><span class='pageno' id='Page_200'>200</span>And do all thine entent and thy corrage</div> - <div class='line'>To foster it tendrely with meat and drynke,</div> - <div class='line'>And with alle the deyntees thou canst bethinke,</div> - <div class='line'>And keep it all so kyndly as thou may;</div> - <div class='line'>Although his cage of gold be never so gay,</div> - <div class='line'>Yet hath this brid, by twenty thousand fold,</div> - <div class='line'>Lever in a forest, that is wyld and cold,</div> - <div class='line'>Gon ete wormes, and such wrecchidnes;</div> - <div class='line'>For ever this brid will doon his busynes</div> - <div class='line'>To scape out of his cage when that he may;</div> - <div class='line'>His liberté the brid desireth aye ...</div> - <div class='line'>Lo, heer hath kynd his dominacioun,</div> - <div class='line'>And appetyt flemeth (banishes) discrescioun.</div> - <div class='line'>Also a she wolf hath a vilayne kynde,</div> - <div class='line'>The lewideste wolf that she may fynde,</div> - <div class='line'>Or least of reputacioun, him will sche take,</div> - <div class='line'>In tyme whan hir lust to have a make.</div> - <div class='line'>Alle this ensaumples tell I by these men</div> - <div class='line'>That ben untrewe, and nothing by wommen.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c013'>(As the story from which these lines are -quoted happens to be about an unfaithful -wife, it seems that, in making the female -sex immune from the action of the law -of kind, Chaucer is indulging a little in -irony.)</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>For men han ever a licorous appetit</div> - <div class='line'>On lower thing to parforme her delit</div> - <div class='line'>Than on her wyves, ben they never so faire,</div> - <div class='line'>Ne never so trewe, ne so debonaire.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c013'>Nature, deplorable as some of its manifestations -may be, must always and inevitably -assert itself. The law of kind has power -<span class='pageno' id='Page_201'>201</span>even over immortal souls. This fact is the -source of the poet’s constantly expressed dislike -of celibacy and asceticism. The doctrine -that upholds the superiority of the state of -virginity over that of wedlock is, to begin -with (he holds), a danger to the race. It encourages -a process which we may be permitted -to call dysgenics—the carrying on of the -species by the worst members. The Host’s -words to the Monk are memorable:</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>Allas! why wearest thou so wide a cope?</div> - <div class='line'>God give me sorwe! and I were a pope</div> - <div class='line'>Nought only thou, but every mighty man,</div> - <div class='line'>Though he were shore brode upon his pan (head)</div> - <div class='line'>Should han a wife; for all this world is lorn;</div> - <div class='line'>Religioun hath take up all the corn</div> - <div class='line'>Of tredyng, and we burel (humble) men ben shrimpes;</div> - <div class='line'>Of feble trees there cometh wrecchid impes.</div> - <div class='line'>This maketh that our heires ben so sclendere</div> - <div class='line'>And feble, that they may not wel engendre.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c013'>But it is not merely dangerous; it is anti-natural. -That is the theme of the Wife of -Bath’s Prologue. Counsels of perfection are -all very well when they are given to those</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>That wolde lyve parfytly;</div> - <div class='line'>But, lordyngs, by your leve, that am not I.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c013'>The bulk of us must live as the law of kind -enjoins.</p> - -<p class='c013'><span class='pageno' id='Page_202'>202</span>It is characteristic of Chaucer’s conception -of the world, that the highest praise he can -bestow on anything is to assert of it, that it -possesses in the highest degree the qualities -of its own particular kind. Thus of Cressida -he says:</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>She was not with the least of her stature,</div> - <div class='line'>But all her limbes so well answering</div> - <div class='line'>Weren to womanhood, that creature</div> - <div class='line'>Nas never lesse mannish in seeming.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c013'>The horse of brass in the <i>Squire’s Tale</i> is</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>So well proportioned to be strong,</div> - <div class='line'>Right as it were a steed of Lombardye,</div> - <div class='line'>Thereto so <i>horsely</i> and so quick of eye.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c013'>Everything that is perfect of its kind is admirable, -even though the kind may not be -an exalted one. It is, for instance, a joy to -see the way in which the Canon sweats:</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>A cloote-leaf (dock leaf) he had under his hood</div> - <div class='line'>For sweat, and for to keep his head from heat.</div> - <div class='line'>But it was joye for to see him sweat;</div> - <div class='line'>His forehead dropped as a stillatorie</div> - <div class='line'>Were full of plantain or of peritorie.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c013'>The Canon is supreme in the category of -sweaters, the very type and idea of perspiring -humanity; therefore he is admirable and joyous -to behold, even as a horse that is supremely -<span class='pageno' id='Page_203'>203</span>horsely or a woman less mannish -than anything one could imagine. In the -same way it is a delight to behold the Pardoner -preaching to the people. In its own -kind his charlatanism is perfect and deserves -admiration:</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>Mine handes and my tonge gon so yerne,</div> - <div class='line'>That it is joye to see my busynesse.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c013'>This manner of saying of things that they -are joyous, or, very often, heavenly, is typical -of Chaucer. He looks out on the world -with a delight that never grows old or weary. -The sights and sounds of daily life, all the -lavish beauty of the earth fill him with a -pleasure which he can only express by calling -it a “joy” or a “heaven.” It “joye was to -see” Cressida and her maidens playing together; -and</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>So aungellyke was her native beauté</div> - <div class='line'>That like a thing immortal seemede she,</div> - <div class='line'>As doth an heavenish parfit creature.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c013'>The peacock has angel’s feathers; a girl’s -voice is heavenly to hear:</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line in10'>Antigone the shene</div> - <div class='line'>Gan on a Trojan song to singen clear,</div> - <div class='line'>That it an heaven was her voice to hear.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c013'><span class='pageno' id='Page_204'>204</span>One could go on indefinitely multiplying -quotations that testify to Chaucer’s exquisite -sensibility to sensuous beauty and his immediate, -almost exclamatory response to it. -Above all, he is moved by the beauty of -“young, fresh folkes, he and she”; by the -grace and swiftness of living things, birds -and animals; by flowers and placid, luminous, -park-like landscapes.</p> - -<p class='c013'>It is interesting to note how frequently -Chaucer speaks of animals. Like many other -sages, he perceives that an animal is, in a -certain sense, more human in character than -a man. For an animal bears the same relation -to a man as a caricature to a portrait. -In a way a caricature is truer than a portrait. -It reveals all the weaknesses and absurdities -that flesh is heir to. The portrait brings out -the greatness and dignity of the spirit that -inhabits the often ridiculous flesh. It is not -merely that Chaucer has written regular -fables, though the <i>Nun’s Priest’s Tale</i> puts -him among the great fabulists of the world, -and there is also much definitely fabular -matter in the <i>Parliament of Fowls</i>. No, his -references to the beasts are not confined to -his animal stories alone; they are scattered -broadcast throughout his works. He relies -for much of his psychology and for much -of his most vivid description on the comparison -<span class='pageno' id='Page_205'>205</span>of man, in his character and appearance -(which with Chaucer are always indissolubly -blended), with the beasts. Take, -for example, that enchanting simile in which -Troilus, stubbornly anti-natural in refusing -to love as the law of kind enjoins him, is -compared to the corn-fed horse, who has to -be taught good behaviour and sound philosophy -under the whip:</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>As proude Bayard ginneth for to skip</div> - <div class='line'>Out of the way, so pricketh him his corn,</div> - <div class='line'>Till he a lash have of the longe whip,</div> - <div class='line'>Then thinketh he, “Though I prance all biforn,</div> - <div class='line'>First in the trace, full fat and newe shorn,</div> - <div class='line'>Yet am I but an horse, and horses’ law</div> - <div class='line'>I must endure and with my feeres draw.”</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c013'>Or, again, women with too pronounced a -taste for fine apparel are likened to the cat:</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>And if the cattes skin be sleek and gay,</div> - <div class='line'>She will not dwell in housé half a day,</div> - <div class='line'>But forth she will, ere any day be dawet</div> - <div class='line'>To show her skin and gon a caterwrawet.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c013'>In his descriptions of the personal appearance -of his characters Chaucer makes constant use -of animal characteristics. Human beings, -both beautiful and hideous, are largely described -in terms of animals. It is interesting -to see how often in that exquisite description -<span class='pageno' id='Page_206'>206</span>of Alisoun, the carpenter’s wife, Chaucer produces -his clearest and sharpest effects by a -reference to some beast or bird:</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>Fair was this younge wife, and therewithal</div> - <div class='line'>As any weasel her body gent and small ...</div> - <div class='line'>But of her song it was as loud and yern</div> - <div class='line'>As is the swallow chittering on a barn.</div> - <div class='line'>Thereto she coulde skip and make a game</div> - <div class='line'>As any kid or calf following his dame.</div> - <div class='line'>Her mouth was sweet as bragot is or meath,</div> - <div class='line'>Or hoard of apples, laid in hay or heath.</div> - <div class='line'>Wincing she was, as is a jolly colt,</div> - <div class='line'>Long as a mast and upright as a bolt.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c013'>Again and again in Chaucer’s poems do we -find such similitudes, and the result is always -a picture of extraordinary precision and -liveliness. Here, for example, are a few:</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>Gaylard he was as goldfinch in the shaw,</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c013'>or,</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>Such glaring eyen had he as an hare;</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c013'>or,</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>As piled (bald) as an ape was his skull.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c013'>The self-indulgent friars are</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line in10'>Like Jovinian,</div> - <div class='line'>Fat as a whale, and walken as a swan.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c013'><span class='pageno' id='Page_207'>207</span>The Pardoner describes his own preaching -in these words:</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>Then pain I me to stretche forth my neck</div> - <div class='line'>And east and west upon the people I beck,</div> - <div class='line'>As doth a dove, sitting on a barn.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c013'>Very often, too, Chaucer derives his happiest -metaphors from birds and beasts. Of Troy -in its misfortune and decline he says: Fortune</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>Gan pull away the feathers bright of Troy</div> - <div class='line'>From day to day.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c013'>Love-sick Troilus soliloquizes thus:</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>He said: “O fool, now art thou in the snare</div> - <div class='line'>That whilom japedest at lovés pain,</div> - <div class='line'>Now art thou hent, now gnaw thin owné chain.”</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c013'>The metaphor of Troy’s bright feathers reminds -me of a very beautiful simile borrowed -from the life of the plants:</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>And as in winter leavés been bereft,</div> - <div class='line'>Each after other, till the tree be bare,</div> - <div class='line'>So that there nis but bark and branches left,</div> - <div class='line'>Lieth Troilus, bereft of each welfare,</div> - <div class='line'>Ybounden in the blacke bark of care.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c013'>And this, in turn, reminds me of that couplet -<span class='pageno' id='Page_208'>208</span>in which Chaucer compares a girl to a flowering -pear-tree:</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>She was well more blissful on to see</div> - <div class='line'>Than is the newe parjonette tree.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c013'>Chaucer is as much at home among the stars -as he is among the birds and beasts and flowers -of earth. There are some literary men -of to-day who are not merely not ashamed -to confess their total ignorance of all facts of -a “scientific” order, but even make a boast -of it. Chaucer would have regarded such -persons with pity and contempt. His own -knowledge of astronomy was wide and exact. -Those whose education has been as horribly -imperfect as my own will always find some -difficulty in following him as he moves with -easy assurance through the heavens. Still, -it is possible without knowing any mathematics -to appreciate Chaucer’s descriptions -of the great pageant of the sun and stars as -they march in triumph from mansion to mansion -through the year. He does not always -trouble to take out his astrolabe and measure -the progress of “Phebus, with his rosy cart”; -he can record the god’s movements in more -general terms than may be understood even -by the literary man of nineteen hundred and -twenty-three. Here, for example, is a description -<span class='pageno' id='Page_209'>209</span>of “the colde frosty seisoun of -Decembre,” in which matters celestial and -earthly are mingled to make a picture of -extraordinary richness:</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>Phebus wox old and hewed like latoun,</div> - <div class='line'>That in his hoté declinacioun</div> - <div class='line'>Shone as the burned gold, with streames bright;</div> - <div class='line'>But now in Capricorn adown he light,</div> - <div class='line'>Where as he shone full pale; I dare well sayn</div> - <div class='line'>The bitter frostes with the sleet and rain</div> - <div class='line'>Destroyed hath the green in every yerd.</div> - <div class='line'>Janus sit by the fire with double beard,</div> - <div class='line'>And drinketh of his bugle horn the wine;</div> - <div class='line'>Beforn him stont the brawn of tusked swine,</div> - <div class='line'>And “<i>noel</i>” cryeth every lusty man.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c013'>In astrology he does not seem to have believed. -The magnificent passage in the <i>Man -of Law’s Tale</i>, where it is said that</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>In the starres, clearer than is glass,</div> - <div class='line'>Is written, God wot, whoso can it read,</div> - <div class='line'>The death of every man withouten drede,</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c013'>is balanced by the categorical statement -found in the scientific and educational treatise -on the astrolabe, that judicial astrology is -mere deceit.</p> - -<p class='c013'>His scepticism with regard to astrology -is not surprising. Highly as he prizes authority, -he prefers the evidence of experience, -and where that evidence is lacking he is content -<span class='pageno' id='Page_210'>210</span>to profess a quiet agnosticism. His respect -for the law of kind is accompanied by -a complementary mistrust of all that does -not appear to belong to the natural order of -things. There are moments when he doubts -even the fundamental beliefs of the Church:</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>A thousand sythes have I herd men telle</div> - <div class='line'>That there is joye in heaven and peyne in helle;</div> - <div class='line'>And I accorde well that it be so.</div> - <div class='line'>But natheless, this wot I well also</div> - <div class='line'>That there is none that dwelleth in this countree</div> - <div class='line'>That either hath in helle or heaven y-be.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c013'>Of the fate of the spirit after death he speaks -in much the same style:</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>His spiryt changed was, and wente there</div> - <div class='line'>As I came never, I cannot tellen where;</div> - <div class='line'>Therefore I stint, I nam no divinistre;</div> - <div class='line'>Of soules fynde I not in this registre,</div> - <div class='line'>Ne me list not th’ opiniouns to telle</div> - <div class='line'>Of hem, though that they witten where they dwelle.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c013'>He has no patience with superstitions. Belief -in dreams, in auguries, fear of the “ravenes -qualm or schrychynge of thise owles” -are all unbefitting to a self-respecting man:</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>To trowen on it bothe false and foul is;</div> - <div class='line'>Alas, alas, so noble a creature</div> - <div class='line'>As is a man shall dreaden such ordure!</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c013'><span class='pageno' id='Page_211'>211</span>By an absurd pun he turns all Calchas’s -magic arts of prophecy to ridicule:</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>So when this Calkas knew by calkulynge,</div> - <div class='line'>And eke by answer of this Apollo</div> - <div class='line'>That Grekes sholden such a people bringe,</div> - <div class='line'>Through which that Troye muste ben fordo,</div> - <div class='line'>He cast anon out of the town to go.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c013'>It would not be making a fanciful comparison -to say that Chaucer in many respects -resembles Anatole France. Both men possess -a profound love of this world for its -own sake, coupled with a profound and gentle -scepticism about all that lies beyond this -world. To both of them the lavish beauty -of Nature is a never-failing and all-sufficient -source of happiness. Neither of them are -ascetics; in pain and privation they see nothing -but evil. To both of them the notion -that self-denial and self-mortification are -necessarily righteous and productive of good -is wholly alien. Both of them are apostles of -sweetness and light, of humanity and reasonableness. -Unbounded tolerance of human -weakness and a pity, not the less sincere for -being a little ironical, characterize them both. -Deep knowledge of the evils and horrors of -this unintelligible world makes them all the -more attached to its kindly beauty. But in -<span class='pageno' id='Page_212'>212</span>at least one important respect Chaucer shows -himself to be the greater, the completer -spirit. He possesses, what Anatole France -does not, an imaginative as well as an intellectual -comprehension of things. Faced by -the multitudinous variety of human character, -Anatole France exhibits a curious impotence -of imagination. He does not understand -characters in the sense that, say, Tolstoy -understands them; he cannot, by the -power of imagination, get inside them, become -what he contemplates. None of the -persons of his creation are complete characters; -they cannot be looked at from every -side; they are portrayed, as it were, in the -flat and not in three dimensions. But Chaucer -has the power of getting into someone -else’s character. His understanding of the -men and women of whom he writes is complete; -his slightest character sketches are always -solid and three-dimensional. The Prologue -to the <i>Canterbury Tales</i>, in which the -effects are almost entirely produced by the -description of external physical features, furnishes -us with the most obvious example of -his three-dimensional drawing. Or, again, -take that description in the Merchant’s tale -of old January and his young wife May after -their wedding night. It is wholly a description -of external details, yet the result is not -<span class='pageno' id='Page_213'>213</span>a superficial picture. We are given a glimpse -of the characters in their entirety:</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>Thus laboureth he till that the day gan dawe.</div> - <div class='line'>And then he taketh a sop in fine clarré,</div> - <div class='line'>And upright in his bed then sitteth he.</div> - <div class='line'>And after that he sang full loud and clear,</div> - <div class='line'>And kissed his wife and made wanton cheer.</div> - <div class='line'>He was all coltish, full of ragerye,</div> - <div class='line'>And full of jargon as a flecked pye.</div> - <div class='line'>The slacké skin about his necké shaketh,</div> - <div class='line'>While that he sang, so chanteth he and craketh.</div> - <div class='line'>But God wot what that May thought in her heart,</div> - <div class='line'>When she him saw up sitting in his shirt,</div> - <div class='line'>In his night cap and with his necké lean;</div> - <div class='line'>She praiseth not his playing worth a bean.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c013'>But these are all slight sketches. For full-length -portraits of character we must turn -to <i>Troilus and Cressida</i>, a work which, -though it was written before the fullest maturity -of Chaucer’s powers, is in many ways -his most remarkable achievement, and one, -moreover, which has never been rivalled for -beauty and insight in the whole field of English -narrative poetry. When one sees with -what certainty and precision Chaucer describes -every movement of Cressida’s spirit -from the first movement she hears of Troilus’ -love for her to the moment when she is unfaithful -to him, one can only wonder why the -novel of character should have been so slow -<span class='pageno' id='Page_214'>214</span>to make its appearance. It was not until the -eighteenth century that narrative artists, -using prose as their medium instead of verse, -began to rediscover the secrets that were familiar -to Chaucer in the fourteenth.</p> - -<p class='c013'><i>Troilus and Cressida</i> was written, as we -have said, before Chaucer had learnt to make -the fullest use of his powers. In colouring -it is fainter, less sharp and brilliant than the -best of the <i>Canterbury Tales</i>. The character -studies are there, carefully and accurately -worked out; but we miss the bright vividness -of presentation with which Chaucer was to -endow his later art. The characters are all -alive and completely seen and understood. -But they move, as it were, behind a veil—the -veil of that poetic convention which had, -in the earliest poems, almost completely -shrouded Chaucer’s genius, and which, as he -grew up, as he adventured and discovered, -grew thinner and thinner, and finally vanished -like gauzy mist in the sunlight. When -<i>Troilus and Cressida</i> was written the mist -had not completely dissipated, and the figures -of his creation, complete in conception -and execution as they are, are seen a little -dimly because of the interposed veil.</p> - -<p class='c013'>The only moment in the poem when -Chaucer’s insight seems to fail him is at the -very end; he has to account for Cressida’s unfaithfulness, -<span class='pageno' id='Page_215'>215</span>and he is at a loss to know how -he shall do it. Shakespeare, when he re-handled -the theme, had no such difficulty. -His version of the story, planned on much -coarser lines than Chaucer’s, leads obviously -and inevitably to the fore-ordained conclusion; -his Cressida is a minx who simply lives -up to her character. What could be more -simple? But to Chaucer the problem is not -so simple. His Cressida is not a minx. From -the moment he first sets eyes on her Chaucer, -like his own unhappy Troilus, falls head over -ears in love. Beautiful, gentle, gay; possessing, -it is true, somewhat “tendre wittes,” -but making up for her lack of skill in ratiocination -by the “sudden avysements” of intuition; -vain, but not disagreeably so, of her -good looks and of her power over so great -and noble a knight as Troilus; slow to feel -love, but once she has yielded, rendering -back to Troilus passion for passion; in a -word, the “least mannish” of all possible -creatures—she is to Chaucer the ideal of -gracious and courtly womanhood. But, alas, -the old story tells us that Cressida jilted her -Troilus for that gross prize-fighter of a man, -Diomed. The woman whom Chaucer has -made his ideal proves to be no better than -she should be; there is a flaw in the crystal. -Chaucer is infinitely reluctant to admit the -<span class='pageno' id='Page_216'>216</span>fact. But the old story is specific in its statement; -indeed, its whole point consists in -Cressida’s infidelity. Called upon to explain -his heroine’s fall, Chaucer is completely at -a loss. He makes a few half-hearted attempts -to solve the problem, and then gives it -up, falling back on authority. The old clerks -say it was so, therefore it must be so, and -that’s that. The fact is that Chaucer pitched -his version of the story in a different key -from that which is found in the “olde bokes,” -with the result that the note on which he is -compelled by his respect for authority to -close is completely out of harmony with the -rest of the music. It is this that accounts -for the chief, and indeed the only, defect -of the poem—its hurried and boggled conclusion.</p> - -<p class='c013'>I cannot leave Cressida without some mention -of the doom which was prepared for her -by one of Chaucer’s worthiest disciples, Robert -Henryson, in some ways the best of the -Scottish poets of the fifteenth and sixteenth -centuries. Shocked by the fact that, in -Chaucer’s poem, Cressida receives no punishment -for her infidelity, Henryson composed -a short sequel, <i>The Testament of Cresseid</i>, -to show that poetic justice was duly performed. -Diomed, we are told, grew weary as -soon as he had “all his appetyte and mair, -<span class='pageno' id='Page_217'>217</span>fulfillit on this fair ladie” and cast her off, -to become a common drab.</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>O fair Cresseid! the flour and <i>A per se</i></div> - <div class='line'>Of Troy and Greece, how wast thow fortunait!</div> - <div class='line'>To change in filth all thy feminitie</div> - <div class='line'>And be with fleshly lust sa maculait,</div> - <div class='line'>And go amang the Grekis, air and late</div> - <div class='line'>So giglot-like.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c013'>In her misery she curses Venus and Cupid -for having caused her to love only to lead -her to this degradation:</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>The seed of love was sowen in my face</div> - <div class='line'>And ay grew green through your supply and grace.</div> - <div class='line'>But now, alas! that seed with frost is slain,</div> - <div class='line'>And I fra lovers left, and all forlane.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c013'>In revenge Cupid and his mother summon -a council of gods and condemn the <i>A per se</i> -of Greece and Troy to be a hideous leper. -And so she goes forth with the other lepers, -armed with bowl and clapper, to beg her -bread. One day Troilus rides past the place -where she is sitting by the roadside near the -gates of Troy:</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>Then upon him she cast up both her een,</div> - <div class='line in2'>And with ane blenk it cam into his thocht,</div> - <div class='line'>That he some time before her face had seen,</div> - <div class='line in2'>But she was in such plight he knew her nocht,</div> - <div class='line in2'>Yet then her look into his mind it brocht</div> - <div class='line'><span class='pageno' id='Page_218'>218</span>The sweet visage and amorous blenking</div> - <div class='line'>Of fair Cresseid, one sometime his own darling.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c013'>He throws her an alms and the poor creature -dies. And so the moral sense is satisfied. -There is a good deal of superfluous mythology -and unnecessary verbiage in <i>The Testament -of Cresseid</i>, but the main lines of the -poem are firmly and powerfully drawn. Of -all the disciples of Chaucer, from Hoccleve -and the Monk of Bury down to Mr. Masefield, -Henryson may deservedly claim to -stand the highest.</p> - -<div class='chapter'> - -<div class='pbb'> - <hr class='pb c004' /> -</div> - -</div> -<div> - <h2 class='c007'>FOOTNOTES</h2> -</div> - -<div class='footnote' id='f1'> -<p class='c013'><span class='label'><a href='#r1'>1</a>. </span><i>Collected Poems</i>, by Edward Thomas: with a Foreword -by W. de la Mare. Selwyn & Blount.</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f2'> -<p class='c013'><span class='label'><a href='#r2'>2</a>. </span><i>Wordsworth: an Anthology</i>, edited, with a Preface, -by T. J. Cobden-Sanderson. R. Cobden-Sanderson.</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f3'> -<p class='c013'><span class='label'><a href='#r3'>3</a>. </span><i>Ben Jonson</i>, by G. Gregory Smith. (English Men -of Letters Series.) Macmillan, 1919.</p> -</div> - -<div class='chapter'> - -<div class='pbb'> - <hr class='pb c004' /> -</div> - -</div> -<div class='tnotes'> - -<p class='c011'><b>Transcriber’s Notes</b></p> - -<p class='c013'>The following minor changes have been made:</p> - -<p class='c015'>The word “poety” was changed to “poetry” on <a href='#tnpoety'>page 42</a>.</p> - -<p class='c015'>A comma was added after “C” on <a href='#tncomma'>page 63</a>.</p> - -<p class='c015'>Accents were added to “numérotés” on <a href='#tnnum'>page 63</a> and “Où” on <a href='#tnou'>page 157</a>.</p> - -</div> - - - - - - - - -<pre> - - - - - -End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of On the Margin, by Aldous Huxley - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ON THE MARGIN *** - -***** This file should be named 60866-h.htm or 60866-h.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/6/0/8/6/60866/ - -Produced by MFR, Nigel Blower and the Online Distributed -Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This book was -produced from images made available by the HathiTrust -Digital Library.) - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will -be renamed. - -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, -so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United -States without permission and without paying copyright -royalties. 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