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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/14203-0.txt b/14203-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..45c2388 --- /dev/null +++ b/14203-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,3669 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 14203 *** + +_Varied Types_ + +_By_ + +G.K. Chesterton + +Author _of_ "The Defendant," etc. + +New York: _Dodd, Mead and Company_ + + + + +PUBLISHED SEPTEMBER, 1905 + + + + +NOTE + +These papers, with certain alterations and additions, are reprinted +with the kind permission of the Editors of _The Daily News_ and _The +Speaker_. + +G.K.C. + +Kensington. + + + + +CONTENTS + + Page +Charlotte Brontë 3 +William Morris And His School 15 +The Optimism Of Byron 29 +Pope And The Art Of Satire 43 +Francis 59 +Rostand 73 +Charles II. 85 +Stevenson 97 +Thomas Carlyle 109 +Tolstoy And The Cult Of Simplicity 125 +Savonarola 147 +The Position Of Sir Walter Scott 159 +Bret Harte 179 +Alfred The Great 199 +Maeterlinck 209 +Ruskin 217 +Queen Victoria 225 +The German Emperor 227 +Tennyson 249 +Elizabeth Barrett Browning 261 + + + + +CHARLOTTE BRONTË + + +Objection is often raised against realistic biography because it reveals +so much that is important and even sacred about a man's life. The real +objection to it will rather be found in the fact that it reveals about a +man the precise points which are unimportant. It reveals and asserts and +insists on exactly those things in a man's life of which the man himself +is wholly unconscious; his exact class in society, the circumstances of +his ancestry, the place of his present location. These are things which +do not, properly speaking, ever arise before the human vision. They do +not occur to a man's mind; it may be said, with almost equal truth, that +they do not occur in a man's life. A man no more thinks about himself as +the inhabitant of the third house in a row of Brixton villas than he +thinks about himself as a strange animal with two legs. What a man's +name was, what his income was, whom he married, where he lived, these +are not sanctities; they are irrelevancies. + +A very strong case of this is the case of the Brontës. The Brontë is in +the position of the mad lady in a country village; her eccentricities +form an endless source of innocent conversation to that exceedingly mild +and bucolic circle, the literary world. The truly glorious gossips of +literature, like Mr. Augustine Birrell and Mr. Andrew Lang, never tire +of collecting all the glimpses and anecdotes and sermons and side-lights +and sticks and straws which will go to make a Brontë museum. They are +the most personally discussed of all Victorian authors, and the +limelight of biography has left few darkened corners in the dark old +Yorkshire house. And yet the whole of this biographical investigation, +though natural and picturesque, is not wholly suitable to the Brontës. +For the Brontë genius was above all things deputed to assert the supreme +unimportance of externals. Up to that point truth had always been +conceived as existing more or less in the novel of manners. Charlotte +Brontë electrified the world by showing that an infinitely older and +more elemental truth could be conveyed by a novel in which no person, +good or bad, had any manners at all. Her work represents the first great +assertion that the humdrum life of modern civilisation is a disguise as +tawdry and deceptive as the costume of a _bal masqué_. She showed that +abysses may exist inside a governess and eternities inside a +manufacturer; her heroine is the commonplace spinster, with the dress of +merino and the soul of flame. It is significant to notice that Charlotte +Brontë, following consciously or unconsciously the great trend of her +genius, was the first to take away from the heroine not only the +artificial gold and diamonds of wealth and fashion, but even the natural +gold and diamonds of physical beauty and grace. Instinctively she felt +that the whole of the exterior must be made ugly that the whole of the +interior might be made sublime. She chose the ugliest of women in the +ugliest of centuries, and revealed within them all the hells and heavens +of Dante. + +It may, therefore, I think, be legitimately said that the externals of +the Brontës' life, though singularly picturesque in themselves, matter +less than the externals of almost any other writers. It is interesting +to know whether Jane Austen had any knowledge of the lives of the +officers and women of fashion whom she introduced into her masterpieces. +It is interesting to know whether Dickens had ever seen a shipwreck or +been inside a workhouse. For in these authors much of the conviction is +conveyed, not always by adherence to facts, but always by grasp of them. +But the whole aim and purport and meaning of the work of the Brontës is +that the most futile thing in the whole universe is fact. Such a story +as "Jane Eyre" is in itself so monstrous a fable that it ought to be +excluded from a book of fairy tales. The characters do not do what they +ought to do, nor what they would do, nor it might be said, such is the +insanity of the atmosphere, not even what they intend to do. The conduct +of Rochester is so primevally and superhumanly caddish that Bret Harte +in his admirable travesty scarcely exaggerated it. "Then, resuming his +usual manner, he threw his boots at my head and withdrew," does perhaps +reach to something resembling caricature. The scene in which Rochester +dresses up as an old gipsy has something in it which is really not to be +found in any other branch of art, except in the end of the pantomime, +where the Emperor turns into a pantaloon. Yet, despite this vast +nightmare of illusion and morbidity and ignorance of the world, "Jane +Eyre" is perhaps the truest book that was ever written. Its essential +truth to life sometimes makes one catch one's breath. For it is not true +to manners, which are constantly false, or to facts, which are almost +always false; it is true to the only existing thing which is true, +emotion, the irreducible minimum, the indestructible germ. It would not +matter a single straw if a Brontë story were a hundred times more +moonstruck and improbable than "Jane Eyre," or a hundred times more +moonstruck and improbable than "Wuthering Heights." It would not matter +if George Read stood on his head, and Mrs. Read rode on a dragon, if +Fairfax Rochester had four eyes and St. John Rivers three legs, the +story would still remain the truest story in the world. The typical +Brontë character is, indeed, a kind of monster. Everything in him except +the essential is dislocated. His hands are on his legs and his feet on +his arms, his nose is above his eyes, but his heart is in the right +place. + +The great and abiding truth for which the Brontë cycle of fiction stands +is a certain most important truth about the enduring spirit of youth, +the truth of the near kinship between terror and joy. The Brontë +heroine, dingily dressed, badly educated, hampered by a humiliating +inexperience, a kind of ugly innocence, is yet, by the very fact of her +solitude and her gaucherie, full of the greatest delight that is +possible to a human being, the delight of expectation, the delight of an +ardent and flamboyant ignorance. She serves to show how futile it is of +humanity to suppose that pleasure can be attained chiefly by putting on +evening dress every evening, and having a box at the theatre every first +night. It is not the man of pleasure who has pleasure; it is not the man +of the world who appreciates the world. The man who has learnt to do all +conventional things perfectly has at the same time learnt to do them +prosaically. It is the awkward man, whose evening dress does not fit +him, whose gloves will not go on, whose compliments will not come off, +who is really full of the ancient ecstasies of youth. He is frightened +enough of society actually to enjoy his triumphs. He has that element of +fear which is one of the eternal ingredients of joy. This spirit is the +central spirit of the Brontë novel. It is the epic of the exhilaration +of the shy man. As such it is of incalculable value in our time, of +which the curse is that it does not take joy reverently because it does +not take it fearfully. The shabby and inconspicuous governess of +Charlotte Brontë, with the small outlook and the small creed, had more +commerce with the awful and elemental forces which drive the world than +a legion of lawless minor poets. She approached the universe with real +simplicity, and, consequently, with real fear and delight. She was, so +to speak, shy before the multitude of the stars, and in this she had +possessed herself of the only force which can prevent enjoyment being as +black and barren as routine. The faculty of being shy is the first and +the most delicate of the powers of enjoyment. The fear of the Lord is +the beginning of pleasure. + +Upon the whole, therefore, I think it may justifiably be said that the +dark wild youth of the Brontës in their dark wild Yorkshire home has +been somewhat exaggerated as a necessary factor in their work and their +conception. The emotions with which they dealt were universal emotions, +emotions of the morning of existence, the springtide joy and the +springtide terror. Every one of us as a boy or girl has had some +midnight dream of nameless obstacle and unutterable menace, in which +there was, under whatever imbecile forms, all the deadly stress and +panic of "Wuthering Heights." Every one of us has had a day-dream of +our own potential destiny not one atom more reasonable than "Jane Eyre." +And the truth which the Brontës came to tell us is the truth that many +waters cannot quench love, and that suburban respectability cannot touch +or damp a secret enthusiasm. Clapham, like every other earthly city, is +built upon a volcano. Thousands of people go to and fro in the +wilderness of bricks and mortar, earning mean wages, professing a mean +religion, wearing a mean attire, thousands of women who have never found +any expression for their exaltation or their tragedy but to go on +working harder and yet harder at dull and automatic employments, at +scolding children or stitching shirts. But out of all these silent ones +one suddenly became articulate, and spoke a resonant testimony, and her +name was Charlotte Brontë. Spreading around us upon every side to-day +like a huge and radiating geometrical figure are the endless branches of +the great city. There are times when we are almost stricken crazy, as +well we may be, by the multiplicity of those appalling perspectives, the +frantic arithmetic of that unthinkable population. But this thought of +ours is in truth nothing but a fancy. There are no chains of houses; +there are no crowds of men. The colossal diagram of streets and houses +is an illusion, the opium dream of a speculative builder. Each of these +men is supremely solitary and supremely important to himself. Each of +these houses stands in the centre of the world. There is no single house +of all those millions which has not seemed to someone at some time the +heart of all things and the end of travel. + + + + +WILLIAM MORRIS AND HIS SCHOOL + + +It is proper enough that the unveiling of the bust of William Morris +should approximate to a public festival, for while there have been many +men of genius in the Victorian era more despotic than he, there have +been none so representative. He represents not only that rapacious +hunger for beauty which has now for the first time become a serious +problem in the healthy life of humanity, but he represents also that +honourable instinct for finding beauty in common necessities of +workmanship which gives it a stronger and more bony structure. The time +has passed when William Morris was conceived to be irrelevant to be +described as a designer of wall-papers. If Morris had been a hatter +instead of a decorator, we should have become gradually and painfully +conscious of an improvement in our hats. If he had been a tailor, we +should have suddenly found our frock-coats trailing on the ground with +the grandeur of mediæval raiment. If he had been a shoemaker, we should +have found, with no little consternation, our shoes gradually +approximating to the antique sandal. As a hairdresser, he would have +invented some massing of the hair worthy to be the crown of Venus; as an +ironmonger, his nails would have had some noble pattern, fit to be the +nails of the Cross. + +The limitations of William Morris, whatever they were, were not the +limitations of common decoration. It is true that all his work, even his +literary work, was in some sense decorative, had in some degree the +qualities of a splendid wall-paper. His characters, his stories, his +religious and political views, had, in the most emphatic sense, length +and breadth without thickness. He seemed really to believe that men +could enjoy a perfectly flat felicity. He made no account of the +unexplored and explosive possibilities of human nature, of the +unnameable terrors, and the yet more unnameable hopes. So long as a man +was graceful in every circumstance, so long as he had the inspiring +consciousness that the chestnut colour of his hair was relieved against +the blue forest a mile behind, he would be serenely happy. So he would +be, no doubt, if he were really fitted for a decorative existence; if he +were a piece of exquisitely coloured card-board. + +But although Morris took little account of the terrible solidity of +human nature--took little account, so to speak, of human figures in the +round, it is altogether unfair to represent him as a mere æsthete. He +perceived a great public necessity and fulfilled it heroically. The +difficulty with which he grappled was one so immense that we shall have +to be separated from it by many centuries before we can really judge of +it. It was the problem of the elaborate and deliberate ugliness of the +most self-conscious of centuries. Morris at least saw the absurdity of +the thing. He felt it was monstrous that the modern man, who was +pre-eminently capable of realising the strangest and most contradictory +beauties, who could feel at once the fiery aureole of the ascetic and +the colossal calm of the Hellenic god, should himself, by a farcical +bathos, be buried in a black coat, and hidden under a chimney-pot hat. +He could not see why the harmless man who desired to be an artist in +raiment should be condemned to be, at best, a black and white artist. It +is indeed difficult to account for the clinging curse of ugliness which +blights everything brought forth by the most prosperous of centuries. In +all created nature there is not, perhaps, anything so completely ugly as +a pillar-box. Its shape is the most unmeaning of shapes, its height and +thickness just neutralising each other; its colour is the most repulsive +of colours--a fat and soulless red, a red without a touch of blood or +fire, like the scarlet of dead men's sins. Yet there is no reason +whatever why such hideousness should possess an object full of civic +dignity, the treasure-house of a thousand secrets, the fortress of a +thousand souls. If the old Greeks had had such an institution, we may be +sure that it would have been surmounted by the severe, but graceful, +figure of the god of letter-writing. If the mediæval Christians has +possessed it, it would have had a niche filled with the golden aureole +of St. Rowland of the Postage Stamps. As it is, there it stands at all +our street-corners, disguising one of the most beautiful of ideas under +one of the most preposterous of forms. It is useless to deny that the +miracles of science have not been such an incentive to art and +imagination as were the miracles of religion. If men in the twelfth +century had been told that the lightning had been driven for leagues +underground, and had dragged at its destroying tail loads of laughing +human beings, and if they had then been told that the people alluded to +this pulverising portent chirpily as "The Twopenny Tube," they would +have called down the fire of Heaven on us as a race of half-witted +atheists. Probably they would have been quite right. + +This clear and fine perception of what may be called the anæsthetic +element in the Victorian era was, undoubtedly, the work of a great +reformer: it requires a fine effort of the imagination to see an evil +that surrounds us on every side. The manner in which Morris carried out +his crusade may, considering the circumstances, be called triumphant. +Our carpets began to bloom under our feet like the meadows in spring, +and our hitherto prosaic stools and sofas seemed growing legs and arms +at their own wild will. An element of freedom and rugged dignity came in +with plain and strong ornaments of copper and iron. So delicate and +universal has been the revolution in domestic art that almost every +family in England has had its taste cunningly and treacherously +improved, and if we look back at the early Victorian drawing-rooms it is +only to realise the strange but essential truth that art, or human +decoration, has, nine times out of ten in history, made things uglier +than they were before, from the "coiffure" of a Papuan savage to the +wall-paper of a British merchant in 1830. + +But great and beneficent as was the æsthetic revolution of Morris, there +was a very definite limit to it. It did not lie only in the fact that +his revolution was in truth a reaction, though this was a partial +explanation of his partial failure. When he was denouncing the dresses +of modern ladies, "upholstered like arm-chairs instead of being draped +like women," as he forcibly expressed it, he would hold up for practical +imitation the costumes and handicrafts of the Middle Ages. Further than +this retrogressive and imitative movement he never seemed to go. Now, +the men of the time of Chaucer had many evil qualities, but there was at +least one exhibition of moral weakness they did not give. They would +have laughed at the idea of dressing themselves in the manner of the +bowmen at the battle of Senlac, or painting themselves an æsthetic blue, +after the custom of the ancient Britons. They would not have called that +a movement at all. Whatever was beautiful in their dress or manners +sprang honestly and naturally out of the life they led and preferred to +lead. And it may surely be maintained that any real advance in the +beauty of modern dress must spring honestly and naturally out of the +life we lead and prefer to lead. We are not altogether without hints and +hopes of such a change, in the growing orthodoxy of rough and athletic +costumes. But if this cannot be, it will be no substitute or +satisfaction to turn life into an interminable historical fancy-dress +ball. + +But the limitation of Morris's work lay deeper than this. We may best +suggest it by a method after his own heart. Of all the various works he +performed, none, perhaps, was so splendidly and solidly valuable as his +great protest for the fables and superstitions of mankind. He has the +supreme credit of showing that the fairy tales contain the deepest truth +of the earth, the real record of men's feeling for things. Trifling +details may be inaccurate, Jack may not have climbed up so tall a +beanstalk, or killed so tall a giant; but it is not such things that +make a story false; it is a far different class of things that makes +every modern book of history as false as the father of lies; ingenuity, +self-consciousness, hypocritical impartiality. It appears to us that of +all the fairy-tales none contains so vital a moral truth as the old +story, existing in many forms, of Beauty and the Beast. There is +written, with all the authority of a human scripture, the eternal and +essential truth that until we love a thing in all its ugliness we +cannot make it beautiful. This was the weak point in William Morris as a +reformer: that he sought to reform modern life, and that he hated modern +life instead of loving it. Modern London is indeed a beast, big enough +and black enough to be the beast in Apocalypse, blazing with a million +eyes, and roaring with a million voices. But unless the poet can love +this fabulous monster as he is, can feel with some generous excitement +his massive and mysterious _joie-de-vivre_, the vast scale of his iron +anatomy and the beating of his thunderous heart, he cannot and will not +change the beast into the fairy prince. Morris's disadvantage was that +he was not honestly a child of the nineteenth century: he could not +understand its fascination, and consequently he could not really develop +it. An abiding testimony to his tremendous personal influence in the +æsthetic world is the vitality and recurrence of the Arts and Crafts +Exhibitions, which are steeped in his personality like a chapel in that +of a saint. If we look round at the exhibits in one of these æsthetic +shows, we shall be struck by the large mass of modern objects that the +decorative school leaves untouched. There is a noble instinct for giving +the right touch of beauty to common and necessary things, but the things +that are so touched are the ancient things, the things that always to +some extent commended themselves to the lover of beauty. There are +beautiful gates, beautiful fountains, beautiful cups, beautiful chairs, +beautiful reading-desks. But there are no modern things made beautiful. +There are no beautiful lamp-posts, beautiful letter-boxes, beautiful +engines, beautiful bicycles. The spirit of William Morris has not seized +hold of the century and made its humblest necessities beautiful. And +this was because, with all his healthiness and energy, he had not the +supreme courage to face the ugliness of things; Beauty shrank from the +Beast and the fairy-tale had a different ending. + +But herein, indeed, lay Morris's deepest claim to the name of a great +reformer: that he left his work incomplete. There is, perhaps, no better +proof that a man is a mere meteor, merely barren and brilliant, than +that his work is done perfectly. A man like Morris draws attention to +needs he cannot supply. In after-years we may have perhaps a newer and +more daring Arts and Crafts Exhibition. In it we shall not decorate the +armour of the twelfth century, but the machinery of the twentieth. A +lamp-post shall be wrought nobly in twisted iron, fit to hold the +sanctity of fire. A pillar-box shall be carved with figures emblematical +of the secrets of comradeship and the silence and honour of the State. +Railway signals, of all earthly things the most poetical, the coloured +stars of life and death, shall be lamps of green and crimson worthy of +their terrible and faithful service. But if ever this gradual and +genuine movement of our time towards beauty--not backwards, but +forwards--does truly come about, Morris will be the first prophet of it. +Poet of the childhood of nations, craftsman in the new honesties of art, +prophet of a merrier and wiser life, his full-blooded enthusiasm will be +remembered when human life has once more assumed flamboyant colours and +proved that this painful greenish grey of the æsthetic twilight in +which we now live is, in spite of all the pessimists, not of the +greyness of death, but the greyness of dawn. + + + + +OPTIMISM OF BYRON + + +Everything is against our appreciating the spirit and the age of +Byron. The age that has just passed from us is always like a dream when +we wake in the morning, a thing incredible and centuries away. And the +world of Byron seems a sad and faded world, a weird and inhuman world, +where men were romantic in whiskers, ladies lived, apparently, in +bowers, and the very word has the sound of a piece of stage scenery. +Roses and nightingales recur in their poetry with the monotonous +elegance of a wall-paper pattern. The whole is like a revel of dead men, +a revel with splendid vesture and half-witted faces. + +But the more shrewdly and earnestly we study the histories of men, the +less ready shall we be to make use of the word "artificial." Nothing in +the world has ever been artificial. Many customs, many dresses, many +works of art are branded with artificiality because they exhibit vanity +and self-consciousness: as if vanity were not a deep and elemental +thing, like love and hate and the fear of death. Vanity may be found in +darkling deserts, in the hermit and in the wild beasts that crawl around +him. It may be good or evil, but assuredly it is not artificial: vanity +is a voice out of the abyss. + +The remarkable fact is, however, and it bears strongly on the present +position of Byron, that when a thing is unfamiliar to us, when it is +remote and the product of some other age or spirit, we think it not +savage or terrible, but merely artificial. There are many instances of +this: a fair one is the case of tropical plants and birds. When we see +some of the monstrous and flamboyant blossoms that enrich the equatorial +woods, we do not feel that they are conflagrations of nature; silent +explosions of her frightful energy. We simply find it hard to believe +that they are not wax flowers grown under a glass case. When we see some +of the tropic birds, with their tiny bodies attached to gigantic beaks, +we do not feel that they are freaks of the fierce humour of Creation. +We almost believe that they are toys out of a child's play-box, +artificially carved and artificially coloured. So it is with the great +convulsion of Nature which was known as Byronism. The volcano is not an +extinct volcano now; it is the dead stick of a rocket. It is the remains +not of a natural but of an artificial fire. + +But Byron and Byronism were something immeasurably greater than anything +that is represented by such a view as this: their real value and meaning +are indeed little understood. The first of the mistakes about Byron lies +in the fact that he is treated as a pessimist. True, he treated himself +as such, but a critic can hardly have even a slight knowledge of Byron +without knowing that he had the smallest amount of knowledge of himself +that ever fell to the lot of an intelligent man. The real character of +what is known as Byron's pessimism is better worth study than any real +pessimism could ever be. + +It is the standing peculiarity of this curious world of ours that almost +everything in it has been extolled enthusiastically and invariably +extolled to the disadvantage of everything else. + +One after another almost every one of the phenomena of the universe has +been declared to be alone capable of making life worth living. Books, +love, business, religion, alcohol, abstract truth, private emotion, +money, simplicity, mysticism, hard work, a life close to nature, a life +close to Belgrave Square are every one of them passionately maintained +by somebody to be so good that they redeem the evil of an otherwise +indefensible world. Thus, while the world is almost always condemned in +summary, it is always justified, and indeed extolled, in detail after +detail. + +Existence has been praised and absolved by a chorus of pessimists. The +work of giving thanks to Heaven is, as it were, divided ingeniously +among them. Schopenhauer is told off as a kind of librarian in the House +of God, to sing the praises of the austere pleasures of the mind. +Carlyle, as steward, undertakes the working department and eulogises a +life of labour in the fields. Omar Khayyam is established in the +cellar, and swears that it is the only room in the house. Even the +blackest of pessimistic artists enjoys his art. At the precise moment +that he has written some shameless and terrible indictment of Creation, +his one pang of joy in the achievement joins the universal chorus of +gratitude, with the scent of the wild flower and the song of the bird. + +Now Byron had a sensational popularity, and that popularity was, as far +as words and explanations go, founded upon his pessimism. He was adored +by an overwhelming majority, almost every individual of which despised +the majority of mankind. But when we come to regard the matter a little +more deeply we tend in some degree to cease to believe in this +popularity of the pessimist. The popularity of pure and unadulterated +pessimism is an oddity; it is almost a contradiction in terms. Men would +no more receive the news of the failure of existence or of the +harmonious hostility of the stars with ardour or popular rejoicing than +they would light bonfires for the arrival of cholera or dance a +breakdown when they were condemned to be hanged. When the pessimist is +popular it must always be not because he shows all things to be bad, but +because he shows some things to be good. + +Men can only join in a chorus of praise, even if it is the praise of +denunciation. The man who is popular must be optimistic about something, +even if he is only optimistic about pessimism. And this was emphatically +the case with Byron and the Byronists. Their real popularity was founded +not upon the fact that they blamed everything, but upon the fact that +they praised something. They heaped curses upon man, but they used man +merely as a foil. The things they wished to praise by comparison were +the energies of Nature. Man was to them what talk and fashion were to +Carlyle, what philosophical and religious quarrels were to Omar, what +the whole race after practical happiness was to Schopenhauer, the thing +which must be censured in order that somebody else may be exalted. It +was merely a recognition of the fact that one cannot write in white +chalk except on a black-board. + +Surely it is ridiculous to maintain seriously that Byron's love of the +desolate and inhuman in nature was the mark of vital scepticism and +depression. When a young man can elect deliberately to walk alone in +winter by the side of the shattering sea, when he takes pleasure in +storms and stricken peaks, and the lawless melancholy of the older +earth, we may deduce with the certainty of logic that he is very young +and very happy. There is a certain darkness which we see in wine when +seen in shadow; we see it again in the night that has just buried a +gorgeous sunset. The wine seems black, and yet at the same time +powerfully and almost impossibly red; the sky seems black, and yet at +the same time to be only too dense a blend of purple and green. Such was +the darkness which lay around the Byronic school. Darkness with them was +only too dense a purple. They would prefer the sullen hostility of the +earth because amid all the cold and darkness their own hearts were +flaming like their own firesides. + +Matters are very different with the more modern school of doubt and +lamentation. The last movement of pessimism is perhaps expressed in Mr. +Aubrey Beardsley's allegorical designs. Here we have to deal with a +pessimism which tends naturally not towards the oldest elements of the +cosmos, but towards the last and most fantastic fripperies of artificial +life. Byronism tended towards the desert; the new pessimism towards the +restaurant. Byronism was a revolt against artificiality; the new +pessimism is a revolt in its favour. + +The Byronic young man had an affectation of sincerity; the decadent, +going a step deeper into the avenues of the unreal, has positively an +affectation of affectation. And it is by their fopperies and their +frivolities that we know that their sinister philosophy is sincere; in +their lights and garlands and ribbons we read their indwelling despair. +It was so, indeed, with Byron himself; his really bitter moments were +his frivolous moments. He went on year after year calling down fire +upon mankind, summoning the deluge and the destructive sea and all the +ultimate energies of nature to sweep away the cities of the spawn of +man. But through all this his subconscious mind was not that of a +despairer; on the contrary, there is something of a kind of lawless +faith in thus parleying with such immense and immemorial brutalities. It +was not until the time in which he wrote "Don Juan" that he really lost +this inward warmth and geniality, and a sudden shout of hilarious +laughter announced to the world that Lord Byron had really become a +pessimist. + +One of the best tests in the world of what a poet really means is his +metre. He may be a hypocrite in his metaphysics, but he cannot be a +hypocrite in his prosody. And all the time that Byron's language is of +horror and emptiness, his metre is a bounding _pas de quatre_. He may +arraign existence on the most deadly charges, he may condemn it with the +most desolating verdict, but he cannot alter the fact that on some walk +in a spring morning when all the limbs are swinging and all the blood +alive in the body, the lips may be caught repeating: + + "Oh, there's not a joy the world can give like that it takes away, + When the glow of early youth declines in beauty's dull decay; + 'Tis not upon the cheek of youth the blush that fades so fast, + But the tender bloom of heart is gone ere youth itself be past." + +That automatic recitation is the answer to the whole pessimism of Byron. + +The truth is that Byron was one of a class who may be called the +unconscious optimists, who are very often, indeed, the most +uncompromising conscious pessimists, because the exuberance of their +nature demands for an adversary a dragon as big as the world. But the +whole of his essential and unconscious being was spirited and confident, +and that unconscious being, long disguised and buried under emotional +artifices, suddenly sprang into prominence in the face of a cold, hard, +political necessity. In Greece he heard the cry of reality, and at the +time that he was dying, he began to live. He heard suddenly the call of +that buried and subconscious happiness which is in all of us, and which +may emerge suddenly at the sight of the grass of a meadow or the spears +of the enemy. + + + + +POPE AND THE ART OF SATIRE + + +The general critical theory common in this and the last century is +that it was very easy for the imitators of Pope to write English poetry. +The classical couplet was a thing that anyone could do. So far as that +goes, one may justifiably answer by asking anyone to try. It may be +easier really to have wit, than really, in the boldest and most enduring +sense, to have imagination. But it is immeasurably easier to pretend to +have imagination than to pretend to have wit. A man may indulge in a +sham rhapsody, because it may be the triumph of a rhapsody to be +unintelligible. But a man cannot indulge in a sham joke, because it is +the ruin of a joke to be unintelligible. A man may pretend to be a poet: +he can no more pretend to be a wit than he can pretend to bring rabbits +out of a hat without having learnt to be a conjuror. Therefore, it may +be submitted, there was a certain discipline in the old antithetical +couplet of Pope and his followers. If it did not permit of the great +liberty of wisdom used by the minority of great geniuses, neither did it +permit of the great liberty of folly which is used by the majority of +small writers. A prophet could not be a poet in those days, perhaps, but +at least a fool could not be a poet. If we take, for the sake of +example, such a line as Pope's: + + "Damn with faint praise, assent with civil leer," + +the test is comparatively simple. A great poet would not have written +such a line, perhaps. But a minor poet could not. + +Supposing that a lyric poet of the new school really had to deal with +such an idea as that expressed in Pope's line about Man: + + "A being darkly wise and rudely great," + +Is it really so certain that he would go deeper into the matter than +that old antithetical jingle goes? I venture to doubt whether he would +really be any wiser or weirder or more imaginative or more profound. +The one thing that he would really be, would be longer. Instead of +writing, + + "A being darkly wise and rudely great," + +the contemporary poet, in his elaborately ornamented book of verses, +would produce something like the following: + + "A creature + Of feature + More dark, more dark, more dark than skies, + Yea, darkly wise, yea, darkly wise: + Darkly wise as a formless fate. + And if he be great, + If he be great, then rudely great, + Rudely great as a plough that plies, + And darkly wise, and darkly wise." + +Have we really learnt to think more broadly? Or have we only learnt to +spread our thoughts thinner? I have a dark suspicion that a modern poet +might manufacture an admirable lyric out of almost every line of Pope. + +There is, of course, an idea in our time that the very antithesis of the +typical line of Pope is a mark of artificiality. I shall have occasion +more than once to point out that nothing in the world has ever been +artificial. But certainly antithesis is not artificial. An element of +paradox runs through the whole of existence itself. It begins in the +realm of ultimate physics and metaphysics, in the two facts that we +cannot imagine a space that is infinite, and that we cannot imagine a +space that is finite. It runs through the inmost complications of +divinity, in that we cannot conceive that Christ in the wilderness was +truly pure, unless we also conceive that he desired to sin. It runs, in +the same manner, through all the minor matters of morals, so that we +cannot imagine courage existing except in conjunction with fear, or +magnanimity existing except in conjunction with some temptation to +meanness. If Pope and his followers caught this echo of natural +irrationality, they were not any the more artificial. Their antitheses +were fully in harmony with existence, which is itself a contradiction in +terms. + +Pope was really a great poet; he was the last great poet of +civilisation. Immediately after the fall of him and his school come +Burns and Byron, and the reaction towards the savage and the elemental. +But to Pope civilisation was still an exciting experiment. Its perruques +and ruffles were to him what feathers and bangles are to a South Sea +Islander--the real romance of civilisation. And in all the forms of art +which peculiarly belong to civilisation, he was supreme. In one +especially he was supreme--the great and civilised art of satire. And in +this we have fallen away utterly. + +We have had a great revival in our time of the cult of violence and +hostility. Mr. Henley and his young men have an infinite number of +furious epithets with which to overwhelm anyone who differs from them. +It is not a placid or untroubled position to be Mr. Henley's enemy, +though we know that it is certainly safer than to be his friend. And +yet, despite all this, these people produce no satire. Political and +social satire is a lost art, like pottery and stained glass. It may be +worth while to make some attempt to point out a reason for this. + +It may seem a singular observation to say that we are not generous +enough to write great satire. This, however, is approximately a very +accurate way of describing the case. To write great satire, to attack a +man so that he feels the attack and half acknowledges its justice, it is +necessary to have a certain intellectual magnanimity which realises the +merits of the opponent as well as his defects. This is, indeed, only +another way of putting the simple truth that in order to attack an army +we must know not only its weak points, but also its strong points. +England in the present season and spirit fails in satire for the same +simple reason that it fails in war: it despises the enemy. In matters of +battle and conquest we have got firmly rooted in our minds the idea (an +idea fit for the philosophers of Bedlam) that we can best trample on a +people by ignoring all the particular merits which give them a chance of +trampling upon us. It has become a breach of etiquette to praise the +enemy; whereas, when the enemy is strong, every honest scout ought to +praise the enemy. It is impossible to vanquish an army without having a +full account of its strength. It is impossible to satirise a man without +having a full account of his virtues. It is too much the custom in +politics to describe a political opponent as utterly inhuman, as utterly +careless of his country, as utterly cynical, which no man ever was since +the beginning of the world. This kind of invective may often have a +great superficial success: it may hit the mood of the moment; it may +raise excitement and applause; it may impress millions. But there is one +man among all those millions whom it does not impress, whom it hardly +ever touches; that is the man against whom it is directed. The one +person for whom the whole satire has been written in vain is the man +whom it is the whole object of the institution of satire to reach. He +knows that such a description of him is not true. He knows that he is +not utterly unpatriotic, or utterly self-seeking, or utterly barbarous +and revengeful. He knows that he is an ordinary man, and that he can +count as many kindly memories, as many humane instincts, as many hours +of decent work and responsibility as any other ordinary man. But behind +all this he has his real weaknesses, the real ironies of his soul: +behind all these ordinary merits lie the mean compromises, the craven +silences, the sullen vanities, the secret brutalities, the unmanly +visions of revenge. It is to these that satire should reach if it is to +touch the man at whom it is aimed. And to reach these it must pass and +salute a whole army of virtues. + +If we turn to the great English satirists of the seventeenth and +eighteenth centuries, for example, we find that they had this rough, but +firm, grasp of the size and strength, the value and the best points of +their adversary. Dryden, before hewing Ahitophel in pieces, gives a +splendid and spirited account of the insane valour and inspired cunning +of the + + "daring pilot in extremity," + +who was more untrustworthy in calm than in storm, and + + "Steered too near the rocks to boast his wit." + +The whole is, so far as it goes, a sound and picturesque version of the +great Shaftesbury. It would, in many ways, serve as a very sound and +picturesque account of Lord Randolph Churchill. But here comes in very +pointedly the difference between our modern attempts at satire and the +ancient achievement of it. The opponents of Lord Randolph Churchill, +both Liberal and Conservative, did not satirise him nobly and honestly, +as one of those great wits to madness near allied. They represented him +as a mere puppy, a silly and irreverent upstart whose impudence supplied +the lack of policy and character. Churchill had grave and even gross +faults, a certain coarseness, a certain hard boyish assertiveness, a +certain lack of magnanimity, a certain peculiar patrician vulgarity. But +he was a much larger man than satire depicted him, and therefore the +satire could not and did not overwhelm him. And here we have the cause +of the failure of contemporary satire, that it has no magnanimity, that +is to say, no patience. It cannot endure to be told that its opponent +has his strong points, just as Mr. Chamberlain could not endure to be +told that the Boers had a regular army. It can be content with nothing +except persuading itself that its opponent is utterly bad or utterly +stupid--that is, that he is what he is not and what nobody else is. If +we take any prominent politician of the day--such, for example, as Sir +William Harcourt--we shall find that this is the point in which all +party invective fails. The Tory satire at the expense of Sir William +Harcourt is always desperately endeavouring to represent that he is +inept, that he makes a fool of himself, that he is disagreeable and +disgraceful and untrustworthy. The defect of all that is that we all +know that it is untrue. Everyone knows that Sir William Harcourt is not +inept, but is almost the ablest Parliamentarian now alive. Everyone +knows that he is not disagreeable or disgraceful, but a gentleman of the +old school who is on excellent social terms with his antagonists. +Everyone knows that he is not untrustworthy, but a man of unimpeachable +honour who is much trusted. Above all, he knows it himself, and is +therefore affected by the satire exactly as any one of us would be if +we were accused of being black or of keeping a shop for the receiving of +stolen goods. We might be angry at the libel, but not at the satire: for +a man is angry at a libel because it is false, but at a satire because +it is true. + +Mr. Henley and his young men are very fond of invective and satire; if +they wish to know the reason of their failure in these things, they need +only turn to the opening of Pope's superb attack upon Addison. The +Henleyite's idea of satirising a man is to express a violent contempt +for him, and by the heat of this to persuade others and himself that the +man is contemptible. I remember reading a satiric attack on Mr. +Gladstone by one of the young anarchic Tories, which began by asserting +that Mr. Gladstone was a bad public speaker. If these people would, as I +have said, go quietly and read Pope's "Atticus," they would see how a +great satirist approaches a great enemy: + + "Peace to all such! But were there one whose fires + True genius kindles, and fair fame inspires, + Blest with each talent, and each art to please, + And born to write, converse, and live with ease. + Should such a man--" + +And then follows the torrent of that terrible criticism. Pope was not +such a fool as to try to make out that Addison was a fool. He knew that +Addison was not a fool, and he knew that Addison knew it. But hatred, in +Pope's case, had become so great and, I was almost going to say, so +pure, that it illuminated all things, as love illuminates all things. He +said what was really wrong with Addison; and in calm and clear and +everlasting colours he painted the picture of the evil of the literary +temperament: + + "Bear, like the Turk, no brother near the throne, + View him with scornful, yet with jealous eyes, + And hate for arts that caused himself to rise. + + * * * * * + + Like Cato give his little Senate laws, + And sit attentive to his own applause. + While wits and templars every sentence raise, + And wonder with a foolish face of praise." + +This is the kind of thing which really goes to the mark at which it +aims. It is penetrated with sorrow and a kind of reverence, and it is +addressed directly to a man. This is no mock-tournament to gain the +applause of the crowd. It is a deadly duel by the lonely seashore. + +In current political materialism there is everywhere the assumption +that, without understanding anything of his case or his merits, we can +benefit a man practically. Without understanding his case and his +merits, we cannot even hurt him. + + + + +FRANCIS + + +Asceticism is a thing which, in its very nature, we tend in these days +to misunderstand. Asceticism, in the religious sense, is the repudiation +of the great mass of human joys because of the supreme joyfulness of the +one joy, the religious joy. But asceticism is not in the least confined +to religious asceticism: there is scientific asceticism which asserts +that truth is alone satisfying: there is æsthetic asceticism which +asserts that art is alone satisfying: there is amatory asceticism which +asserts that love is alone satisfying. There is even epicurean +asceticism, which asserts that beer and skittles are alone satisfying. +Wherever the manner of praising anything involves the statement that the +speaker could live with that thing alone, there lies the germ and +essence of asceticism. When William Morris, for example, says that "love +is enough," it is obvious that he asserts in those words that art, +science, politics, ambition, money, houses, carriages, concerts, +gloves, walking-sticks, door-knockers, railway-stations, cathedrals, and +any other things one may choose to tabulate are unnecessary. When Omar +Khayyam says: + + "A book of verses underneath the bough, + A loaf of bread, a jug of wine, and thou + Beside me singing in the wilderness-- + O wilderness were Paradise enow." + +It is clear that he speaks fully as much ascetically as he does +æsthetically. He makes a list of things and says that he wants no more. +The same thing was done by a mediæval monk. Examples might, of course, +be multiplied a hundred-fold. One of the most genuinely poetical of our +younger poets says, as the one thing certain, that + + "From quiet home and first beginning + Out to the undiscovered ends-- + There's nothing worth the wear of winning + But laughter and the love of friends." + +Here we have a perfect example of the main important fact, that all true +joy expresses itself in terms of asceticism. + +But if, in any case, it should happen that a class or a generation lose +the sense of the peculiar kind of joy which is being celebrated, they +immediately begin to call the enjoyers of that joy gloomy and +self-destroying. The most formidable liberal philosophers have called +the monks melancholy because they denied themselves the pleasures of +liberty and marriage. They might as well call the trippers on a Bank +Holiday melancholy because they deny themselves, as a rule, the +pleasures of silence and meditation. A simpler and stronger example is, +however, to hand. If ever it should happen that the system of English +athletics should vanish from the public schools and the universities, if +science should supply some new and non-competitive manner of perfecting +the physique, if public ethics swung round to an attitude of absolute +contempt and indifference towards the feeling called sport, then it is +easy to see what would happen. Future historians would simply state that +in the dark days of Queen Victoria young men at Oxford and Cambridge +were subjected to a horrible sort of religious torture. They were +forbidden, by fantastic monastic rules, to indulge in wine or tobacco +during certain arbitrarily fixed periods of time, before certain brutal +fights and festivals. Bigots insisted on their rising at unearthly hours +and running violently around fields for no object. Many men ruined their +health in these dens of superstition, many died there. All this is +perfectly true and irrefutable. Athleticism in England is an asceticism, +as much as the monastic rules. Men have overstrained themselves and +killed themselves through English athleticism. There is one difference +and one only: we do feel the love of sport; we do not feel the love of +religious offices. We see only the price in the one case and only the +purchase in the other. + +The only question that remains is what was the joy of the old Christian +ascetics of which their asceticism was merely the purchasing price? The +mere possibility of the query is an extraordinary example of the way in +which we miss the main points of human history. We are looking at +humanity too close, and see only the details and not the vast and +dominant features. We look at the rise of Christianity, and conceive it +as a rise of self-abnegation and almost of pessimism. It does not occur +to us that the mere assertion that this raging and confounding universe +is governed by justice and mercy is a piece of staggering optimism fit +to set all men capering. The detail over which these monks went mad with +joy was the universe itself; the only thing really worthy of enjoyment. +The white daylight shone over all the world, the endless forests stood +up in their order. The lightning awoke and the tree fell and the sea +gathered into mountains and the ship went down, and all these +disconnected and meaningless and terrible objects were all part of one +dark and fearful conspiracy of goodness, one merciless scheme of mercy. +That this scheme of Nature was not accurate or well founded is perfectly +tenable, but surely it is not tenable that it was not optimistic. We +insist, however, upon treating this matter tail foremost. We insist that +the ascetics were pessimists because they gave up threescore years and +ten for an eternity of happiness. We forget that the bare proposition of +an eternity of happiness is by its very nature ten thousand times more +optimistic than ten thousand pagan saturnalias. + +Mr. Adderley's life of Francis of Assisi does not, of course, bring this +out; nor does it fully bring out the character of Francis. It has rather +the tone of a devotional book. A devotional book is an excellent thing, +but we do not look in it for the portrait of a man, for the same reason +that we do not look in a love-sonnet for the portrait of a woman, +because men in such conditions of mind not only apply all virtues to +their idol, but all virtues in equal quantities. There is no outline, +because the artist cannot bear to put in a black line. This blaze of +benediction, this conflict between lights, has its place in poetry, not +in biography. The successful examples of it may be found, for instance, +in the more idealistic odes of Spenser. The design is sometimes almost +indecipherable, for the poet draws in silver upon white. + +It is natural, of course, that Mr. Adderley should see Francis primarily +as the founder of the Franciscan Order. We suspect this was only one, +perhaps a minor one, of the things that he was; we suspect that one of +the minor things that Christ did was to found Christianity. But the vast +practical work of Francis is assuredly not to be ignored, for this +amazingly unworldly and almost maddeningly simple-minded infant was one +of the most consistently successful men that ever fought with this +bitter world. It is the custom to say that the secret of such men is +their profound belief in themselves, and this is true, but not all the +truth. Workhouses and lunatic asylums are thronged with men who believe +in themselves. Of Francis it is far truer to say that the secret of his +success was his profound belief in other people, and it is the lack of +this that has commonly been the curse of these obscure Napoleons. +Francis always assumed that everyone must be just as anxious about their +common relative, the water-rat, as he was. He planned a visit to the +Emperor to draw his attention to the needs of "his little sisters the +larks." He used to talk to any thieves and robbers he met about their +misfortune in being unable to give rein to their desire for holiness. It +was an innocent habit, and doubtless the robbers often "got round him," +as the phrase goes. Quite as often, however, they discovered that he had +"got round" them, and discovered the other side, the side of secret +nobility. + +Conceiving of St. Francis as primarily the founder of the Franciscan +Order, Mr. Adderley opens his narrative with an admirable sketch of the +history of Monasticism in Europe, which is certainly the best thing in +the book. He distinguishes clearly and fairly between the Manichæan +ideal that underlies so much of Eastern Monasticism and the ideal of +self-discipline which never wholly vanished from the Christian form. But +he does not throw any light on what must be for the outsider the +absorbing problem of this Catholic asceticism, for the excellent reason +that, not being an outsider, he does not find it a problem at all. + +To most people, however, there is a fascinating inconsistency in the +position of St. Francis. He expressed in loftier and bolder language +than any earthly thinker the conception that laughter is as divine as +tears. He called his monks the mountebanks of God. He never forgot to +take pleasure in a bird as it flashed past him, or a drop of water, as +it fell from his finger: he was, perhaps, the happiest of the sons of +men. Yet this man undoubtedly founded his whole polity on the negation +of what we think the most imperious necessities; in his three vows of +poverty, chastity, and obedience, he denied to himself and those he +loved most, property, love, and liberty. Why was it that the most +large-hearted and poetic spirits in that age found their most congenial +atmosphere in these awful renunciations? Why did he who loved where all +men were blind, seek to blind himself where all men loved? Why was he a +monk, and not a troubadour? These questions are far too large to be +answered fully here, but in any life of Francis they ought at least to +have been asked; we have a suspicion that if they were answered, we +should suddenly find that much of the enigma of this sullen time of ours +was answered also. So it was with the monks. The two great parties in +human affairs are only the party which sees life black against white, +and the party which sees it white against black, the party which +macerates and blackens itself with sacrifice because the background is +full of the blaze of an universal mercy, and the party which crowns +itself with flowers and lights itself with bridal torches because it +stands against a black curtain of incalculable night. The revellers are +old, and the monks are young. It was the monks who were the spendthrifts +of happiness, and we who are its misers. + +Doubtless, as is apparent from Mr. Adderley's book, the clear and +tranquil life of the Three Vows had a fine and delicate effect on the +genius of Francis. He was primarily a poet. The perfection of his +literary instinct is shown in his naming the fire "brother," and the +water "sister," in the quaint demagogic dexterity of the appeal in the +sermon to the fishes "that they alone were saved in the Flood." In the +amazingly minute and graphic dramatisation of the life, disappointments, +and excuses of any shrub or beast that he happened to be addressing, his +genius has a curious resemblance to that of Burns. But if he avoided the +weakness of Burns' verses to animals, the occasional morbidity, bombast, +and moralisation on himself, the credit is surely due to a cleaner and +more transparent life. + +The general attitude of St. Francis, like that of his Master, embodied a +kind of terrible common sense. The famous remark of the Caterpillar in +"Alice in Wonderland"--"Why not?" impresses us as his general motto. He +could not see why he should not be on good terms with all things. The +pomp of war and ambition, the great empire of the Middle Ages, and all +its fellows begin to look tawdry and top-heavy, under the rationality of +that innocent stare. His questions were blasting and devastating, like +the questions of a child. He would not have been afraid even of the +nightmares of cosmogony, for he had no fear in him. To him the world +was small, not because he had any views as to its size, but for the +reason that gossiping ladies find it small, because so many relatives +were to be found in it. If you had taken him to the loneliest star that +the madness of an astronomer can conceive, he would have only beheld in +it the features of a new friend. + + + + +ROSTAND + + +When "Cyrano de Bergerac" was published, it bore the subordinate title +of a heroic comedy. We have no tradition in English literature which +would justify us in calling a comedy heroic, though there was once a +poet who called a comedy divine. By the current modern conception, the +hero has his place in a tragedy, and the one kind of strength which is +systematically denied to him is the strength to succeed. That the power +of a man's spirit might possibly go to the length of turning a tragedy +into a comedy is not admitted; nevertheless, almost all the primitive +legends of the world are comedies, not only in the sense that they have +a happy ending, but in the sense that they are based upon a certain +optimistic assumption that the hero is destined to be the destroyer of +the monster. Singularly enough, this modern idea of the essential +disastrous character of life, when seriously considered, connects itself +with a hyper-æsthetic view of tragedy and comedy which is largely due +to the influence of modern France, from which the great heroic comedies +of Monsieur Rostand have come. The French genius has an instinct for +remedying its own evil work, and France gives always the best cure for +"Frenchiness." The idea of comedy which is held in England by the school +which pays most attention to the technical niceties of art is a view +which renders such an idea as that of heroic comedy quite impossible. +The fundamental conception in the minds of the majority of our younger +writers is that comedy is, _par excellence_, a fragile thing. It is +conceived to be a conventional world of the most absolutely delicate and +gimcrack description. Such stories as Mr. Max Beerbohm's "Happy +Hypocrite" are conceptions which would vanish or fall into utter +nonsense if viewed by one single degree too seriously. But great comedy, +the comedy of Shakespeare or Sterne, not only can be, but must be, taken +seriously. There is nothing to which a man must give himself up with +more faith and self-abandonment than to genuine laughter. In such +comedies one laughs with the heroes, and not at them. The humour which +steeps the stories of Falstaff and Uncle Toby is a cosmic and +philosophic humour, a geniality which goes down to the depths. It is not +superficial reading, it is not even, strictly speaking, light reading. +Our sympathies are as much committed to the characters as if they were +the predestined victims in a Greek tragedy. The modern writer of +comedies may be said to boast of the brittleness of his characters. He +seems always on the eve of knocking his puppets to pieces. When John +Oliver Hobbes wrote for the first time a comedy of serious emotions, she +named it, with a thinly-disguised contempt for her own work, "A +Sentimental Comedy." The ground of this conception of the artificiality +of comedy is a profound pessimism. Life in the eyes of these mournful +buffoons is itself an utterly tragic thing; comedy must be as hollow as +a grinning mask. It is a refuge from the world, and not even, properly +speaking, a part of it. Their wit is a thin sheet of shining ice over +the eternal waters of bitterness. + +"Cyrano de Bergerac" came to us as the new decoration of an old truth, +that merriment was one of the world's natural flowers, and not one of +its exotics. The gigantesque levity, the flamboyant eloquence, the +Rabelaisian puns and digressions were seen to be once more what they had +been in Rabelais, the mere outbursts of a human sympathy and bravado as +old and solid as the stars. The human spirit demanded wit as headlong +and haughty as its will. All was expressed in the words of Cyrano at his +highest moment of happiness, _Il me faut des géants_. An essential +aspect of this question of heroic comedy is the question of drama in +rhyme. There is nothing that affords so easy a point of attack for the +dramatic realist as the conduct of a play in verse. According to his +canons, it is indeed absurd to represent a number of characters facing +some terrible crisis in their lives by capping rhymes like a party +playing _bouts rimés_. In his eyes it must appear somewhat ridiculous +that two enemies taunting each other with insupportable insults should +obligingly provide each other with metrical spacing and neat and +convenient rhymes. But the whole of this view rests finally upon the +fact that few persons, if any, to-day understand what is meant by a +poetical play. It is a singular thing that those poetical plays which +are now written in England by the most advanced students of the drama +follow exclusively the lines of Maeterlinck, and use verse and rhyme for +the adornment of a profoundly tragic theme. But rhyme has a supreme +appropriateness for the treatment of the higher comedy. The land of +heroic comedy is, as it were, a paradise of lovers, in which it is not +difficult to imagine that men could talk poetry all day long. It is far +more conceivable that men's speech should flower naturally into these +harmonious forms, when they are filled with the essential spirit of +youth, than when they are sitting gloomily in the presence of immemorial +destiny. The great error consists in supposing that poetry is an +unnatural form of language. We should all like to speak poetry at the +moment when we truly live, and if we do not speak, it is because we have +an impediment in our speech. It is not song that is the narrow or +artificial thing, it is conversation that is a broken and stammering +attempt at song. When we see men in a spiritual extravaganza, like +"Cyrano de Bergerac," speaking in rhyme, it is not our language +disguised or distorted, but our language rounded and made whole. Rhymes +answer each other as the sexes in flowers and in humanity answer each +other. Men do not speak so, it is true. Even when they are inspired or +in love they talk inanities. But the poetic comedy does not misrepresent +the speech one half so much as the speech misrepresents the soul. +Monsieur Rostand showed even more than his usual insight when he called +"Cyrano de Bergerac" a comedy, despite the fact that, strictly speaking, +it ends with disappointment and death. The essence of tragedy is a +spiritual breakdown or decline, and in the great French play the +spiritual sentiment mounts unceasingly until the last line. It is not +the facts themselves, but our feeling about them, that makes tragedy and +comedy, and death is more joyful in Rostand than life in Maeterlinck. +The same apparent contradiction holds good in the case of the drama of +"L'Aiglon," now being performed with so much success. Although the hero +is a weakling, the subject a fiasco, the end a premature death and a +personal disillusionment, yet, in spite of this theme, which might have +been chosen for its depressing qualities, the unconquerable pæan of the +praise of things, the ungovernable gaiety of the poet's song swells so +high that at the end it seems to drown all the weak voices of the +characters in one crashing chorus of great things and great men. A +multitude of mottoes might be taken from the play to indicate and +illustrate, not only its own spirit, but much of the spirit of modern +life. When in the vision of the field of Wagram the horrible voices of +the wounded cry out, _Les corbeaux, les corbeaux_, the Duke, overwhelmed +with a nightmare of hideous trivialities, cries out, _Où, où, sont les +aigles?_ That antithesis might stand alone as an invocation at the +beginning of the twentieth century to the spirit of heroic comedy. When +an ex-General of Napoleon is asked his reason for having betrayed the +Emperor, he replies, _La fatigue_, and at that a veteran private of the +Great Army rushes forward, and crying passionately, _Et nous?_ pours out +a terrible description of the life lived by the commoner soldier. +To-day, when pessimism is almost as much a symbol of wealth and fashion +as jewels or cigars, when the pampered heirs of the ages can sum up life +in few other words but _la fatigue_, there might surely come a cry from +the vast mass of common humanity from the beginning--_et nous?_ It is +this potentiality for enthusiasm among the mass of men that makes the +function of comedy at once common and sublime. Shakespeare's "Much Ado +About Nothing" is a great comedy, because behind it is the whole +pressure of that love of love which is the youth of the world, which is +common to all the young, especially to those who swear they will die +bachelors and old maids. "Love's Labour's Lost" is filled with the same +energy, and there it falls even more definitely into the scope of our +subject, since it is a comedy in rhyme in which all men speak lyrically +as naturally as the birds sing in pairing time. What the love of love +is to the Shakespearean comedies, that other and more mysterious human +passion, the love of death, is to "L'Aiglon." Whether we shall ever have +in England a new tradition of poetic comedy it is difficult at present +to say, but we shall assuredly never have it until we realise that +comedy is built upon everlasting foundations in the nature of things, +that it is not a thing too light to capture, but too deep to plumb. +Monsieur Rostand, in his description of the Battle of Wagram, does not +shrink from bringing about the Duke's ears the frightful voices of +actual battle, of men torn by crows, and suffocated with blood, but when +the Duke, terrified at these dreadful appeals, asks them for their final +word, they all cry together _Vive l'Empereur!_ Monsieur Rostand, +perhaps, did not know that he was writing an allegory. To me that field +of Wagram is the field of the modern war of literature. We hear nothing +but the voices of pain; the whole is one phonograph of horror. It is +right that we should hear these things, it is right that not one of +them should be silenced; but these cries of distress are not in life, as +they are in modern art, the only voices; they are the voices of men, but +not the voice of man. When questioned finally and seriously as to their +conception of their destiny, men have from the beginning of time +answered in a thousand philosophies and religions with a single voice +and in a sense most sacred and tremendous, _Vive l'Empereur_. + + + + +CHARLES II + + +There are a great many bonds which still connect us with Charles II., +one of the idlest men of one of the idlest epochs. Among other things +Charles II. represented one thing which is very rare and very +satisfying; he was a real and consistent sceptic. Scepticism, both in +its advantages and disadvantages, is greatly misunderstood in our time. +There is a curious idea abroad that scepticism has some connection with +such theories as materialism and atheism and secularism. This is of +course a mistake; the true sceptic has nothing to do with these theories +simply because they are theories. The true sceptic is as much a +spiritualist as he is a materialist. He thinks that the savage dancing +round an African idol stands quite as good a chance of being right as +Darwin. He thinks that mysticism is every bit as rational as +rationalism. He has indeed the most profound doubts as to whether St. +Matthew wrote his own gospel. But he has quite equally profound doubts +as to whether the tree he is looking at is a tree and not a rhinoceros. + +This is the real meaning of that mystery which appears so prominently in +the lives of great sceptics, which appears with especial prominence in +the life of Charles II. I mean their constant oscillation between +atheism and Roman Catholicism. Roman Catholicism is indeed a great and +fixed and formidable system, but so is atheism. Atheism is indeed the +most daring of all dogmas, more daring than the vision of a palpable day +of judgment. For it is the assertion of a universal negative; for a man +to say that there is no God in the universe is like saying that there +are no insects in any of the stars. + +Thus it was with that wholesome and systematic sceptic, Charles II. When +he took the Sacrament according to the forms of the Roman Church in his +last hour he was acting consistently as a philosopher. The wafer might +not be God; similarly it might not be a wafer. To the genuine and +poetical sceptic the whole world is incredible, with its bulbous +mountains and its fantastic trees. The whole order of things is as +outrageous as any miracle which could presume to violate it. +Transubstantiation might be a dream, but if it was, it was assuredly a +dream within a dream. Charles II. sought to guard himself against hell +fire because he could not think hell itself more fantastic than the +world as it was revealed by science. The priest crept up the staircase, +the doors were closed, the few of the faithful who were present hushed +themselves respectfully, and so, with every circumstance of secrecy and +sanctity, with the cross uplifted and the prayers poured out, was +consummated the last great act of logical unbelief. + +The problem of Charles II. consists in this, that he has scarcely a +moral virtue to his name, and yet he attracts us morally. We feel that +some of the virtues have been dropped out in the lists made by all the +saints and sages, and that Charles II. was pre-eminently successful in +these wild and unmentionable virtues. The real truth of this matter and +the real relation of Charles II. to the moral ideal is worth somewhat +more exhaustive study. + +It is a commonplace that the Restoration movement can only be understood +when considered as a reaction against Puritanism. But it is +insufficiently realised that the tyranny which half frustrated all the +good work of Puritanism was of a very peculiar kind. It was not the fire +of Puritanism, the exultation in sobriety, the frenzy of a restraint, +which passed away; that still burns in the heart of England, only to be +quenched by the final overwhelming sea. But it is seldom remembered that +the Puritans were in their day emphatically intellectual bullies, that +they relied swaggeringly on the logical necessity of Calvinism, that +they bound omnipotence itself in the chains of syllogism. The Puritans +fell, through the damning fact that they had a complete theory of life, +through the eternal paradox that a satisfactory explanation can never +satisfy. Like Brutus and the logical Romans, like the logical French +Jacobins, like the logical English utilitarians, they taught the lesson +that men's wants have always been right and their arguments always +wrong. Reason is always a kind of brute force; those who appeal to the +head rather than the heart, however pallid and polite, are necessarily +men of violence. We speak of "touching" a man's heart, but we can do +nothing to his head but hit it. The tyranny of the Puritans over the +bodies of men was comparatively a trifle; pikes, bullets, and +conflagrations are comparatively a trifle. Their real tyranny was the +tyranny of aggressive reason over the cowed and demoralised human +spirit. Their brooding and raving can be forgiven, can in truth be loved +and reverenced, for it is humanity on fire; hatred can be genial, +madness can be homely. The Puritans fell, not because they were +fanatics, but because they were rationalists. + +When we consider these things, when we remember that Puritanism, which +means in our day a moral and almost temperamental attitude, meant in +that day a singularly arrogant logical attitude, we shall comprehend a +little more the grain of good that lay in the vulgarity and triviality +of the Restoration. The Restoration, of which Charles II. was a +pre-eminent type, was in part a revolt of all the chaotic and unclassed +parts of human nature, the parts that are left over, and will always be +left over, by every rationalistic system of life. This does not merely +account for the revolt of the vices and of that empty recklessness and +horseplay which is sometimes more irritating than any vice. It accounts +also for the return of the virtue of politeness, for that also is a +nameless thing ignored by logical codes. Politeness has indeed about it +something mystical; like religion, it is everywhere understood and +nowhere defined. Charles is not entirely to be despised because, as the +type of this movement, he let himself float upon this new tide of +politeness. There was some moral and social value in his perfection in +little things. He could not keep the Ten Commandments, but he kept the +ten thousand commandments. His name is unconnected with any great acts +of duty or sacrifice, but it is connected with a great many of those +acts of magnanimous politeness, of a kind of dramatic delicacy, which +lie on the dim borderland between morality and art. "Charles II.," said +Thackeray, with unerring brevity, "was a rascal, but not a snob." Unlike +George IV. he was a gentleman, and a gentleman is a man who obeys +strange statutes, not to be found in any moral text-book, and practises +strange virtues nameless from the beginning of the world. + +So much may be said and should be said for the Restoration, that it was +the revolt of something human, if only the debris of human nature. But +more cannot be said. It was emphatically a fall and not an ascent, a +recoil and not an advance, a sudden weakness and not a sudden strength. +That the bow of human nature was by Puritanism bent immeasurably too +far, that it overstrained the soul by stretching it to the height of an +almost horrible idealism, makes the collapse of the Restoration +infinitely more excusable, but it does not make it any the less a +collapse. Nothing can efface the essential distinction that Puritanism +was one of the world's great efforts after the discovery of the true +order, whereas it was the essence of the Restoration that it involved no +effort at all. It is true that the Restoration was not, as has been +widely assumed, the most immoral epoch of our history. Its vices cannot +compare for a moment in this respect with the monstrous tragedies and +almost suffocating secrecies and villainies of the Court of James I. But +the dram-drinking and nose-slitting of the saturnalia of Charles II. +seem at once more human and more detestable than the passions and +poisons of the Renaissance, much in the same way that a monkey appears +inevitably more human and more detestable than a tiger. Compared with +the Renaissance, there is something Cockney about the Restoration. Not +only was it too indolent for great morality, it was too indolent even +for great art. It lacked that seriousness which is needed even for the +pursuit of pleasure, that discipline which is essential even to a game +of lawn tennis. It would have appeared to Charles II.'s poets quite as +arduous to write "Paradise Lost" as to regain Paradise. + +All old and vigorous languages abound in images and metaphors, which, +though lightly and casually used, are in truth poems in themselves, and +poems of a high and striking order. Perhaps no phrase is so terribly +significant as the phrase "killing time." It is a tremendous and +poetical image, the image of a kind of cosmic parricide. There are on +the earth a race of revellers who do, under all their exuberance, +fundamentally regard time as an enemy. Of these were Charles II. and the +men of the Restoration. Whatever may have been their merits, and as we +have said we think that they had merits, they can never have a place +among the great representatives of the joy of life, for they belonged to +those lower epicureans who kill time, as opposed to those higher +epicureans who make time live. + +Of a people in this temper Charles II. was the natural and rightful +head. He may have been a pantomime King, but he was a King, and with all +his geniality he let nobody forget it. He was not, indeed, the aimless +flaneur that he has been represented. He was a patient and cunning +politician, who disguised his wisdom under so perfect a mask of folly +that he not only deceived his allies and opponents, but has deceived +almost all the historians that have come after him. But if Charles was, +as he emphatically was, the only Stuart who really achieved despotism, +it was greatly due to the temper of the nation and the age. Despotism is +the easiest of all governments, at any rate for the governed. + +It is indeed a form of slavery, and it is the despot who is the slave. +Men in a state of decadence employ professionals to fight for them, +professionals to dance for them, and a professional to rule them. + +Almost all the faces in the portraits of that time look, as it were, +like masks put on artificially with the perruque. A strange unreality +broods over the period. Distracted as we are with civic mysteries and +problems we can afford to rejoice. Our tears are less desolate than +their laughter, our restraints are larger than their liberty. + + + + +STEVENSON[1] + + +A recent incident has finally convinced us that Stevenson was, as we +suspected, a great man. We knew from recent books that we have noticed, +from the scorn of "Ephemera Critica" and Mr. George Moore, that +Stevenson had the first essential qualification of a great man: that of +being misunderstood by his opponents. But from the book which Messrs. +Chatto & Windus have issued, in the same binding as Stevenson's works, +"Robert Louis Stevenson," by Mr. H. Bellyse Baildon, we learn that he +has the other essential qualification, that of being misunderstood by +his admirers. Mr. Baildon has many interesting things to tell us about +Stevenson himself, whom he knew at college. Nor are his criticisms by +any means valueless. That upon the plays, especially "Beau Austin," is +remarkably thoughtful and true. But it is a very singular fact, and goes +far, as we say, to prove that Stevenson had that unfathomable quality +which belongs to the great, that this admiring student of Stevenson can +number and marshal all the master's work and distribute praise and blame +with decision and even severity, without ever thinking for a moment of +the principles of art and ethics which would have struck us as the very +things that Stevenson nearly killed himself to express. + +Mr. Baildon, for example, is perpetually lecturing Stevenson for his +"pessimism"; surely a strange charge against a man who has done more +than any modern artist to make men ashamed of their shame of life. But +he complains that, in "The Master of Ballantrae" and "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. +Hyde," Stevenson gives evil a final victory over good. Now if there was +one point that Stevenson more constantly and passionately emphasised +than any other it was that we must worship good for its own value and +beauty, without any reference whatever to victory or failure in space +and time. "Whatever we are intended to do," he said, "we are not +intended to succeed." That the stars in their courses fight against +virtue, that humanity is in its nature a forlorn hope, this was the very +spirit that through the whole of Stevenson's work sounded a trumpet to +all the brave. The story of Henry Durie is dark enough, but could anyone +stand beside the grave of that sodden monomaniac and not respect him? It +is strange that men should see sublime inspiration in the ruins of an +old church and see none in the ruins of a man. + +The author has most extraordinary ideas about Stevenson's tales of blood +and spoil; he appears to think that they prove Stevenson to have had (we +use Mr. Baildon's own phrase) a kind of "homicidal mania." "He +[Stevenson] arrives pretty much at the paradox that one can hardly be +better employed than in taking life." Mr. Baildon might as well say that +Dr. Conan Doyle delights in committing inexplicable crimes, that Mr. +Clark Russell is a notorious pirate, and that Mr. Wilkie Collins thought +that one could hardly be better employed than in stealing moonstones +and falsifying marriage registers. But Mr. Baildon is scarcely alone in +this error: few people have understood properly the goriness of +Stevenson. Stevenson was essentially the robust schoolboy who draws +skeletons and gibbets in his Latin grammar. It was not that he took +pleasure in death, but that he took pleasure in life, in every muscular +and emphatic action of life, even if it were an action that took the +life of another. + +Let us suppose that one gentleman throws a knife at another gentleman +and pins him to the wall. It is scarcely necessary to remark that there +are in this transaction two somewhat varying personal points of view. +The point of view of the man pinned is the tragic and moral point of +view, and this Stevenson showed clearly that he understood in such +stories as "The Master of Ballantrae" and "Weir of Hermiston." But there +is another view of the matter--that in which the whole act is an abrupt +and brilliant explosion of bodily vitality, like breaking a rock with a +blow of a hammer, or just clearing a five-barred gate. This is the +standpoint of romance, and it is the soul of "Treasure Island" and "The +Wrecker." It was not, indeed, that Stevenson loved men less, but that he +loved clubs and pistols more. He had, in truth, in the devouring +universalism of his soul, a positive love for inanimate objects such as +has not been known since St. Francis called the sun brother and the well +sister. We feel that he was actually in love with the wooden crutch that +Silver sent hurtling in the sunlight, with the box that Billy Bones left +at the "Admiral Benbow," with the knife that Wicks drove through his own +hand and the table. There is always in his work a certain clean-cut +angularity which makes us remember that he was fond of cutting wood with +an axe. + +Stevenson's new biographer, however, cannot make any allowance for this +deep-rooted poetry of mere sight and touch. He is always imputing +something to Stevenson as a crime which Stevenson really professed as an +object. He says of that glorious riot of horror, "The Destroying Angel," +in "The Dynamiter," that it is "highly fantastic and putting a strain +on our credulity." This is rather like describing the travels of Baron +Munchausen as "unconvincing." The whole story of "The Dynamiter" is a +kind of humorous nightmare, and even in that story "The Destroying +Angel" is supposed to be an extravagant lie made up on the spur of the +moment. It is a dream within a dream, and to accuse it of improbability +is like accusing the sky of being blue. But Mr. Baildon, whether from +hasty reading or natural difference of taste, cannot in the least +comprehend that rich and romantic irony of Stevenson's London stories. +He actually says of that portentous monument of humour, Prince Florizel +of Bohemia, that, "though evidently admired by his creator, he is to me +on the whole rather an irritating presence." From this we are almost +driven to believe (though desperately and against our will) that Mr. +Baildon thinks that Prince Florizel is to be taken seriously, as if he +were a man in real life. For ourselves. Prince Florizel is almost our +favourite character in fiction; but we willingly add the proviso that +if we met him in real life we should kill him. + +The fact is, that the whole mass of Stevenson's spiritual and +intellectual virtues have been partly frustrated by one additional +virtue--that of artistic dexterity. If he had chalked up his great +message on a wall, like Walt Whitman, in large and straggling letters, +it would have startled men like a blasphemy. But he wrote his +light-headed paradoxes in so flowing a copy-book hand that everyone +supposed they must be copy-book sentiments. He suffered from his +versatility, not, as is loosely said, by not doing every department well +enough, but by doing every department too well. As child, cockney, +pirate, or Puritan, his disguises were so good that most people could +not see the same man under all. It is an unjust fact that if a man can +play the fiddle, give legal opinions, and black boots just tolerably, he +is called an Admirable Crichton, but if he does all three thoroughly +well, he is apt to be regarded, in the several departments, as a common +fiddler, a common lawyer, and a common boot-black. This is what has +happened in the case of Stevenson. If "Dr. Jekyll," "The Master of +Ballantrae," "The Child's Garden of Verses," and "Across the Plains" had +been each of them one shade less perfectly done than they were, everyone +would have seen that they were all parts of the same message; but by +succeeding in the proverbial miracle of being in five places at once, he +has naturally convinced others that he was five different people. But +the real message of Stevenson was as simple as that of Mohamet, as moral +as that of Dante, as confident as that of Whitman, and as practical as +that of James Watt. The conception which unites the whole varied work of +Stevenson was that romance, or the vision of the possibilities of +things, was far more important than mere occurrences: that one was the +soul of our life, the other the body, and that the soul was the precious +thing. The germ of all his stories lies in the idea that every landscape +or scrap of scenery has a soul: and that soul is a story. Standing +before a stunted orchard with a broken stone wall, we may know as a +mere fact that no one has been through it but an elderly female cook. +But everything exists in the human soul: that orchard grows in our own +brain, and there it is the shrine and theatre of some strange chance +between a girl and a ragged poet and a mad farmer. Stevenson stands for +the conception that ideas are the real incidents: that our fancies are +our adventures. To think of a cow with wings is essentially to have met +one. And this is the reason for his wide diversities of narrative: he +had to make one story as rich as a ruby sunset, another as grey as a +hoary monolith: for the story was the soul, or rather the meaning, of +the bodily vision. It is quite inappropriate to judge "The Teller of +Tales" (as the Samoans called him) by the particular novels he wrote, as +one would judge Mr. George Moore by "Esther Waters." These novels were +only the two or three of his soul's adventures that he happened to tell. +But he died with a thousand stories in his heart. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[1] "Robert Louis Stevenson: A Life Study in Criticism." By H. Bellyse +Baildon. Chatto & Windus. + + + + +THOMAS CARLYLE + + +There are two main moral necessities for the work of a great man: the +first is that he should believe in the truth of his message; the second +is that he should believe in the acceptability of his message. It was +the whole tragedy of Carlyle that he had the first and not the second. + +The ordinary capital, however, which is made out of Carlyle's alleged +gloom is a very paltry matter. Carlyle had his faults, both as a man and +as a writer, but the attempt to explain his gospel in terms of his +"liver" is merely pitiful. If indigestion invariably resulted in a +"Sartor Resartus," it would be a vastly more tolerable thing than it is. +Diseases do not turn into poems; even the decadent really writes with +the healthy part of his organism. If Carlyle's private faults and +literary virtues ran somewhat in the same line, he is only in the +situation of every man; for every one of us it is surely very difficult +to say precisely where our honest opinions end and our personal +predilections begin. But to attempt to denounce Carlyle as a mere savage +egotist cannot arise from anything but a pure inability to grasp +Carlyle's gospel. "Ruskin," says a critic, "did, all the same, verily +believe in God; Carlyle believed only in himself." This is certainly a +distinction between the author he has understood and the author he has +not understood. Carlyle believed in himself, but he could not have +believed in himself more than Ruskin did; they both believed in God, +because they felt that if everything else fell into wrack and ruin, +themselves were permanent witnesses to God. Where they both failed was +not in belief in God or in belief in themselves; they failed in belief +in other people. It is not enough for a prophet to believe in his +message; he must believe in its acceptability. Christ, St. Francis, +Bunyan, Wesley, Mr. Gladstone, Walt Whitman, men of indescribable +variety, were all alike in a certain faculty of treating the average man +as their equal, of trusting to his reason and good feeling without fear +and without condescension. It was this simplicity of confidence, not +only in God, but in the image of God, that was lacking in Carlyle. + +But the attempts to discredit Carlyle's religious sentiment must +absolutely fall to the ground. The profound security of Carlyle's sense +of the unity of the Cosmos is like that of a Hebrew prophet; and it has +the same expression that it had in the Hebrew prophets--humour. A man +must be very full of faith to jest about his divinity. No Neo-Pagan +delicately suggesting a revival of Dionysus, no vague, half-converted +Theosophist groping towards a recognition of Buddha, would ever think of +cracking jokes on the matter. But to the Hebrew prophets their religion +was so solid a thing, like a mountain or a mammoth, that the irony of +its contact with trivial and fleeting matters struck them like a blow. +So it was with Carlyle. His supreme contribution, both to philosophy and +literature, was his sense of the sarcasm of eternity. Other writers had +seen the hope or the terror of the heavens, he alone saw the humour of +them. Other writers had seen that there could be something elemental and +eternal in a song or statute, he alone saw that there could be something +elemental and eternal in a joke. No one who ever read it will forget the +passage, full of dark and agnostic gratification, in which he narrates +that some Court chronicler described Louis XV. as "falling asleep in the +Lord." "Enough for us that he did fall asleep; that, curtained in thick +night, under what keeping we ask not, he at least will never, through +unending ages, insult the face of the sun any more ... and we go on, if +not to better forms of beastliness, at least to fresher ones." + +The supreme value of Carlyle to English literature was that he was the +founder of modern irrationalism; a movement fully as important as modern +rationalism. A great deal is said in these days about the value or +valuelessness of logic. In the main, indeed, logic is not a productive +tool so much as a weapon of defence. A man building up an intellectual +system has to build like Nehemiah, with the sword in one hand and the +trowel in the other. The imagination, the constructive quality, is the +trowel, and argument is the sword. A wide experience of actual +intellectual affairs will lead most people to the conclusion that logic +is mainly valuable as a weapon wherewith to exterminate logicians. + +But though this may be true enough in practice, it scarcely clears up +the position of logic in human affairs. Logic is a machine of the mind, +and if it is used honestly it ought to bring out an honest conclusion. +When people say that you can prove anything by logic, they are not using +words in a fair sense. What they mean is that you can prove anything by +bad logic. Deep in the mystic ingratitude of the soul of man there is an +extraordinary tendency to use the name for an organ, when what is meant +is the abuse or decay of that organ. Thus we speak of a man suffering +from "nerves," which is about as sensible as talking about a man +suffering from ten fingers. We speak of "liver" and "digestion" when we +mean the failure of liver and the absence of digestion. And in the same +manner we speak of the dangers of logic, when what we really mean is the +danger of fallacy. + +But the real point about the limitation of logic and the partial +overthrow of logic by writers like Carlyle is deeper and somewhat +different. The fault of the great mass of logicians is not that they +bring out a false result, or, in other words, are not logicians at all. +Their fault is that by an inevitable psychological habit they tend to +forget that there are two parts of a logical process, the first the +choosing of an assumption, and the second the arguing upon it, and +humanity, if it devotes itself too persistently to the study of sound +reasoning, has a certain tendency to lose the faculty of sound +assumption. It is astonishing how constantly one may hear from rational +and even rationalistic persons such a phrase as "He did not prove the +very thing with which he started," or, "The whole of his case rested +upon a pure assumption," two peculiarities which may be found by the +curious in the works of Euclid. It is astonishing, again, how +constantly one hears rationalists arguing upon some deep topic, +apparently without troubling about the deep assumptions involved, having +lost their sense, as it were, of the real colour and character of a +man's assumption. For instance, two men will argue about whether +patriotism is a good thing and never discover until the end, if at all, +that the cosmopolitan is basing his whole case upon the idea that man +should, if he can, become as God, with equal sympathies and no +prejudices, while the nationalist denies any such duty at the very +start, and regards man as an animal who has preferences, as a bird has +feathers. + + * * * * * + +Thus it was with Carlyle: he startled men by attacking not arguments, +but assumptions. He simply brushed aside all the matters which the men +of the nineteenth century held to be incontrovertible, and appealed +directly to the very different class of matters which they knew to be +true. He induced men to study less the truth of their reasoning, and +more the truth of the assumptions upon which they reasoned. Even where +his view was not the highest truth, it was always a refreshing and +beneficent heresy. He denied every one of the postulates upon which the +age of reason based itself. He denied the theory of progress which +assumed that we must be better off than the people of the twelfth +century. Whether we were better than the people of the twelfth century, +according to him, depended entirely upon whether we chose or deserved to +be. + +He denied every type and species of prop or association or support which +threw the responsibility upon civilisation or society, or anything but +the individual conscience. He has often been called a prophet. The real +ground of the truth of this phrase is often neglected. Since the last +era of purely religious literature, the era of English Puritanism, there +has been no writer in whose eyes the soul stood so much alone. + +Carlyle was, as we have suggested, a mystic, and mysticism was with him, +as with all its genuine professors, only a transcendent form of common +sense. Mysticism and common sense alike consist in a sense of the +dominance of certain truths and tendencies which cannot be formally +demonstrated or even formally named. Mysticism and common sense are +alike appeals to realities that we all know to be real, but which have +no place in argument except as postulates. Carlyle's work did consist in +breaking through formulæ, old and new, to these old and silent and +ironical sanities. Philosophers might abolish kings a hundred times +over, he maintained, they could not alter the fact that every man and +woman does choose a king and repudiate all the pride of citizenship for +the exultation of humility. If inequality of this kind was a weakness, +it was a weakness bound up with the very strength of the universe. About +hero worship, indeed, few critics have done the smallest justice to +Carlyle. Misled by those hasty and choleric passages in which he +sometimes expressed a preference for mere violence, passages which were +a great deal more connected with his temperament than with his +philosophy, they have finally imbibed the notion that Carlyle's theory +of hero worship was a theory of terrified submission to stern and +arrogant men. As a matter of fact, Carlyle is really inhumane about some +questions, but he is never inhumane about hero worship. His view is not +that human nature is so vulgar and silly a thing that it must be guided +and driven; it is, on the contrary, that human nature is so chivalrous +and fundamentally magnanimous a thing that even the meanest have it in +them to love a leader more than themselves, and to prefer loyalty to +rebellion. When he speaks of this trait in human nature Carlyle's tone +invariably softens. We feel that for the moment he is kindled with +admiration of mankind, and almost reaches the verge of Christianity. +Whatever else was acid and captious about Carlyle's utterances, his hero +worship was not only humane, it was almost optimistic. He admired great +men primarily, and perhaps correctly, because he thought that they were +more human than other men. The evil side of the influence of Carlyle and +his religion of hero worship did not consist in the emotional worship +of valour and success; that was a part of him, as, indeed, it is a part +of all healthy children. Where Carlyle really did harm was in the fact +that he, more than any modern man, is responsible for the increase of +that modern habit of what is vulgarly called "Going the whole hog." +Often in matters of passion and conquest it is a singularly hoggish hog. +This remarkable modern craze for making one's philosophy, religion, +politics, and temper all of a piece, of seeking in all incidents for +opportunities to assert and reassert some favourite mental attitude, is +a thing which existed comparatively little in other centuries. Solomon +and Horace, Petrarch and Shakespeare were pessimists when they were +melancholy, and optimists when they were happy. But the optimist of +to-day seems obliged to prove that gout and unrequited love make him +dance with joy, and the pessimist of to-day to prove that sunshine and a +good supper convulse him with inconsolable anguish. Carlyle was strongly +possessed with this mania for spiritual consistency. He wished to take +the same view of the wars of the angels and of the paltriest riot at +Donnybrook Fair. It was this species of insane logic which led him into +his chief errors, never his natural enthusiasms. Let us take an example. +Carlyle's defence of slavery is a thoroughly ridiculous thing, weak +alike in argument and in moral instinct. The truth is, that he only took +it up from the passion for applying everywhere his paradoxical defence +of aristocracy. He blundered, of course, because he did not see that +slavery has nothing in the world to do with aristocracy, that it is, +indeed, almost its opposite. The defence which Carlyle and all its +thoughtful defenders have made for aristocracy was that a few persons +could more rapidly and firmly decide public affairs in the interests of +the people. But slavery is not even supposed to be a government for the +good of the governed. It is a possession of the governed avowedly for +the good of the governors. Aristocracy uses the strong for the service +of the weak; slavery uses the weak for the service of the strong. It is +no derogation to man as a spiritual being, as Carlyle firmly believed +he was, that he should be ruled and guided for his own good like a +child--for a child who is always ruled and guided we regard as the very +type of spiritual existence. But it is a derogation and an absolute +contradiction to that human spirituality in which Carlyle believed that +a man should be owned like a tool for someone else's good, as if he had +no personal destiny in the Cosmos. We draw attention to this particular +error of Carlyle's because we think that it is a curious example of the +waste and unclean places into which that remarkable animal, "the whole +hog," more than once led him. + +In this respect Carlyle has had unquestionably long and an +unquestionably bad influence. The whole of that recent political ethic +which conceives that if we only go far enough we may finish a thing for +once and all, that being strong consists chiefly in being deliberately +deaf and blind, owes a great deal of its complete sway to his example. +Out of him flows most of the philosophy of Nietzsche, who is in modern +times the supreme maniac of this moonstruck consistency. Though +Nietzsche and Carlyle were in reality profoundly different, Carlyle +being a stiff-necked peasant and Nietzsche a very fragile aristocrat, +they were alike in this one quality of which we speak, the strange and +pitiful audacity with which they applied their single ethical test to +everything in heaven and earth. The disciple of Nietzsche, indeed, +embraces immorality like an austere and difficult faith. He urges +himself to lust and cruelty with the same tremulous enthusiasm with +which a Christian urges himself to purity and patience; he struggles as +a monk struggles with bestial visions and temptations with the ancient +necessities of honour and justice and compassion. To this madhouse, it +can hardly be denied, has Carlyle's intellectual courage brought many at +last. + + + + +TOLSTOY AND THE CULT OF SIMPLICITY + + +The whole world is certainly heading for a great simplicity, not +deliberately, but rather inevitably. It is not a mere fashion of false +innocence, like that of the French aristocrats before the Revolution, +who built an altar to Pan, and who taxed the peasantry for the enormous +expenditure which is needed in order to live the simple life of +peasants. The simplicity towards which the world is driving is the +necessary outcome of all our systems and speculations and of our deep +and continuous contemplation of things. For the universe is like +everything in it; we have to look at it repeatedly and habitually before +we see it. It is only when we have seen it for the hundredth time that +we see it for the first time. The more consistently things are +contemplated, the more they tend to unify themselves and therefore to +simplify themselves. The simplification of anything is always +sensational. Thus monotheism is the most sensational of things: it is as +if we gazed long at a design full of disconnected objects, and, +suddenly, with a stunning thrill, they came together into a huge and +staring face. + +Few people will dispute that all the typical movements of our time are +upon this road towards simplification. Each system seeks to be more +fundamental than the other; each seeks, in the literal sense, to +undermine the other. In art, for example, the old conception of man, +classic as the Apollo Belvedere, has first been attacked by the realist, +who asserts that man, as a fact of natural history, is a creature with +colourless hair and a freckled face. Then comes the Impressionist, going +yet deeper, who asserts that to his physical eye, which alone is +certain, man is a creature with purple hair and a grey face. Then comes +the Symbolist, and says that to his soul, which alone is certain, man is +a creature with green hair and a blue face. And all the great writers of +our time represent in one form or another this attempt to reestablish +communication with the elemental, or, as it is sometimes more roughly +and fallaciously expressed, to return to nature. Some think that the +return to nature consists in drinking no wine; some think that it +consists in drinking a great deal more than is good for them. Some think +that the return to nature is achieved by beating swords into +ploughshares; some think it is achieved by turning ploughshares into +very ineffectual British War Office bayonets. It is natural, according +to the Jingo, for a man to kill other people with gunpowder and himself +with gin. It is natural, according to the humanitarian revolutionist, to +kill other people with dynamite and himself with vegetarianism. It would +be too obviously Philistine a sentiment, perhaps, to suggest that the +claim of either of these persons to be obeying the voice of nature is +interesting when we consider that they require huge volumes of +paradoxical argument to persuade themselves or anyone else of the truth +of their conclusions. But the giants of our time are undoubtedly alike +in that they approach by very different roads this conception of the +return to simplicity. Ibsen returns to nature by the angular exterior of +fact, Maeterlinck by the eternal tendencies of fable. Whitman returns to +nature by seeing how much he can accept, Tolstoy by seeing how much he +can reject. + +Now, this heroic desire to return to nature, is, of course, in some +respects, rather like the heroic desire of a kitten to return to its own +tail. A tail is a simple and beautiful object, rhythmic in curve and +soothing in texture; but it is certainly one of the minor but +characteristic qualities of a tail that it should hang behind. It is +impossible to deny that it would in some degree lose its character if +attached to any other part of the anatomy. Now, nature is like a tail in +the sense that it vitally important, if it is to discharge its real +duty, that it should be always behind. To imagine that we can see +nature, especially our own nature, face to face, is a folly; it is even +a blasphemy. It is like the conduct of a cat in some mad fairy-tale, who +should set out on his travels with the firm conviction that he would +find his tail growing like a tree in the meadows at the end of the +world. And the actual effect of the travels of the philosopher in search +of nature, when seen from the outside, looks very like the gyrations of +the tail-pursuing kitten, exhibiting much enthusiasm but little dignity, +much cry and very little tail. The grandeur of nature is that she is +omnipotent and unseen, that she is perhaps ruling us most when we think +that she is heeding us least. "Thou art a God that hidest Thyself," said +the Hebrew poet. It may be said with all reverence that it is behind a +man's back that the spirit of nature hides. + +It is this consideration that lends a certain air of futility even to +all the inspired simplicities and thunderous veracities of Tolstoy. We +feel that a man cannot make himself simple merely by warring on +complexity; we feel, indeed, in our saner moments, that a man cannot +make himself simple at all. A self-conscious simplicity may well be far +more intrinsically ornate than luxury itself. Indeed, a great deal of +the pomp and sumptuousness of the world's history was simple in the +truest sense. It was born of an almost babyish receptiveness; it was the +work of men who had eyes to wonder and men who had ears to hear. + + "King Solomon brought merchant men + Because of his desire + With peacocks, apes, and ivory, + From Tarshish unto Tyre." + +But this proceeding was not a part of the wisdom of Solomon; it was a +part of his folly--I had almost said of his innocence. Tolstoy, we feel, +would not be content with hurling satire and denunciation at "Solomon in +all his glory." With fierce and unimpeachable logic he would go a step +further. He would spend days and nights in the meadows stripping the +shameless crimson coronals off the lilies of the field. + +The new collection of "Tales from Tolstoy," translated and edited by Mr. +R. Nisbet Bain, is calculated to draw particular attention to this +ethical and ascetic side of Tolstoy's work. In one sense, and that the +deepest sense, the work of Tolstoy is, of course, a genuine and noble +appeal to simplicity. The narrow notion that an artist may not teach is +pretty well exploded by now. But the truth of the matter is, that an +artist teaches far more by his mere background and properties, his +landscape, his costume, his idiom and technique--all the part of his +work, in short, of which he is probably entirely unconscious, than by +the elaborate and pompous moral dicta which he fondly imagines to be his +opinions. The real distinction between the ethics of high art and the +ethics of manufactured and didactic art lies in the simple fact that the +bad fable has a moral, while the good fable is a moral. And the real +moral of Tolstoy comes out constantly in these stories, the great moral +which lies at the heart of all his work, of which he is probably +unconscious, and of which it is quite likely that he would vehemently +disapprove. The curious cold white light of morning that shines over all +the tales, the folklore simplicity with which "a man or a woman" are +spoken of without further identification, the love--one might almost say +the lust--for the qualities of brute materials, the hardness of wood, +and the softness of mud, the ingrained belief in a certain ancient +kindliness sitting beside the very cradle of the race of man--these +influences are truly moral. When we put beside them the trumpeting and +tearing nonsense of the didactic Tolstoy, screaming for an obscene +purity, shouting for an inhuman peace, hacking up human life into small +sins with a chopper, sneering at men, women, and children out of respect +to humanity, combining in one chaos of contradictions an unmanly Puritan +and an uncivilised prig, then, indeed, we scarcely know whither Tolstoy +has vanished. We know not what to do with this small and noisy moralist +who is inhabiting one corner of a great and good man. + +It is difficult in every case to reconcile Tolstoy the great artist with +Tolstoy the almost venomous reformer. It is difficult to believe that a +man who draws in such noble outlines the dignity of the daily life of +humanity regards as evil that divine act of procreation by which that +dignity is renewed from age to age. It is difficult to believe that a +man who has painted with so frightful an honesty the heartrending +emptiness of the life of the poor can really grudge them every one of +their pitiful pleasures, from courtship to tobacco. It is difficult to +believe that a poet in prose who has so powerfully exhibited the +earth-born air of man, the essential kinship of a human being, with the +landscape in which he lives, can deny so elemental a virtue as that +which attaches a man to his own ancestors and his own land. It is +difficult to believe that the man who feels so poignantly the detestable +insolence of oppression would not actually, if he had the chance, lay +the oppressor flat with his fist. All, however, arises from the search +after a false simplicity, the aim of being, if I may so express it, more +natural than it is natural to be. It would not only be more human, it +would be more humble of us to be content to be complex. The truest +kinship with humanity would lie in doing as humanity has always done, +accepting with a sportsmanlike relish the estate to which we are called, +the star of our happiness, and the fortunes of the land of our birth. + +The work of Tolstoy has another and more special significance. It +represents the re-assertion of a certain awful common sense which +characterised the most extreme utterances of Christ. It is true that we +cannot turn the cheek to the smiter; it is true that we cannot give our +cloak to the robber; civilisation is too complicated, too vain-glorious, +too emotional. The robber would brag, and we should blush; in other +words, the robber and we are alike sentimentalists. The command of +Christ is impossible, but it is not insane; it is rather sanity preached +to a planet of lunatics. If the whole world was suddenly stricken with a +sense of humour it would find itself mechanically fulfilling the Sermon +on the Mount. It is not the plain facts of the world which stand in the +way of that consummation, but its passions of vanity and +self-advertisement and morbid sensibility. It is true that we cannot +turn the cheek to the smiter, and the sole and sufficient reason is that +we have not the pluck. Tolstoy and his followers have shown that they +have the pluck, and even if we think they are mistaken, by this sign +they conquer. Their theory has the strength of an utterly consistent +thing. It represents that doctrine of mildness and non-resistance which +is the last and most audacious of all the forms of resistance to every +existing authority. It is the great strike of the Quakers which is more +formidable than many sanguinary revolutions. If human beings could only +succeed in achieving a real passive resistance they would be strong with +the appalling strength of inanimate things, they would be calm with the +maddening calm of oak or iron, which conquer without vengeance and are +conquered without humiliation. The theory of Christian duty enunciated +by them is that we should never conquer by force, but always, if we can, +conquer by persuasion. In their mythology St. George did not conquer the +dragon: he tied a pink ribbon round its neck and gave it a saucer of +milk. According to them, a course of consistent kindness to Nero would +have turned him into something only faintly represented by Alfred the +Great. In fact, the policy recommended by this school for dealing with +the bovine stupidity and bovine fury of this world is accurately summed +up in the celebrated verse of Mr. Edward Lear: + + "There was an old man who said, 'How + Shall I flee from this terrible cow? + I will sit on a stile and continue to smile + Till I soften the heart of this cow.'" + +Their confidence in human nature is really honourable and magnificent; +it takes the form of refusing to believe the overwhelming majority of +mankind, even when they set out to explain their own motives. But +although most of us would in all probability tend at first sight to +consider this new sect of Christians as little less outrageous than some +brawling and absurd sect in the Reformation, yet we should fall into a +singular error in doing so. The Christianity of Tolstoy is, when we come +to consider it, one of the most thrilling and dramatic incidents in our +modern civilisation. It represents a tribute to the Christian religion +more sensational than the breaking of seals or the falling of stars. + +From the point of view of a rationalist, the whole world is rendered +almost irrational by the single phenomenon of Christian Socialism. It +turns the scientific universe topsy-turvy, and makes it essentially +possible that the key of all social evolution may be found in the dusty +casket of some discredited creed. It cannot be amiss to consider this +phenomenon as it realty is. + +The religion of Christ has, like many true things, been disproved an +extraordinary number of times. It was disproved by the Neo-Platonist +philosophers at the very moment when it was first starting forth upon +its startling and universal career. It was disproved again by many of +the sceptics of the Renaissance only a few years before its second and +supremely striking embodiment, the religion of Puritanism, was about to +triumph over many kings and civilise many continents. We all agree that +these schools of negation were only interludes in its history; but we +all believe naturally and inevitably that the negation of our own day +is really a breaking up of the theological cosmos, an Armageddon, a +Ragnorak, a twilight of the gods. The man of the nineteenth century, +like a schoolboy of sixteen, believes that his doubt and depression are +symbols of the end of the world. In our day the great irreligionists who +did nothing but dethrone God and drive angels before them have been +outstripped, distanced, and made to look orthodox and humdrum. A newer +race of sceptics has found something infinitely more exciting to do than +nailing down the lids upon a million coffins, and the body upon a single +cross. They have disputed not only the elementary creeds, but the +elementary laws of mankind, property, patriotism, civil obedience. They +have arraigned civilisation as openly as the materialists have arraigned +theology; they have damned all the philosophers even lower than they +have damned the saints. Thousands of modern men move quietly and +conventionally among their fellows while holding views of national +limitation or landed property that would have made Voltaire shudder like +a nun listening to blasphemies. And the last and wildest phase of this +saturnalia of scepticism, the school that goes furthest among thousands +who go so far, the school that denies the moral validity of those ideals +of courage or obedience which are recognised even among pirates, this +school bases itself upon the literal words of Christ, like Dr. Watts or +Messrs. Moody and Sankey. Never in the whole history of the world was +such a tremendous tribute paid to the vitality of an ancient creed. +Compared with this, it would be a small thing if the Red Sea were cloven +asunder, or the sun did stand still at midday. We are faced with the +phenomenon that a set of revolutionists whose contempt for all the +ideals of family and nation would evoke horror in a thieves' kitchen, +who can rid themselves of those elementary instincts of the man and the +gentleman which cling to the very bones of our civilisation, cannot rid +themselves of the influence of two or three remote Oriental anecdotes +written in corrupt Greek. The fact, when realised, has about it +something stunning and hypnotic. The most convinced rationalist is in +its presence suddenly stricken with a strange and ancient vision, sees +the immense sceptical cosmogonies of this age as dreams going the way of +a thousand forgotten heresies, and believes for a moment that the dark +sayings handed down through eighteen centuries may, indeed, contain in +themselves the revolutions of which we have only begun to dream. + +This value which we have above suggested unquestionably belongs to the +Tolstoians, who may roughly be described as the new Quakers. With their +strange optimism, and their almost appalling logical courage, they offer +a tribute to Christianity which no orthodoxies could offer. It cannot +but be remarkable to watch a revolution in which both the rulers and the +rebels march under the same symbol. But the actual theory of +non-resistance itself, with all its kindred theories, is not, I think, +characterised by that intellectual obviousness and necessity which its +supporters claim for it. A pamphlet before us shows us an extraordinary +number of statements about the new Testament, of which the accuracy is +by no means so striking as the confidence. To begin with, we must +protest against a habit of quoting and paraphrasing at the same time. +When a man is discussing what Jesus meant, let him state first of all +what He said, not what the man thinks He would have said if he had +expressed Himself more clearly. Here is an instance of question and +answer: + +Q. "How did our Master Himself sum up the law in a few words?" + +A. "Be ye merciful, be ye perfect even as your Father; your Father in +the spirit world is merciful, is perfect." + +There is nothing in this, perhaps, which Christ might not have said +except the abominable metaphysical modernism of "the spirit world"; but +to say that it is recorded that He did say it, is like saying it is +recorded that He preferred palm trees to sycamores. It is a simple and +unadulterated untruth. The author should know that these words have +meant a thousand things to a thousand people, and that if more ancient +sects had paraphrased them as cheerfully as he, he would never have had +the text upon which he founds his theory. In a pamphlet in which plain +printed words cannot be left alone, it is not surprising if there are +mis-statements upon larger matters. Here is a statement clearly and +philosophically laid down which we can only content ourselves with +flatly denying: "The fifth rule of our Lord is that we should take +special pains to cultivate the same kind of regard for people of foreign +countries, and for those generally who do not belong to us, or even have +an antipathy to us, which we already entertain towards our own people, +and those who are in sympathy with us." I should very much like to know +where in the whole of the New Testament the author finds this violent, +unnatural, and immoral proposition. Christ did not have the same kind of +regard for one person as for another. We are specifically told that +there were certain persons whom He specially loved. It is most +improbable that He thought of other nations as He thought of His own. +The sight of His national city moved Him to tears, and the highest +compliment He paid was, "Behold an Israelite indeed." The author has +simply confused two entirely distinct things. Christ commanded us to +have love for all men, but even if we had equal love for all men, to +speak of having the same love for all men is merely bewildering +nonsense. If we love a man at all, the impression he produces on us must +be vitally different to the impression produced by another man whom we +love. To speak of having the same kind of regard for both is about as +sensible as asking a man whether he prefers chrysanthemums or billiards. +Christ did not love humanity; He never said He loved humanity; He loved +men. Neither He nor anyone else can love humanity; it is like loving a +gigantic centipede. And the reason that the Tolstoians can even endure +to think of an equally distributed affection is that their love of +humanity is a logical love, a love into which they are coerced by their +own theories, a love which would be an insult to a tom-cat. + +But the greatest error of all lies in the mere act of cutting up the +teaching of the New Testament into five rules. It precisely and +ingeniously misses the most dominant characteristic of the teaching--its +absolute spontaneity. The abyss between Christ and all His modern +interpreters is that we have no record that He ever wrote a word, except +with His finger in the sand. The whole is the history of one continuous +and sublime conversation. Thousands of rules have been deduced from it +before these Tolstoian rules were made, and thousands will be deduced +afterwards. It was not for any pompous proclamation, it was not for any +elaborate output of printed volumes; it was for a few splendid and idle +words that the cross was set up on Calvary, and the earth gaped, and the +sun was darkened at noonday. + + + + +SAVONAROLA + + +Savonarola is a man whom we shall probably never understand until we +know what horror may lie at the heart of civilisation. This we shall not +know until we are civilised. It may be hoped, in one sense, that we may +never understand Savonarola. + +The great deliverers of men have, for the most part, saved them from +calamities which we all recognise as evil, from calamities which are the +ancient enemies of humanity. The great law-givers saved us from anarchy: +the great physicians saved us from pestilence: the great reformers saved +us from starvation. But there is a huge and bottomless evil compared +with which all these are fleabites, the most desolating curse that can +fall upon men or nations, and it has no name except we call it +satisfaction. Savonarola did not save men from anarchy, but from order; +not from pestilence, but from paralysis; not from starvation, but from +luxury. Men like Savonarola are the witnesses to the tremendous +psychological fact at the back of all our brains, but for which no name +has ever been found, that ease is the worst enemy of happiness, and +civilisation potentially the end of man. + +For I fancy that Savonarola's thrilling challenge to the luxury of his +day went far deeper than the mere question of sin. The modern +rationalistic admirers of Savonarola, from George Eliot downwards, +dwell, truly enough, upon the sound ethical justification of +Savonarola's anger, upon the hideous and extravagant character of the +crimes which polluted the palaces of the Renaissance. But they need not +be so anxious to show that Savonarola was no ascetic, that he merely +picked out the black specks of wickedness with the priggish +enlightenment of a member of an Ethical Society. Probably he did hate +the civilisation of his time, and not merely its sins; and that is +precisely where he was infinitely more profound than a modern moralist. +He saw, that the actual crimes were not the only evils: that stolen +jewels and poisoned wine and obscene pictures were merely the symptoms; +that the disease was the complete dependence upon jewels and wine and +pictures. This is a thing constantly forgotten in judging of ascetics +and Puritans in old times. A denunciation of harmless sports did not +always mean an ignorant hatred of what no one but a narrow moralist +would call harmful. Sometimes it meant an exceedingly enlightened hatred +of what no one but a narrow moralist would call harmless. Ascetics are +sometimes more advanced than the average man, as well as less. + +Such, at least, was the hatred in the heart of Savonarola. He was making +war against no trivial human sins, but against godless and thankless +quiescence, against getting used to happiness, the mystic sin by which +all creation fell. He was preaching that severity which is the +sign-manual of youth and hope. He was preaching that alertness, that +clean agility and vigilance, which is as necessary to gain pleasure as +to gain holiness, as indispensable in a lover as in a monk. A critic has +truly pointed out that Savonarola could not have been fundamentally +anti-æsthetic, since he had such friends as Michael Angelo, Botticelli, +and Luca della Robbia. The fact is that this purification and austerity +are even more necessary for the appreciation of life and laughter than +for anything else. To let no bird fly past unnoticed, to spell patiently +the stones and weeds, to have the mind a storehouse of sunset, requires +a discipline in pleasure, and an education in gratitude. + +The civilisation which surrounded Savonarola on every side was a +civilisation which had already taken the wrong turn, the turn that leads +to endless inventions and no discoveries, in which new things grow old +with confounding rapidity, but in which no old things ever grow new. The +monstrosity of the crimes of the Renaissance was not a mark of +imagination; it was a mark, as all monstrosity is, of the loss of +imagination. It is only when a man has really ceased to see a horse as +it is, that he invents a centaur, only when he can no longer be +surprised at an ox, that he worships the devil. Diablerie is the +stimulant of the jaded fancy; it is the dram-drinking of the artist. +Savonarola addressed himself to the hardest of all earthly tasks, that +of making men turn back and wonder at the simplicities they had learnt +to ignore. It is strange that the most unpopular of all doctrines is the +doctrine which declares the common life divine. Democracy, of which +Savonarola was so fiery an exponent, is the hardest of gospels; there is +nothing that so terrifies men as the decree that they are all kings. +Christianity, in Savonarola's mind, identical with democracy, is the +hardest of gospels; there is nothing that so strikes men with fear as +the saying that they are all the sons of God. + +Savonarola and his republic fell. The drug of despotism was administered +to the people, and they forgot what they had been. There are some at the +present day who have so strange a respect for art and letters, and for +mere men of genius, that they conceive the reign of the Medici to be an +improvement on that of the great Florentine republican. It is such men +as these and their civilisation that we have at the present day to +fear. We are surrounded on many sides by the same symptoms as those +which awoke the unquenchable wrath of Savonarola--a hedonism that is +more sick of happiness than an invalid is sick of pain, an art sense +that seeks the assistance of crime since it has exhausted nature. In +many modern works we find veiled and horrible hints of a truly +Renaissance sense of the beauty of blood, the poetry of murder. The +bankrupt and depraved imagination does not see that a living man is far +more dramatic than a dead one. Along with this, as in the time of the +Medici, goes the falling back into the arms of despotism, the hunger for +the strong man which is unknown among strong men. The masterful hero is +worshipped as he is worshipped by the readers of the "Bow Bells +Novelettes," and for the same reason--a profound sense of personal +weakness. That tendency to devolve our duties descends on us, which is +the soul of slavery, alike whether for its menial tasks it employs serfs +or emperors. Against all this the great clerical republican stands in +everlasting protest, preferring his failure to his rival's success. The +issue is still between him and Lorenzo, between the responsibilities of +liberty and the license of slavery, between the perils of truth and the +security of silence, between the pleasure of toil and the toil of +pleasure. The supporters of Lorenzo the Magnificent are assuredly among +us, men for whom even nations and empires only exist to satisfy the +moment, men to whom the last hot hour of summer is better than a sharp +and wintry spring. They have an art, a literature, a political +philosophy, which are all alike valued for their immediate effect upon +the taste, not for what they promise of the destiny of the spirit. Their +statuettes and sonnets are rounded and perfect, while "Macbeth" is in +comparison a fragment, and the Moses of Michael Angelo a hint. Their +campaigns and battles are always called triumphant, while Cæsar and +Cromwell wept for many humiliations. And the end of it all is the hell +of no resistance, the hell of an unfathomable softness, until the whole +nature recoils into madness and the chamber of civilisation is no longer +merely a cushioned apartment, but a padded cell. + +This last and worst of human miseries Savonarola saw afar off, and bent +his whole gigantic energies to turning the chariot into another course. +Few men understood his object; some called him a madman, some a +charlatan, some an enemy of human joy. They would not even have +understood if he had told them, if he had said that he was saving them +from a calamity of contentment which should be the end of joys and +sorrows alike. But there are those to-day who feel the same silent +danger, and who bend themselves to the same silent resistance. They also +are supposed to be contending for some trivial political scruple. + +Mr. M'Hardy says, in defending Savonarola, that the number of fine works +of art destroyed in the Burning of the Vanities has been much +exaggerated. I confess that I hope the pile contained stacks of +incomparable masterpieces if the sacrifice made that one real moment +more real. Of one thing I am sure, that Savonarola's friend Michael +Angelo would have piled all his own statues one on top of the other, +and burnt them to ashes, if only he had been certain that the glow +transfiguring the sky was the dawn of a younger and wiser world. + + + + +THE POSITION OF SIR WALTER SCOTT + + +Walter Scott is a writer who should just now be re-emerging into his own +high place in letters, for unquestionably the recent, though now +dwindling, schools of severely technical and æsthetic criticism have +been unfavourable to him. He was a chaotic and unequal writer, and if +there is one thing in which artists have improved since his time, it is +in consistency and equality. It would perhaps be unkind to inquire +whether the level of the modern man of letters, as compared with Scott, +is due to the absence of valleys or the absence of mountains. But in any +case, we have learnt in our day to arrange our literary effects +carefully, and the only point in which we fall short of Scott is in the +incidental misfortune that we have nothing particular to arrange. + +It is said that Scott is neglected by modern readers; if so, the matter +could be more appropriately described by saying that modern readers are +neglected by Providence. The ground of this neglect, in so far as it +exists, must be found, I suppose, in the general sentiment that, like +the beard of Polonius, he is too long. Yet it is surely a peculiar thing +that in literature alone a house should be despised because it is too +large, or a host impugned because he is too generous. If romance be +really a pleasure, it is difficult to understand the modern reader's +consuming desire to get it over, and if it be not a pleasure, it is +difficult to understand his desire to have it at all. Mere size, it +seems to me, cannot be a fault. The fault must lie in some +disproportion. If some of Scott's stories are dull and dilatory, it is +not because they are giants, but because they are hunchbacks or +cripples. Scott was very far indeed from being a perfect writer, but I +do not think that it can be shown that the large and elaborate plan on +which his stories are built was by any means an imperfection. He +arranged his endless prefaces and his colossal introductions just as an +architect plans great gates and long approaches to a really large +house. He did not share the latter-day desire to get quickly through a +story. He enjoyed narrative as a sensation; he did not wish to swallow a +story like a pill, that it should do him good afterwards. He desired to +taste it like a glass of port, that it might do him good at the time. +The reader sits late at his banquets. His characters have that air of +immortality which belongs to those of Dumas and Dickens. We should not +be surprised to meet them in any number of sequels. Scott, in his heart +of hearts, probably would have liked to write an endless story without +either beginning or close. + +Walter Scott is a great, and, therefore, mysterious man. He will never +be understood until Romance is understood, and that will be only when +Time, Man, and Eternity are understood. To say that Scott had more than +any other man that ever lived a sense of the romantic seems, in these +days, a slight and superficial tribute. The whole modern theory arises +from one fundamental mistake--the idea that romance is in some way a +plaything with life, a figment, a conventionality, a thing upon the +outside. No genuine criticism of romance will ever arise until we have +grasped the fact that romance lies not upon the outside of life, but +absolutely in the centre of it. The centre of every man's existence is a +dream. Death, disease, insanity, are merely material accidents, like +toothache or a twisted ankle. That these brutal forces always besiege +and often capture the citadel does not prove that they are the citadel. +The boast of the realist (applying what the reviewers call his scalpel) +is that he cuts into the heart of life; but he makes a very shallow +incision, if he only reaches as deep as habits and calamities and sins. +Deeper than all these lies a man's vision of himself, as swaggering and +sentimental as a penny novelette. The literature of can-dour unearths +innumerable weaknesses and elements of lawlessness which is called +romance. It perceives superficial habits like murder and dipsomania, but +it does not perceive the deepest of sins--the sin of vanity--vanity +which is the mother of all day-dreams and adventures, the one sin that +is not shared with any boon companion, or whispered to any priest. + +In estimating, therefore, the ground of Scott's pre-eminence in romance +we must absolutely rid ourselves of the notion that romance or adventure +are merely materialistic things involved in the tangle of a plot or the +multiplicity of drawn swords. We must remember that it is, like tragedy +or farce, a state of the soul, and that, for some dark and elemental +reason which we can never understand, this state of the soul is evoked +in us by the sight of certain places or the contemplation of certain +human crises, by a stream rushing under a heavy and covered wooden +bridge, or by a man plunging a knife or sword into tough timber. In the +selection of these situations which catch the spirit of romance as in a +net, Scott has never been equalled or even approached. His finest scenes +affect us like fragments of a hilarious dream. They have the same +quality which is often possessed by those nocturnal comedies--that of +seeming more human than our waking life--even while they are less +possible. Sir Arthur Wardour, with his daughter and the old beggar +crouching in a cranny of the cliff as night falls and the tide closes +around them, are actually in the coldest and bitterest of practical +situations. Yet the whole incident has a quality that can only be called +boyish. It is warmed with all the colours of an incredible sunset. Rob +Roy trapped in the Tolbooth, and confronted with Bailie Nicol Jarvie, +draws no sword, leaps from no window, affects none of the dazzling +external acts upon which contemporary romance depends, yet that plain +and humourous dialogue is full of the essential philosophy of romance +which is an almost equal betting upon man and destiny. Perhaps the most +profoundly thrilling of all Scott's situations is that in which the +family of Colonel Mannering are waiting for the carriage which may or +may not arrive by night to bring an unknown man into a princely +possession. Yet almost the whole of that thrilling scene consists of a +ridiculous conversation about food, and flirtation between a frivolous +old lawyer and a fashionable girl. We can say nothing about what makes +these scenes, except that the wind bloweth where it listeth, and that +here the wind blows strong. + +It is in this quality of what may be called spiritual adventurousness +that Scott stands at so different an elevation to the whole of the +contemporary crop of romancers who have followed the leadership of +Dumas. There has, indeed, been a great and inspiriting revival of +romance in our time, but it is partly frustrated in almost every case by +this rooted conception that romance consists in the vast multiplication +of incidents and the violent acceleration of narrative. The heroes of +Mr. Stanley Weyman scarcely ever have their swords out of their hands; +the deeper presence of romance is far better felt when the sword is at +the hip ready for innumerable adventures too terrible to be pictured. +The Stanley Weyman hero has scarcely time to eat his supper except in +the act of leaping from a window or whilst his other hand is employed in +lunging with a rapier. In Scott's heroes, on the other hand, there is no +characteristic so typical or so worthy of humour as their disposition to +linger over their meals. The conviviality of the Clerk of Copmanhurst +or of Mr. Pleydell, and the thoroughly solid things they are described +as eating, is one of the most perfect of Scott's poetic touches. In +short, Mr. Stanley Weyman is filled with the conviction that the sole +essence of romance is to move with insatiable rapidity from incident to +incident. In the truer romance of Scott there is more of the sentiment +of "Oh! still delay, thou art so fair"! more of a certain patriarchal +enjoyment of things as they are--of the sword by the side and the +wine-cup in the hand. Romance, indeed, does not consist by any means so +much in experiencing adventures as in being ready for them. How little +the actual boy cares for incidents in comparison to tools and weapons +may be tested by the fact that the most popular story of adventure is +concerned with a man who lived for years on a desert island with two +guns and a sword, which he never had to use on an enemy. + +Closely connected with this is one of the charges most commonly brought +against Scott, particularly in his own day--the charge of a fanciful +and monotonous insistence upon the details of armour and costume. The +critic in the _Edinburgh Review_ said indignantly that he could tolerate +a somewhat detailed description of the apparel of Marmion, but when it +came to an equally detailed account of the apparel of his pages and +yeomen the mind could bear it no longer. The only thing to be said about +that critic is that he had never been a little boy. He foolishly +imagined that Scott valued the plume and dagger of Marmion for Marmion's +sake. Not being himself romantic, he could not understand that Scott +valued the plume because it was a plume, and the dagger because it was a +dagger. Like a child, he loved weapons with a manual materialistic love, +as one loves the softness of fur or the coolness of marble. One of the +profound philosophical truths which are almost confined to infants is +this love of things, not for their use or origin, but for their own +inherent characteristics, the child's love of the toughness of wood, the +wetness of water, the magnificent soapiness of soap. So it was with +Scott, who had so much of the child in him. Human beings were perhaps +the principal characters in his stories, but they were certainly not the +only characters. A battle-axe was a person of importance, a castle had a +character and ways of its own. A church bell had a word to say in the +matter. Like a true child, he almost ignored the distinction between the +animate and inanimate. A two-handed sword might be carried only by a +menial in a procession, but it was something important and immeasurably +fascinating--it was a two-handed sword. + +There is one quality which is supreme and continuous in Scott which is +little appreciated at present. One of the values we have really lost in +recent fiction is the value of eloquence. The modern literary artist is +compounded of almost every man except the orator. Yet Shakespeare and +Scott are certainly alike in this, that they could both, if literature +had failed, have earned a living as professional demagogues. The feudal +heroes in the "Waverley Novels" retort upon each other with a passionate +dignity, haughty and yet singularly human, which can hardly be +paralleled in political eloquence except in "Julius Cæsar." With a +certain fiery impartiality which stirs the blood, Scott distributes his +noble orations equally among saints and villains. He may deny a villain +every virtue or triumph, but he cannot endure to deny him a telling +word; he will ruin a man, but he will not silence him. In truth, one of +Scott's most splendid traits is his difficulty, or rather incapacity, +for despising any of his characters. He did not scorn the most revolting +miscreant as the realist of to-day commonly scorns his own hero. Though +his soul may be in rags, every man of Scott can speak like a king. + +This quality, as I have said, is sadly to seek in the fiction of the +passing hour. The realist would, of course, repudiate the bare idea of +putting a bold and brilliant tongue in every man's head, but even where +the moment of the story naturally demands eloquence the eloquence seems +frozen in the tap. Take any contemporary work of fiction and turn to the +scene where the young Socialist denounces the millionaire, and then +compare the stilted sociological lecture given by that self-sacrificing +bore with the surging joy of words in Rob Roy's declaration of himself, +or Athelstane's defiance of De Bracy. That ancient sea of human passion +upon which high words and great phrases are the resplendent foam is just +now at a low ebb. We have even gone the length of congratulating +ourselves because we can see the mud and the monsters at the bottom. + +In politics there is not a single man whose position is due to eloquence +in the first degree; its place is taken by repartees and rejoinders +purely intellectual, like those of an omnibus conductor. In discussing +questions like the farm-burning in South Africa no critic of the war +uses his material as Burke or Grattan (perhaps exaggeratively) would +have used it--the speaker is content with facts and expositions of +facts. In another age he might have risen and hurled that great song in +prose, perfect as prose and yet rising into a chant, which Meg Merrilies +hurled at Ellangowan, at the rulers of Britain: "Ride your ways. Laird +of Ellangowan; ride your ways, Godfrey Bertram--this day have ye +quenched seven smoking hearths. See if the fire in your ain parlour +burns the blyther for that. Ye have riven the thack of seven cottar +houses. Look if your ain roof-tree stands the faster for that. Ye may +stable your stirks in the sheilings of Dern-cleugh. See that the hare +does not couch on the hearthstane of Ellangowan. Ride your ways, Godfrey +Bertram." + +The reason is, of course, that these men are afraid of bombast and Scott +was not. A man will not reach eloquence if he is afraid of bombast, just +as a man will not jump a hedge if he is afraid of a ditch. As the object +of all eloquence is to find the least common denominator of men's souls, +to fall just within the natural comprehension, it cannot obviously have +any chance with a literary ambition which aims at falling just outside +it. It is quite right to invent subtle analyses and detached criticisms, +but it is unreasonable to expect them to be punctuated with roars of +popular applause. It is possible to conceive of a mob shouting any +central and simple sentiment, good or bad, but it is impossible to think +of a mob shouting a distinction in terms. In the matter of eloquence, +the whole question is one of the immediate effect of greatness, such as +is produced even by fine bombast. It is absurd to call it merely +superficial; here there is no question of superficiality; we might as +well call a stone that strikes us between the eyes merely superficial. +The very word "superficial" is founded on a fundamental mistake about +life, the idea that second thoughts are best. The superficial impression +of the world is by far the deepest. What we really feel, naturally and +casually, about the look of skies and trees and the face of friends, +that and that alone will almost certainly remain our vital philosophy to +our dying day. + +Scott's bombast, therefore, will always be stirring to anyone who +approaches it, as he should approach all literature, as a little child. +We could easily excuse the contemporary critic for not admiring +melodramas and adventure stories, and Punch and Judy, if he would admit +that it was a slight deficiency in his artistic sensibilities. Beyond +all question, it marks a lack of literary instinct to be unable to +simplify one's mind at the first signal of the advance of romance. "You +do me wrong," said Brian de Bois-Guilbert to Rebecca. "Many a law, many +a commandment have I broken, but my word, never." "Die," cries Balfour +of Burley to the villain in "Old Mortality." "Die, hoping nothing, +believing nothing--" "And fearing nothing," replies the other. This is +the old and honourable fine art of bragging, as it was practised by the +great worthies of antiquity. The man who cannot appreciate it goes along +with the man who cannot appreciate beef or claret or a game with +children or a brass band. They are afraid of making fools of themselves, +and are unaware that that transformation has already been triumphantly +effected. + +Scott is separated, then, from much of the later conception of fiction +by this quality of eloquence. The whole of the best and finest work of +the modern novelist (such as the work of Mr. Henry James) is primarily +concerned with that delicate and fascinating speech which burrows deeper +and deeper like a mole; but we have wholly forgotten that speech which +mounts higher and higher like a wave and falls in a crashing peroration. +Perhaps the most thoroughly brilliant and typical man of this decade is +Mr. Bernard Shaw. In his admirable play of "Candida" it is clearly a +part of the character of the Socialist clergyman that he should be +eloquent, but he is not eloquent because the whole "G.B.S." condition of +mind renders impossible that poetic simplicity which eloquence requires. +Scott takes his heroes and villains seriously, which is, after all, the +way that heroes and villains take themselves--especially villains. It is +the custom to call these old romantic poses artificial; but the word +artificial is the last and silliest evasion of criticism. There was +never anything in the world that was really artificial. It had some +motive or ideal behind it, and generally a much better one than we +think. + +Of the faults of Scott as an artist it is not very necessary to speak, +for faults are generally and easily pointed out, while there is yet no +adequate valuation of the varieties and contrasts of virtue. We have +compiled a complete botanical classification of the weeds in the +poetical garden, but the flowers still flourish, neglected and nameless. +It is true, for example, that Scott had an incomparably stiff and +pedantic way of dealing with his heroines: he made a lively girl of +eighteen refuse an offer in the language of Dr. Johnson. To him, as to +most men of his time, woman was not an individual, but an institution--a +toast that was drunk some time after that of Church and King. But it is +far better to consider the difference rather as a special merit, in that +he stood for all those clean and bracing shocks of incident which are +untouched by passion or weakness, for a certain breezy bachelorhood, +which is almost essential to the literature of adventure. With all his +faults, and all his triumphs, he stands for the great mass of natural +manliness which must be absorbed into art unless art is to be a mere +luxury and freak. An appreciation of Scott might be made almost a test +of decadence. If ever we lose touch with this one most reckless and +defective writer, it will be a proof to us that we have erected round +ourselves a false cosmos, a world of lying and horrible perfection, +leaving outside of it Walter Scott and that strange old world which is +as confused and as indefensible and as inspiring and as healthy as he. + + + + +BRET HARTE + + +There are more than nine hundred and ninety-nine excellent reasons +which we could all have for admiring the work of Bret Harte. But one +supreme reason stands not in a certain general superiority to them +all--a reason which may be stated in three propositions united in a +common conclusion: first, that he was a genuine American; second, that +he was a genuine humourist; and, third, that he was not an American +humourist. Bret Harte had his own peculiar humour, but it had nothing in +particular to do with American humour. American humour has its own +peculiar excellence, but it has nothing in particular to do with Bret +Harte. American humour is purely exaggerative; Bret Harte's humour was +sympathetic and analytical. + +In order fully to understand this, it is necessary to realise, genuinely +and thoroughly, that there is such a thing as an international +difference in humour. If we take the crudest joke in the world--the +joke, let us say, of a man sitting down on his hat--we shall yet find +that all the nations would differ in their way of treating it +humourously, and that if American humour treated it at all, it would be +in a purely American manner. For example, there was a case of an orator +in the House of Commons, who, after denouncing all the public abuses he +could think of, did sit down on his hat. An Irishman immediately rose, +full of the whole wealth of Irish humour, and said, "Should I be in +order, Sir, in congratulating the honourable gentleman on the fact that +when he sat down on his hat his head was not in it?" Here is a glorious +example of Irish humour--the bull not unconscious, not entirely +conscious, but rather an idea so absurd that even the utterer of it can +hardly realise how abysmally absurd it is. But every other nation would +have treated the idea in a manner slightly different. The Frenchman's +humour would have been logical: he would have said, "The orator +denounces modern abuses and destroys to himself the top-hat: behold a +good example!" What the Scotchman's humour would have said I am not so +certain, but it would probably have dealt with the serious advisability +of making such speeches on top of someone else's hat. But American +humour on such a general theme would be the humour of exaggeration. The +American humourist would say that the English politicians so often sat +down on their hats that the noise of the House of Commons was one +crackle of silk. He would say that when an important orator rose to +speak in the House of Commons, long rows of hatters waited outside the +House with note-books to take down orders from the participants in the +debate. He would say that the whole hat trade of London was disorganised +by the news that a clever remark had been made by a young M. P. on the +subject of the imports of Jamaica. In short, American humour, neither +unfathomably absurd like the Irish, nor transfiguringly lucid and +appropriate like the French, nor sharp and sensible and full of +realities of life like the Scotch, is simply the humour of imagination. +It consists in piling towers on towers and mountains on mountains; of +heaping a joke up to the stars and extending it to the end of the world. + +With this distinctively American humour Bret Harte had little or nothing +in common. The wild, sky-breaking humour of America has its fine +qualities, but it must in the nature of things be deficient in two +qualities, not only of supreme importance to life and letters, but of +supreme importance to humour--reverence and sympathy. And these two +qualities were knit into the closest texture of Bret Harte's humour. +Everyone who has read and enjoyed Mark Twain as he ought to be read and +enjoyed will remember a very funny and irreverent story about an +organist who was asked to play appropriate music to an address upon the +parable of the Prodigal Son, and who proceeded to play with great +spirit, "We'll all get blind drunk, when Johnny comes marching home." +The best way of distinguishing Bret Harte from the rest of American +humour is to say that if Bret Harte had described that scene, it would +in some subtle way have combined a sense of the absurdity of the +incident with some sense of the sublimity and pathos of the theme. You +would have felt that the organist's tune was funny, but not that the +Prodigal Son was funny. But America is under a kind of despotism of +humour. Everyone is afraid of humour: the meanest of human nightmares. +Bret Harte had, to express the matter briefly but more or less +essentially, the power of laughing not only at things, but also with +them. America has laughed at things magnificently, with Gargantuan +reverberations of laughter. But she has not even begun to learn the +richer lesson of laughing with them. + +The supreme proof of the fact that Bret Harte had the instinct of +reverence may be found in the fact that he was a really great parodist. +This may have the appearance of being a paradox, but, as in the case of +many other paradoxes, it is not so important whether it is a paradox as +whether it is not obviously true. Mere derision, mere contempt, never +produced or could produce parody. A man who simply despises Paderewski +for having long hair is not necessarily fitted to give an admirable +imitation of his particular touch on the piano. If a man wishes to +parody Paderewski's style of execution, he must emphatically go through +one process first: he must admire it, and even reverence it. Bret Harte +had a real power of imitating great authors, as in his parodies on +Dumas, on Victor Hugo, on Charlotte Brontë. This means, and can only +mean, that he had perceived the real beauty, the real ambition of Dumas +and Victor Hugo and Charlotte Brontë. To take an example, Bret Harte has +in his imitation of Hugo a passage like this: + +"M. Madeline was, if possible, better than M. Myriel. M. Myriel was an +angel. M. Madeline was a good man." I do not know whether Victor Hugo +ever used this antithesis; but I am certain that he would have used it +and thanked his stars if he had thought of it. This is real parody, +inseparable from admiration. It is the same in the parody of Dumas, +which is arranged on the system of "Aramis killed three of them. Porthos +three. Athos three." You cannot write that kind of thing unless you +have first exulted in the arithmetical ingenuity of the plots of Dumas. +It is the same in the parody of Charlotte Brontë, which opens with a +dream of a storm-beaten cliff, containing jewels and pelicans. Bret +Harte could not have written it unless he had really understood the +triumph of the Brontës, the triumph of asserting that great mysteries +lie under the surface of the most sullen life, and that the most real +part of a man is in his dreams. + +This kind of parody is for ever removed from the purview of ordinary +American humour. Can anyone imagine Mark Twain, that admirable author, +writing even a tolerable imitation of authors so intellectually +individual as Hugo or Charlotte Brontë? Mark Twain would yield to the +spirit of contempt which destroys parody. All those who hate authors +fail to satirise them, for they always accuse them of the wrong faults. +The enemies of Thackeray call him a worldling, instead of what he was, a +man too ready to believe in the goodness of the unworldly. The enemies +of Meredith call his gospel too subtle, instead of what it is, a +gospel, if anything, too robust. And it is this vulgar misunderstanding +which we find in most parody--which we find in all American parody--but +which we never find in the parodies of Bret Harte. + + "The skies they were ashen and sober, + The streets they were dirty and drear, + It was the dark month of October, + In that most immemorial year. + Like the skies, I was perfectly sober, + But my thoughts they were palsied and sear, + Yes, my thoughts were decidedly queer." + +This could only be written by a genuine admirer of Edgar Allan Poe, who +permitted himself for a moment to see the fun of the thing. Parody might +indeed be defined as the worshipper's half-holiday. + +The same general characteristic of sympathy amounting to reverence marks +Bret Harte's humour in his better-known class of works, the short +stories. He does not make his characters absurd in order to make them +contemptible: it might almost be said that he makes them absurd in order +to make them dignified. For example, the greatest creation of Bret +Harte, greater even than Colonel Starbottle (and how terrible it is to +speak of anyone greater than Colonel Starbottle!) is that unutterable +being who goes by the name of Yuba Bill. He is, of course, the +coach-driver in the Bret Harte district. Some ingenious person, whose +remarks I read the other day, had compared him on this ground with old +Mr. Weller. It would be difficult to find a comparison indicating a more +completely futile instinct for literature. Tony Weller and Yuba Bill +were both coach-drivers, and this fact establishes a resemblance just +about as much as the fact that Jobson in "Rob Roy" and George Warrington +in "Pendennis" were both lawyers; or that Antonio and Mr. Pickwick were +both merchants; or that Sir Galahad and Sir Willoughby Patten were both +knights. Tony Weller is a magnificent grotesque. He is a gargoyle, and +his mouth, like the mouths of so many gargoyles, is always open. He is +garrulous, exuberant, flowery, preposterously sociable. He holds that +great creed of the convivial, the creed which is at the back of so much +that is greatest in Dickens, the creed that eternity begins at ten +o'clock at night, and that nights last forever. But Yuba Bill is a +figure of a widely different character. He is not convivial; it might +almost be said that he is too great ever to be sociable. A circle of +quiescence and solitude such as that which might ring a saint or a +hermit rings this majestic and profound humourist. His jokes do not flow +upon him like those of Mr. Weller, sparkling, continual, and deliberate, +like the play of a fountain in a pleasure garden; they fall suddenly and +capriciously, like a crash of avalanches from a great mountain. Tony +Weller has the noisy humour of London, Yuba Bill has the silent humour +of the earth. + +One of the worst of the disadvantages of the rich and random fertility +of Bret Harte is the fact that it is very difficult to trace or recover +all the stories that he has written. I have not within reach at the +moment the story in which the character of Yuba Bill is exhibited in its +most solemn grandeur, but I remember that it concerned a ride on the +San Francisco stage coach, a difficulty arising from storm and darkness, +and an intelligent young man who suggested to Yuba Bill that a certain +manner of driving the coach in a certain direction might minimise the +dangers of the journey. A profound silence followed the intelligent +young man's suggestion, and then (I quote from memory) Yuba Bill +observed at last: + +"Air you settin' any value on that remark?" + +The young man professed not fully to comprehend him, and Yuba Bill +continued reflectively: + +"'Cos there's a comic paper in 'Frisco pays for them things, and I've +seen worse in it." + +To be rebuked thus is like being rebuked by the Pyramids or by the +starry heavens. There is about Yuba Bill this air of a pugnacious calm, +a stepping back to get his distance for a shattering blow, which is like +that of Dr. Johnson at his best. And the effect is inexpressively +increased by the background and the whole picture which Bret Harte +paints so powerfully; the stormy skies, the sombre gorge, the rocking +and spinning coach, and high above the feverish passengers the huge +dark form of Yuba Bill, a silent mountain of humour. + +Another unrecovered and possibly irrecoverable fragment about Yuba Bill, +I recall in a story about his visiting a lad who had once been his +protége in the Wild West, and who had since become a distinguished +literary man in Boston. Yuba Bill visits him, and on finding him in +evening dress lifts up his voice in a superb lamentation over the +tragedy of finding his old friend at last "a 'otel waiter." Then, +vindictively pursuing the satire, he calls fiercely to his young friend, +"Hi, Alphonse! bring me a patty de foy gras, damme." These are the +things that make us love the eminent Bill. He is one of those who +achieve the noblest and most difficult of all the triumphs of a +fictitious character--the triumph of giving us the impression of having +a great deal more in him than appears between the two boards of the +story. Smaller characters give us the impression that the author has +told the whole truth about them, greater characters give the impression +that the author has given of them, not the truth, but merely a few hints +and samples. In some mysterious way we seem to feel that even if +Shakespeare was wrong about Falstaff, Falstaff existed and was real; +that even if Dickens was wrong about Micawber, Micawber existed and was +real. So we feel that there is in the great salt-sea of Yuba Bill's +humour as good fish as ever came out of it. The fleeting jests which +Yuba Bill throws to the coach passengers only give us the opportunity of +fancying and deducing the vast mass of jests which Yuba Bill shares with +his creator. + +Bret Harte had to deal with countries and communities of an almost +unexampled laxity, a laxity passing the laxity of savages, the laxity of +civilised men grown savage. He dealt with a life which we in a venerable +and historic society may find it somewhat difficult to realise. It was +the life of an entirely new people, a people who, having no certain +past, could have no certain future. The strangest of all the sardonic +jests that history has ever played may be found in this fact: that +there is a city which is of all cities the most typical of innovation +and dissipation, and a certain almost splendid vulgarity, and that this +city bears the name in a quaint old European language of the most +perfect exponent of the simplicity and holiness of the Christian +tradition; the city is called San Francisco. San Francisco, the capital +of the Bret Harte country, is a city typifying novelty in a manner in +which it is typified by few modern localities. San Francisco has in all +probability its cathedrals, but it may well be that its cathedrals are +less old and less traditional than many of our hotels. If its +inhabitants built a temple to the most primal and forgotten god of whose +worship we can find a trace, that temple would still be a modern thing +compared with many taverns in Suffolk round which there lingers a faint +tradition of Mr. Pickwick. And everything in that new gold country was +new, even to the individual inhabitants. Good, bad, and indifferent, +heroes and dastards, they were all men from nowhere. + +Most of us have come across the practical problem of London landladies, +the problem of the doubtful foreign gentleman in a street of respectable +English people. Those who have done so can form some idea of what it +would be to live in a street full of doubtful foreign gentlemen, in a +parish, in a city, in a nation composed entirely of doubtful foreign +gentlemen. Old California, at the time of the first rush after gold, was +actually this paradox of the nation of foreigners. It was a republic of +incognitos: no one knew who anyone else was, and only the more +ill-mannered and uneasy even desired to know. In such a country as this, +gentlemen took more trouble to conceal their gentility than thieves +living in South Kensington would take to conceal their blackguardism. In +such a country everyone is an equal, because everyone is a stranger. In +such a country it is not strange if men in moral matters feel something +of the irresponsibility of a dream. To plan plans which are continually +miscarrying against men who are continually disappearing by the +assistance of you know not whom, to crush you know not whom, this must +be a demoralising life for any man; it must be beyond description +demoralising for those who have been trained in no lofty or orderly +scheme of right. Small blame to them indeed if they become callous and +supercilious and cynical. And the great glory and achievement of Bret +Harte consists in this, that he realised that they do not become +callous, supercilious, and cynical, but that they do become sentimental +and romantic, and profoundly affectionate. He discovered the intense +sensibility of the primitive man. To him we owe the realisation of the +fact that while modern barbarians of genius like Mr. Henley, and in his +weaker moments Mr. Rudyard Kipling, delight in describing the coarseness +and crude cynicism and fierce humour of the unlettered classes, the +unlettered classes are in reality highly sentimental and religious, and +not in the least like the creations of Mr. Henley and Mr. Kipling. Bret +Harte tells the truth about the wildest, the grossest, the most +rapacious of all the districts of the earth--the truth that, while it is +very rare indeed in the world to find a thoroughly good man, it is +rarer still, rare to the point of monstrosity, to find a man who does +not either desire to be one, or imagine that he is one already. + + + + +ALFRED THE GREAT + + +The celebrations in connection with the millenary of King Alfred struck +a note of sympathy in the midst of much that was unsympathetic, because, +altogether apart from any peculiar historical opinions, all men feel the +sanctifying character of that which is at once strong and remote; the +ancient thing is always the most homely, and the distant thing the most +near. The only possible peacemaker is a dead man, ever since by the +sublime religious story a dead man only could reconcile heaven and +earth. In a certain sense we always feel the past ages as human, and our +own age as strangely and even weirdly dehumanised. In our own time the +details overpower us; men's badges and buttons seem to grow larger and +larger as in a horrible dream. To study humanity in the present is like +studying a mountain with a magnifying glass; to study it in the past is +like studying it through a telescope. + +For this reason England, like every other great and historic nation, has +sought its typical hero in remote and ill-recorded times. The personal +and moral greatness of Alfred is, indeed, beyond question. It does not +depend any more than the greatness of any other human hero upon the +accuracy of any or all of the stories that are told about him. Alfred +may not have done one of the things which are reported of him, but it is +immeasurably easier to do every one of those things than to be the man +of whom such things are reported falsely. Fable is, generally speaking, +far more accurate than fact, for fable describes a man as he was to his +own age, fact describes him as he is to a handful of inconsiderable +antiquarians many centuries after. Whether Alfred watched the cakes for +the neat-herd's wife, whether he sang songs in the Danish camp, is of no +interest to anyone except those who set out to prove under considerable +disadvantages that they are genealogically descended from him. But the +man is better pictured in these stories than in any number of modern +realistic trivialities about his favourite breakfast and his favourite +musical composer. Fable is more historical than fact, because fact tells +us about one man and fable tells us about a million men. If we read of a +man who could make green grass red and turn the sun into the moon, we +may not believe these particular details about him, but we learn +something infinitely more important than such trivialities, the fact +that men could look into his face and believe it possible. The glory and +greatness of Alfred, therefore, is like that of all the heroes of the +morning of the world, set far beyond the chance of that strange and +sudden dethronement which may arise from the unsealing of a manuscript +or the turning over of a stone. Men may have told lies when they said +that he first entrapped the Danes with his song and then overcame them +with his armies, but we know very well that it is not of us that such +lies are told. There may be myths clustering about each of our +personalities; local saga-men and chroniclers have very likely +circulated the story that we are addicted to drink, or that we +ferociously ill-use our wives. But they do not commonly lie to the +effect that we have shed our blood to save all the inhabitants of the +street. A story grows easily, but a heroic story is not a very easy +thing to evoke. Wherever that exists we may be pretty certain that we +are in the presence of a dark but powerful historic personality. We are +in the presence of a thousand lies all pointing with their fantastic +fingers to one undiscovered truth. + +Upon this ground alone every encouragement is due to the cult of Alfred. +Every nation requires to have behind it some historic personality, the +validity of which is proved, as the validity of a gun is proved, by its +long range. It is wonderful and splendid that we treasure, not the +truth, but the very gossip about a man who died a thousand years ago. We +may say to him, as M. Rostand says to the Austrian Prince: + + "Dors, ce n'est pas toujours la Légende qui ment: + Une rêve est parfois moins trompeur qu'un document." + +To have a man so simple and so honourable to represent us in the +darkness of primeval history, binds all the intervening centuries +together, and mollifies all their monstrosities. It makes all history +more comforting and intelligible; it makes the desolate temple of the +ages as human as an inn parlour. + +But whether it come through reliable facts or through more reliable +falsehoods the personality of Alfred has its own unmistakable colour and +stature. Lord Rosebery uttered a profound truth when he said that that +personality was peculiarly English. The great magnificence of the +English character is expressed in the word "service." There is, perhaps, +no nation so vitally theocratical as the English; no nation in which the +strong men have so consistently preferred the instrumental to the +despotic attitude, the pleasures of the loyal to the pleasures of the +royal position. We have had tyrants like Edward I. and Queen Elizabeth, +but even our tyrants have had the worried and responsible air of +stewards of a great estate. Our typical hero is such a man as the Duke +of Wellington, who had every kind of traditional and external arrogance, +but at the back of all that the strange humility which made it +physically possible for him without a gleam of humour or discomfort to +go on his knees to a preposterous bounder like George IV. Across the +infinite wastes of time and through all the mists of legend we still +feel the presence in Alfred of this strange and unconscious +self-effacement. After the fullest estimate of our misdeeds we can still +say that our very despots have been less self-assertive than many +popular patriots. As we consider these things we grow more and more +impatient of any modern tendencies towards the enthronement of a more +self-conscious and theatrical ideal. Lord Rosebery called up before our +imaginations the picture of what Alfred would have thought of the vast +modern developments of his nation, its immense fleet, its widespread +Empire, its enormous contribution to the mechanical civilisation of the +world. It cannot be anything but profitable to conceive Alfred as full +of astonishment and admiration at these things; it cannot be anything +but good for us that we should realise that to the childlike eyes of a +great man of old time our inventions and appliances have not the +vulgarity and ugliness that we see in them. To Alfred a steamboat would +be a new and sensational sea-dragon, and the penny postage a miracle +achieved by the despotism of a demi-god. + +But when we have realised all this there is something more to be said in +connection with Lord Rosebery's vision. What would King Alfred have said +if he had been asked to expend the money which he devoted to the health +and education of his people upon a struggle with some race of Visigoths +or Parthians inhabiting a small section of a distant continent? What +would he have said if he had known that that science of letters which he +taught to England would eventually be used not to spread truth, but to +drug the people with political assurances as imbecile in themselves as +the assurance that fire does not burn and water does not drown? What +would he have said if the same people who, in obedience to that ideal of +service and sanity of which he was the example, had borne every +privation in order to defeat Napoleon, should come at last to find no +better compliment to one of their heroes than to call him the Napoleon +of South Africa? What would he have said if that nation for which he had +inaugurated a long line of incomparable men of principle should forget +all its traditions and coquette with the immoral mysticism of the man of +destiny? + +Let us follow these things by all means if we find them good, and can +see nothing better. But to pretend that Alfred would have admired them +is like pretending that St. Dominic would have seen eye to eye with Mr. +Bradlaugh, or that Fra Angelico would have revelled in the posters of +Mr. Aubrey Beardsley. Let us follow them if we will, but let us take +honestly all the disadvantages of our change; in the wildest moment of +triumph let us feel the shadow upon our glories of the shame of the +great king. + + + + +MAETERLINCK + + +The selection of "Thoughts from Maeterlinck" is a very creditable and +also a very useful compilation. Many modern critics object to the +hacking and hewing of a consistent writer which is necessary for this +kind of work, but upon more serious consideration, the view is not +altogether adequate. Maeterlinck is a very great man; and in the long +run this process of mutilation has happened to all great men. It was the +mark of a great patriot to be drawn and quartered and his head set on +one spike in one city and his left leg on another spike in another city. +It was the mark of a saint that even these fragments began to work +miracles. So it has been with all the very great men of the world. +However careless, however botchy, may be the version of Maeterlinck or +of anyone else given in such a selection as this, it is assuredly far +less careless and far less botchy than the version, the parody, the +wild misrepresentation of Maeterlinck which future ages will hear and +distant critics be called upon to consider. + +No one can feel any reasonable doubt that we have heard about Christ and +Socrates and Buddha and St. Francis a mere chaos of excerpts, a mere +book of quotations. But from those fragmentary epigrams we can deduce +greatness as clearly as we can deduce Venus from the torso of Venus or +Hercules _ex pede Herculem_. If we knew nothing else about the Founder +of Christianity, for example, beyond the fact that a religious teacher +lived in a remote country, and in the course of his peregrinations and +proclamations consistently called Himself "the Son of Man," we should +know by that alone that he was a man of almost immeasurable greatness. +If future ages happened to record nothing else about Socrates except +that he owned his title to be the wisest of men because he knew that he +knew nothing, they would be able to deduce from that the height and +energy of his civilisation, the glory that was Greece. The credit of +such random compilations as that which "E.S.S." and Mr. George Allen +have just effected is quite secure. It is the pure, pedantic, literal +editions, the complete works of this author or that author which are +forgotten. It is such books as this that have revolutionised the destiny +of the world. Great things like Christianity or Platonism have never +been founded upon consistent editions; all of them have been founded +upon scrap-books. + +The position of Maeterlinck in modern life is a thing too obvious to be +easily determined in words. It is, perhaps, best expressed by saying +that it is the great glorification of the inside of things at the +expense of the outside. There is one great evil in modern life for which +nobody has found even approximately a tolerable description: I can only +invent a word and call it "remotism." It is the tendency to think first +of things which, as a matter of fact, lie far away from the actual +centre of human experience. Thus people say, "All our knowledge of life +begins with the amoeba." It is false; our knowledge of life begins with +ourselves. Thus they say that the British Empire is glorious, and at the +very word Empire they think at once of Australia and New Zealand, and +Canada, and Polar bears, and parrots and kangaroos, and it never occurs +to any one of them to think of the Surrey Hills. The one real struggle +in modern life is the struggle between the man like Maeterlinck, who +sees the inside as the truth, and the man like Zola, who sees the +outside as the truth. A hundred cases might be given. We may take, for +the sake of argument, the case of what is called falling in love. The +sincere realist, the man who believes in a certain finality in physical +science, says, "You may, if you like, describe this thing as a divine +and sacred and incredible vision; that is your sentimental theory about +it. But what it is, is an animal and sexual instinct designed for +certain natural purposes." The man on the other side, the idealist, +replies, with quite equal confidence, that this is the very reverse of +the truth. I put it as it has always struck me; he replies, "Not at all. +You may, if you like, describe this thing as an animal and sexual +instinct, designed for certain natural purposes; that is your +philosophical or zoölogical theory about it. What it is, beyond all +doubt of any kind, is a divine and sacred and incredible vision." The +fact that it is an animal necessity only comes to the naturalistic +philosopher after looking abroad, studying its origins and results, +constructing an explanation of its existence, more or less natural and +conclusive. The fact that it is a spiritual triumph comes to the first +errand boy who happens to feel it. If a lad of seventeen falls in love +and is struck dead by a hansom cab an hour afterwards, he has known the +thing as it is, a spiritual ecstasy; he has never come to trouble about +the thing as it may be, a physical destiny. If anyone says that falling +in love is an animal thing, the answer is very simple. The only way of +testing the matter is to ask those who are experiencing it, and none of +those would admit for a moment that it was an animal thing. + +Maeterlinck's appearance in Europe means primarily this subjective +intensity; by this the materialism is not overthrown: materialism is +undermined. He brings, not something which is more poetic than realism, +not something which is more spiritual than realism, not something which +is more right than realism, but something which is more real than +realism. He discovers the one indestructible thing. This material world +on which such vast systems have been superimposed--this may mean +anything. It may be a dream, it may be a joke, it may be a trap or +temptation, it may be a charade, it may be the beatific vision: the only +thing of which we are certain is this human soul. This human soul finds +itself alone in a terrible world, afraid of the grass. It has brought +forth poetry and religion in order to explain matters; it will bring +them forth again. It matters not one atom how often the lulls of +materialism and scepticism occur; they are always broken by the +reappearance of a fanatic. They have come in our time: they have been +broken by Maeterlinck. + + + + +RUSKIN[2] + + +I do not think anyone could find any fault with the way in which Mr. +Collingwood has discharged his task, except, of course, Mr. Ruskin +himself, who would certainly have scored through all the eulogies in +passionate red ink and declared that his dear friend had selected for +admiration the very parts of his work which were vile, brainless, and +revolting. That, however, was merely Ruskin's humour, and one of the +deepest disappointments with Mr. Collingwood is that he, like everyone +else, fails to appreciate Ruskin as a humourist. Yet he was a great +humourist: half the explosions which are solemnly scolded as "one-sided" +were simply meant to be one-sided, were mere laughing experiments in +language. Like a woman, he saw the humour of his own prejudices, did not +sophisticate them by logic, but deliberately exaggerated them by +rhetoric. One tenth of his paradoxes would have made the fortune of a +modern young man with gloves of an art yellow. He was as fond of +nonsense as Mr. Max Beerbohm. Only ... he was fond of other things too. +He did not ask humanity to dine on pickles. + +But while his kaleidoscope of fancy and epigram gives him some kinship +with the present day, he was essentially of an earlier type: he was the +last of the prophets. With him vanishes the secret of that early +Victorian simplicity which gave a man the courage to mount a pulpit +above the head of his fellows. Many elements, good and bad, have +destroyed it; humility as well as fear, camaraderie as well as +scepticism, have bred in us a desire to give our advice lightly and +persuasively, to mask our morality, to whisper a word and glide away. +The contrast was in some degree typified in the House of Commons under +the last leadership of Mr. Gladstone: the old order with its fist on the +box, and the new order with its feet on the table. Doubtless the wine of +that prophecy was too strong even for the strong heads that carried it. +It made Ruskin capricious and despotic, Tennyson lonely and whimsical, +Carlyle harsh to the point of hatred, and Kingsley often rabid to the +ruin of logic and charity. One alone of that race of giants, the +greatest and most neglected, was sober after the cup. No mission, no +frustration could touch with hysteria the humanity of Robert Browning. + +But though Ruskin seems to close the roll of the militant prophets, we +feel how needful are such figures when we consider with what pathetic +eagerness men pay prophetic honours even to those who disclaim the +prophetic character. Ibsen declares that he only depicts life, that as +far as he is concerned there is nothing to be done, and still armies of +"Ibsenites" rally to the flag and enthusiastically do nothing. I have +found traces of a school which avowedly follows Mr. Henry James: an idea +full of humour. I like to think of a crowd with pikes and torches +shouting passages from "The Awkward Age." It is right and proper for a +multitude to declare its readiness to follow a prophet to the end of the +world, but if he himself explains, with pathetic gesticulations, that +he is only going for a walk in the park, there is not much for the +multitude to do. But the disciple of Ruskin had plenty to do. He made +roads; in his spare moments he studied the whole of geology and botany. +He lifted up paving stones and got down into early Florentine cellars, +where, by hanging upside down, he could catch a glimpse of a Cimabue +unpraisable but by divine silence. He rushed from one end of a city to +the other comparing ceilings. His limbs were weary, his clothes were +torn, and in his eyes was that unfathomable joy of life which man will +never know again until once more he takes himself seriously. + +Mr. Collingwood's excellent chapters on the art criticism of Ruskin +would be better, in my opinion, if they showed more consciousness of the +after revolutions that have reversed, at least in detail, much of +Ruskin's teaching. We no longer think that art became valueless when it +was first corrupted with anatomical accuracy. But if we return to that +Raphaelism to which he was so unjust, let us not fall into the old +error of intelligent reactionaries, that of ignoring our own debt to +revolutions. Ruskin could not destroy the market of Raphaelism, but he +could and did destroy its monopoly. We may go back to the Renaissance, +but let us remember that we go back free. We can picnic now in the ruins +of our dungeon and deride our deliverer. + +But neither in Mr. Collingwood's book nor in Ruskin's own delightful +"Præterita" shall we ever get to the heart of the matter. The work of +Ruskin and his peers remains incomprehensible by the very completeness +of their victory. Fallen forever is that vast brick temple of +Utilitarianism, of which we may find the fragments but never renew the +spell. Liberal Unionists howl in its high places, and in its ruins Mr. +Lecky builds his nest. Its records read with something of the mysterious +arrogance of Chinese: hardly a generation away from us, we read of a +race who believed in the present with the same sort of servile optimism +with which the Oriental believes in the past. It may be that banging his +head against that roof for twenty years did not improve the temper of +the prophet. But he made what he praised in the old Italian +pictures--"an opening into eternity." + +FOOTNOTES: + +[2] "The Life of John Ruskin." By W.G. Collingwood. London: Methuen. + + + + +QUEEN VICTORIA + + +Anyone who possesses spiritual or political courage has made up his mind +to a prospect of immutable mutability; but even in a "transformation" +there is something catastrophic in the removal of the back scene. It is +a truism to say of the wise and noble lady who is gone from us that we +shall always remember her; but there is a subtler and higher compliment +still in confessing that we often forgot her. We forgot her as we forget +the sunshine, as we forget the postulates of an argument, as we commonly +forget our own existence. Mr. Gladstone is the only figure whose loss +prepared us for such earthquakes altering the landscape. But Mr. +Gladstone seemed a fixed and stationary object in our age for the same +reason that one railway train looks stationary from another; because he +and the age of progress were both travelling at the same impetuous rate +of speed. In the end, indeed, it was probably the age that dropped +behind. For a symbol of the Queen's position we must rather recur to the +image of a stretch of scenery, in which she was as a mountain so huge +and familiar that its disappearance would make the landscape round our +own door seem like a land of strangers. She had an inspired genius for +the familiarising virtues; her sympathy and sanity made us feel at home +even in an age of revolutions. That indestructible sense of security +which for good and evil is so typical of our nation, that almost +scornful optimism which, in the matter of ourselves, cannot take peril +or even decadence seriously, reached by far its highest and healthiest +form in the sense that we were watched over by one so thoroughly English +in her silence and self-control, in her shrewd trustfulness and her +brilliant inaction. Over and above those sublime laws of labour and pity +by which she ordered her life, there are a very large number of minor +intellectual matters in which we might learn a lesson from the Queen. +There is one especially which is increasingly needed in an age when +moral claims become complicated and hysterical. That Queen Victoria was +a model of political unselfishness is well known; it is less often +remarked that few modern people have an unselfishness so completely free +from morbidity, so fully capable of deciding a moral question without +exaggerating its importance. No eminent person of our time has been so +utterly devoid of that disease of self-assertion which is often rampant +among the unselfish. She had one most rare and valuable faculty, the +faculty of letting things pass--Acts of Parliament and other things. Her +predecessors, whether honest men or knaves, were attacked every now and +then with a nightmare of despotic responsibility; they suddenly +conceived that it rested with them to save the world and the Protestant +Constitution. Queen Victoria had far too much faith in the world to try +to save it. She knew that Acts of Parliament, even bad Acts of +Parliament, do not destroy nations. But she knew that ignorance, +ill-temper, tyranny, and officiousness do destroy nations, and not upon +any provocation would she set an example in these things. We fancy that +this sense of proportion, this largeness and coolness of intellectual +magnanimity is the one of the thousand virtues of Queen Victoria of +which the near future will stand most in need. We are gaining many new +mental powers, and with them new mental responsibilities. In psychology, +in sociology, above all in education, we are learning to do a great many +clever things. Unless we are much mistaken the next great task will be +to learn not to do them. If that time comes, assuredly we cannot do +better than turn once more to the memory of the great Queen who for +seventy years followed through every possible tangle and distraction the +fairy thread of common sense. + +We are suffering just now from an outbreak of the imagination which +exhibits itself in politics and the most unlikely places. The German +Emperor, for example, is neither a tyrant nor a lunatic, as used to be +absurdly represented; he is simply a minor poet; and he feels just as +any minor poet would feel if he found himself on the throne of +Barbarossa. The revival of militarism and ecclesiasticism is an invasion +of politics by the artistic sense; it is heraldry rather than chivalry +that is lusted after. Amid all this waving of wands and flaunting of +uniforms, all this hedonistic desire to make the most of everything, +there is something altogether quiet and splendid about the sober disdain +with which this simple and courteous lady in a black dress left idle +beside her the sceptre of a hundred tyrants. The heart of the whole +nation warmed as it had never warmed for centuries at the thought of +having in their midst a woman who cared nothing for her rights, and +nothing for those fantastic duties which are more egotistical than +rights themselves. + +The work of the Queen for progressive politics has surely been greatly +underrated. She invented democratic monarchy as much as James Watt +invented the steam engine. William IV., from whom we think of her as +inheriting her Constitutional position, held in fact a position entirely +different to that which she now hands on to Edward VII. William IV. was +a limited monarch; that is to say, he had a definite, open, and +admitted power in politics, but it was a limited power. Queen Victoria +was not a limited monarch; in the only way in which she cared to be a +monarch at all she was as unlimited as Haroun Alraschid. She had +unlimited willing obedience, and unlimited social supremacy. To her +belongs the credit of inventing a new kind of monarchy; in which the +Crown, by relinquishing the whole of that political and legal department +of life which is concerned with coercion, regimentation, and punishment, +was enabled to rise above it and become the symbol of the sweeter and +purer relations of humanity, the social intercourse which leads and does +not drive. Too much cannot be said for the wise audacity and confident +completeness with which the Queen cut away all those cords of political +supremacy to which her predecessors had clung madly as the only stays of +the monarchy. She had her reward. For while William IV.'s supremacy may +be called a survival, it is not too much to say that the Queen's +supremacy might be called a prophecy. By lifting a figure purely human +over the heads of judges and warriors, we uttered in some symbolic +fashion the abiding, if unreasoning, hope which dwells in all human +hearts, that some day we may find a simpler solution of the woes of +nations than the summons and the treadmill, that we may find in some +such influence as the social influence of a woman, what was called in +the noble old language of mediæval monarchy, "a fountain of mercy and a +fountain of honour." + +In the universal reverence paid to the Queen there was hardly anywhere a +touch of snobbishness. Snobbishness, in so far as it went out towards +former sovereigns, went out to them as aristocrats rather than as kings, +as heads of that higher order of men, who were almost angels or demons +in their admitted superiority to common lines of conduct. This kind of +reverence was always a curse: nothing can be conceived as worse for the +mass of the people than that they should think the morality for which +they have to struggle an inferior morality, a thing unfitted for a +haughtier class. But of this patrician element there was hardly a trace +in the dignity of the Queen. Indeed, the degree to which the middle and +lower classes took her troubles and problems to their hearts was almost +grotesque in its familiarity. No one thought of the Queen as an +aristocrat like the Duke of Devonshire, or even as a member of the +governing classes like Mr. Chamberlain. Men thought of her as something +nearer to them even in being further off; as one who was a good queen, +and who would have been, had her fate demanded, with equal cheerfulness, +a good washerwoman. Herein lay her unexampled triumph, the greatest and +perhaps the last triumph of monarchy. Monarchy in its healthiest days +had the same basis as democracy: the belief in human nature when +entrusted with power. A king was only the first citizen who received the +franchise. + +Both royalty and religion have been accused of despising humanity, and +in practice it has been too often true; but after all both the +conception of the prophet and that of the king were formed by paying +humanity the supreme compliment of selecting from it almost at random. +This daring idea that a healthy human being, when thrilled by all the +trumpets of a great trust, would rise to the situation, has often been +tested, but never with such complete success as in the case of our dead +Queen. On her was piled the crushing load of a vast and mystical +tradition, and she stood up straight under it. Heralds proclaimed her as +the anointed of God, and it did not seem presumptuous. Brave men died in +thousands shouting her name, and it did not seem unnatural. No mere +intellect, no mere worldly success could, in this age of bold inquiry, +have sustained that tremendous claim; long ago we should have stricken +Cæsar and dethroned Napoleon. But these glories and these sacrifices did +not seem too much to celebrate a hardworking human nature; they were +possible because at the heart of our Empire was nothing but a defiant +humility. If the Queen had stood for any novel or fantastic imperial +claims, the whole would have seemed a nightmare; the whole was +successful because she stood, and no one could deny that she stood, for +the humblest, the shortest and the most indestructible of human gospels, +that when all troubles and troublemongers have had their say, our work +can be done till sunset, our life can be lived till death. + + + + +THE GERMAN EMPEROR + + +The list of the really serious, the really convinced, the really +important and comprehensible people now alive includes, as most +Englishmen would now be prepared to admit, the German Emperor. He is a +practical man and a poet. I do not know whether there are still people +in existence who think there is some kind of faint antithesis between +these two characters; but I incline to think there must be, because of +the surprise which the career of the German Emperor has generally +evoked. When he came to the throne it became at once apparent that he +was poetical; people assumed in consequence that he was unpractical; +that he would plunge Europe into war, that he would try to annex France, +that he would say he was the Emperor of Russia, that he would stand on +his head in the Reichstag, that he would become a pirate on the Spanish +Main. Years upon years have passed; he has gone on making speeches, he +has gone on talking about God and his sword, he has poured out an ever +increased rhetoric and æstheticism. And yet all the time people have +slowly and surely realised that he knows what he is about, that he is +one of the best friends of peace, that his influence on Europe is not +only successful, but in many ways good, that he knows what world he is +living in better than a score of materialists. + +The explanation never comes to them--he is a poet; therefore, a +practical man. The affinity of the two words, merely as words, is much +nearer than many people suppose, for the matter of that. There is one +Greek word for "I do" from which we get the word practical, and another +Greek word for "I do" from which we get the word poet. I was doubtless +once informed of a profound difference between the two, but I have +forgotten it. The two words practical and poetical may mean two subtly +different things in that old and subtle language, but they mean the same +in English and the same in the long run. It is ridiculous to suppose +that the man who can understand the inmost intricacies of a human being +who has never existed at all cannot make a guess at the conduct of man +who lives next door. It is idle to say that a man who has himself felt +the mad longing under the mad moon for a vagabond life cannot know why +his son runs away to sea. It is idle to say that a man who has himself +felt the hunger for any kind of exhilaration, from angel or devil, +cannot know why his butler takes to drink. It is idle to say that a man +who has been fascinated with the wild fastidiousness of destiny does not +know why stockbrokers gamble, to say that a man who has been knocked +into the middle of eternal life by a face in a crowd does not know why +the poor marry young; that a man who found his path to all things kindly +and pleasant blackened and barred suddenly by the body of a man does not +know what it is to desire murder. It is idle, in short, for a man who +has created men to say that he does not understand them. A man who is a +poet may, of course, easily make mistakes in these personal and +practical relations; such mistakes and similar ones have been made by +poets; such mistakes and greater ones have been made by soldiers and +statesmen and men of business. But in so far as a poet is in these +things less of a practical man he is also less of a poet. + +If Shakespeare really married a bad wife when he had conceived the +character of Beatrice he ought to have been ashamed of himself: he had +failed not only in his life, he had failed in his art. If Balzac got +into rows with his publishers he ought to be rebuked and not +commiserated, having evolved so many consistent business men from his +own inside. The German Emperor is a poet, and therefore he succeeds, +because poetry is so much nearer to reality than all the other human +occupations. He is a poet, and succeeds because the majority of men are +poets. It is true, if that matter is at all important, that the German +Emperor is not a good poet. The majority of men are poets, only they +happen to be bad poets. The German Emperor fails ridiculously, if that +is all that is in question, in almost every one of the artistic +occupations to which he addresses himself: he is neither a first-rate +critic, nor a first-rate musician, nor a first-rate painter, nor a +first-rate poet. He is a twelfth-rate poet, but because he is a poet at +all he knocks to pieces all the first-rate politicians in the war of +politics. + +Having made clear my position so far, I discover with a certain amount +of interest that I have not yet got to the subject of these remarks. The +German Emperor is a poet, and although, as far as I know, every line he +ever wrote may be nonsense, he is a poet in this real sense, that he has +realised the meaning of every function he has performed. Why should we +jeer at him because he has a great many uniforms, for instance? The very +essence of the really imaginative man is that he realises the various +types or capacities in which he can appear. Every one of us, or almost +every one of us, does in reality fulfil almost as many offices as +Pooh-Bah. Almost every one of us is a ratepayer, an immortal soul, an +Englishman, a baptised person, a mammal, a minor poet, a juryman, a +married man, a bicyclist, a Christian, a purchaser of newspapers, and a +critic of Mr. Alfred Austin. We ought to have uniforms for all these +things. How beautiful it would be if we appeared to-morrow in the +uniform of a ratepayer, in brown and green, with buttons made in the +shape of coins, and a blue income-tax paper tastefully arranged as a +favour; or, again, if we appeared dressed as immortal souls, in a blue +uniform with stars. It would be very exciting to dress up as Englishmen, +or to go to a fancy dress ball as Christians. + +Some of the costumes I have suggested might appear a little more +difficult to carry out. The dress of a person who purchases newspapers +(though it mostly consists of coloured evening editions arranged in a +stiff skirt, like that of a saltatrice, round the waist of the wearer) +has many mysterious points. The attire of a person prepared to criticise +the Poet Laureate is something so awful and striking that I dare not +even begin to describe it; the one fact which I am willing to reveal, +and to state seriously and responsibly, is that it buttons up behind. + +But most assuredly we ought not to abuse the Kaiser because he is fond +of putting on all his uniforms; he does so because he has a large number +of established and involuntary incarnations. He tries to do his duty in +that state of life to which it shall please God to call him; and it so +happens that he has been called to as many different estates as there +are regiments in the German Army. He is a huntsman and proud of being a +huntsman, an engineer and proud of being an engineer, an infantry +soldier and proud of being so, a light horseman and proud of being so. +There is nothing wrong in all this; the only wrong thing is that it +should be confined to the merely destructive arts of war. The sight of +the German Kaiser in the most magnificent of the uniforms in which he +had led armies to victory is not in itself so splendid or delightful as +that of many other sights which might come before us without a whisper +of the alarms of war. It is not so splendid or delightful as the sight +of an ordinary householder showing himself in that magnificent uniform +of purple and silver which should signalise the father of three +children. It is not so splendid or delightful as the appearance of a +young clerk in an insurance office decorated with those three long +crimson plumes which are the well-known insignia of a gentleman who is +just engaged to be married. Nor can it compare with the look of a man +wearing the magnificent green and silver armour by which we know one who +has induced an acquaintance to give up getting drunk, or the blue and +gold which is only accorded to persons who have prevented fights in the +street. We belong to quite as many regiments as the German Kaiser. Our +regiments are regiments that are embattled everywhere; they fight an +unending fight against all that is hopeless and rapacious and of evil +report. The only difference is that we have the regiments, but not the +uniforms. + +Only one obvious point occurs to me to add. If the Kaiser has more than +any other man the sense of the poetry of the ancient things, the sword, +the crown, the ship, the nation, he has the sense of the poetry of +modern things also. He has one sense, and it is even a joke against +him. He feels the poetry of one thing that is more poetic than sword or +crown or ship or nation, the poetry of the telegram. No one ever sent a +telegram who did not feel like a god. He is a god, for he is a minor +poet; a minor poet, but a poet still. + + + + +TENNYSON + + +Mr. Morton Luce has written a short study of Tennyson which has +considerable cultivation and suggestiveness, which will be sufficient to +serve as a notebook for Tennyson's admirers, but scarcely sufficient, +perhaps, to serve as a pamphlet against his opponents. If a critic has, +as he ought to have, any of the functions anciently attributed to a +prophet, it ought not to be difficult for him to prophesy that Tennyson +will pass through a period of facile condemnation and neglect before we +arrive at the true appreciation of his work. The same thing has happened +to the most vigorous of essayists, Macaulay, and the most vigorous of +romancers, Dickens, because we live in a time when mere vigour is +considered a vulgar thing. The same idle and frigid reaction will almost +certainly discredit the stateliness and care of Tennyson, as it has +discredited the recklessness and inventiveness of Dickens. It is only +necessary to remember that no action can be discredited by a reaction. + +The attempts which have been made to discredit the poetical position of +Tennyson are in the main dictated by an entire misunderstanding of the +nature of poetry. When critics like Matthew Arnold, for example, suggest +that his poetry is deficient in elaborate thought, they only prove, as +Matthew Arnold proved, that they themselves could never be great poets. +It is no valid accusation against a poet that the sentiment he expresses +is commonplace. Poetry is always commonplace; it is vulgar in the +noblest sense of that noble word. Unless a man can make the same kind of +ringing appeal to absolute and admitted sentiments that is made by a +popular orator, he has lost touch with emotional literature. Unless he +is to some extent a demagogue, he cannot be a poet. A man who expresses +in poetry new and strange and undiscovered emotions is not a poet; he is +a brain specialist. Tennyson can never be discredited before any serious +tribunal of criticism because the sentiments and thoughts to which he +dedicates himself are those sentiments and thoughts which occur to +anyone. These are the peculiar province of poetry; poetry, like +religion, is always a democratic thing, even if it pretends the +contrary. The faults of Tennyson, so far as they existed, were not half +so much in the common character of his sentiments as in the arrogant +perfection of his workmanship. He was not by any means so wrong in his +faults as he was in his perfections. + +Men are very much too ready to speak of men's work being ordinary, when +we consider that, properly considered, every man is extraordinary. The +average man is a tribal fable, like the Man-Wolf or the Wise Man of the +Stoics. In every man's heart there is a revolution; how much more in +every poet's? The supreme business of criticism is to discover that part +of a man's work which is his and to ignore that part which belongs to +others. Why should any critic of poetry spend time and attention on that +part of a man's work which is unpoetical? Why should any man be +interested in aspects which are uninteresting? The business of a critic +is to discover the importance of men and not their crimes. It is true +that the Greek word critic carries with it the meaning of a judge, and +up to this point of history judges have had to do with the valuation of +men's sins, and not with the valuation of their virtues. + +Tennyson's work, disencumbered of all that uninteresting accretion which +he had inherited or copied, resolves itself, like that of any other man +of genius, into those things which he really inaugurated. Underneath all +his exterior of polished and polite rectitude there was in him a genuine +fire of novelty; only that, like all the able men of his period, he +disguised revolution under the name of evolution. He is only a very +shallow critic who cannot see an eternal rebel in the heart of the +Conservative. + +Tennyson had certain absolutely personal ideas, as much his own as the +ideas of Browning or Meredith, though they were fewer in number. One of +these, for example, was the fact that he was the first of all poets (and +perhaps the last) to attempt to treat poetically that vast and monstrous +vision of fact which science had recently revealed to mankind. +Scientific discoveries seem commonly fables as fantastic in the ears of +poets as poems in the ears of men of science. The poet is always a +Ptolemaist; for him the sun still rises and the earth stands still. +Tennyson really worked the essence of modern science into his poetical +constitution, so that its appalling birds and frightful flowers were +really part of his literary imagery. To him blind and brutal monsters, +the products of the wild babyhood of the Universe, were as the daisies +and the nightingales were to Keats; he absolutely realised the great +literary paradox mentioned in the Book of Job: "He saw Behemoth, and he +played with him as with a bird." + +Instances of this would not be difficult to find. But the tests of +poetry are those instances in which this outrageous scientific +phraseology becomes natural and unconscious. Tennyson wrote one of his +own exquisite lyrics describing the exultation of a lover on the evening +before his bridal day. This would be an occasion, if ever there was one, +for falling back on those ancient and assured falsehoods of the domed +heaven and the flat earth in which generations of poets have made us +feel at home. We can imagine the poet in such a lyric saluting the +setting sun and prophesying the sun's resurrection. There is something +extraordinarily typical of Tennyson's scientific faith in the fact that +this, one of the most sentimental and elemental of his poems, opens with +the two lines: + + "Move eastward, happy earth, and leave + Yon orange sunset waning slow." + +Rivers had often been commanded to flow by poets, and flowers to blossom +in their season, and both were doubtless grateful for the permission. +But the terrestrial globe of science has only twice, so far as we know, +been encouraged in poetry to continue its course, one instance being +that of this poem, and the other the incomparable "Address to the +Terrestrial Globe" in the "Bab Ballads." + +There was, again, another poetic element entirely peculiar to Tennyson, +which his critics have, in many cases, ridiculously confused with a +fault. This was the fact that Tennyson stood alone among modern poets +in the attempt to give a poetic character to the conception of Liberal +Conservatism, of splendid compromise. The carping critics who have +abused Tennyson for this do not see that it was far more daring and +original for a poet to defend conventionality than to defend a cart-load +of revolutions. His really sound and essential conception of Liberty, + + "Turning to scorn with lips divine + The falsehood of extremes," + +is as good a definition of Liberalism as has been uttered in poetry in +the Liberal century. Moderation is _not_ a compromise; moderation is a +passion; the passion of great judges. That Tennyson felt that lyrical +enthusiasm could be devoted to established customs, to indefensible and +ineradicable national constitutions, to the dignity of time and the +empire of unutterable common sense, all this did not make him a tamer +poet, but an infinitely more original one. Any poetaster can describe a +thunderstorm; it requires a poet to describe the ancient and quiet sky. + + +I cannot, indeed, fall in with Mr. Morton Luce in his somewhat frigid +and patrician theory of poetry. "Dialect," he says, "mostly falls below +the dignity of art." I cannot feel myself that art has any dignity +higher than the indwelling and divine dignity of human nature. Great +poets like Burns were far more undignified when they clothed their +thoughts in what Mr. Morton Luce calls "the seemly raiment of cultured +speech" than when they clothed them in the headlong and flexible patois +in which they thought and prayed and quarrelled and made love. If +Tennyson failed (which I do not admit) in such poems as "The Northern +Farmer," it was not because he used too much of the spirit of the +dialect, but because he used too little. + +Tennyson belonged undoubtedly to a period from which we are divided; the +period in which men had queer ideas of the antagonism of science and +religion; the period in which the Missing Link was really missing. But +his hold upon the old realities of existence never wavered; he was the +apostle of the sanctity of laws, of the sanctity of customs; above all, +like every poet, he was the apostle of the sanctity of words. + + + + +ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING + + +The delightful new edition of Mrs. Browning's "Casa Guidi Windows" which +Mr. John Lane has just issued ought certainly to serve as an opportunity +for the serious criticism and inevitable admiration to which a great +poet is entitled. For Mrs. Browning was a great poet, and not, as is +idly and vulgarly supposed, only a great poetess. The word poetess is +bad English, and it conveys a particularly bad compliment. Nothing is +more remarkable about Mrs. Browning's work than the absence of that +trite and namby-pamby elegance which the last two centuries demanded +from lady writers. Wherever her verse is bad it is bad from some +extravagance of imagery, some violence of comparison, some kind of +debauch of cleverness. Her nonsense never arises from weakness, but from +a confusion of powers. If the phrase explain itself, she is far more a +great poet than she is a good one. + +Mrs. Browning often appears more luscious and sentimental than many +other literary women, but this was because she was stronger. It requires +a certain amount of internal force to break down. A complete +self-humiliation requires enormous strength, more strength than most of +us possess. When she was writing the poetry of self-abandonment she +really abandoned herself with the valour and decision of an anchorite +abandoning the world. Such a couplet as: + + "Our Euripides, the human, + With his dropping of warm tears," + +gives to most of us a sickly and nauseous sensation. Nothing can be well +conceived more ridiculous than Euripides going about dropping tears with +a loud splash, and Mrs. Browning coming after him with a thermometer. +But the one emphatic point about this idiotic couplet is that Mrs. +Hemans would never have written it. She would have written something +perfectly dignified, perfectly harmless, perfectly inconsiderable. Mrs. +Browning was in a great and serious difficulty. She really meant +something. She aimed at a vivid and curious image, and she missed it. +She had that catastrophic and public failure which is, as much as a +medal or a testimonial, the badge of the brave. + +In spite of the tiresome half-truth that art is unmoral, the arts +require a certain considerable number of moral qualities, and more +especially all the arts require courage. The art of drawing, for +example, requires even a kind of physical courage. Anyone who has tried +to draw a straight line and failed knows that he fails chiefly in nerve, +as he might fail to jump off a cliff. And similarly all great literary +art involves the element of risk, and the greatest literary artists have +commonly been those who have run the greatest risk of talking nonsense. +Almost all great poets rant, from Shakespeare downwards. Mrs. Browning +was Elizabethan in her luxuriance and her audacity, and the gigantic +scale of her wit. We often feel with her as we feel with Shakespeare, +that she would have done better with half as much talent. The great +curse of the Elizabethans is upon her, that she cannot leave anything +alone, she cannot write a single line without a conceit: + + "And the eyes of the peacock fans + Winked at the alien glory," + +she said of the Papal fans in the presence of the Italian tricolour: + + "And a royal blood sends glances up her princely eye to trouble, + And the shadow of a monarch's crown is softened in her hair," + +is her description of a beautiful and aristocratic lady. The notion of +peacock feathers winking like so many London urchins is perhaps one of +her rather aggressive and outrageous figures of speech. The image of a +woman's hair as the softened shadow of a crown is a singularly vivid and +perfect one. But both have the same quality of intellectual fancy and +intellectual concentration. They are both instances of a sort of +ethereal epigram. This is the great and dominant characteristic of Mrs. +Browning, that she was significant alike in failure and success. Just as +every marriage in the world, good or bad, is a marriage, dramatic, +irrevocable, and big with coming events, so every one of her wild +weddings between alien ideas is an accomplished fact which produces a +certain effect on the imagination, which has for good or evil become +part and parcel of our mental vision forever. She gives the reader the +impression that she never declined a fancy, just as some gentlemen of +the eighteenth century never declined a duel. When she fell it was +always because she missed the foothold, never because she funked the +leap. + +"Casa Guidi Windows" is, in one aspect, a poem very typical of its +author. Mrs. Browning may fairly be called the peculiar poet of +Liberalism, of that great movement of the first half of the nineteenth +century towards the emancipation of men from ancient institutions which +had gradually changed their nature, from the houses of refuge which had +turned into dungeons, and the mystic jewels which remained only as +fetters. It was not what we ordinarily understand by revolt. It had no +hatred in its heart for ancient and essentially human institutions. It +had that deeply conservative belief in the most ancient of institutions, +the average man, which goes by the name of democracy. It had none of +the spirit of modern Imperialism which is kicking a man because he is +down. But, on the other hand, it had none of the spirit of modern +Anarchism and scepticism which is kicking a man merely because he is up. +It was based fundamentally on a belief in the destiny of humanity, +whether that belief took an irreligious form, as in Swinburne, or a +religious form, as in Mrs. Browning. It had that rooted and natural +conviction that the Millennium was coming to-morrow which has been the +conviction of all iconoclasts and reformers, and for which some +rationalists have been absurd enough to blame the early Christians. But +they had none of that disposition to pin their whole faith to some +black-and-white scientific system which afterwards became the curse of +philosophical Radicalism. They were not like the sociologists who lay +down a final rectification of things, amounting to nothing except an end +of the world, a great deal more depressing than would be the case if it +were knocked to pieces by a comet. Their ideal, like the ideal of all +sensible people, was a chaotic and confused notion of goodness made up +of English primroses and Greek statues, birds singing in April, and +regiments being cut to pieces for a flag. They were neither Radicals nor +Socialists, but Liberals, and a Liberal is a noble and indispensable +lunatic who tries to make a cosmos of his own head. + +Mrs. Browning and her husband were more liberal than most Liberals. +Theirs was the hospitality of the intellect and the hospitality of the +heart, which is the best definition of the term. They never fell into +the habit of the idle revolutionists of supposing that the past was bad +because the future was good, which amounted to asserting that because +humanity had never made anything but mistakes it was now quite certain +to be right. Browning possessed in a greater degree than any other man +the power of realising that all conventions were only victorious +revolutions. He could follow the mediæval logicians in all their sowing +of the wind and reaping of the whirlwind with all that generous ardour +which is due to abstract ideas. He could study the ancients with the +young eyes of the Renaissance and read a Greek grammar like a book of +love lyrics. This immense and almost confounding Liberalism of Browning +doubtless had some effect upon his wife. In her vision of New Italy she +went back to the image of Ancient Italy like an honest and true +revolutionist; for does not the very word "revolution" mean a rolling +backward. All true revolutions are reversions to the natural and the +normal. A revolutionist who breaks with the past is a notion fit for an +idiot. For how could a man even wish for something which he had never +heard of? Mrs. Browning's inexhaustible sympathy with all the ancient +and essential passions of humanity was nowhere more in evidence than in +her conception of patriotism. For some dark reason, which it is +difficult indeed to fathom, belief in patriotism in our day is held to +mean principally a belief in every other nation abandoning its patriotic +feelings. In the case of no other passion does this weird contradiction +exist. Men whose lives are mainly based upon friendship sympathise with +the friendships of others. The interest of engaged couples in each other +is a proverb, and like many other proverbs sometimes a nuisance. In +patriotism alone it is considered correct just now to assume that the +sentiment does not exist in other people. It was not so with the great +Liberals of Mrs. Browning's time. The Brownings had, so to speak, a +disembodied talent for patriotism. They loved England and they loved +Italy; yet they were the very reverse of cosmopolitans. They loved the +two countries as countries, not as arbitrary divisions of the globe. +They had hold of the root and essence of patriotism. They knew how +certain flowers and birds and rivers pass into the mills of the brain +and come out as wars and discoveries, and how some triumphant adventure +or some staggering crime wrought in a remote continent may bear about it +the colour of an Italian city or the soul of a silent village of Surrey. + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Varied Types, by G. K. Chesterton + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 14203 *** diff --git a/14203-h/14203-h.htm b/14203-h/14203-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..5701b01 --- /dev/null +++ b/14203-h/14203-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,3785 @@ +<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?> +<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> + +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> + <head> + <title> + The Project Gutenberg eBook of Varied Types, by G.K. Chesterton. + </title> + <style type="text/css"> +/*<![CDATA[ XML blockout */ +<!-- + p { margin-top: .75em; + text-align: justify; + margin-bottom: .75em; + } + h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6 { + text-align: center; /* all headings centered */ + clear: both; + } + hr {text-align: center; width: 50%;} + html>body hr {margin-right: 25%; margin-left: 25%; width: 50%;} + hr.full {width: 80%; margin-top: 2em; margin-bottom: 2em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; clear: both;} + html>body hr.full {margin-right: 10%; margin-left: 10%; width: 80%;} + hr.short {text-align: center; width: 20%;} + html>body hr.short {margin-right: 40%; margin-left: 40%; width: 20%;} + + table {margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;font-variant: small-caps;} + + body{margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; + } + + .linenum {position: absolute; top: auto; left: 4%;} /* poetry number */ + .blockquot{margin-left: 5%; margin-right: 10%;} + .pagenum {position: absolute; left: 92%; font-size: smaller; text-align: right;} /* page numbers */ + .sidenote {width: 20%; padding-bottom: .5em; padding-top: .5em; + padding-left: .5em; padding-right: .5em; margin-left: 1em; + float: right; clear: right; margin-top: 1em; + font-size: smaller; background: #eeeeee; border: dashed 1px;} + + .bb {border-bottom: solid 2px;} + .bl {border-left: solid 2px;} + .bt {border-top: solid 2px;} + .br {border-right: solid 2px;} + .bbox {border: solid 2px;} + + .center {text-align: center;} + .smcap {font-variant: small-caps;} + + .figcenter {margin: auto; text-align: center;} + + .figleft {float: left; clear: left; margin-left: 0; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-top: + 1em; margin-right: 1em; padding: 0; text-align: center;} + + .figright {float: right; clear: right; margin-left: 1em; margin-bottom: 1em; + margin-top: 1em; margin-right: 0; padding: 0; text-align: center;} + + .footnotes {border: dashed 1px;} + .footnote {margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; font-size: 0.9em;} + .footnote .label {position: absolute; right: 84%; text-align: right;} + .fnanchor {vertical-align: super; font-size: .8em; text-decoration: none;} + + .poem {margin-left:10%; margin-right:10%; text-align: left;} + .poem br {display: none;} + .poem .stanza {margin: 1em 0em 1em 0em;} + .poem span {display: block; margin: 0; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;} + .poem span.i2 {display: block; margin-left: 2em;} + .poem span.i4 {display: block; margin-left: 4em;} + // --> + /* XML end ]]>*/ + </style> + </head> +<body> +<div>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 14203 ***</div> + +<p class="figcenter"><img src="images/cover.png" alt="Cover Illustration" title="Cover Illustration" /></p> + + +<h1><i>Varied Types</i></h1> + +<h3><i>By</i></h3> + +<h2>G.K. Chesterton</h2> + +<h5>Author <i>of</i> "The Defendant," etc.</h5> + +<h5>New York: <i>Dodd, Mead and Company</i></h5> + +<h5 class="smcap">Published September, 1905</h5> + + +<hr class="full" /> + + +<h4>NOTE</h4> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>These papers, with certain alterations and additions, are reprinted +with the kind permission of the Editors of <i>The Daily News</i> and <i>The +Speaker</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>G. K. C.</p></div> + +<div class="blockquot"><p class="smcap">Kensington.</p></div> + +<p class="figcenter"><img src="images/frontispiece.png" alt="G. K. Chesterton" title="G. K. Chesterton" /></p> +<p class="figcenter">G. K. Chesterton</p> +<hr class="full" /> +<h2>CONTENTS</h2> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" summary="Table of Contents"> +<tr><td align='left'> </td><td align='right'>Page</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#CHARLOTTE_BRONTE">Charlotte Brontë</a></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_3">3</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#WILLIAM_MORRIS_AND_HIS_SCHOOL">William Morris And His School</a></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_15">15</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#OPTIMISM_OF_BYRON">The Optimism Of Byron</a></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_29">29</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#POPE_AND_THE_ART_OF_SATIRE">Pope And The Art Of Satire</a></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_43">43</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#FRANCIS">Francis</a></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_59">59</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#ROSTAND">Rostand</a></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_73">73</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#CHARLES_II">Charles II.</a></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_85">85</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#STEVENSON1">Stevenson</a></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_97">97</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#THOMAS_CARLYLE">Thomas Carlyle</a></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_109">109</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#TOLSTOY_AND_THE_CULT_OF_SIMPLICITY">Tolstoy And The Cult Of Simplicity</a></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_125">125</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#SAVONAROLA">Savonarola</a></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_147">147</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#THE_POSITION_OF_SIR_WALTER_SCOTT">The Position Of Sir Walter Scott</a></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_159">159</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#BRET_HARTE">Bret Harte</a></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_179">179</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#ALFRED_THE_GREAT">Alfred The Great</a></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_199">199</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#MAETERLINCK">Maeterlinck</a></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_209">209</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#RUSKIN2">Ruskin</a></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_217">217</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#QUEEN_VICTORIA">Queen Victoria</a></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_225">225</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#THE_GERMAN_EMPEROR">The German Emperor</a></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_227">227</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#TENNYSON">Tennyson</a></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_249">249</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#ELIZABETH_BARRETT_BROWNING">Elizabeth Barrett Browning</a></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_261">261</a></td></tr> +</table> + + +<p><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1"></a><a name="Page_2" id="Page_2"></a><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3"></a></p> + + +<hr class="full" /> +<h2><a name="CHARLOTTE_BRONTE" id="CHARLOTTE_BRONTE"></a>CHARLOTTE BRONTË</h2> + + +<p>Objection is often raised against realistic biography because it reveals +so much that is important and even sacred about a man's life. The real +objection to it will rather be found in the fact that it reveals about a +man the precise points which are unimportant. It reveals and asserts and +insists on exactly those things in a man's life of which the man himself +is wholly unconscious; his exact class in society, the circumstances of +his ancestry, the place of his present location. These are things which +do not, properly speaking, ever arise before the human vision. They do +not occur to a man's mind; it may be said, with almost equal truth, that +they do not occur in a man's life. A man no more thinks about himself as<a name="Page_4" id="Page_4"></a> +the inhabitant of the third house in a row of Brixton villas than he +thinks about himself as a strange animal with two legs. What a man's +name was, what his income was, whom he married, where he lived, these +are not sanctities; they are irrelevancies.</p> + +<p>A very strong case of this is the case of the Brontës. The Brontë is in +the position of the mad lady in a country village; her eccentricities +form an endless source of innocent conversation to that exceedingly mild +and bucolic circle, the literary world. The truly glorious gossips of +literature, like Mr. Augustine Birrell and Mr. Andrew Lang, never tire +of collecting all the glimpses and anecdotes and sermons and side-lights +and sticks and straws which will go to make a Brontë museum. They are +the most personally discussed of all Victorian authors, and the +limelight of biography has left few darkened corners in the dark old +Yorkshire house. And yet the whole of this biographical investigation, +though natural and picturesque, is not wholly suitable to the Brontës. +For the Brontë genius was above all things deputed to assert the supreme<a name="Page_5" id="Page_5"></a> +unimportance of externals. Up to that point truth had always been +conceived as existing more or less in the novel of manners. Charlotte +Brontë electrified the world by showing that an infinitely older and +more elemental truth could be conveyed by a novel in which no person, +good or bad, had any manners at all. Her work represents the first great +assertion that the humdrum life of modern civilisation is a disguise as +tawdry and deceptive as the costume of a <i>bal masqué</i>. She showed that +abysses may exist inside a governess and eternities inside a +manufacturer; her heroine is the commonplace spinster, with the dress of +merino and the soul of flame. It is significant to notice that Charlotte +Brontë, following consciously or unconsciously the great trend of her +genius, was the first to take away from the heroine not only the +artificial gold and diamonds of wealth and fashion, but even the natural +gold and diamonds of physical beauty and grace. Instinctively she felt +that the whole of the exterior <a name="Page_6" id="Page_6"></a>must be made ugly that the whole of the +interior might be made sublime. She chose the ugliest of women in the +ugliest of centuries, and revealed within them all the hells and heavens +of Dante.</p> + +<p>It may, therefore, I think, be legitimately said that the externals of +the Brontës' life, though singularly picturesque in themselves, matter +less than the externals of almost any other writers. It is interesting +to know whether Jane Austen had any knowledge of the lives of the +officers and women of fashion whom she introduced into her masterpieces. +It is interesting to know whether Dickens had ever seen a shipwreck or +been inside a workhouse. For in these authors much of the conviction is +conveyed, not always by adherence to facts, but always by grasp of them. +But the whole aim and purport and meaning of the work of the Brontës is +that the most futile thing in the whole universe is fact. Such a story +as "Jane Eyre" is in itself so monstrous a fable that it ought to be +excluded from a book of fairy tales. The characters do not do what they +ought to do, nor what they would <a name="Page_7" id="Page_7"></a>do, nor it might be said, such is the +insanity of the atmosphere, not even what they intend to do. The conduct +of Rochester is so primevally and superhumanly caddish that Bret Harte +in his admirable travesty scarcely exaggerated it. "Then, resuming his +usual manner, he threw his boots at my head and withdrew," does perhaps +reach to something resembling caricature. The scene in which Rochester +dresses up as an old gipsy has something in it which is really not to be +found in any other branch of art, except in the end of the pantomime, +where the Emperor turns into a pantaloon. Yet, despite this vast +nightmare of illusion and morbidity and ignorance of the world, "Jane +Eyre" is perhaps the truest book that was ever written. Its essential +truth to life sometimes makes one catch one's breath. For it is not true +to manners, which are constantly false, or to facts, which are almost +always false; it is true to the only existing thing which is true, +emotion, the irreducible minimum, the indestructible germ. It would not +matter a single straw if a Brontë story were a hundred times more +moonstruck and im<a name="Page_8" id="Page_8"></a>probable than "Jane Eyre," or a hundred times more +moonstruck and improbable than "Wuthering Heights." It would not matter +if George Read stood on his head, and Mrs. Read rode on a dragon, if +Fairfax Rochester had four eyes and St. John Rivers three legs, the +story would still remain the truest story in the world. The typical +Brontë character is, indeed, a kind of monster. Everything in him except +the essential is dislocated. His hands are on his legs and his feet on +his arms, his nose is above his eyes, but his heart is in the right +place.</p> + +<p>The great and abiding truth for which the Brontë cycle of fiction stands +is a certain most important truth about the enduring spirit of youth, +the truth of the near kinship between terror and joy. The Brontë +heroine, dingily dressed, badly educated, hampered by a humiliating +inexperience, a kind of ugly innocence, is yet, by the very fact of her +solitude and her gaucherie, full of the greatest delight that is +possible to a human being, the delight of expectation, the delight of an +ardent and flamboyant ign<a name="Page_9" id="Page_9"></a>orance. She serves to show how futile it is of +humanity to suppose that pleasure can be attained chiefly by putting on +evening dress every evening, and having a box at the theatre every first +night. It is not the man of pleasure who has pleasure; it is not the man +of the world who appreciates the world. The man who has learnt to do all +conventional things perfectly has at the same time learnt to do them +prosaically. It is the awkward man, whose evening dress does not fit +him, whose gloves will not go on, whose compliments will not come off, +who is really full of the ancient ecstasies of youth. He is frightened +enough of society actually to enjoy his triumphs. He has that element of +fear which is one of the eternal ingredients of joy. This spirit is the +central spirit of the Brontë novel. It is the epic of the exhilaration +of the shy man. As such it is of incalculable value in our time, of +which the curse is that it does not take joy reverently because it does +not take it fearfully. The shabby and inconspicuous governess of +Charlotte Brontë, with the small outlook and the small creed,<a name="Page_10" id="Page_10"></a> had more +commerce with the awful and elemental forces which drive the world than +a legion of lawless minor poets. She approached the universe with real +simplicity, and, consequently, with real fear and delight. She was, so +to speak, shy before the multitude of the stars, and in this she had +possessed herself of the only force which can prevent enjoyment being as +black and barren as routine. The faculty of being shy is the first and +the most delicate of the powers of enjoyment. The fear of the Lord is +the beginning of pleasure.</p> + +<p>Upon the whole, therefore, I think it may justifiably be said that the +dark wild youth of the Brontës in their dark wild Yorkshire home has +been somewhat exaggerated as a necessary factor in their work and their +conception. The emotions with which they dealt were universal emotions, +emotions of the morning of existence, the springtide joy and the +springtide terror. Every one of us as a boy or girl has had some +midnight dream of nameless obstacle and unutterable menace, in which +there was, under whatever imbecile<a name="Page_11" id="Page_11"></a> forms, all the deadly stress and +panic of "Wuthering Heights." Every one of us has had a day-dream of +our own potential destiny not one atom more reasonable than "Jane Eyre." +And the truth which the Brontës came to tell us is the truth that many +waters cannot quench love, and that suburban respectability cannot touch +or damp a secret enthusiasm. Clapham, like every other earthly city, is +built upon a volcano. Thousands of people go to and fro in the +wilderness of bricks and mortar, earning mean wages, professing a mean +religion, wearing a mean attire, thousands of women who have never found +any expression for their exaltation or their tragedy but to go on +working harder and yet harder at dull and automatic employments, at +scolding children or stitching shirts. But out of all these silent ones +one suddenly became articulate, and spoke a resonant testimony, and her +name was Charlotte Brontë. Spreading around us upon every side to-day +like a huge and radiating geometrical figure are the endless branches of +the great city. There are times when we are almost stricken crazy,<a name="Page_12" id="Page_12"></a> as +well we may be, by the multiplicity of those appalling perspectives, the +frantic arithmetic of that unthinkable population. But this thought of +ours is in truth nothing but a fancy. There are no chains of houses; +there are no crowds of men. The colossal diagram of streets and houses +is an illusion, the opium dream of a speculative builder. Each of these +men is supremely solitary and supremely important to himself. Each of +these houses stands in the centre of the world. There is no single house +of all those millions which has not seemed to someone at some time the +heart of all things and the end of travel.<a name="Page_13" id="Page_13"></a><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14"></a><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15"></a></p> + + + +<hr class="full" /> +<h2><a name="WILLIAM_MORRIS_AND_HIS_SCHOOL" id="WILLIAM_MORRIS_AND_HIS_SCHOOL"></a>WILLIAM MORRIS AND HIS SCHOOL</h2> + + +<p>It is proper enough that the unveiling of the bust of William Morris +should approximate to a public festival, for while there have been many +men of genius in the Victorian era more despotic than he, there have +been none so representative. He represents not only that rapacious +hunger for beauty which has now for the first time become a serious +problem in the healthy life of humanity, but he represents also that +honourable instinct for finding beauty in common necessities of +workmanship which gives it a stronger and more bony structure. The time +has passed when William Morris was conceived to be irrelevant to be +described as a designer of wall-papers. If Morris had been a hatter +instead of a decorator, we should have become gradually and painfully +conscious of an improvement in our hats. If he had been<a name="Page_16" id="Page_16"></a> a tailor, we +should have suddenly found our frock-coats trailing on the ground with +the grandeur of mediæval raiment. If he had been a shoemaker, we should +have found, with no little consternation, our shoes gradually +approximating to the antique sandal. As a hairdresser, he would have +invented some massing of the hair worthy to be the crown of Venus; as an +ironmonger, his nails would have had some noble pattern, fit to be the +nails of the Cross.</p> + +<p>The limitations of William Morris, whatever they were, were not the +limitations of common decoration. It is true that all his work, even his +literary work, was in some sense decorative, had in some degree the +qualities of a splendid wall-paper. His characters, his stories, his +religious and political views, had, in the most emphatic sense, length +and breadth without thickness. He seemed really to believe that men +could enjoy a perfectly flat felicity. He made no account of the +unexplored and explosive possibilities of human nature, of the +unnameable terrors, and the yet more unnameable hopes. So long as a man +was grace<a name="Page_17" id="Page_17"></a>ful in every circumstance, so long as he had the inspiring +consciousness that the chestnut colour of his hair was relieved against +the blue forest a mile behind, he would be serenely happy. So he would +be, no doubt, if he were really fitted for a decorative existence; if he +were a piece of exquisitely coloured card-board.</p> + +<p>But although Morris took little account of the terrible solidity of +human nature—took little account, so to speak, of human figures in the +round, it is altogether unfair to represent him as a mere æsthete. He +perceived a great public necessity and fulfilled it heroically. The +difficulty with which he grappled was one so immense that we shall have +to be separated from it by many centuries before we can really judge of +it. It was the problem of the elaborate and deliberate ugliness of the +most self-conscious of centuries. Morris at least saw the absurdity of +the thing. He felt it was monstrous that the modern man, who was +pre-eminently capable of realising the strangest and most contradictory +beauties, who could feel at once the<a name="Page_18" id="Page_18"></a> fiery aureole of the ascetic and +the colossal calm of the Hellenic god, should himself, by a farcical +bathos, be buried in a black coat, and hidden under a chimney-pot hat. +He could not see why the harmless man who desired to be an artist in +raiment should be condemned to be, at best, a black and white artist. It +is indeed difficult to account for the clinging curse of ugliness which +blights everything brought forth by the most prosperous of centuries. In +all created nature there is not, perhaps, anything so completely ugly as +a pillar-box. Its shape is the most unmeaning of shapes, its height and +thickness just neutralising each other; its colour is the most repulsive +of colours—a fat and soulless red, a red without a touch of blood or +fire, like the scarlet of dead men's sins. Yet there is no reason +whatever why such hideousness should possess an object full of civic +dignity, the treasure-house of a thousand secrets, the fortress of a +thousand souls. If the old Greeks had had such an institution, we may be +sure that it would have been surmounted by the severe, but graceful, +figure of the<a name="Page_19" id="Page_19"></a> god of letter-writing. If the mediæval Christians has +possessed it, it would have had a niche filled with the golden aureole +of St. Rowland of the Postage Stamps. As it is, there it stands at all +our street-corners, disguising one of the most beautiful of ideas under +one of the most preposterous of forms. It is useless to deny that the +miracles of science have not been such an incentive to art and +imagination as were the miracles of religion. If men in the twelfth +century had been told that the lightning had been driven for leagues +underground, and had dragged at its destroying tail loads of laughing +human beings, and if they had then been told that the people alluded to +this pulverising portent chirpily as "The Twopenny Tube," they would +have called down the fire of Heaven on us as a race of half-witted +atheists. Probably they would have been quite right.</p> + +<p>This clear and fine perception of what may be called the anæsthetic +element in the Victorian era was, undoubtedly, the work of a great +reformer: it requires a fine effort of the imagination to see an evil +that sur<a name="Page_20" id="Page_20"></a>rounds us on every side. The manner in which Morris carried out +his crusade may, considering the circumstances, be called triumphant. +Our carpets began to bloom under our feet like the meadows in spring, +and our hitherto prosaic stools and sofas seemed growing legs and arms +at their own wild will. An element of freedom and rugged dignity came in +with plain and strong ornaments of copper and iron. So delicate and +universal has been the revolution in domestic art that almost every +family in England has had its taste cunningly and treacherously +improved, and if we look back at the early Victorian drawing-rooms it is +only to realise the strange but essential truth that art, or human +decoration, has, nine times out of ten in history, made things uglier +than they were before, from the "coiffure" of a Papuan savage to the +wall-paper of a British merchant in 1830.</p> + +<p>But great and beneficent as was the æsthetic revolution of Morris, there +was a very definite limit to it. It did not lie only in the fact that +his revolution was in truth a reaction, though this was a partial +explana<a name="Page_21" id="Page_21"></a>tion of his partial failure. When he was denouncing the dresses +of modern ladies, "upholstered like arm-chairs instead of being draped +like women," as he forcibly expressed it, he would hold up for practical +imitation the costumes and handicrafts of the Middle Ages. Further than +this retrogressive and imitative movement he never seemed to go. Now, +the men of the time of Chaucer had many evil qualities, but there was at +least one exhibition of moral weakness they did not give. They would +have laughed at the idea of dressing themselves in the manner of the +bowmen at the battle of Senlac, or painting themselves an æsthetic blue, +after the custom of the ancient Britons. They would not have called that +a movement at all. Whatever was beautiful in their dress or manners +sprang honestly and naturally out of the life they led and preferred to +lead. And it may surely be maintained that any real advance in the +beauty of modern dress must spring honestly and naturally out of the +life we lead and prefer to lead. We are not altogether without hints and +hopes of such a change, in<a name="Page_22" id="Page_22"></a> the growing orthodoxy of rough and athletic +costumes. But if this cannot be, it will be no substitute or +satisfaction to turn life into an interminable historical fancy-dress +ball.</p> + +<p>But the limitation of Morris's work lay deeper than this. We may best +suggest it by a method after his own heart. Of all the various works he +performed, none, perhaps, was so splendidly and solidly valuable as his +great protest for the fables and superstitions of mankind. He has the +supreme credit of showing that the fairy tales contain the deepest truth +of the earth, the real record of men's feeling for things. Trifling +details may be inaccurate, Jack may not have climbed up so tall a +beanstalk, or killed so tall a giant; but it is not such things that +make a story false; it is a far different class of things that makes +every modern book of history as false as the father of lies; ingenuity, +self-consciousness, hypocritical impartiality. It appears to us that of +all the fairy-tales none contains so vital a moral truth as the old +story, existing in many forms, of Beauty and the Beast. There is +written,<a name="Page_23" id="Page_23"></a> with all the authority of a human scripture, the eternal and +essential truth that until we love a thing in all its ugliness we +cannot make it beautiful. This was the weak point in William Morris as a +reformer: that he sought to reform modern life, and that he hated modern +life instead of loving it. Modern London is indeed a beast, big enough +and black enough to be the beast in Apocalypse, blazing with a million +eyes, and roaring with a million voices. But unless the poet can love +this fabulous monster as he is, can feel with some generous excitement +his massive and mysterious <i>joie-de-vivre</i>, the vast scale of his iron +anatomy and the beating of his thunderous heart, he cannot and will not +change the beast into the fairy prince. Morris's disadvantage was that +he was not honestly a child of the nineteenth century: he could not +understand its fascination, and consequently he could not really develop +it. An abiding testimony to his tremendous personal influence in the +æsthetic world is the vitality and recurrence of the Arts and Crafts +Exhibitions, which are steeped in his personality like a <a name="Page_24" id="Page_24"></a>chapel in that +of a saint. If we look round at the exhibits in one of these æsthetic +shows, we shall be struck by the large mass of modern objects that the +decorative school leaves untouched. There is a noble instinct for giving +the right touch of beauty to common and necessary things, but the things +that are so touched are the ancient things, the things that always to +some extent commended themselves to the lover of beauty. There are +beautiful gates, beautiful fountains, beautiful cups, beautiful chairs, +beautiful reading-desks. But there are no modern things made beautiful. +There are no beautiful lamp-posts, beautiful letter-boxes, beautiful +engines, beautiful bicycles. The spirit of William Morris has not seized +hold of the century and made its humblest necessities beautiful. And +this was because, with all his healthiness and energy, he had not the +supreme courage to face the ugliness of things; Beauty shrank from the +Beast and the fairy-tale had a different ending.</p> + +<p>But herein, indeed, lay Morris's deepest claim to the name of a great +reformer: that he left his work <a name="Page_25" id="Page_25"></a>incomplete. There is, perhaps, no better +proof that a man is a mere meteor, merely barren and brilliant, than +that his work is done perfectly. A man like Morris draws attention to +needs he cannot supply. In after-years we may have perhaps a newer and +more daring Arts and Crafts Exhibition. In it we shall not decorate the +armour of the twelfth century, but the machinery of the twentieth. A +lamp-post shall be wrought nobly in twisted iron, fit to hold the +sanctity of fire. A pillar-box shall be carved with figures emblematical +of the secrets of comradeship and the silence and honour of the State. +Railway signals, of all earthly things the most poetical, the coloured +stars of life and death, shall be lamps of green and crimson worthy of +their terrible and faithful service. But if ever this gradual and +genuine movement of our time towards beauty—not backwards, but +forwards—does truly come about, Morris will be the first prophet of it. +Poet of the childhood of nations, craftsman in the new honesties of art, +prophet of a merrier and wiser life, his full-blooded enthusiasm will be +remem<a name="Page_26" id="Page_26"></a>bered when human life has once more assumed flamboyant colours and +proved that this painful greenish grey of the æsthetic twilight in +which we now live is, in spite of all the pessimists, not of the +greyness of death, but the greyness of dawn.<a name="Page_27" id="Page_27"></a><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28"></a><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29"></a></p> + + + +<hr class="full" /> +<h2><a name="OPTIMISM_OF_BYRON" id="OPTIMISM_OF_BYRON"></a>OPTIMISM OF BYRON</h2> + + +<p>Everything is against our appreciating the spirit and the age of +Byron. The age that has just passed from us is always like a dream when +we wake in the morning, a thing incredible and centuries away. And the +world of Byron seems a sad and faded world, a weird and inhuman world, +where men were romantic in whiskers, ladies lived, apparently, in +bowers, and the very word has the sound of a piece of stage scenery. +Roses and nightingales recur in their poetry with the monotonous +elegance of a wall-paper pattern. The whole is like a revel of dead men, +a revel with splendid vesture and half-witted faces.</p> + +<p>But the more shrewdly and earnestly we study the histories of men, the +less ready shall we be to make use of the word "artificial." Nothing in +the world has<a name="Page_30" id="Page_30"></a> ever been artificial. Many customs, many dresses, many +works of art are branded with artificiality because they exhibit vanity +and self-consciousness: as if vanity were not a deep and elemental +thing, like love and hate and the fear of death. Vanity may be found in +darkling deserts, in the hermit and in the wild beasts that crawl around +him. It may be good or evil, but assuredly it is not artificial: vanity +is a voice out of the abyss.</p> + +<p>The remarkable fact is, however, and it bears strongly on the present +position of Byron, that when a thing is unfamiliar to us, when it is +remote and the product of some other age or spirit, we think it not +savage or terrible, but merely artificial. There are many instances of +this: a fair one is the case of tropical plants and birds. When we see +some of the monstrous and flamboyant blossoms that enrich the equatorial +woods, we do not feel that they are conflagrations of nature; silent +explosions of her frightful energy. We simply find it hard to believe +that they are not wax flowers grown under a glass case.<a name="Page_31" id="Page_31"></a> When we see some +of the tropic birds, with their tiny bodies attached to gigantic beaks, +we do not feel that they are freaks of the fierce humour of Creation. +We almost believe that they are toys out of a child's play-box, +artificially carved and artificially coloured. So it is with the great +convulsion of Nature which was known as Byronism. The volcano is not an +extinct volcano now; it is the dead stick of a rocket. It is the remains +not of a natural but of an artificial fire.</p> + +<p>But Byron and Byronism were something immeasurably greater than anything +that is represented by such a view as this: their real value and meaning +are indeed little understood. The first of the mistakes about Byron lies +in the fact that he is treated as a pessimist. True, he treated himself +as such, but a critic can hardly have even a slight knowledge of Byron +without knowing that he had the smallest amount of knowledge of himself +that ever fell to the lot of an intelligent man. The real character of +what is known as Byron's pessimism is better worth study than any real +pessimism could ever be.<a name="Page_32" id="Page_32"></a></p> + +<p>It is the standing peculiarity of this curious world of ours that almost +everything in it has been extolled enthusiastically and invariably +extolled to the disadvantage of everything else.</p> + +<p>One after another almost every one of the phenomena of the universe has +been declared to be alone capable of making life worth living. Books, +love, business, religion, alcohol, abstract truth, private emotion, +money, simplicity, mysticism, hard work, a life close to nature, a life +close to Belgrave Square are every one of them passionately maintained +by somebody to be so good that they redeem the evil of an otherwise +indefensible world. Thus, while the world is almost always condemned in +summary, it is always justified, and indeed extolled, in detail after +detail.</p> + +<p>Existence has been praised and absolved by a chorus of pessimists. The +work of giving thanks to Heaven is, as it were, divided ingeniously +among them. Schopenhauer is told off as a kind of librarian in the House +of God, to sing the praises of the austere pleas<a name="Page_33" id="Page_33"></a>ures of the mind. +Carlyle, as steward, undertakes the working department and eulogises a +life of labour in the fields. Omar Khayyam is established in the +cellar, and swears that it is the only room in the house. Even the +blackest of pessimistic artists enjoys his art. At the precise moment +that he has written some shameless and terrible indictment of Creation, +his one pang of joy in the achievement joins the universal chorus of +gratitude, with the scent of the wild flower and the song of the bird.</p> + +<p>Now Byron had a sensational popularity, and that popularity was, as far +as words and explanations go, founded upon his pessimism. He was adored +by an overwhelming majority, almost every individual of which despised +the majority of mankind. But when we come to regard the matter a little +more deeply we tend in some degree to cease to believe in this +popularity of the pessimist. The popularity of pure and unadulterated +pessimism is an oddity; it is almost a contradiction in terms. Men would +no more receive the news of the failure of existence or of the +har<a name="Page_34" id="Page_34"></a>monious hostility of the stars with ardour or popular rejoicing than +they would light bonfires for the arrival of cholera or dance a +breakdown when they were condemned to be hanged. When the pessimist is +popular it must always be not because he shows all things to be bad, but +because he shows some things to be good.</p> + +<p>Men can only join in a chorus of praise, even if it is the praise of +denunciation. The man who is popular must be optimistic about something, +even if he is only optimistic about pessimism. And this was emphatically +the case with Byron and the Byronists. Their real popularity was founded +not upon the fact that they blamed everything, but upon the fact that +they praised something. They heaped curses upon man, but they used man +merely as a foil. The things they wished to praise by comparison were +the energies of Nature. Man was to them what talk and fashion were to +Carlyle, what philosophical and religious quarrels were to Omar, what +the whole race after practical happiness was to Schopenhauer, the thing +which<a name="Page_35" id="Page_35"></a> must be censured in order that somebody else may be exalted. It +was merely a recognition of the fact that one cannot write in white +chalk except on a black-board.</p> + +<p>Surely it is ridiculous to maintain seriously that Byron's love of the +desolate and inhuman in nature was the mark of vital scepticism and +depression. When a young man can elect deliberately to walk alone in +winter by the side of the shattering sea, when he takes pleasure in +storms and stricken peaks, and the lawless melancholy of the older +earth, we may deduce with the certainty of logic that he is very young +and very happy. There is a certain darkness which we see in wine when +seen in shadow; we see it again in the night that has just buried a +gorgeous sunset. The wine seems black, and yet at the same time +powerfully and almost impossibly red; the sky seems black, and yet at +the same time to be only too dense a blend of purple and green. Such was +the darkness which lay around the Byronic school. Darkness with them was +only too dense a purple. They <a name="Page_36" id="Page_36"></a>would prefer the sullen hostility of the +earth because amid all the cold and darkness their own hearts were +flaming like their own firesides.</p> + +<p>Matters are very different with the more modern school of doubt and +lamentation. The last movement of pessimism is perhaps expressed in Mr. +Aubrey Beardsley's allegorical designs. Here we have to deal with a +pessimism which tends naturally not towards the oldest elements of the +cosmos, but towards the last and most fantastic fripperies of artificial +life. Byronism tended towards the desert; the new pessimism towards the +restaurant. Byronism was a revolt against artificiality; the new +pessimism is a revolt in its favour.</p> + +<p>The Byronic young man had an affectation of sincerity; the decadent, +going a step deeper into the avenues of the unreal, has positively an +affectation of affectation. And it is by their fopperies and their +frivolities that we know that their sinister philosophy is sincere; in +their lights and garlands and ribbons we read their indwelling despair. +It was so, in<a name="Page_37" id="Page_37"></a>deed, with Byron himself; his really bitter moments were +his frivolous moments. He went on year after year calling down fire +upon mankind, summoning the deluge and the destructive sea and all the +ultimate energies of nature to sweep away the cities of the spawn of +man. But through all this his subconscious mind was not that of a +despairer; on the contrary, there is something of a kind of lawless +faith in thus parleying with such immense and immemorial brutalities. It +was not until the time in which he wrote "Don Juan" that he really lost +this inward warmth and geniality, and a sudden shout of hilarious +laughter announced to the world that Lord Byron had really become a +pessimist.</p> + +<p>One of the best tests in the world of what a poet really means is his +metre. He may be a hypocrite in his metaphysics, but he cannot be a +hypocrite in his prosody. And all the time that Byron's language is of +horror and emptiness, his metre is a bounding <i>pas de quatre</i>. He may +arraign existence on the most deadly charges, he may condemn it with the +most <a name="Page_38" id="Page_38"></a>desolating verdict, but he cannot alter the fact that on some walk +in a spring morning when all the limbs are swinging and all the blood +alive in the body, the lips may be caught repeating:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span>"Oh, there's not a joy the world can give like that it takes away,<br /></span> +<span>When the glow of early youth declines in beauty's dull decay;<br /></span> +<span>'Tis not upon the cheek of youth the blush that fades so fast,<br /></span> +<span>But the tender bloom of heart is gone ere youth itself be past."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>That automatic recitation is the answer to the whole pessimism of Byron.</p> + +<p>The truth is that Byron was one of a class who may be called the +unconscious optimists, who are very often, indeed, the most +uncompromising conscious pessimists, because the exuberance of their +nature demands for an adversary a dragon as big as the world. But the +whole of his essential and unconscious being was spirited and confident, +and that unconscious being, long disguised and buried under emotional +artifices, suddenly sprang into prominence in the face of a cold, hard, +political necessity. In Greece he heard the cry of reality, and at the +time that he was dying,<a name="Page_39" id="Page_39"></a> he began to live. He heard suddenly the call of +that buried and subconscious happiness which is in all of us, and which +may emerge suddenly at the sight of the grass of a meadow or the spears +of the enemy.</p> + +<hr class="full" /> +<h2><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40"></a><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41"></a><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42"></a><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43"></a> + +<a name="POPE_AND_THE_ART_OF_SATIRE" id="POPE_AND_THE_ART_OF_SATIRE"></a>POPE AND THE ART OF SATIRE</h2> + + +<p>The general critical theory common in this and the last century is +that it was very easy for the imitators of Pope to write English poetry. +The classical couplet was a thing that anyone could do. So far as that +goes, one may justifiably answer by asking anyone to try. It may be +easier really to have wit, than really, in the boldest and most enduring +sense, to have imagination. But it is immeasurably easier to pretend to +have imagination than to pretend to have wit. A man may indulge in a +sham rhapsody, because it may be the triumph of a rhapsody to be +unintelligible. But a man cannot indulge in a sham joke, because it is +the ruin of a joke to be unintelligible. A man may pretend to be a poet: +he can no more pretend to be a wit than he can pretend to bring rabbits +out of a hat without<a name="Page_44" id="Page_44"></a> having learnt to be a conjuror. Therefore, it may +be submitted, there was a certain discipline in the old antithetical +couplet of Pope and his followers. If it did not permit of the great +liberty of wisdom used by the minority of great geniuses, neither did it +permit of the great liberty of folly which is used by the majority of +small writers. A prophet could not be a poet in those days, perhaps, but +at least a fool could not be a poet. If we take, for the sake of +example, such a line as Pope's:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span>"Damn with faint praise, assent with civil leer,"<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>the test is comparatively simple. A great poet would not have written +such a line, perhaps. But a minor poet could not.</p> + +<p>Supposing that a lyric poet of the new school really had to deal with +such an idea as that expressed in Pope's line about Man:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span>"A being darkly wise and rudely great,"<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Is it really so certain that he would go deeper into the matter than +that old antithetical jingle goes? I<a name="Page_45" id="Page_45"></a> venture to doubt whether he would +really be any wiser or weirder or more imaginative or more profound. +The one thing that he would really be, would be longer. Instead of +writing,</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span>"A being darkly wise and rudely great,"<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>the contemporary poet, in his elaborately ornamented book of verses, +would produce something like the following:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span>"A creature<br /></span> +<span>Of feature<br /></span> +<span>More dark, more dark, more dark than skies,<br /></span> +<span>Yea, darkly wise, yea, darkly wise:<br /></span> +<span>Darkly wise as a formless fate.<br /></span> +<span>And if he be great,<br /></span> +<span>If he be great, then rudely great,<br /></span> +<span>Rudely great as a plough that plies,<br /></span> +<span>And darkly wise, and darkly wise."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Have we really learnt to think more broadly? Or have we only learnt to +spread our thoughts thinner? I have a dark suspicion that a modern poet +might manufacture an admirable lyric out of almost every line of Pope.</p> + +<p>There is, of course, an idea in our time that the <a name="Page_46" id="Page_46"></a>very antithesis of the +typical line of Pope is a mark of artificiality. I shall have occasion +more than once to point out that nothing in the world has ever been +artificial. But certainly antithesis is not artificial. An element of +paradox runs through the whole of existence itself. It begins in the +realm of ultimate physics and metaphysics, in the two facts that we +cannot imagine a space that is infinite, and that we cannot imagine a +space that is finite. It runs through the inmost complications of +divinity, in that we cannot conceive that Christ in the wilderness was +truly pure, unless we also conceive that he desired to sin. It runs, in +the same manner, through all the minor matters of morals, so that we +cannot imagine courage existing except in conjunction with fear, or +magnanimity existing except in conjunction with some temptation to +meanness. If Pope and his followers caught this echo of natural +irrationality, they were not any the more artificial. Their antitheses +were fully in harmony with existence, which is itself a contradiction in +terms.<a name="Page_47" id="Page_47"></a></p> + +<p>Pope was really a great poet; he was the last great poet of +civilisation. Immediately after the fall of him and his school come +Burns and Byron, and the reaction towards the savage and the elemental. +But to Pope civilisation was still an exciting experiment. Its perruques +and ruffles were to him what feathers and bangles are to a South Sea +Islander—the real romance of civilisation. And in all the forms of art +which peculiarly belong to civilisation, he was supreme. In one +especially he was supreme—the great and civilised art of satire. And in +this we have fallen away utterly.</p> + +<p>We have had a great revival in our time of the cult of violence and +hostility. Mr. Henley and his young men have an infinite number of +furious epithets with which to overwhelm anyone who differs from them. +It is not a placid or untroubled position to be Mr. Henley's enemy, +though we know that it is certainly safer than to be his friend. And +yet, despite all this, these people produce no satire. Political and +social satire is a lost art, like pottery and stained glass. It <a name="Page_48" id="Page_48"></a>may be +worth while to make some attempt to point out a reason for this.</p> + +<p>It may seem a singular observation to say that we are not generous +enough to write great satire. This, however, is approximately a very +accurate way of describing the case. To write great satire, to attack a +man so that he feels the attack and half acknowledges its justice, it is +necessary to have a certain intellectual magnanimity which realises the +merits of the opponent as well as his defects. This is, indeed, only +another way of putting the simple truth that in order to attack an army +we must know not only its weak points, but also its strong points. +England in the present season and spirit fails in satire for the same +simple reason that it fails in war: it despises the enemy. In matters of +battle and conquest we have got firmly rooted in our minds the idea (an +idea fit for the philosophers of Bedlam) that we can best trample on a +people by ignoring all the particular merits which give them a chance of +trampling upon us. It has become a breach of etiquette to praise the<a name="Page_49" id="Page_49"></a> +enemy; whereas, when the enemy is strong, every honest scout ought to +praise the enemy. It is impossible to vanquish an army without having a +full account of its strength. It is impossible to satirise a man without +having a full account of his virtues. It is too much the custom in +politics to describe a political opponent as utterly inhuman, as utterly +careless of his country, as utterly cynical, which no man ever was since +the beginning of the world. This kind of invective may often have a +great superficial success: it may hit the mood of the moment; it may +raise excitement and applause; it may impress millions. But there is one +man among all those millions whom it does not impress, whom it hardly +ever touches; that is the man against whom it is directed. The one +person for whom the whole satire has been written in vain is the man +whom it is the whole object of the institution of satire to reach. He +knows that such a description of him is not true. He knows that he is +not utterly unpatriotic, or utterly self-seeking, or utterly barbarous +and revengeful. He knows that he<a name="Page_50" id="Page_50"></a> is an ordinary man, and that he can +count as many kindly memories, as many humane instincts, as many hours +of decent work and responsibility as any other ordinary man. But behind +all this he has his real weaknesses, the real ironies of his soul: +behind all these ordinary merits lie the mean compromises, the craven +silences, the sullen vanities, the secret brutalities, the unmanly +visions of revenge. It is to these that satire should reach if it is to +touch the man at whom it is aimed. And to reach these it must pass and +salute a whole army of virtues.</p> + +<p>If we turn to the great English satirists of the seventeenth and +eighteenth centuries, for example, we find that they had this rough, but +firm, grasp of the size and strength, the value and the best points of +their adversary. Dryden, before hewing Ahitophel in pieces, gives a +splendid and spirited account of the insane valour and inspired cunning +of the</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span>"daring pilot in extremity,"<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>who was more untrustworthy in calm than in storm, and<a name="Page_51" id="Page_51"></a></p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span>"Steered too near the rocks to boast his wit."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>The whole is, so far as it goes, a sound and picturesque version of the +great Shaftesbury. It would, in many ways, serve as a very sound and +picturesque account of Lord Randolph Churchill. But here comes in very +pointedly the difference between our modern attempts at satire and the +ancient achievement of it. The opponents of Lord Randolph Churchill, +both Liberal and Conservative, did not satirise him nobly and honestly, +as one of those great wits to madness near allied. They represented him +as a mere puppy, a silly and irreverent upstart whose impudence supplied +the lack of policy and character. Churchill had grave and even gross +faults, a certain coarseness, a certain hard boyish assertiveness, a +certain lack of magnanimity, a certain peculiar patrician vulgarity. But +he was a much larger man than satire depicted him, and therefore the +satire could not and did not overwhelm him. And here we have the cause +of the failure of contemporary satire, that it has no magnanimity, that +is to say, no patience. It cannot en<a name="Page_52" id="Page_52"></a>dure to be told that its opponent +has his strong points, just as Mr. Chamberlain could not endure to be +told that the Boers had a regular army. It can be content with nothing +except persuading itself that its opponent is utterly bad or utterly +stupid—that is, that he is what he is not and what nobody else is. If +we take any prominent politician of the day—such, for example, as Sir +William Harcourt—we shall find that this is the point in which all +party invective fails. The Tory satire at the expense of Sir William +Harcourt is always desperately endeavouring to represent that he is +inept, that he makes a fool of himself, that he is disagreeable and +disgraceful and untrustworthy. The defect of all that is that we all +know that it is untrue. Everyone knows that Sir William Harcourt is not +inept, but is almost the ablest Parliamentarian now alive. Everyone +knows that he is not disagreeable or disgraceful, but a gentleman of the +old school who is on excellent social terms with his antagonists. +Everyone knows that he is not untrustworthy, but a man of unimpeachable +honour who is much trusted. <a name="Page_53" id="Page_53"></a>Above all, he knows it himself, and is +therefore affected by the satire exactly as any one of us would be if +we were accused of being black or of keeping a shop for the receiving of +stolen goods. We might be angry at the libel, but not at the satire: for +a man is angry at a libel because it is false, but at a satire because +it is true.</p> + +<p>Mr. Henley and his young men are very fond of invective and satire; if +they wish to know the reason of their failure in these things, they need +only turn to the opening of Pope's superb attack upon Addison. The +Henleyite's idea of satirising a man is to express a violent contempt +for him, and by the heat of this to persuade others and himself that the +man is contemptible. I remember reading a satiric attack on Mr. +Gladstone by one of the young anarchic Tories, which began by asserting +that Mr. Gladstone was a bad public speaker. If these people would, as I +have said, go quietly and read Pope's "Atticus," they would see how a +great satirist approaches a great enemy:<a name="Page_54" id="Page_54"></a></p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span>"Peace to all such! But were there one whose fires<br /></span> +<span>True genius kindles, and fair fame inspires,<br /></span> +<span>Blest with each talent, and each art to please,<br /></span> +<span>And born to write, converse, and live with ease.<br /></span> +<span>Should such a man—"<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>And then follows the torrent of that terrible criticism. Pope was not +such a fool as to try to make out that Addison was a fool. He knew that +Addison was not a fool, and he knew that Addison knew it. But hatred, in +Pope's case, had become so great and, I was almost going to say, so +pure, that it illuminated all things, as love illuminates all things. He +said what was really wrong with Addison; and in calm and clear and +everlasting colours he painted the picture of the evil of the literary +temperament:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span>"Bear, like the Turk, no brother near the throne,<br /></span> +<span>View him with scornful, yet with jealous eyes,<br /></span> +<span>And hate for arts that caused himself to rise.<br /></span> +<span> * + * + * + * + *</span> +<span>Like Cato give his little Senate laws,<br /></span> +<span>And sit attentive to his own applause.<br /></span> +<span>While wits and templars every sentence raise,<br /></span> +<span>And wonder with a foolish face of praise."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>This is the kind of thing which really goes to the<a name="Page_55" id="Page_55"></a> mark at which it +aims. It is penetrated with sorrow and a kind of reverence, and it is +addressed directly to a man. This is no mock-tournament to gain the +applause of the crowd. It is a deadly duel by the lonely seashore.</p> + +<p>In current political materialism there is everywhere the assumption +that, without understanding anything of his case or his merits, we can +benefit a man practically. Without understanding his case and his +merits, we cannot even hurt him.<a name="Page_56" id="Page_56"></a><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57"></a><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58"></a><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59"></a></p> + + + +<hr class="full" /> +<h2><a name="FRANCIS" id="FRANCIS"></a>FRANCIS</h2> + + +<p>Asceticism is a thing which, in its very nature, we tend in these days +to misunderstand. Asceticism, in the religious sense, is the repudiation +of the great mass of human joys because of the supreme joyfulness of the +one joy, the religious joy. But asceticism is not in the least confined +to religious asceticism: there is scientific asceticism which asserts +that truth is alone satisfying: there is æsthetic asceticism which +asserts that art is alone satisfying: there is amatory asceticism which +asserts that love is alone satisfying. There is even epicurean +asceticism, which asserts that beer and skittles are alone satisfying. +Wherever the manner of praising anything involves the statement that the +speaker could live with that thing alone, there lies the germ and +essence of asceticism. When William Morris, for <a name="Page_60" id="Page_60"></a>example, says that "love +is enough," it is obvious that he asserts in those words that art, +science, politics, ambition, money, houses, carriages, concerts, +gloves, walking-sticks, door-knockers, railway-stations, cathedrals, and +any other things one may choose to tabulate are unnecessary. When Omar +Khayyam says:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span>"A book of verses underneath the bough,<br /></span> +<span>A loaf of bread, a jug of wine, and thou<br /></span> +<span>Beside me singing in the wilderness—<br /></span> +<span>O wilderness were Paradise enow."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>It is clear that he speaks fully as much ascetically as he does +æsthetically. He makes a list of things and says that he wants no more. +The same thing was done by a mediæval monk. Examples might, of course, +be multiplied a hundred-fold. One of the most genuinely poetical of our +younger poets says, as the one thing certain, that</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span>"From quiet home and first beginning<br /></span> +<span>Out to the undiscovered ends—<br /></span> +<span>There's nothing worth the wear of winning<br /></span> +<span>But laughter and the love of friends."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Here we have a perfect example of the main important<a name="Page_61" id="Page_61"></a> fact, that all true +joy expresses itself in terms of asceticism.</p> + +<p>But if, in any case, it should happen that a class or a generation lose +the sense of the peculiar kind of joy which is being celebrated, they +immediately begin to call the enjoyers of that joy gloomy and +self-destroying. The most formidable liberal philosophers have called +the monks melancholy because they denied themselves the pleasures of +liberty and marriage. They might as well call the trippers on a Bank +Holiday melancholy because they deny themselves, as a rule, the +pleasures of silence and meditation. A simpler and stronger example is, +however, to hand. If ever it should happen that the system of English +athletics should vanish from the public schools and the universities, if +science should supply some new and non-competitive manner of perfecting +the physique, if public ethics swung round to an attitude of absolute +contempt and indifference towards the feeling called sport, then it is +easy to see what would happen. Future historians would simply state that +in the dark<a name="Page_62" id="Page_62"></a> days of Queen Victoria young men at Oxford and Cambridge +were subjected to a horrible sort of religious torture. They were +forbidden, by fantastic monastic rules, to indulge in wine or tobacco +during certain arbitrarily fixed periods of time, before certain brutal +fights and festivals. Bigots insisted on their rising at unearthly hours +and running violently around fields for no object. Many men ruined their +health in these dens of superstition, many died there. All this is +perfectly true and irrefutable. Athleticism in England is an asceticism, +as much as the monastic rules. Men have overstrained themselves and +killed themselves through English athleticism. There is one difference +and one only: we do feel the love of sport; we do not feel the love of +religious offices. We see only the price in the one case and only the +purchase in the other.</p> + +<p>The only question that remains is what was the joy of the old Christian +ascetics of which their asceticism was merely the purchasing price? The +mere possibility of the query is an extraordinary example of <a name="Page_63" id="Page_63"></a>the way in +which we miss the main points of human history. We are looking at +humanity too close, and see only the details and not the vast and +dominant features. We look at the rise of Christianity, and conceive it +as a rise of self-abnegation and almost of pessimism. It does not occur +to us that the mere assertion that this raging and confounding universe +is governed by justice and mercy is a piece of staggering optimism fit +to set all men capering. The detail over which these monks went mad with +joy was the universe itself; the only thing really worthy of enjoyment. +The white daylight shone over all the world, the endless forests stood +up in their order. The lightning awoke and the tree fell and the sea +gathered into mountains and the ship went down, and all these +disconnected and meaningless and terrible objects were all part of one +dark and fearful conspiracy of goodness, one merciless scheme of mercy. +That this scheme of Nature was not accurate or well founded is perfectly +tenable, but surely it is not tenable that it was not optimistic. We +insist, however, upon treat<a name="Page_64" id="Page_64"></a>ing this matter tail foremost. We insist that +the ascetics were pessimists because they gave up threescore years and +ten for an eternity of happiness. We forget that the bare proposition of +an eternity of happiness is by its very nature ten thousand times more +optimistic than ten thousand pagan saturnalias.</p> + +<p>Mr. Adderley's life of Francis of Assisi does not, of course, bring this +out; nor does it fully bring out the character of Francis. It has rather +the tone of a devotional book. A devotional book is an excellent thing, +but we do not look in it for the portrait of a man, for the same reason +that we do not look in a love-sonnet for the portrait of a woman, +because men in such conditions of mind not only apply all virtues to +their idol, but all virtues in equal quantities. There is no outline, +because the artist cannot bear to put in a black line. This blaze of +benediction, this conflict between lights, has its place in poetry, not +in biography. The successful examples of it may be found, for instance, +in the more idealistic odes of Spenser.<a name="Page_65" id="Page_65"></a> The design is sometimes almost +indecipherable, for the poet draws in silver upon white.</p> + +<p>It is natural, of course, that Mr. Adderley should see Francis primarily +as the founder of the Franciscan Order. We suspect this was only one, +perhaps a minor one, of the things that he was; we suspect that one of +the minor things that Christ did was to found Christianity. But the vast +practical work of Francis is assuredly not to be ignored, for this +amazingly unworldly and almost maddeningly simple-minded infant was one +of the most consistently successful men that ever fought with this +bitter world. It is the custom to say that the secret of such men is +their profound belief in themselves, and this is true, but not all the +truth. Workhouses and lunatic asylums are thronged with men who believe +in themselves. Of Francis it is far truer to say that the secret of his +success was his profound belief in other people, and it is the lack of +this that has commonly been the curse of these obscure Napoleons. +Francis always assumed that everyone must be just as anxious about their +common rela<a name="Page_66" id="Page_66"></a>tive, the water-rat, as he was. He planned a visit to the +Emperor to draw his attention to the needs of "his little sisters the +larks." He used to talk to any thieves and robbers he met about their +misfortune in being unable to give rein to their desire for holiness. It +was an innocent habit, and doubtless the robbers often "got round him," +as the phrase goes. Quite as often, however, they discovered that he had +"got round" them, and discovered the other side, the side of secret +nobility.</p> + +<p>Conceiving of St. Francis as primarily the founder of the Franciscan +Order, Mr. Adderley opens his narrative with an admirable sketch of the +history of Monasticism in Europe, which is certainly the best thing in +the book. He distinguishes clearly and fairly between the Manichæan +ideal that underlies so much of Eastern Monasticism and the ideal of +self-discipline which never wholly vanished from the Christian form. But +he does not throw any light on what must be for the outsider the +absorbing problem of this Catholic asceticism, for the excellent reason +that, not<a name="Page_67" id="Page_67"></a> being an outsider, he does not find it a problem at all.</p> + +<p>To most people, however, there is a fascinating inconsistency in the +position of St. Francis. He expressed in loftier and bolder language +than any earthly thinker the conception that laughter is as divine as +tears. He called his monks the mountebanks of God. He never forgot to +take pleasure in a bird as it flashed past him, or a drop of water, as +it fell from his finger: he was, perhaps, the happiest of the sons of +men. Yet this man undoubtedly founded his whole polity on the negation +of what we think the most imperious necessities; in his three vows of +poverty, chastity, and obedience, he denied to himself and those he +loved most, property, love, and liberty. Why was it that the most +large-hearted and poetic spirits in that age found their most congenial +atmosphere in these awful renunciations? Why did he who loved where all +men were blind, seek to blind himself where all men loved? Why was he a +monk, and not a troubadour? These questions are far too large to be +answered fully<a name="Page_68" id="Page_68"></a> here, but in any life of Francis they ought at least to +have been asked; we have a suspicion that if they were answered, we +should suddenly find that much of the enigma of this sullen time of ours +was answered also. So it was with the monks. The two great parties in +human affairs are only the party which sees life black against white, +and the party which sees it white against black, the party which +macerates and blackens itself with sacrifice because the background is +full of the blaze of an universal mercy, and the party which crowns +itself with flowers and lights itself with bridal torches because it +stands against a black curtain of incalculable night. The revellers are +old, and the monks are young. It was the monks who were the spendthrifts +of happiness, and we who are its misers.</p> + +<p>Doubtless, as is apparent from Mr. Adderley's book, the clear and +tranquil life of the Three Vows had a fine and delicate effect on the +genius of Francis. He was primarily a poet. The perfection of his +literary instinct is shown in his naming the fire "brother," and<a name="Page_69" id="Page_69"></a> the +water "sister," in the quaint demagogic dexterity of the appeal in the +sermon to the fishes "that they alone were saved in the Flood." In the +amazingly minute and graphic dramatisation of the life, disappointments, +and excuses of any shrub or beast that he happened to be addressing, his +genius has a curious resemblance to that of Burns. But if he avoided the +weakness of Burns' verses to animals, the occasional morbidity, bombast, +and moralisation on himself, the credit is surely due to a cleaner and +more transparent life.</p> + +<p>The general attitude of St. Francis, like that of his Master, embodied a +kind of terrible common sense. The famous remark of the Caterpillar in +"Alice in Wonderland"—"Why not?" impresses us as his general motto. He +could not see why he should not be on good terms with all things. The +pomp of war and ambition, the great empire of the Middle Ages, and all +its fellows begin to look tawdry and top-heavy, under the rationality of +that innocent stare. His questions were blasting and devastating, like +the questions of a<a name="Page_70" id="Page_70"></a> child. He would not have been afraid even of the +nightmares of cosmogony, for he had no fear in him. To him the world +was small, not because he had any views as to its size, but for the +reason that gossiping ladies find it small, because so many relatives +were to be found in it. If you had taken him to the loneliest star that +the madness of an astronomer can conceive, he would have only beheld in +it the features of a new friend.</p> + +<hr class="full" /> +<h2><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71"></a><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72"></a><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73"></a> + +<a name="ROSTAND" id="ROSTAND"></a>ROSTAND</h2> + + +<p>When "Cyrano de Bergerac" was published, it bore the subordinate title +of a heroic comedy. We have no tradition in English literature which +would justify us in calling a comedy heroic, though there was once a +poet who called a comedy divine. By the current modern conception, the +hero has his place in a tragedy, and the one kind of strength which is +systematically denied to him is the strength to succeed. That the power +of a man's spirit might possibly go to the length of turning a tragedy +into a comedy is not admitted; nevertheless, almost all the primitive +legends of the world are comedies, not only in the sense that they have +a happy ending, but in the sense that they are based upon a certain +optimistic assumption that the hero is destined to be the destroyer of +the monster. Singularly enough, this modern idea of the essential +disas<a name="Page_74" id="Page_74"></a>trous character of life, when seriously considered, connects itself +with a hyper-æsthetic view of tragedy and comedy which is largely due +to the influence of modern France, from which the great heroic comedies +of Monsieur Rostand have come. The French genius has an instinct for +remedying its own evil work, and France gives always the best cure for +"Frenchiness." The idea of comedy which is held in England by the school +which pays most attention to the technical niceties of art is a view +which renders such an idea as that of heroic comedy quite impossible. +The fundamental conception in the minds of the majority of our younger +writers is that comedy is, <i>par excellence</i>, a fragile thing. It is +conceived to be a conventional world of the most absolutely delicate and +gimcrack description. Such stories as Mr. Max Beerbohm's "Happy +Hypocrite" are conceptions which would vanish or fall into utter +nonsense if viewed by one single degree too seriously. But great comedy, +the comedy of Shakespeare or Sterne, not only can be, but must be, taken +seriously. There is nothing to which a <a name="Page_75" id="Page_75"></a>man must give himself up with +more faith and self-abandonment than to genuine laughter. In such +comedies one laughs with the heroes, and not at them. The humour which +steeps the stories of Falstaff and Uncle Toby is a cosmic and +philosophic humour, a geniality which goes down to the depths. It is not +superficial reading, it is not even, strictly speaking, light reading. +Our sympathies are as much committed to the characters as if they were +the predestined victims in a Greek tragedy. The modern writer of +comedies may be said to boast of the brittleness of his characters. He +seems always on the eve of knocking his puppets to pieces. When John +Oliver Hobbes wrote for the first time a comedy of serious emotions, she +named it, with a thinly-disguised contempt for her own work, "A +Sentimental Comedy." The ground of this conception of the artificiality +of comedy is a profound pessimism. Life in the eyes of these mournful +buffoons is itself an utterly tragic thing; comedy must be as hollow as +a grinning mask. It is a refuge from the world, and not even, properly +speaking, a part <a name="Page_76" id="Page_76"></a>of it. Their wit is a thin sheet of shining ice over +the eternal waters of bitterness.</p> + +<p>"Cyrano de Bergerac" came to us as the new decoration of an old truth, +that merriment was one of the world's natural flowers, and not one of +its exotics. The gigantesque levity, the flamboyant eloquence, the +Rabelaisian puns and digressions were seen to be once more what they had +been in Rabelais, the mere outbursts of a human sympathy and bravado as +old and solid as the stars. The human spirit demanded wit as headlong +and haughty as its will. All was expressed in the words of Cyrano at his +highest moment of happiness, <i>Il me faut des géants</i>. An essential +aspect of this question of heroic comedy is the question of drama in +rhyme. There is nothing that affords so easy a point of attack for the +dramatic realist as the conduct of a play in verse. According to his +canons, it is indeed absurd to represent a number of characters facing +some terrible crisis in their lives by capping rhymes like a party +playing <i>bouts rimés</i>. In his eyes it must appear<a name="Page_77" id="Page_77"></a> somewhat ridiculous +that two enemies taunting each other with insupportable insults should +obligingly provide each other with metrical spacing and neat and +convenient rhymes. But the whole of this view rests finally upon the +fact that few persons, if any, to-day understand what is meant by a +poetical play. It is a singular thing that those poetical plays which +are now written in England by the most advanced students of the drama +follow exclusively the lines of Maeterlinck, and use verse and rhyme for +the adornment of a profoundly tragic theme. But rhyme has a supreme +appropriateness for the treatment of the higher comedy. The land of +heroic comedy is, as it were, a paradise of lovers, in which it is not +difficult to imagine that men could talk poetry all day long. It is far +more conceivable that men's speech should flower naturally into these +harmonious forms, when they are filled with the essential spirit of +youth, than when they are sitting gloomily in the presence of immemorial +destiny. The great error consists in supposing that poetry is an +unnatural form of language. We should<a name="Page_78" id="Page_78"></a> all like to speak poetry at the +moment when we truly live, and if we do not speak, it is because we have +an impediment in our speech. It is not song that is the narrow or +artificial thing, it is conversation that is a broken and stammering +attempt at song. When we see men in a spiritual extravaganza, like +"Cyrano de Bergerac," speaking in rhyme, it is not our language +disguised or distorted, but our language rounded and made whole. Rhymes +answer each other as the sexes in flowers and in humanity answer each +other. Men do not speak so, it is true. Even when they are inspired or +in love they talk inanities. But the poetic comedy does not misrepresent +the speech one half so much as the speech misrepresents the soul. +Monsieur Rostand showed even more than his usual insight when he called +"Cyrano de Bergerac" a comedy, despite the fact that, strictly speaking, +it ends with disappointment and death. The essence of tragedy is a +spiritual breakdown or decline, and in the great French play the +spiritual sentiment mounts unceasingly until the last line. It is not +the facts themselves, but our<a name="Page_79" id="Page_79"></a> feeling about them, that makes tragedy and +comedy, and death is more joyful in Rostand than life in Maeterlinck. +The same apparent contradiction holds good in the case of the drama of +"L'Aiglon," now being performed with so much success. Although the hero +is a weakling, the subject a fiasco, the end a premature death and a +personal disillusionment, yet, in spite of this theme, which might have +been chosen for its depressing qualities, the unconquerable pæan of the +praise of things, the ungovernable gaiety of the poet's song swells so +high that at the end it seems to drown all the weak voices of the +characters in one crashing chorus of great things and great men. A +multitude of mottoes might be taken from the play to indicate and +illustrate, not only its own spirit, but much of the spirit of modern +life. When in the vision of the field of Wagram the horrible voices of +the wounded cry out, <i>Les corbeaux, les corbeaux</i>, the Duke, overwhelmed +with a nightmare of hideous trivialities, cries out, <i>Où, où, sont les +aigles?</i> That antithesis might stand alone as an invocation<a name="Page_80" id="Page_80"></a> at the +beginning of the twentieth century to the spirit of heroic comedy. When +an ex-General of Napoleon is asked his reason for having betrayed the +Emperor, he replies, <i>La fatigue</i>, and at that a veteran private of the +Great Army rushes forward, and crying passionately, <i>Et nous?</i> pours out +a terrible description of the life lived by the commoner soldier. +To-day, when pessimism is almost as much a symbol of wealth and fashion +as jewels or cigars, when the pampered heirs of the ages can sum up life +in few other words but <i>la fatigue</i>, there might surely come a cry from +the vast mass of common humanity from the beginning—<i>et nous?</i> It is +this potentiality for enthusiasm among the mass of men that makes the +function of comedy at once common and sublime. Shakespeare's "Much Ado +About Nothing" is a great comedy, because behind it is the whole +pressure of that love of love which is the youth of the world, which is +common to all the young, especially to those who swear they will die +bachelors and old maids. "Love's Labour's Lost" is filled with the same +energy, and there it falls even more<a name="Page_81" id="Page_81"></a> definitely into the scope of our +subject, since it is a comedy in rhyme in which all men speak lyrically +as naturally as the birds sing in pairing time. What the love of love +is to the Shakespearean comedies, that other and more mysterious human +passion, the love of death, is to "L'Aiglon." Whether we shall ever have +in England a new tradition of poetic comedy it is difficult at present +to say, but we shall assuredly never have it until we realise that +comedy is built upon everlasting foundations in the nature of things, +that it is not a thing too light to capture, but too deep to plumb. +Monsieur Rostand, in his description of the Battle of Wagram, does not +shrink from bringing about the Duke's ears the frightful voices of +actual battle, of men torn by crows, and suffocated with blood, but when +the Duke, terrified at these dreadful appeals, asks them for their final +word, they all cry together <i>Vive l'Empereur!</i> Monsieur Rostand, +perhaps, did not know that he was writing an allegory. To me that field +of Wagram is the field of the modern war of literature. We hear nothing +but the voices of<a name="Page_82" id="Page_82"></a> pain; the whole is one phonograph of horror. It is +right that we should hear these things, it is right that not one of +them should be silenced; but these cries of distress are not in life, as +they are in modern art, the only voices; they are the voices of men, but +not the voice of man. When questioned finally and seriously as to their +conception of their destiny, men have from the beginning of time +answered in a thousand philosophies and religions with a single voice +and in a sense most sacred and tremendous, <i>Vive l'Empereur</i>.</p> + + + +<hr class="full" /><h2><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83"></a><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84"></a><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85"></a> +<a name="CHARLES_II" id="CHARLES_II"></a>CHARLES II</h2> + + +<p>There are a great many bonds which still connect us with Charles II., +one of the idlest men of one of the idlest epochs. Among other things +Charles II. represented one thing which is very rare and very +satisfying; he was a real and consistent sceptic. Scepticism, both in +its advantages and disadvantages, is greatly misunderstood in our time. +There is a curious idea abroad that scepticism has some connection with +such theories as materialism and atheism and secularism. This is of +course a mistake; the true sceptic has nothing to do with these theories +simply because they are theories. The true sceptic is as much a +spiritualist as he is a materialist. He thinks that the savage dancing +round an African idol stands quite as good a chance of being right as +Darwin. He thinks that mysticism<a name="Page_86" id="Page_86"></a> is every bit as rational as +rationalism. He has indeed the most profound doubts as to whether St. +Matthew wrote his own gospel. But he has quite equally profound doubts +as to whether the tree he is looking at is a tree and not a rhinoceros.</p> + +<p>This is the real meaning of that mystery which appears so prominently in +the lives of great sceptics, which appears with especial prominence in +the life of Charles II. I mean their constant oscillation between +atheism and Roman Catholicism. Roman Catholicism is indeed a great and +fixed and formidable system, but so is atheism. Atheism is indeed the +most daring of all dogmas, more daring than the vision of a palpable day +of judgment. For it is the assertion of a universal negative; for a man +to say that there is no God in the universe is like saying that there +are no insects in any of the stars.</p> + +<p>Thus it was with that wholesome and systematic sceptic, Charles II. When +he took the Sacrament according to the forms of the Roman Church in his +last hour he was acting consistently as a philosopher. <a name="Page_87" id="Page_87"></a>The wafer might +not be God; similarly it might not be a wafer. To the genuine and +poetical sceptic the whole world is incredible, with its bulbous +mountains and its fantastic trees. The whole order of things is as +outrageous as any miracle which could presume to violate it. +Transubstantiation might be a dream, but if it was, it was assuredly a +dream within a dream. Charles II. sought to guard himself against hell +fire because he could not think hell itself more fantastic than the +world as it was revealed by science. The priest crept up the staircase, +the doors were closed, the few of the faithful who were present hushed +themselves respectfully, and so, with every circumstance of secrecy and +sanctity, with the cross uplifted and the prayers poured out, was +consummated the last great act of logical unbelief.</p> + +<p>The problem of Charles II. consists in this, that he has scarcely a +moral virtue to his name, and yet he attracts us morally. We feel that +some of the virtues have been dropped out in the lists made by all the +saints and sages, and that Charles II. was pre<a name="Page_88" id="Page_88"></a>-eminently successful in +these wild and unmentionable virtues. The real truth of this matter and +the real relation of Charles II. to the moral ideal is worth somewhat +more exhaustive study.</p> + +<p>It is a commonplace that the Restoration movement can only be understood +when considered as a reaction against Puritanism. But it is +insufficiently realised that the tyranny which half frustrated all the +good work of Puritanism was of a very peculiar kind. It was not the fire +of Puritanism, the exultation in sobriety, the frenzy of a restraint, +which passed away; that still burns in the heart of England, only to be +quenched by the final overwhelming sea. But it is seldom remembered that +the Puritans were in their day emphatically intellectual bullies, that +they relied swaggeringly on the logical necessity of Calvinism, that +they bound omnipotence itself in the chains of syllogism. The Puritans +fell, through the damning fact that they had a complete theory of life, +through the eternal paradox that a satisfactory explanation can never +satisfy. Like Brutus and the logical Romans, <a name="Page_89" id="Page_89"></a>like the logical French +Jacobins, like the logical English utilitarians, they taught the lesson +that men's wants have always been right and their arguments always +wrong. Reason is always a kind of brute force; those who appeal to the +head rather than the heart, however pallid and polite, are necessarily +men of violence. We speak of "touching" a man's heart, but we can do +nothing to his head but hit it. The tyranny of the Puritans over the +bodies of men was comparatively a trifle; pikes, bullets, and +conflagrations are comparatively a trifle. Their real tyranny was the +tyranny of aggressive reason over the cowed and demoralised human +spirit. Their brooding and raving can be forgiven, can in truth be loved +and reverenced, for it is humanity on fire; hatred can be genial, +madness can be homely. The Puritans fell, not because they were +fanatics, but because they were rationalists.</p> + +<p>When we consider these things, when we remember that Puritanism, which +means in our day a moral and almost temperamental attitude, meant in +that day a<a name="Page_90" id="Page_90"></a> singularly arrogant logical attitude, we shall comprehend a +little more the grain of good that lay in the vulgarity and triviality +of the Restoration. The Restoration, of which Charles II. was a +pre-eminent type, was in part a revolt of all the chaotic and unclassed +parts of human nature, the parts that are left over, and will always be +left over, by every rationalistic system of life. This does not merely +account for the revolt of the vices and of that empty recklessness and +horseplay which is sometimes more irritating than any vice. It accounts +also for the return of the virtue of politeness, for that also is a +nameless thing ignored by logical codes. Politeness has indeed about it +something mystical; like religion, it is everywhere understood and +nowhere defined. Charles is not entirely to be despised because, as the +type of this movement, he let himself float upon this new tide of +politeness. There was some moral and social value in his perfection in +little things. He could not keep the Ten Commandments, but he kept the +ten thousand commandments. His name is unconnected with any great<a name="Page_91" id="Page_91"></a> acts +of duty or sacrifice, but it is connected with a great many of those +acts of magnanimous politeness, of a kind of dramatic delicacy, which +lie on the dim borderland between morality and art. "Charles II.," said +Thackeray, with unerring brevity, "was a rascal, but not a snob." Unlike +George IV. he was a gentleman, and a gentleman is a man who obeys +strange statutes, not to be found in any moral text-book, and practises +strange virtues nameless from the beginning of the world.</p> + +<p>So much may be said and should be said for the Restoration, that it was +the revolt of something human, if only the debris of human nature. But +more cannot be said. It was emphatically a fall and not an ascent, a +recoil and not an advance, a sudden weakness and not a sudden strength. +That the bow of human nature was by Puritanism bent immeasurably too +far, that it overstrained the soul by stretching it to the height of an +almost horrible idealism, makes the collapse of the Restoration +infinitely more excusable, but it does not make it any the less a +collapse.<a name="Page_92" id="Page_92"></a> Nothing can efface the essential distinction that Puritanism +was one of the world's great efforts after the discovery of the true +order, whereas it was the essence of the Restoration that it involved no +effort at all. It is true that the Restoration was not, as has been +widely assumed, the most immoral epoch of our history. Its vices cannot +compare for a moment in this respect with the monstrous tragedies and +almost suffocating secrecies and villainies of the Court of James I. But +the dram-drinking and nose-slitting of the saturnalia of Charles II. +seem at once more human and more detestable than the passions and +poisons of the Renaissance, much in the same way that a monkey appears +inevitably more human and more detestable than a tiger. Compared with +the Renaissance, there is something Cockney about the Restoration. Not +only was it too indolent for great morality, it was too indolent even +for great art. It lacked that seriousness which is needed even for the +pursuit of pleasure, that discipline which is essential even to a game +of lawn tennis. It would have appeared to<a name="Page_93" id="Page_93"></a> Charles II.'s poets quite as +arduous to write "Paradise Lost" as to regain Paradise.</p> + +<p>All old and vigorous languages abound in images and metaphors, which, +though lightly and casually used, are in truth poems in themselves, and +poems of a high and striking order. Perhaps no phrase is so terribly +significant as the phrase "killing time." It is a tremendous and +poetical image, the image of a kind of cosmic parricide. There are on +the earth a race of revellers who do, under all their exuberance, +fundamentally regard time as an enemy. Of these were Charles II. and the +men of the Restoration. Whatever may have been their merits, and as we +have said we think that they had merits, they can never have a place +among the great representatives of the joy of life, for they belonged to +those lower epicureans who kill time, as opposed to those higher +epicureans who make time live.</p> + +<p>Of a people in this temper Charles II. was the natural and rightful +head. He may have been a pantomime King, but he was a King, and with all +his<a name="Page_94" id="Page_94"></a> geniality he let nobody forget it. He was not, indeed, the aimless +flaneur that he has been represented. He was a patient and cunning +politician, who disguised his wisdom under so perfect a mask of folly +that he not only deceived his allies and opponents, but has deceived +almost all the historians that have come after him. But if Charles was, +as he emphatically was, the only Stuart who really achieved despotism, +it was greatly due to the temper of the nation and the age. Despotism is +the easiest of all governments, at any rate for the governed.</p> + +<p>It is indeed a form of slavery, and it is the despot who is the slave. +Men in a state of decadence employ professionals to fight for them, +professionals to dance for them, and a professional to rule them.</p> + +<p>Almost all the faces in the portraits of that time look, as it were, +like masks put on artificially with the perruque. A strange unreality +broods over the period. Distracted as we are with civic mysteries and +problems we can afford to rejoice. Our tears are less desolate than +their laughter, our restraints are larger than their liberty.</p> + +<hr class="full" /> +<h2><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95"></a><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96"></a><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97"></a> +<a name="STEVENSON1" id="STEVENSON1"></a>STEVENSON<a name="FNanchor_1_1" id="FNanchor_1_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_1_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a></h2> + + +<p>A recent incident has finally convinced us that Stevenson was, as we +suspected, a great man. We knew from recent books that we have noticed, +from the scorn of "Ephemera Critica" and Mr. George Moore, that +Stevenson had the first essential qualification of a great man: that of +being misunderstood by his opponents. But from the book which Messrs. +Chatto & Windus have issued, in the same binding as Stevenson's works, +"Robert Louis Stevenson," by Mr. H. Bellyse Baildon, we learn that he +has the other essential qualification, that of being misunderstood by +his admirers. Mr. Baildon has many interesting things to tell us about +Stevenson himself, whom he knew at college. Nor are his criticisms by +any means valueless. That upon the plays,<a name="Page_98" id="Page_98"></a> especially "Beau Austin," is +remarkably thoughtful and true. But it is a very singular fact, and goes +far, as we say, to prove that Stevenson had that unfathomable quality +which belongs to the great, that this admiring student of Stevenson can +number and marshal all the master's work and distribute praise and blame +with decision and even severity, without ever thinking for a moment of +the principles of art and ethics which would have struck us as the very +things that Stevenson nearly killed himself to express.</p> + +<p>Mr. Baildon, for example, is perpetually lecturing Stevenson for his +"pessimism"; surely a strange charge against a man who has done more +than any modern artist to make men ashamed of their shame of life. But +he complains that, in "The Master of Ballantrae" and "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. +Hyde," Stevenson gives evil a final victory over good. Now if there was +one point that Stevenson more constantly and passionately emphasised +than any other it was that we must worship good for its own value and<a name="Page_99" id="Page_99"></a> +beauty, without any reference whatever to victory or failure in space +and time. "Whatever we are intended to do," he said, "we are not +intended to succeed." That the stars in their courses fight against +virtue, that humanity is in its nature a forlorn hope, this was the very +spirit that through the whole of Stevenson's work sounded a trumpet to +all the brave. The story of Henry Durie is dark enough, but could anyone +stand beside the grave of that sodden monomaniac and not respect him? It +is strange that men should see sublime inspiration in the ruins of an +old church and see none in the ruins of a man.</p> + +<p>The author has most extraordinary ideas about Stevenson's tales of blood +and spoil; he appears to think that they prove Stevenson to have had (we +use Mr. Baildon's own phrase) a kind of "homicidal mania." "He +[Stevenson] arrives pretty much at the paradox that one can hardly be +better employed than in taking life." Mr. Baildon might as well say that +Dr. Conan Doyle delights in committing inexplicable crimes, that Mr. +Clark Russell is a notorious<a name="Page_100" id="Page_100"></a> pirate, and that Mr. Wilkie Collins thought +that one could hardly be better employed than in stealing moonstones +and falsifying marriage registers. But Mr. Baildon is scarcely alone in +this error: few people have understood properly the goriness of +Stevenson. Stevenson was essentially the robust schoolboy who draws +skeletons and gibbets in his Latin grammar. It was not that he took +pleasure in death, but that he took pleasure in life, in every muscular +and emphatic action of life, even if it were an action that took the +life of another.</p> + +<p>Let us suppose that one gentleman throws a knife at another gentleman +and pins him to the wall. It is scarcely necessary to remark that there +are in this transaction two somewhat varying personal points of view. +The point of view of the man pinned is the tragic and moral point of +view, and this Stevenson showed clearly that he understood in such +stories as "The Master of Ballantrae" and "Weir of Hermiston." But there +is another view of the matter—that in which the whole act is an abrupt +and brilliant<a name="Page_101" id="Page_101"></a> explosion of bodily vitality, like breaking a rock with a +blow of a hammer, or just clearing a five-barred gate. This is the +standpoint of romance, and it is the soul of "Treasure Island" and "The +Wrecker." It was not, indeed, that Stevenson loved men less, but that he +loved clubs and pistols more. He had, in truth, in the devouring +universalism of his soul, a positive love for inanimate objects such as +has not been known since St. Francis called the sun brother and the well +sister. We feel that he was actually in love with the wooden crutch that +Silver sent hurtling in the sunlight, with the box that Billy Bones left +at the "Admiral Benbow," with the knife that Wicks drove through his own +hand and the table. There is always in his work a certain clean-cut +angularity which makes us remember that he was fond of cutting wood with +an axe.</p> + +<p>Stevenson's new biographer, however, cannot make any allowance for this +deep-rooted poetry of mere sight and touch. He is always imputing +something to Stevenson as a crime which Stevenson really pro<a name="Page_102" id="Page_102"></a>fessed as an +object. He says of that glorious riot of horror, "The Destroying Angel," +in "The Dynamiter," that it is "highly fantastic and putting a strain +on our credulity." This is rather like describing the travels of Baron +Munchausen as "unconvincing." The whole story of "The Dynamiter" is a +kind of humorous nightmare, and even in that story "The Destroying +Angel" is supposed to be an extravagant lie made up on the spur of the +moment. It is a dream within a dream, and to accuse it of improbability +is like accusing the sky of being blue. But Mr. Baildon, whether from +hasty reading or natural difference of taste, cannot in the least +comprehend that rich and romantic irony of Stevenson's London stories. +He actually says of that portentous monument of humour, Prince Florizel +of Bohemia, that, "though evidently admired by his creator, he is to me +on the whole rather an irritating presence." From this we are almost +driven to believe (though desperately and against our will) that Mr. +Baildon thinks that Prince Florizel is to be taken seriously,<a name="Page_103" id="Page_103"></a> as if he +were a man in real life. For ourselves. Prince Florizel is almost our +favourite character in fiction; but we willingly add the proviso that +if we met him in real life we should kill him.</p> + +<p>The fact is, that the whole mass of Stevenson's spiritual and +intellectual virtues have been partly frustrated by one additional +virtue—that of artistic dexterity. If he had chalked up his great +message on a wall, like Walt Whitman, in large and straggling letters, +it would have startled men like a blasphemy. But he wrote his +light-headed paradoxes in so flowing a copy-book hand that everyone +supposed they must be copy-book sentiments. He suffered from his +versatility, not, as is loosely said, by not doing every department well +enough, but by doing every department too well. As child, cockney, +pirate, or Puritan, his disguises were so good that most people could +not see the same man under all. It is an unjust fact that if a man can +play the fiddle, give legal opinions, and black boots just tolerably, he +is called an Admirable Crichton, but if he does all three thoroughly +well, he<a name="Page_104" id="Page_104"></a> is apt to be regarded, in the several departments, as a common +fiddler, a common lawyer, and a common boot-black. This is what has +happened in the case of Stevenson. If "Dr. Jekyll," "The Master of +Ballantrae," "The Child's Garden of Verses," and "Across the Plains" had +been each of them one shade less perfectly done than they were, everyone +would have seen that they were all parts of the same message; but by +succeeding in the proverbial miracle of being in five places at once, he +has naturally convinced others that he was five different people. But +the real message of Stevenson was as simple as that of Mohamet, as moral +as that of Dante, as confident as that of Whitman, and as practical as +that of James Watt. The conception which unites the whole varied work of +Stevenson was that romance, or the vision of the possibilities of +things, was far more important than mere occurrences: that one was the +soul of our life, the other the body, and that the soul was the precious +thing. The germ of all his stories lies in the idea that every landscape +or scrap of scenery has a soul:<a name="Page_105" id="Page_105"></a> and that soul is a story. Standing +before a stunted orchard with a broken stone wall, we may know as a +mere fact that no one has been through it but an elderly female cook. +But everything exists in the human soul: that orchard grows in our own +brain, and there it is the shrine and theatre of some strange chance +between a girl and a ragged poet and a mad farmer. Stevenson stands for +the conception that ideas are the real incidents: that our fancies are +our adventures. To think of a cow with wings is essentially to have met +one. And this is the reason for his wide diversities of narrative: he +had to make one story as rich as a ruby sunset, another as grey as a +hoary monolith: for the story was the soul, or rather the meaning, of +the bodily vision. It is quite inappropriate to judge "The Teller of +Tales" (as the Samoans called him) by the particular novels he wrote, as +one would judge Mr. George Moore by "Esther Waters." These novels were +only the two or three of his soul's adventures that he happened to tell. +But he died with a thousand stories in his heart.</p> + +<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1_1" id="Footnote_1_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1_1"><span class="label">[1]</span></a> "Robert Louis Stevenson: A Life Study in Criticism." By H. Bellyse +Baildon. Chatto & Windus.</p></div> +</div> + +<hr class="full" /> +<h2><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106"></a><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107"></a><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108"></a><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109"></a> + +<a name="THOMAS_CARLYLE" id="THOMAS_CARLYLE"></a>THOMAS CARLYLE</h2> + + +<p>There are two main moral necessities for the work of a great man: the +first is that he should believe in the truth of his message; the second +is that he should believe in the acceptability of his message. It was +the whole tragedy of Carlyle that he had the first and not the second.</p> + +<p>The ordinary capital, however, which is made out of Carlyle's alleged +gloom is a very paltry matter. Carlyle had his faults, both as a man and +as a writer, but the attempt to explain his gospel in terms of his +"liver" is merely pitiful. If indigestion invariably resulted in a +"Sartor Resartus," it would be a vastly more tolerable thing than it is. +Diseases do not turn into poems; even the decadent really writes with +the healthy part of his organism. If Carlyle's private faults and +literary virtues ran somewhat in the same<a name="Page_110" id="Page_110"></a> line, he is only in the +situation of every man; for every one of us it is surely very difficult +to say precisely where our honest opinions end and our personal +predilections begin. But to attempt to denounce Carlyle as a mere savage +egotist cannot arise from anything but a pure inability to grasp +Carlyle's gospel. "Ruskin," says a critic, "did, all the same, verily +believe in God; Carlyle believed only in himself." This is certainly a +distinction between the author he has understood and the author he has +not understood. Carlyle believed in himself, but he could not have +believed in himself more than Ruskin did; they both believed in God, +because they felt that if everything else fell into wrack and ruin, +themselves were permanent witnesses to God. Where they both failed was +not in belief in God or in belief in themselves; they failed in belief +in other people. It is not enough for a prophet to believe in his +message; he must believe in its acceptability. Christ, St. Francis, +Bunyan, Wesley, Mr. Gladstone, Walt Whitman, men of indescribable +variety, were all alike in<a name="Page_111" id="Page_111"></a> a certain faculty of treating the average man +as their equal, of trusting to his reason and good feeling without fear +and without condescension. It was this simplicity of confidence, not +only in God, but in the image of God, that was lacking in Carlyle.</p> + +<p>But the attempts to discredit Carlyle's religious sentiment must +absolutely fall to the ground. The profound security of Carlyle's sense +of the unity of the Cosmos is like that of a Hebrew prophet; and it has +the same expression that it had in the Hebrew prophets—humour. A man +must be very full of faith to jest about his divinity. No Neo-Pagan +delicately suggesting a revival of Dionysus, no vague, half-converted +Theosophist groping towards a recognition of Buddha, would ever think of +cracking jokes on the matter. But to the Hebrew prophets their religion +was so solid a thing, like a mountain or a mammoth, that the irony of +its contact with trivial and fleeting matters struck them like a blow. +So it was with Carlyle. His supreme contribution, both to philosophy and +literature, was his sense of<a name="Page_112" id="Page_112"></a> the sarcasm of eternity. Other writers had +seen the hope or the terror of the heavens, he alone saw the humour of +them. Other writers had seen that there could be something elemental and +eternal in a song or statute, he alone saw that there could be something +elemental and eternal in a joke. No one who ever read it will forget the +passage, full of dark and agnostic gratification, in which he narrates +that some Court chronicler described Louis XV. as "falling asleep in the +Lord." "Enough for us that he did fall asleep; that, curtained in thick +night, under what keeping we ask not, he at least will never, through +unending ages, insult the face of the sun any more ... and we go on, if +not to better forms of beastliness, at least to fresher ones."</p> + +<p>The supreme value of Carlyle to English literature was that he was the +founder of modern irrationalism; a movement fully as important as modern +rationalism. A great deal is said in these days about the value or +valuelessness of logic. In the main, indeed, logic is not a productive +tool so much as a weapon of defence.<a name="Page_113" id="Page_113"></a> A man building up an intellectual +system has to build like Nehemiah, with the sword in one hand and the +trowel in the other. The imagination, the constructive quality, is the +trowel, and argument is the sword. A wide experience of actual +intellectual affairs will lead most people to the conclusion that logic +is mainly valuable as a weapon wherewith to exterminate logicians.</p> + +<p>But though this may be true enough in practice, it scarcely clears up +the position of logic in human affairs. Logic is a machine of the mind, +and if it is used honestly it ought to bring out an honest conclusion. +When people say that you can prove anything by logic, they are not using +words in a fair sense. What they mean is that you can prove anything by +bad logic. Deep in the mystic ingratitude of the soul of man there is an +extraordinary tendency to use the name for an organ, when what is meant +is the abuse or decay of that organ. Thus we speak of a man suffering +from "nerves," which is about as sensible as talking about a man +suffering from ten <a name="Page_114" id="Page_114"></a>fingers. We speak of "liver" and "digestion" when we +mean the failure of liver and the absence of digestion. And in the same +manner we speak of the dangers of logic, when what we really mean is the +danger of fallacy.</p> + +<p>But the real point about the limitation of logic and the partial +overthrow of logic by writers like Carlyle is deeper and somewhat +different. The fault of the great mass of logicians is not that they +bring out a false result, or, in other words, are not logicians at all. +Their fault is that by an inevitable psychological habit they tend to +forget that there are two parts of a logical process, the first the +choosing of an assumption, and the second the arguing upon it, and +humanity, if it devotes itself too persistently to the study of sound +reasoning, has a certain tendency to lose the faculty of sound +assumption. It is astonishing how constantly one may hear from rational +and even rationalistic persons such a phrase as "He did not prove the +very thing with which he started," or, "The whole of his case rested +upon a pure assump<a name="Page_115" id="Page_115"></a>tion," two peculiarities which may be found by the +curious in the works of Euclid. It is astonishing, again, how +constantly one hears rationalists arguing upon some deep topic, +apparently without troubling about the deep assumptions involved, having +lost their sense, as it were, of the real colour and character of a +man's assumption. For instance, two men will argue about whether +patriotism is a good thing and never discover until the end, if at all, +that the cosmopolitan is basing his whole case upon the idea that man +should, if he can, become as God, with equal sympathies and no +prejudices, while the nationalist denies any such duty at the very +start, and regards man as an animal who has preferences, as a bird has +feathers.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p>Thus it was with Carlyle: he startled men by attacking not arguments, +but assumptions. He simply brushed aside all the matters which the men +of the nineteenth century held to be incontrovertible, and appealed +directly to the very different class of matters<a name="Page_116" id="Page_116"></a> which they knew to be +true. He induced men to study less the truth of their reasoning, and +more the truth of the assumptions upon which they reasoned. Even where +his view was not the highest truth, it was always a refreshing and +beneficent heresy. He denied every one of the postulates upon which the +age of reason based itself. He denied the theory of progress which +assumed that we must be better off than the people of the twelfth +century. Whether we were better than the people of the twelfth century, +according to him, depended entirely upon whether we chose or deserved to +be.</p> + +<p>He denied every type and species of prop or association or support which +threw the responsibility upon civilisation or society, or anything but +the individual conscience. He has often been called a prophet. The real +ground of the truth of this phrase is often neglected. Since the last +era of purely religious literature, the era of English Puritanism, there +has been no writer in whose eyes the soul stood so much alone.</p> + +<p>Carlyle was, as we have suggested, a mystic, and<a name="Page_117" id="Page_117"></a> mysticism was with him, +as with all its genuine professors, only a transcendent form of common +sense. Mysticism and common sense alike consist in a sense of the +dominance of certain truths and tendencies which cannot be formally +demonstrated or even formally named. Mysticism and common sense are +alike appeals to realities that we all know to be real, but which have +no place in argument except as postulates. Carlyle's work did consist in +breaking through formulæ, old and new, to these old and silent and +ironical sanities. Philosophers might abolish kings a hundred times +over, he maintained, they could not alter the fact that every man and +woman does choose a king and repudiate all the pride of citizenship for +the exultation of humility. If inequality of this kind was a weakness, +it was a weakness bound up with the very strength of the universe. About +hero worship, indeed, few critics have done the smallest justice to +Carlyle. Misled by those hasty and choleric passages in which he +sometimes expressed a preference for mere violence, passages<a name="Page_118" id="Page_118"></a> which were +a great deal more connected with his temperament than with his +philosophy, they have finally imbibed the notion that Carlyle's theory +of hero worship was a theory of terrified submission to stern and +arrogant men. As a matter of fact, Carlyle is really inhumane about some +questions, but he is never inhumane about hero worship. His view is not +that human nature is so vulgar and silly a thing that it must be guided +and driven; it is, on the contrary, that human nature is so chivalrous +and fundamentally magnanimous a thing that even the meanest have it in +them to love a leader more than themselves, and to prefer loyalty to +rebellion. When he speaks of this trait in human nature Carlyle's tone +invariably softens. We feel that for the moment he is kindled with +admiration of mankind, and almost reaches the verge of Christianity. +Whatever else was acid and captious about Carlyle's utterances, his hero +worship was not only humane, it was almost optimistic. He admired great +men primarily, and perhaps correctly, because he thought that they were +more human than<a name="Page_119" id="Page_119"></a> other men. The evil side of the influence of Carlyle and +his religion of hero worship did not consist in the emotional worship +of valour and success; that was a part of him, as, indeed, it is a part +of all healthy children. Where Carlyle really did harm was in the fact +that he, more than any modern man, is responsible for the increase of +that modern habit of what is vulgarly called "Going the whole hog." +Often in matters of passion and conquest it is a singularly hoggish hog. +This remarkable modern craze for making one's philosophy, religion, +politics, and temper all of a piece, of seeking in all incidents for +opportunities to assert and reassert some favourite mental attitude, is +a thing which existed comparatively little in other centuries. Solomon +and Horace, Petrarch and Shakespeare were pessimists when they were +melancholy, and optimists when they were happy. But the optimist of +to-day seems obliged to prove that gout and unrequited love make him +dance with joy, and the pessimist of to-day to prove that sunshine and a +good supper convulse him with inconsolable anguish. Car<a name="Page_120" id="Page_120"></a>lyle was strongly +possessed with this mania for spiritual consistency. He wished to take +the same view of the wars of the angels and of the paltriest riot at +Donnybrook Fair. It was this species of insane logic which led him into +his chief errors, never his natural enthusiasms. Let us take an example. +Carlyle's defence of slavery is a thoroughly ridiculous thing, weak +alike in argument and in moral instinct. The truth is, that he only took +it up from the passion for applying everywhere his paradoxical defence +of aristocracy. He blundered, of course, because he did not see that +slavery has nothing in the world to do with aristocracy, that it is, +indeed, almost its opposite. The defence which Carlyle and all its +thoughtful defenders have made for aristocracy was that a few persons +could more rapidly and firmly decide public affairs in the interests of +the people. But slavery is not even supposed to be a government for the +good of the governed. It is a possession of the governed avowedly for +the good of the governors. Aristocracy uses the strong for the service +of the weak; slavery<a name="Page_121" id="Page_121"></a> uses the weak for the service of the strong. It is +no derogation to man as a spiritual being, as Carlyle firmly believed +he was, that he should be ruled and guided for his own good like a +child—for a child who is always ruled and guided we regard as the very +type of spiritual existence. But it is a derogation and an absolute +contradiction to that human spirituality in which Carlyle believed that +a man should be owned like a tool for someone else's good, as if he had +no personal destiny in the Cosmos. We draw attention to this particular +error of Carlyle's because we think that it is a curious example of the +waste and unclean places into which that remarkable animal, "the whole +hog," more than once led him.</p> + +<p>In this respect Carlyle has had unquestionably long and an +unquestionably bad influence. The whole of that recent political ethic +which conceives that if we only go far enough we may finish a thing for +once and all, that being strong consists chiefly in being deliberately +deaf and blind, owes a great deal of its complete sway to his example. +Out of him flows most<a name="Page_122" id="Page_122"></a> of the philosophy of Nietzsche, who is in modern +times the supreme maniac of this moonstruck consistency. Though +Nietzsche and Carlyle were in reality profoundly different, Carlyle +being a stiff-necked peasant and Nietzsche a very fragile aristocrat, +they were alike in this one quality of which we speak, the strange and +pitiful audacity with which they applied their single ethical test to +everything in heaven and earth. The disciple of Nietzsche, indeed, +embraces immorality like an austere and difficult faith. He urges +himself to lust and cruelty with the same tremulous enthusiasm with +which a Christian urges himself to purity and patience; he struggles as +a monk struggles with bestial visions and temptations with the ancient +necessities of honour and justice and compassion. To this madhouse, it +can hardly be denied, has Carlyle's intellectual courage brought many at +last.<a name="Page_123" id="Page_123"></a><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124"></a><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125"></a></p> + + + +<hr class="full" /> +<h2><a name="TOLSTOY_AND_THE_CULT_OF_SIMPLICITY" id="TOLSTOY_AND_THE_CULT_OF_SIMPLICITY"></a>TOLSTOY AND THE CULT OF SIMPLICITY</h2> + + +<p>The whole world is certainly heading for a great simplicity, not +deliberately, but rather inevitably. It is not a mere fashion of false +innocence, like that of the French aristocrats before the Revolution, +who built an altar to Pan, and who taxed the peasantry for the enormous +expenditure which is needed in order to live the simple life of +peasants. The simplicity towards which the world is driving is the +necessary outcome of all our systems and speculations and of our deep +and continuous contemplation of things. For the universe is like +everything in it; we have to look at it repeatedly and habitually before +we see it. It is only when we have seen it for the hundredth time that +we see it for the first time. The more consistently things are +contem<a name="Page_126" id="Page_126"></a>plated, the more they tend to unify themselves and therefore to +simplify themselves. The simplification of anything is always +sensational. Thus monotheism is the most sensational of things: it is as +if we gazed long at a design full of disconnected objects, and, +suddenly, with a stunning thrill, they came together into a huge and +staring face.</p> + +<p>Few people will dispute that all the typical movements of our time are +upon this road towards simplification. Each system seeks to be more +fundamental than the other; each seeks, in the literal sense, to +undermine the other. In art, for example, the old conception of man, +classic as the Apollo Belvedere, has first been attacked by the realist, +who asserts that man, as a fact of natural history, is a creature with +colourless hair and a freckled face. Then comes the Impressionist, going +yet deeper, who asserts that to his physical eye, which alone is +certain, man is a creature with purple hair and a grey face. Then comes +the Symbolist, and says that to his soul, which alone is certain, man is +a creature with green hair and<a name="Page_127" id="Page_127"></a> a blue face. And all the great writers of +our time represent in one form or another this attempt to reestablish +communication with the elemental, or, as it is sometimes more roughly +and fallaciously expressed, to return to nature. Some think that the +return to nature consists in drinking no wine; some think that it +consists in drinking a great deal more than is good for them. Some think +that the return to nature is achieved by beating swords into +ploughshares; some think it is achieved by turning ploughshares into +very ineffectual British War Office bayonets. It is natural, according +to the Jingo, for a man to kill other people with gunpowder and himself +with gin. It is natural, according to the humanitarian revolutionist, to +kill other people with dynamite and himself with vegetarianism. It would +be too obviously Philistine a sentiment, perhaps, to suggest that the +claim of either of these persons to be obeying the voice of nature is +interesting when we consider that they require huge volumes of +paradoxical argument to persuade themselves or anyone else of the truth +of their conclusions. <a name="Page_128" id="Page_128"></a>But the giants of our time are undoubtedly alike +in that they approach by very different roads this conception of the +return to simplicity. Ibsen returns to nature by the angular exterior of +fact, Maeterlinck by the eternal tendencies of fable. Whitman returns to +nature by seeing how much he can accept, Tolstoy by seeing how much he +can reject.</p> + +<p>Now, this heroic desire to return to nature, is, of course, in some +respects, rather like the heroic desire of a kitten to return to its own +tail. A tail is a simple and beautiful object, rhythmic in curve and +soothing in texture; but it is certainly one of the minor but +characteristic qualities of a tail that it should hang behind. It is +impossible to deny that it would in some degree lose its character if +attached to any other part of the anatomy. Now, nature is like a tail in +the sense that it vitally important, if it is to discharge its real +duty, that it should be always behind. To imagine that we can see +nature, especially our own nature, face to face, is a folly; it is even +a blasphemy. It is like the conduct of a cat in some mad fairy-tale,<a name="Page_129" id="Page_129"></a> who +should set out on his travels with the firm conviction that he would +find his tail growing like a tree in the meadows at the end of the +world. And the actual effect of the travels of the philosopher in search +of nature, when seen from the outside, looks very like the gyrations of +the tail-pursuing kitten, exhibiting much enthusiasm but little dignity, +much cry and very little tail. The grandeur of nature is that she is +omnipotent and unseen, that she is perhaps ruling us most when we think +that she is heeding us least. "Thou art a God that hidest Thyself," said +the Hebrew poet. It may be said with all reverence that it is behind a +man's back that the spirit of nature hides.</p> + +<p>It is this consideration that lends a certain air of futility even to +all the inspired simplicities and thunderous veracities of Tolstoy. We +feel that a man cannot make himself simple merely by warring on +complexity; we feel, indeed, in our saner moments, that a man cannot +make himself simple at all. A self-conscious simplicity may well be far +more intrin<a name="Page_130" id="Page_130"></a>sically ornate than luxury itself. Indeed, a great deal of +the pomp and sumptuousness of the world's history was simple in the +truest sense. It was born of an almost babyish receptiveness; it was the +work of men who had eyes to wonder and men who had ears to hear.</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span>"King Solomon brought merchant men<br /></span> +<span>Because of his desire<br /></span> +<span>With peacocks, apes, and ivory,<br /></span> +<span>From Tarshish unto Tyre."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>But this proceeding was not a part of the wisdom of Solomon; it was a +part of his folly—I had almost said of his innocence. Tolstoy, we feel, +would not be content with hurling satire and denunciation at "Solomon in +all his glory." With fierce and unimpeachable logic he would go a step +further. He would spend days and nights in the meadows stripping the +shameless crimson coronals off the lilies of the field.</p> + +<p>The new collection of "Tales from Tolstoy," translated and edited by Mr. +R. Nisbet Bain, is calculated to draw particular attention to this +ethical and ascetic<a name="Page_131" id="Page_131"></a> side of Tolstoy's work. In one sense, and that the +deepest sense, the work of Tolstoy is, of course, a genuine and noble +appeal to simplicity. The narrow notion that an artist may not teach is +pretty well exploded by now. But the truth of the matter is, that an +artist teaches far more by his mere background and properties, his +landscape, his costume, his idiom and technique—all the part of his +work, in short, of which he is probably entirely unconscious, than by +the elaborate and pompous moral dicta which he fondly imagines to be his +opinions. The real distinction between the ethics of high art and the +ethics of manufactured and didactic art lies in the simple fact that the +bad fable has a moral, while the good fable is a moral. And the real +moral of Tolstoy comes out constantly in these stories, the great moral +which lies at the heart of all his work, of which he is probably +unconscious, and of which it is quite likely that he would vehemently +disapprove. The curious cold white light of morning that shines over all +the tales, the folklore simplicity with which "a<a name="Page_132" id="Page_132"></a> man or a woman" are +spoken of without further identification, the love—one might almost say +the lust—for the qualities of brute materials, the hardness of wood, +and the softness of mud, the ingrained belief in a certain ancient +kindliness sitting beside the very cradle of the race of man—these +influences are truly moral. When we put beside them the trumpeting and +tearing nonsense of the didactic Tolstoy, screaming for an obscene +purity, shouting for an inhuman peace, hacking up human life into small +sins with a chopper, sneering at men, women, and children out of respect +to humanity, combining in one chaos of contradictions an unmanly Puritan +and an uncivilised prig, then, indeed, we scarcely know whither Tolstoy +has vanished. We know not what to do with this small and noisy moralist +who is inhabiting one corner of a great and good man.</p> + +<p>It is difficult in every case to reconcile Tolstoy the great artist with +Tolstoy the almost venomous reformer. It is difficult to believe that a +man who draws in such noble outlines the dignity of the daily life<a name="Page_133" id="Page_133"></a> of +humanity regards as evil that divine act of procreation by which that +dignity is renewed from age to age. It is difficult to believe that a +man who has painted with so frightful an honesty the heartrending +emptiness of the life of the poor can really grudge them every one of +their pitiful pleasures, from courtship to tobacco. It is difficult to +believe that a poet in prose who has so powerfully exhibited the +earth-born air of man, the essential kinship of a human being, with the +landscape in which he lives, can deny so elemental a virtue as that +which attaches a man to his own ancestors and his own land. It is +difficult to believe that the man who feels so poignantly the detestable +insolence of oppression would not actually, if he had the chance, lay +the oppressor flat with his fist. All, however, arises from the search +after a false simplicity, the aim of being, if I may so express it, more +natural than it is natural to be. It would not only be more human, it +would be more humble of us to be content to be complex. The truest +kinship with humanity would lie in doing as humanity has always<a name="Page_134" id="Page_134"></a> done, +accepting with a sportsmanlike relish the estate to which we are called, +the star of our happiness, and the fortunes of the land of our birth.</p> + +<p>The work of Tolstoy has another and more special significance. It +represents the re-assertion of a certain awful common sense which +characterised the most extreme utterances of Christ. It is true that we +cannot turn the cheek to the smiter; it is true that we cannot give our +cloak to the robber; civilisation is too complicated, too vain-glorious, +too emotional. The robber would brag, and we should blush; in other +words, the robber and we are alike sentimentalists. The command of +Christ is impossible, but it is not insane; it is rather sanity preached +to a planet of lunatics. If the whole world was suddenly stricken with a +sense of humour it would find itself mechanically fulfilling the Sermon +on the Mount. It is not the plain facts of the world which stand in the +way of that consummation, but its passions of vanity and +self-advertisement and morbid sensibility. It is true that we cannot +turn the cheek to the smiter, and the <a name="Page_135" id="Page_135"></a>sole and sufficient reason is that +we have not the pluck. Tolstoy and his followers have shown that they +have the pluck, and even if we think they are mistaken, by this sign +they conquer. Their theory has the strength of an utterly consistent +thing. It represents that doctrine of mildness and non-resistance which +is the last and most audacious of all the forms of resistance to every +existing authority. It is the great strike of the Quakers which is more +formidable than many sanguinary revolutions. If human beings could only +succeed in achieving a real passive resistance they would be strong with +the appalling strength of inanimate things, they would be calm with the +maddening calm of oak or iron, which conquer without vengeance and are +conquered without humiliation. The theory of Christian duty enunciated +by them is that we should never conquer by force, but always, if we can, +conquer by persuasion. In their mythology St. George did not conquer the +dragon: he tied a pink ribbon round its neck and gave it a saucer of +milk. According to them, a course of consistent kindness to Nero<a name="Page_136" id="Page_136"></a> would +have turned him into something only faintly represented by Alfred the +Great. In fact, the policy recommended by this school for dealing with +the bovine stupidity and bovine fury of this world is accurately summed +up in the celebrated verse of Mr. Edward Lear:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span>"There was an old man who said, 'How<br /></span> +<span>Shall I flee from this terrible cow?<br /></span> +<span>I will sit on a stile and continue to smile<br /></span> +<span>Till I soften the heart of this cow.'"<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Their confidence in human nature is really honourable and magnificent; +it takes the form of refusing to believe the overwhelming majority of +mankind, even when they set out to explain their own motives. But +although most of us would in all probability tend at first sight to +consider this new sect of Christians as little less outrageous than some +brawling and absurd sect in the Reformation, yet we should fall into a +singular error in doing so. The Christianity of Tolstoy is, when we come +to consider it, one of the most thrilling and dramatic incidents in our +modern civili<a name="Page_137" id="Page_137"></a>sation. It represents a tribute to the Christian religion +more sensational than the breaking of seals or the falling of stars.</p> + +<p>From the point of view of a rationalist, the whole world is rendered +almost irrational by the single phenomenon of Christian Socialism. It +turns the scientific universe topsy-turvy, and makes it essentially +possible that the key of all social evolution may be found in the dusty +casket of some discredited creed. It cannot be amiss to consider this +phenomenon as it realty is.</p> + +<p>The religion of Christ has, like many true things, been disproved an +extraordinary number of times. It was disproved by the Neo-Platonist +philosophers at the very moment when it was first starting forth upon +its startling and universal career. It was disproved again by many of +the sceptics of the Renaissance only a few years before its second and +supremely striking embodiment, the religion of Puritanism, was about to +triumph over many kings and civilise many continents. We all agree that +these schools of negation<a name="Page_138" id="Page_138"></a> were only interludes in its history; but we +all believe naturally and inevitably that the negation of our own day +is really a breaking up of the theological cosmos, an Armageddon, a +Ragnorak, a twilight of the gods. The man of the nineteenth century, +like a schoolboy of sixteen, believes that his doubt and depression are +symbols of the end of the world. In our day the great irreligionists who +did nothing but dethrone God and drive angels before them have been +outstripped, distanced, and made to look orthodox and humdrum. A newer +race of sceptics has found something infinitely more exciting to do than +nailing down the lids upon a million coffins, and the body upon a single +cross. They have disputed not only the elementary creeds, but the +elementary laws of mankind, property, patriotism, civil obedience. They +have arraigned civilisation as openly as the materialists have arraigned +theology; they have damned all the philosophers even lower than they +have damned the saints. Thousands of modern men move quietly and +conventionally among their fellows while holding views of<a name="Page_139" id="Page_139"></a> national +limitation or landed property that would have made Voltaire shudder like +a nun listening to blasphemies. And the last and wildest phase of this +saturnalia of scepticism, the school that goes furthest among thousands +who go so far, the school that denies the moral validity of those ideals +of courage or obedience which are recognised even among pirates, this +school bases itself upon the literal words of Christ, like Dr. Watts or +Messrs. Moody and Sankey. Never in the whole history of the world was +such a tremendous tribute paid to the vitality of an ancient creed. +Compared with this, it would be a small thing if the Red Sea were cloven +asunder, or the sun did stand still at midday. We are faced with the +phenomenon that a set of revolutionists whose contempt for all the +ideals of family and nation would evoke horror in a thieves' kitchen, +who can rid themselves of those elementary instincts of the man and the +gentleman which cling to the very bones of our civilisation, cannot rid +themselves of the influence of two or three remote Oriental anecdotes +written in corrupt<a name="Page_140" id="Page_140"></a> Greek. The fact, when realised, has about it +something stunning and hypnotic. The most convinced rationalist is in +its presence suddenly stricken with a strange and ancient vision, sees +the immense sceptical cosmogonies of this age as dreams going the way of +a thousand forgotten heresies, and believes for a moment that the dark +sayings handed down through eighteen centuries may, indeed, contain in +themselves the revolutions of which we have only begun to dream.</p> + +<p>This value which we have above suggested unquestionably belongs to the +Tolstoians, who may roughly be described as the new Quakers. With their +strange optimism, and their almost appalling logical courage, they offer +a tribute to Christianity which no orthodoxies could offer. It cannot +but be remarkable to watch a revolution in which both the rulers and the +rebels march under the same symbol. But the actual theory of +non-resistance itself, with all its kindred theories, is not, I think, +characterised by that intellectual obviousness and necessity which its +sup<a name="Page_141" id="Page_141"></a>porters claim for it. A pamphlet before us shows us an extraordinary +number of statements about the new Testament, of which the accuracy is +by no means so striking as the confidence. To begin with, we must +protest against a habit of quoting and paraphrasing at the same time. +When a man is discussing what Jesus meant, let him state first of all +what He said, not what the man thinks He would have said if he had +expressed Himself more clearly. Here is an instance of question and +answer:</p> + +<p>Q. "How did our Master Himself sum up the law in a few words?"</p> + +<p>A. "Be ye merciful, be ye perfect even as your Father; your Father in +the spirit world is merciful, is perfect."</p> + +<p>There is nothing in this, perhaps, which Christ might not have said +except the abominable metaphysical modernism of "the spirit world"; but +to say that it is recorded that He did say it, is like saying it is +recorded that He preferred palm trees to sycamores. It is a simple and +unadulterated un<a name="Page_142" id="Page_142"></a>truth. The author should know that these words have +meant a thousand things to a thousand people, and that if more ancient +sects had paraphrased them as cheerfully as he, he would never have had +the text upon which he founds his theory. In a pamphlet in which plain +printed words cannot be left alone, it is not surprising if there are +mis-statements upon larger matters. Here is a statement clearly and +philosophically laid down which we can only content ourselves with +flatly denying: "The fifth rule of our Lord is that we should take +special pains to cultivate the same kind of regard for people of foreign +countries, and for those generally who do not belong to us, or even have +an antipathy to us, which we already entertain towards our own people, +and those who are in sympathy with us." I should very much like to know +where in the whole of the New Testament the author finds this violent, +unnatural, and immoral proposition. Christ did not have the same kind of +regard for one person as for another. We are specifically told that +there were certain persons whom He<a name="Page_143" id="Page_143"></a> specially loved. It is most +improbable that He thought of other nations as He thought of His own. +The sight of His national city moved Him to tears, and the highest +compliment He paid was, "Behold an Israelite indeed." The author has +simply confused two entirely distinct things. Christ commanded us to +have love for all men, but even if we had equal love for all men, to +speak of having the same love for all men is merely bewildering +nonsense. If we love a man at all, the impression he produces on us must +be vitally different to the impression produced by another man whom we +love. To speak of having the same kind of regard for both is about as +sensible as asking a man whether he prefers chrysanthemums or billiards. +Christ did not love humanity; He never said He loved humanity; He loved +men. Neither He nor anyone else can love humanity; it is like loving a +gigantic centipede. And the reason that the Tolstoians can even endure +to think of an equally distributed affection is that their love of +humanity is a logical love, a love into which they are<a name="Page_144" id="Page_144"></a> coerced by their +own theories, a love which would be an insult to a tom-cat.</p> + +<p>But the greatest error of all lies in the mere act of cutting up the +teaching of the New Testament into five rules. It precisely and +ingeniously misses the most dominant characteristic of the teaching—its +absolute spontaneity. The abyss between Christ and all His modern +interpreters is that we have no record that He ever wrote a word, except +with His finger in the sand. The whole is the history of one continuous +and sublime conversation. Thousands of rules have been deduced from it +before these Tolstoian rules were made, and thousands will be deduced +afterwards. It was not for any pompous proclamation, it was not for any +elaborate output of printed volumes; it was for a few splendid and idle +words that the cross was set up on Calvary, and the earth gaped, and the +sun was darkened at noonday.<a name="Page_145" id="Page_145"></a><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146"></a><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147"></a></p> + + + +<hr class="full" /> +<h2><a name="SAVONAROLA" id="SAVONAROLA"></a>SAVONAROLA</h2> + + +<p>Savonarola is a man whom we shall probably never understand until we +know what horror may lie at the heart of civilisation. This we shall not +know until we are civilised. It may be hoped, in one sense, that we may +never understand Savonarola.</p> + +<p>The great deliverers of men have, for the most part, saved them from +calamities which we all recognise as evil, from calamities which are the +ancient enemies of humanity. The great law-givers saved us from anarchy: +the great physicians saved us from pestilence: the great reformers saved +us from starvation. But there is a huge and bottomless evil compared +with which all these are fleabites, the most desolating curse that can +fall upon men or nations, and it has no name except we call it +satisfaction. Savon<a name="Page_148" id="Page_148"></a>arola did not save men from anarchy, but from order; +not from pestilence, but from paralysis; not from starvation, but from +luxury. Men like Savonarola are the witnesses to the tremendous +psychological fact at the back of all our brains, but for which no name +has ever been found, that ease is the worst enemy of happiness, and +civilisation potentially the end of man.</p> + +<p>For I fancy that Savonarola's thrilling challenge to the luxury of his +day went far deeper than the mere question of sin. The modern +rationalistic admirers of Savonarola, from George Eliot downwards, +dwell, truly enough, upon the sound ethical justification of +Savonarola's anger, upon the hideous and extravagant character of the +crimes which polluted the palaces of the Renaissance. But they need not +be so anxious to show that Savonarola was no ascetic, that he merely +picked out the black specks of wickedness with the priggish +enlightenment of a member of an Ethical Society. Probably he did hate +the civilisation of his time, and not merely its sins; and that is +precisely where he was infinitely more pro<a name="Page_149" id="Page_149"></a>found than a modern moralist. +He saw, that the actual crimes were not the only evils: that stolen +jewels and poisoned wine and obscene pictures were merely the symptoms; +that the disease was the complete dependence upon jewels and wine and +pictures. This is a thing constantly forgotten in judging of ascetics +and Puritans in old times. A denunciation of harmless sports did not +always mean an ignorant hatred of what no one but a narrow moralist +would call harmful. Sometimes it meant an exceedingly enlightened hatred +of what no one but a narrow moralist would call harmless. Ascetics are +sometimes more advanced than the average man, as well as less.</p> + +<p>Such, at least, was the hatred in the heart of Savonarola. He was making +war against no trivial human sins, but against godless and thankless +quiescence, against getting used to happiness, the mystic sin by which +all creation fell. He was preaching that severity which is the +sign-manual of youth and hope. He was preaching that alertness, that +clean agility and vigilance, which is as necessary to gain pleasure as<a name="Page_150" id="Page_150"></a> +to gain holiness, as indispensable in a lover as in a monk. A critic has +truly pointed out that Savonarola could not have been fundamentally +anti-æsthetic, since he had such friends as Michael Angelo, Botticelli, +and Luca della Robbia. The fact is that this purification and austerity +are even more necessary for the appreciation of life and laughter than +for anything else. To let no bird fly past unnoticed, to spell patiently +the stones and weeds, to have the mind a storehouse of sunset, requires +a discipline in pleasure, and an education in gratitude.</p> + +<p>The civilisation which surrounded Savonarola on every side was a +civilisation which had already taken the wrong turn, the turn that leads +to endless inventions and no discoveries, in which new things grow old +with confounding rapidity, but in which no old things ever grow new. The +monstrosity of the crimes of the Renaissance was not a mark of +imagination; it was a mark, as all monstrosity is, of the loss of +imagination. It is only when a man has really ceased to see a horse as +it is, that he invents a centaur, only<a name="Page_151" id="Page_151"></a> when he can no longer be +surprised at an ox, that he worships the devil. Diablerie is the +stimulant of the jaded fancy; it is the dram-drinking of the artist. +Savonarola addressed himself to the hardest of all earthly tasks, that +of making men turn back and wonder at the simplicities they had learnt +to ignore. It is strange that the most unpopular of all doctrines is the +doctrine which declares the common life divine. Democracy, of which +Savonarola was so fiery an exponent, is the hardest of gospels; there is +nothing that so terrifies men as the decree that they are all kings. +Christianity, in Savonarola's mind, identical with democracy, is the +hardest of gospels; there is nothing that so strikes men with fear as +the saying that they are all the sons of God.</p> + +<p>Savonarola and his republic fell. The drug of despotism was administered +to the people, and they forgot what they had been. There are some at the +present day who have so strange a respect for art and letters, and for +mere men of genius, that they conceive the reign of the Medici to be an +improvement on that<a name="Page_152" id="Page_152"></a> of the great Florentine republican. It is such men +as these and their civilisation that we have at the present day to +fear. We are surrounded on many sides by the same symptoms as those +which awoke the unquenchable wrath of Savonarola—a hedonism that is +more sick of happiness than an invalid is sick of pain, an art sense +that seeks the assistance of crime since it has exhausted nature. In +many modern works we find veiled and horrible hints of a truly +Renaissance sense of the beauty of blood, the poetry of murder. The +bankrupt and depraved imagination does not see that a living man is far +more dramatic than a dead one. Along with this, as in the time of the +Medici, goes the falling back into the arms of despotism, the hunger for +the strong man which is unknown among strong men. The masterful hero is +worshipped as he is worshipped by the readers of the "Bow Bells +Novelettes," and for the same reason—a profound sense of personal +weakness. That tendency to devolve our duties descends on us, which is +the soul of slavery, alike whether for its menial tasks it employs<a name="Page_153" id="Page_153"></a> serfs +or emperors. Against all this the great clerical republican stands in +everlasting protest, preferring his failure to his rival's success. The +issue is still between him and Lorenzo, between the responsibilities of +liberty and the license of slavery, between the perils of truth and the +security of silence, between the pleasure of toil and the toil of +pleasure. The supporters of Lorenzo the Magnificent are assuredly among +us, men for whom even nations and empires only exist to satisfy the +moment, men to whom the last hot hour of summer is better than a sharp +and wintry spring. They have an art, a literature, a political +philosophy, which are all alike valued for their immediate effect upon +the taste, not for what they promise of the destiny of the spirit. Their +statuettes and sonnets are rounded and perfect, while "Macbeth" is in +comparison a fragment, and the Moses of Michael Angelo a hint. Their +campaigns and battles are always called triumphant, while Cæsar and +Cromwell wept for many humiliations. And the end of it all is the hell +of no resistance, the hell of an unfathomable soft<a name="Page_154" id="Page_154"></a>ness, until the whole +nature recoils into madness and the chamber of civilisation is no longer +merely a cushioned apartment, but a padded cell.</p> + +<p>This last and worst of human miseries Savonarola saw afar off, and bent +his whole gigantic energies to turning the chariot into another course. +Few men understood his object; some called him a madman, some a +charlatan, some an enemy of human joy. They would not even have +understood if he had told them, if he had said that he was saving them +from a calamity of contentment which should be the end of joys and +sorrows alike. But there are those to-day who feel the same silent +danger, and who bend themselves to the same silent resistance. They also +are supposed to be contending for some trivial political scruple.</p> + +<p>Mr. M'Hardy says, in defending Savonarola, that the number of fine works +of art destroyed in the Burning of the Vanities has been much +exaggerated. I confess that I hope the pile contained stacks of +incomparable masterpieces if the sacrifice made that one real moment +more real. Of one thing I am sure, that<a name="Page_155" id="Page_155"></a> Savonarola's friend Michael +Angelo would have piled all his own statues one on top of the other, +and burnt them to ashes, if only he had been certain that the glow +transfiguring the sky was the dawn of a younger and wiser world.</p> + +<hr class="full" /> +<h2><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156"></a><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157"></a><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158"></a><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159"></a> + +<a name="THE_POSITION_OF_SIR_WALTER_SCOTT" id="THE_POSITION_OF_SIR_WALTER_SCOTT"></a>THE POSITION OF SIR WALTER SCOTT</h2> + + +<p>Walter Scott is a writer who should just now be re-emerging into his own +high place in letters, for unquestionably the recent, though now +dwindling, schools of severely technical and æsthetic criticism have +been unfavourable to him. He was a chaotic and unequal writer, and if +there is one thing in which artists have improved since his time, it is +in consistency and equality. It would perhaps be unkind to inquire +whether the level of the modern man of letters, as compared with Scott, +is due to the absence of valleys or the absence of mountains. But in any +case, we have learnt in our day to arrange our literary effects +carefully, and the only point in which we fall short of Scott is in the +incidental misfortune that we have nothing particular to arrange.<a name="Page_160" id="Page_160"></a></p> + +<p>It is said that Scott is neglected by modern readers; if so, the matter +could be more appropriately described by saying that modern readers are +neglected by Providence. The ground of this neglect, in so far as it +exists, must be found, I suppose, in the general sentiment that, like +the beard of Polonius, he is too long. Yet it is surely a peculiar thing +that in literature alone a house should be despised because it is too +large, or a host impugned because he is too generous. If romance be +really a pleasure, it is difficult to understand the modern reader's +consuming desire to get it over, and if it be not a pleasure, it is +difficult to understand his desire to have it at all. Mere size, it +seems to me, cannot be a fault. The fault must lie in some +disproportion. If some of Scott's stories are dull and dilatory, it is +not because they are giants, but because they are hunchbacks or +cripples. Scott was very far indeed from being a perfect writer, but I +do not think that it can be shown that the large and elaborate plan on +which his stories are built was by any means an imperfection. He +ar<a name="Page_161" id="Page_161"></a>ranged his endless prefaces and his colossal introductions just as an +architect plans great gates and long approaches to a really large +house. He did not share the latter-day desire to get quickly through a +story. He enjoyed narrative as a sensation; he did not wish to swallow a +story like a pill, that it should do him good afterwards. He desired to +taste it like a glass of port, that it might do him good at the time. +The reader sits late at his banquets. His characters have that air of +immortality which belongs to those of Dumas and Dickens. We should not +be surprised to meet them in any number of sequels. Scott, in his heart +of hearts, probably would have liked to write an endless story without +either beginning or close.</p> + +<p>Walter Scott is a great, and, therefore, mysterious man. He will never +be understood until Romance is understood, and that will be only when +Time, Man, and Eternity are understood. To say that Scott had more than +any other man that ever lived a sense of the romantic seems, in these +days, a slight and superficial tribute. The whole modern theory arises +from one<a name="Page_162" id="Page_162"></a> fundamental mistake—the idea that romance is in some way a +plaything with life, a figment, a conventionality, a thing upon the +outside. No genuine criticism of romance will ever arise until we have +grasped the fact that romance lies not upon the outside of life, but +absolutely in the centre of it. The centre of every man's existence is a +dream. Death, disease, insanity, are merely material accidents, like +toothache or a twisted ankle. That these brutal forces always besiege +and often capture the citadel does not prove that they are the citadel. +The boast of the realist (applying what the reviewers call his scalpel) +is that he cuts into the heart of life; but he makes a very shallow +incision, if he only reaches as deep as habits and calamities and sins. +Deeper than all these lies a man's vision of himself, as swaggering and +sentimental as a penny novelette. The literature of can-dour unearths +innumerable weaknesses and elements of lawlessness which is called +romance. It perceives superficial habits like murder and dipsomania, but +it does not perceive the deepest of sins—the sin of vanity—<a name="Page_163" id="Page_163"></a>vanity +which is the mother of all day-dreams and adventures, the one sin that +is not shared with any boon companion, or whispered to any priest.</p> + +<p>In estimating, therefore, the ground of Scott's pre-eminence in romance +we must absolutely rid ourselves of the notion that romance or adventure +are merely materialistic things involved in the tangle of a plot or the +multiplicity of drawn swords. We must remember that it is, like tragedy +or farce, a state of the soul, and that, for some dark and elemental +reason which we can never understand, this state of the soul is evoked +in us by the sight of certain places or the contemplation of certain +human crises, by a stream rushing under a heavy and covered wooden +bridge, or by a man plunging a knife or sword into tough timber. In the +selection of these situations which catch the spirit of romance as in a +net, Scott has never been equalled or even approached. His finest scenes +affect us like fragments of a hilarious dream. They have the same +quality which is often possessed by those nocturnal comedies—that of +seeming more human<a name="Page_164" id="Page_164"></a> than our waking life—even while they are less +possible. Sir Arthur Wardour, with his daughter and the old beggar +crouching in a cranny of the cliff as night falls and the tide closes +around them, are actually in the coldest and bitterest of practical +situations. Yet the whole incident has a quality that can only be called +boyish. It is warmed with all the colours of an incredible sunset. Rob +Roy trapped in the Tolbooth, and confronted with Bailie Nicol Jarvie, +draws no sword, leaps from no window, affects none of the dazzling +external acts upon which contemporary romance depends, yet that plain +and humourous dialogue is full of the essential philosophy of romance +which is an almost equal betting upon man and destiny. Perhaps the most +profoundly thrilling of all Scott's situations is that in which the +family of Colonel Mannering are waiting for the carriage which may or +may not arrive by night to bring an unknown man into a princely +possession. Yet almost the whole of that thrilling scene consists of a +ridiculous conversation about food, and flirtation between a frivolous +old<a name="Page_165" id="Page_165"></a> lawyer and a fashionable girl. We can say nothing about what makes +these scenes, except that the wind bloweth where it listeth, and that +here the wind blows strong.</p> + +<p>It is in this quality of what may be called spiritual adventurousness +that Scott stands at so different an elevation to the whole of the +contemporary crop of romancers who have followed the leadership of +Dumas. There has, indeed, been a great and inspiriting revival of +romance in our time, but it is partly frustrated in almost every case by +this rooted conception that romance consists in the vast multiplication +of incidents and the violent acceleration of narrative. The heroes of +Mr. Stanley Weyman scarcely ever have their swords out of their hands; +the deeper presence of romance is far better felt when the sword is at +the hip ready for innumerable adventures too terrible to be pictured. +The Stanley Weyman hero has scarcely time to eat his supper except in +the act of leaping from a window or whilst his other hand is employed in +lunging with a rapier. In Scott's heroes, on the other<a name="Page_166" id="Page_166"></a> hand, there is no +characteristic so typical or so worthy of humour as their disposition to +linger over their meals. The conviviality of the Clerk of Copmanhurst +or of Mr. Pleydell, and the thoroughly solid things they are described +as eating, is one of the most perfect of Scott's poetic touches. In +short, Mr. Stanley Weyman is filled with the conviction that the sole +essence of romance is to move with insatiable rapidity from incident to +incident. In the truer romance of Scott there is more of the sentiment +of "Oh! still delay, thou art so fair"! more of a certain patriarchal +enjoyment of things as they are—of the sword by the side and the +wine-cup in the hand. Romance, indeed, does not consist by any means so +much in experiencing adventures as in being ready for them. How little +the actual boy cares for incidents in comparison to tools and weapons +may be tested by the fact that the most popular story of adventure is +concerned with a man who lived for years on a desert island with two +guns and a sword, which he never had to use on an enemy.<a name="Page_167" id="Page_167"></a></p> + +<p>Closely connected with this is one of the charges most commonly brought +against Scott, particularly in his own day—the charge of a fanciful +and monotonous insistence upon the details of armour and costume. The +critic in the <i>Edinburgh Review</i> said indignantly that he could tolerate +a somewhat detailed description of the apparel of Marmion, but when it +came to an equally detailed account of the apparel of his pages and +yeomen the mind could bear it no longer. The only thing to be said about +that critic is that he had never been a little boy. He foolishly +imagined that Scott valued the plume and dagger of Marmion for Marmion's +sake. Not being himself romantic, he could not understand that Scott +valued the plume because it was a plume, and the dagger because it was a +dagger. Like a child, he loved weapons with a manual materialistic love, +as one loves the softness of fur or the coolness of marble. One of the +profound philosophical truths which are almost confined to infants is +this love of things, not for their use or origin, but for their own +inherent characteristics, the child's<a name="Page_168" id="Page_168"></a> love of the toughness of wood, the +wetness of water, the magnificent soapiness of soap. So it was with +Scott, who had so much of the child in him. Human beings were perhaps +the principal characters in his stories, but they were certainly not the +only characters. A battle-axe was a person of importance, a castle had a +character and ways of its own. A church bell had a word to say in the +matter. Like a true child, he almost ignored the distinction between the +animate and inanimate. A two-handed sword might be carried only by a +menial in a procession, but it was something important and immeasurably +fascinating—it was a two-handed sword.</p> + +<p>There is one quality which is supreme and continuous in Scott which is +little appreciated at present. One of the values we have really lost in +recent fiction is the value of eloquence. The modern literary artist is +compounded of almost every man except the orator. Yet Shakespeare and +Scott are certainly alike in this, that they could both, if literature +had failed, have earned a living as professional demagogues. The <a name="Page_169" id="Page_169"></a>feudal +heroes in the "Waverley Novels" retort upon each other with a passionate +dignity, haughty and yet singularly human, which can hardly be +paralleled in political eloquence except in "Julius Cæsar." With a +certain fiery impartiality which stirs the blood, Scott distributes his +noble orations equally among saints and villains. He may deny a villain +every virtue or triumph, but he cannot endure to deny him a telling +word; he will ruin a man, but he will not silence him. In truth, one of +Scott's most splendid traits is his difficulty, or rather incapacity, +for despising any of his characters. He did not scorn the most revolting +miscreant as the realist of to-day commonly scorns his own hero. Though +his soul may be in rags, every man of Scott can speak like a king.</p> + +<p>This quality, as I have said, is sadly to seek in the fiction of the +passing hour. The realist would, of course, repudiate the bare idea of +putting a bold and brilliant tongue in every man's head, but even where +the moment of the story naturally demands eloquence the eloquence seems +frozen in the tap. Take any con<a name="Page_170" id="Page_170"></a>temporary work of fiction and turn to the +scene where the young Socialist denounces the millionaire, and then +compare the stilted sociological lecture given by that self-sacrificing +bore with the surging joy of words in Rob Roy's declaration of himself, +or Athelstane's defiance of De Bracy. That ancient sea of human passion +upon which high words and great phrases are the resplendent foam is just +now at a low ebb. We have even gone the length of congratulating +ourselves because we can see the mud and the monsters at the bottom.</p> + +<p>In politics there is not a single man whose position is due to eloquence +in the first degree; its place is taken by repartees and rejoinders +purely intellectual, like those of an omnibus conductor. In discussing +questions like the farm-burning in South Africa no critic of the war +uses his material as Burke or Grattan (perhaps exaggeratively) would +have used it—the speaker is content with facts and expositions of +facts. In another age he might have risen and hurled that great song in +prose, perfect as prose and<a name="Page_171" id="Page_171"></a> yet rising into a chant, which Meg Merrilies +hurled at Ellangowan, at the rulers of Britain: "Ride your ways. Laird +of Ellangowan; ride your ways, Godfrey Bertram—this day have ye +quenched seven smoking hearths. See if the fire in your ain parlour +burns the blyther for that. Ye have riven the thack of seven cottar +houses. Look if your ain roof-tree stands the faster for that. Ye may +stable your stirks in the sheilings of Dern-cleugh. See that the hare +does not couch on the hearthstane of Ellangowan. Ride your ways, Godfrey +Bertram."</p> + +<p>The reason is, of course, that these men are afraid of bombast and Scott +was not. A man will not reach eloquence if he is afraid of bombast, just +as a man will not jump a hedge if he is afraid of a ditch. As the object +of all eloquence is to find the least common denominator of men's souls, +to fall just within the natural comprehension, it cannot obviously have +any chance with a literary ambition which aims at falling just outside +it. It is quite right to invent subtle analyses and detached criticisms, +but it is unreasonable<a name="Page_172" id="Page_172"></a> to expect them to be punctuated with roars of +popular applause. It is possible to conceive of a mob shouting any +central and simple sentiment, good or bad, but it is impossible to think +of a mob shouting a distinction in terms. In the matter of eloquence, +the whole question is one of the immediate effect of greatness, such as +is produced even by fine bombast. It is absurd to call it merely +superficial; here there is no question of superficiality; we might as +well call a stone that strikes us between the eyes merely superficial. +The very word "superficial" is founded on a fundamental mistake about +life, the idea that second thoughts are best. The superficial impression +of the world is by far the deepest. What we really feel, naturally and +casually, about the look of skies and trees and the face of friends, +that and that alone will almost certainly remain our vital philosophy to +our dying day.</p> + +<p>Scott's bombast, therefore, will always be stirring to anyone who +approaches it, as he should approach all literature, as a little child. +We could easily excuse<a name="Page_173" id="Page_173"></a> the contemporary critic for not admiring +melodramas and adventure stories, and Punch and Judy, if he would admit +that it was a slight deficiency in his artistic sensibilities. Beyond +all question, it marks a lack of literary instinct to be unable to +simplify one's mind at the first signal of the advance of romance. "You +do me wrong," said Brian de Bois-Guilbert to Rebecca. "Many a law, many +a commandment have I broken, but my word, never." "Die," cries Balfour +of Burley to the villain in "Old Mortality." "Die, hoping nothing, +believing nothing—" "And fearing nothing," replies the other. This is +the old and honourable fine art of bragging, as it was practised by the +great worthies of antiquity. The man who cannot appreciate it goes along +with the man who cannot appreciate beef or claret or a game with +children or a brass band. They are afraid of making fools of themselves, +and are unaware that that transformation has already been triumphantly +effected.</p> + +<p>Scott is separated, then, from much of the later<a name="Page_174" id="Page_174"></a> conception of fiction +by this quality of eloquence. The whole of the best and finest work of +the modern novelist (such as the work of Mr. Henry James) is primarily +concerned with that delicate and fascinating speech which burrows deeper +and deeper like a mole; but we have wholly forgotten that speech which +mounts higher and higher like a wave and falls in a crashing peroration. +Perhaps the most thoroughly brilliant and typical man of this decade is +Mr. Bernard Shaw. In his admirable play of "Candida" it is clearly a +part of the character of the Socialist clergyman that he should be +eloquent, but he is not eloquent because the whole "G.B.S." condition of +mind renders impossible that poetic simplicity which eloquence requires. +Scott takes his heroes and villains seriously, which is, after all, the +way that heroes and villains take themselves—especially villains. It is +the custom to call these old romantic poses artificial; but the word +artificial is the last and silliest evasion of criticism. There was +never anything in the world that was really arti<a name="Page_175" id="Page_175"></a>ficial. It had some +motive or ideal behind it, and generally a much better one than we +think.</p> + +<p>Of the faults of Scott as an artist it is not very necessary to speak, +for faults are generally and easily pointed out, while there is yet no +adequate valuation of the varieties and contrasts of virtue. We have +compiled a complete botanical classification of the weeds in the +poetical garden, but the flowers still flourish, neglected and nameless. +It is true, for example, that Scott had an incomparably stiff and +pedantic way of dealing with his heroines: he made a lively girl of +eighteen refuse an offer in the language of Dr. Johnson. To him, as to +most men of his time, woman was not an individual, but an institution—a +toast that was drunk some time after that of Church and King. But it is +far better to consider the difference rather as a special merit, in that +he stood for all those clean and bracing shocks of incident which are +untouched by passion or weakness, for a certain breezy bachelorhood, +which is almost essential to the literature of adventure. With all his +faults,<a name="Page_176" id="Page_176"></a> and all his triumphs, he stands for the great mass of natural +manliness which must be absorbed into art unless art is to be a mere +luxury and freak. An appreciation of Scott might be made almost a test +of decadence. If ever we lose touch with this one most reckless and +defective writer, it will be a proof to us that we have erected round +ourselves a false cosmos, a world of lying and horrible perfection, +leaving outside of it Walter Scott and that strange old world which is +as confused and as indefensible and as inspiring and as healthy as he.<a name="Page_177" id="Page_177"></a><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178"></a><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179"></a></p> + + + +<hr class="full" /> +<h2><a name="BRET_HARTE" id="BRET_HARTE"></a>BRET HARTE</h2> + + +<p>There are more than nine hundred and ninety-nine excellent reasons +which we could all have for admiring the work of Bret Harte. But one +supreme reason stands not in a certain general superiority to them +all—a reason which may be stated in three propositions united in a +common conclusion: first, that he was a genuine American; second, that +he was a genuine humourist; and, third, that he was not an American +humourist. Bret Harte had his own peculiar humour, but it had nothing in +particular to do with American humour. American humour has its own +peculiar excellence, but it has nothing in particular to do with Bret +Harte. American humour is purely exaggerative; Bret Harte's humour was +sympathetic and analytical.</p> + +<p>In order fully to understand this, it is necessary<a name="Page_180" id="Page_180"></a> to realise, genuinely +and thoroughly, that there is such a thing as an international +difference in humour. If we take the crudest joke in the world—the +joke, let us say, of a man sitting down on his hat—we shall yet find +that all the nations would differ in their way of treating it +humourously, and that if American humour treated it at all, it would be +in a purely American manner. For example, there was a case of an orator +in the House of Commons, who, after denouncing all the public abuses he +could think of, did sit down on his hat. An Irishman immediately rose, +full of the whole wealth of Irish humour, and said, "Should I be in +order, Sir, in congratulating the honourable gentleman on the fact that +when he sat down on his hat his head was not in it?" Here is a glorious +example of Irish humour—the bull not unconscious, not entirely +conscious, but rather an idea so absurd that even the utterer of it can +hardly realise how abysmally absurd it is. But every other nation would +have treated the idea in a manner slightly different. The Frenchman's +humour would have been <a name="Page_181" id="Page_181"></a>logical: he would have said, "The orator +denounces modern abuses and destroys to himself the top-hat: behold a +good example!" What the Scotchman's humour would have said I am not so +certain, but it would probably have dealt with the serious advisability +of making such speeches on top of someone else's hat. But American +humour on such a general theme would be the humour of exaggeration. The +American humourist would say that the English politicians so often sat +down on their hats that the noise of the House of Commons was one +crackle of silk. He would say that when an important orator rose to +speak in the House of Commons, long rows of hatters waited outside the +House with note-books to take down orders from the participants in the +debate. He would say that the whole hat trade of London was disorganised +by the news that a clever remark had been made by a young M. P. on the +subject of the imports of Jamaica. In short, American humour, neither +unfathomably absurd like the Irish, nor transfiguringly lucid and +appropriate like the French, nor sharp and<a name="Page_182" id="Page_182"></a> sensible and full of +realities of life like the Scotch, is simply the humour of imagination. +It consists in piling towers on towers and mountains on mountains; of +heaping a joke up to the stars and extending it to the end of the world.</p> + +<p>With this distinctively American humour Bret Harte had little or nothing +in common. The wild, sky-breaking humour of America has its fine +qualities, but it must in the nature of things be deficient in two +qualities, not only of supreme importance to life and letters, but of +supreme importance to humour—reverence and sympathy. And these two +qualities were knit into the closest texture of Bret Harte's humour. +Everyone who has read and enjoyed Mark Twain as he ought to be read and +enjoyed will remember a very funny and irreverent story about an +organist who was asked to play appropriate music to an address upon the +parable of the Prodigal Son, and who proceeded to play with great +spirit, "We'll all get blind drunk, when Johnny comes marching home." +The best way of distinguishing Bret Harte from the<a name="Page_183" id="Page_183"></a> rest of American +humour is to say that if Bret Harte had described that scene, it would +in some subtle way have combined a sense of the absurdity of the +incident with some sense of the sublimity and pathos of the theme. You +would have felt that the organist's tune was funny, but not that the +Prodigal Son was funny. But America is under a kind of despotism of +humour. Everyone is afraid of humour: the meanest of human nightmares. +Bret Harte had, to express the matter briefly but more or less +essentially, the power of laughing not only at things, but also with +them. America has laughed at things magnificently, with Gargantuan +reverberations of laughter. But she has not even begun to learn the +richer lesson of laughing with them.</p> + +<p>The supreme proof of the fact that Bret Harte had the instinct of +reverence may be found in the fact that he was a really great parodist. +This may have the appearance of being a paradox, but, as in the case of +many other paradoxes, it is not so important whether it is a paradox as +whether it is not obviously<a name="Page_184" id="Page_184"></a> true. Mere derision, mere contempt, never +produced or could produce parody. A man who simply despises Paderewski +for having long hair is not necessarily fitted to give an admirable +imitation of his particular touch on the piano. If a man wishes to +parody Paderewski's style of execution, he must emphatically go through +one process first: he must admire it, and even reverence it. Bret Harte +had a real power of imitating great authors, as in his parodies on +Dumas, on Victor Hugo, on Charlotte Brontë. This means, and can only +mean, that he had perceived the real beauty, the real ambition of Dumas +and Victor Hugo and Charlotte Brontë. To take an example, Bret Harte has +in his imitation of Hugo a passage like this:</p> + +<p>"M. Madeline was, if possible, better than M. Myriel. M. Myriel was an +angel. M. Madeline was a good man." I do not know whether Victor Hugo +ever used this antithesis; but I am certain that he would have used it +and thanked his stars if he had thought of it. This is real parody, +inseparable from admiration. It is the same in the parody of Dumas,<a name="Page_185" id="Page_185"></a> +which is arranged on the system of "Aramis killed three of them. Porthos +three. Athos three." You cannot write that kind of thing unless you +have first exulted in the arithmetical ingenuity of the plots of Dumas. +It is the same in the parody of Charlotte Brontë, which opens with a +dream of a storm-beaten cliff, containing jewels and pelicans. Bret +Harte could not have written it unless he had really understood the +triumph of the Brontës, the triumph of asserting that great mysteries +lie under the surface of the most sullen life, and that the most real +part of a man is in his dreams.</p> + +<p>This kind of parody is for ever removed from the purview of ordinary +American humour. Can anyone imagine Mark Twain, that admirable author, +writing even a tolerable imitation of authors so intellectually +individual as Hugo or Charlotte Brontë? Mark Twain would yield to the +spirit of contempt which destroys parody. All those who hate authors +fail to satirise them, for they always accuse them of the wrong faults. +The enemies of Thackeray call him a<a name="Page_186" id="Page_186"></a> worldling, instead of what he was, a +man too ready to believe in the goodness of the unworldly. The enemies +of Meredith call his gospel too subtle, instead of what it is, a +gospel, if anything, too robust. And it is this vulgar misunderstanding +which we find in most parody—which we find in all American parody—but +which we never find in the parodies of Bret Harte.</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span>"The skies they were ashen and sober,<br /></span> +<span>The streets they were dirty and drear,<br /></span> +<span>It was the dark month of October,<br /></span> +<span>In that most immemorial year.<br /></span> +<span>Like the skies, I was perfectly sober,<br /></span> +<span>But my thoughts they were palsied and sear,<br /></span> +<span>Yes, my thoughts were decidedly queer."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>This could only be written by a genuine admirer of Edgar Allan Poe, who +permitted himself for a moment to see the fun of the thing. Parody might +indeed be defined as the worshipper's half-holiday.</p> + +<p>The same general characteristic of sympathy amounting to reverence marks +Bret Harte's humour in his better-known class of works, the short +stories. He does not make his characters absurd in order to<a name="Page_187" id="Page_187"></a> make them +contemptible: it might almost be said that he makes them absurd in order +to make them dignified. For example, the greatest creation of Bret +Harte, greater even than Colonel Starbottle (and how terrible it is to +speak of anyone greater than Colonel Starbottle!) is that unutterable +being who goes by the name of Yuba Bill. He is, of course, the +coach-driver in the Bret Harte district. Some ingenious person, whose +remarks I read the other day, had compared him on this ground with old +Mr. Weller. It would be difficult to find a comparison indicating a more +completely futile instinct for literature. Tony Weller and Yuba Bill +were both coach-drivers, and this fact establishes a resemblance just +about as much as the fact that Jobson in "Rob Roy" and George Warrington +in "Pendennis" were both lawyers; or that Antonio and Mr. Pickwick were +both merchants; or that Sir Galahad and Sir Willoughby Patten were both +knights. Tony Weller is a magnificent grotesque. He is a gargoyle, and +his mouth, like the mouths of so many gargoyles, is always open. He is<a name="Page_188" id="Page_188"></a> +garrulous, exuberant, flowery, preposterously sociable. He holds that +great creed of the convivial, the creed which is at the back of so much +that is greatest in Dickens, the creed that eternity begins at ten +o'clock at night, and that nights last forever. But Yuba Bill is a +figure of a widely different character. He is not convivial; it might +almost be said that he is too great ever to be sociable. A circle of +quiescence and solitude such as that which might ring a saint or a +hermit rings this majestic and profound humourist. His jokes do not flow +upon him like those of Mr. Weller, sparkling, continual, and deliberate, +like the play of a fountain in a pleasure garden; they fall suddenly and +capriciously, like a crash of avalanches from a great mountain. Tony +Weller has the noisy humour of London, Yuba Bill has the silent humour +of the earth.</p> + +<p>One of the worst of the disadvantages of the rich and random fertility +of Bret Harte is the fact that it is very difficult to trace or recover +all the stories that he has written. I have not within reach at the +moment<a name="Page_189" id="Page_189"></a> the story in which the character of Yuba Bill is exhibited in its +most solemn grandeur, but I remember that it concerned a ride on the +San Francisco stage coach, a difficulty arising from storm and darkness, +and an intelligent young man who suggested to Yuba Bill that a certain +manner of driving the coach in a certain direction might minimise the +dangers of the journey. A profound silence followed the intelligent +young man's suggestion, and then (I quote from memory) Yuba Bill +observed at last:</p> + +<p>"Air you settin' any value on that remark?"</p> + +<p>The young man professed not fully to comprehend him, and Yuba Bill +continued reflectively:</p> + +<p>"'Cos there's a comic paper in 'Frisco pays for them things, and I've +seen worse in it."</p> + +<p>To be rebuked thus is like being rebuked by the Pyramids or by the +starry heavens. There is about Yuba Bill this air of a pugnacious calm, +a stepping back to get his distance for a shattering blow, which is like +that of Dr. Johnson at his best. And the effect is inexpressively +increased by the background and <a name="Page_190" id="Page_190"></a>the whole picture which Bret Harte +paints so powerfully; the stormy skies, the sombre gorge, the rocking +and spinning coach, and high above the feverish passengers the huge +dark form of Yuba Bill, a silent mountain of humour.</p> + +<p>Another unrecovered and possibly irrecoverable fragment about Yuba Bill, +I recall in a story about his visiting a lad who had once been his +protége in the Wild West, and who had since become a distinguished +literary man in Boston. Yuba Bill visits him, and on finding him in +evening dress lifts up his voice in a superb lamentation over the +tragedy of finding his old friend at last "a 'otel waiter." Then, +vindictively pursuing the satire, he calls fiercely to his young friend, +"Hi, Alphonse! bring me a patty de foy gras, damme." These are the +things that make us love the eminent Bill. He is one of those who +achieve the noblest and most difficult of all the triumphs of a +fictitious character—the triumph of giving us the impression of having +a great deal more in him than appears between the two boards of the +story. Smaller<a name="Page_191" id="Page_191"></a> characters give us the impression that the author has +told the whole truth about them, greater characters give the impression +that the author has given of them, not the truth, but merely a few hints +and samples. In some mysterious way we seem to feel that even if +Shakespeare was wrong about Falstaff, Falstaff existed and was real; +that even if Dickens was wrong about Micawber, Micawber existed and was +real. So we feel that there is in the great salt-sea of Yuba Bill's +humour as good fish as ever came out of it. The fleeting jests which +Yuba Bill throws to the coach passengers only give us the opportunity of +fancying and deducing the vast mass of jests which Yuba Bill shares with +his creator.</p> + +<p>Bret Harte had to deal with countries and communities of an almost +unexampled laxity, a laxity passing the laxity of savages, the laxity of +civilised men grown savage. He dealt with a life which we in a venerable +and historic society may find it somewhat difficult to realise. It was +the life of an entirely new people, a people who, having no certain +past,<a name="Page_192" id="Page_192"></a> could have no certain future. The strangest of all the sardonic +jests that history has ever played may be found in this fact: that +there is a city which is of all cities the most typical of innovation +and dissipation, and a certain almost splendid vulgarity, and that this +city bears the name in a quaint old European language of the most +perfect exponent of the simplicity and holiness of the Christian +tradition; the city is called San Francisco. San Francisco, the capital +of the Bret Harte country, is a city typifying novelty in a manner in +which it is typified by few modern localities. San Francisco has in all +probability its cathedrals, but it may well be that its cathedrals are +less old and less traditional than many of our hotels. If its +inhabitants built a temple to the most primal and forgotten god of whose +worship we can find a trace, that temple would still be a modern thing +compared with many taverns in Suffolk round which there lingers a faint +tradition of Mr. Pickwick. And everything in that new gold country was +new, even to the individual inhabitants. Good, bad, and indifferent,<a name="Page_193" id="Page_193"></a> +heroes and dastards, they were all men from nowhere.</p> + +<p>Most of us have come across the practical problem of London landladies, +the problem of the doubtful foreign gentleman in a street of respectable +English people. Those who have done so can form some idea of what it +would be to live in a street full of doubtful foreign gentlemen, in a +parish, in a city, in a nation composed entirely of doubtful foreign +gentlemen. Old California, at the time of the first rush after gold, was +actually this paradox of the nation of foreigners. It was a republic of +incognitos: no one knew who anyone else was, and only the more +ill-mannered and uneasy even desired to know. In such a country as this, +gentlemen took more trouble to conceal their gentility than thieves +living in South Kensington would take to conceal their blackguardism. In +such a country everyone is an equal, because everyone is a stranger. In +such a country it is not strange if men in moral matters feel something +of the irresponsibility of a dream. To plan plans which are continually +mis<a name="Page_194" id="Page_194"></a>carrying against men who are continually disappearing by the +assistance of you know not whom, to crush you know not whom, this must +be a demoralising life for any man; it must be beyond description +demoralising for those who have been trained in no lofty or orderly +scheme of right. Small blame to them indeed if they become callous and +supercilious and cynical. And the great glory and achievement of Bret +Harte consists in this, that he realised that they do not become +callous, supercilious, and cynical, but that they do become sentimental +and romantic, and profoundly affectionate. He discovered the intense +sensibility of the primitive man. To him we owe the realisation of the +fact that while modern barbarians of genius like Mr. Henley, and in his +weaker moments Mr. Rudyard Kipling, delight in describing the coarseness +and crude cynicism and fierce humour of the unlettered classes, the +unlettered classes are in reality highly sentimental and religious, and +not in the least like the creations of Mr. Henley and Mr. Kipling. Bret +Harte tells the truth about the wildest, the grossest, the most +rapa<a name="Page_195" id="Page_195"></a>cious of all the districts of the earth—the truth that, while it is +very rare indeed in the world to find a thoroughly good man, it is +rarer still, rare to the point of monstrosity, to find a man who does +not either desire to be one, or imagine that he is one already.</p> + +<hr class="full" /> +<h2><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196"></a><a name="Page_197" id="Page_197"></a><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198"></a><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199"></a> + +<a name="ALFRED_THE_GREAT" id="ALFRED_THE_GREAT"></a>ALFRED THE GREAT</h2> + + +<p>The celebrations in connection with the millenary of King Alfred struck +a note of sympathy in the midst of much that was unsympathetic, because, +altogether apart from any peculiar historical opinions, all men feel the +sanctifying character of that which is at once strong and remote; the +ancient thing is always the most homely, and the distant thing the most +near. The only possible peacemaker is a dead man, ever since by the +sublime religious story a dead man only could reconcile heaven and +earth. In a certain sense we always feel the past ages as human, and our +own age as strangely and even weirdly dehumanised. In our own time the +details overpower us; men's badges and buttons seem to grow larger and +larger as in a horrible dream. To study humanity in the present is like<a name="Page_200" id="Page_200"></a> +studying a mountain with a magnifying glass; to study it in the past is +like studying it through a telescope.</p> + +<p>For this reason England, like every other great and historic nation, has +sought its typical hero in remote and ill-recorded times. The personal +and moral greatness of Alfred is, indeed, beyond question. It does not +depend any more than the greatness of any other human hero upon the +accuracy of any or all of the stories that are told about him. Alfred +may not have done one of the things which are reported of him, but it is +immeasurably easier to do every one of those things than to be the man +of whom such things are reported falsely. Fable is, generally speaking, +far more accurate than fact, for fable describes a man as he was to his +own age, fact describes him as he is to a handful of inconsiderable +antiquarians many centuries after. Whether Alfred watched the cakes for +the neat-herd's wife, whether he sang songs in the Danish camp, is of no +interest to anyone except those who set out to prove under considerable +disadvantages that they are <a name="Page_201" id="Page_201"></a>genealogically descended from him. But the +man is better pictured in these stories than in any number of modern +realistic trivialities about his favourite breakfast and his favourite +musical composer. Fable is more historical than fact, because fact tells +us about one man and fable tells us about a million men. If we read of a +man who could make green grass red and turn the sun into the moon, we +may not believe these particular details about him, but we learn +something infinitely more important than such trivialities, the fact +that men could look into his face and believe it possible. The glory and +greatness of Alfred, therefore, is like that of all the heroes of the +morning of the world, set far beyond the chance of that strange and +sudden dethronement which may arise from the unsealing of a manuscript +or the turning over of a stone. Men may have told lies when they said +that he first entrapped the Danes with his song and then overcame them +with his armies, but we know very well that it is not of us that such +lies are told. There may be myths clustering about each of our +personalities; local<a name="Page_202" id="Page_202"></a> saga-men and chroniclers have very likely +circulated the story that we are addicted to drink, or that we +ferociously ill-use our wives. But they do not commonly lie to the +effect that we have shed our blood to save all the inhabitants of the +street. A story grows easily, but a heroic story is not a very easy +thing to evoke. Wherever that exists we may be pretty certain that we +are in the presence of a dark but powerful historic personality. We are +in the presence of a thousand lies all pointing with their fantastic +fingers to one undiscovered truth.</p> + +<p>Upon this ground alone every encouragement is due to the cult of Alfred. +Every nation requires to have behind it some historic personality, the +validity of which is proved, as the validity of a gun is proved, by its +long range. It is wonderful and splendid that we treasure, not the +truth, but the very gossip about a man who died a thousand years ago. We +may say to him, as M. Rostand says to the Austrian Prince:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span>"Dors, ce n'est pas toujours la Légende qui ment:<br /></span> +<span>Une rêve est parfois moins trompeur qu'un document."<br /></span> +</div></div><p><a name="Page_203" id="Page_203"></a></p> + +<p>To have a man so simple and so honourable to represent us in the +darkness of primeval history, binds all the intervening centuries +together, and mollifies all their monstrosities. It makes all history +more comforting and intelligible; it makes the desolate temple of the +ages as human as an inn parlour.</p> + +<p>But whether it come through reliable facts or through more reliable +falsehoods the personality of Alfred has its own unmistakable colour and +stature. Lord Rosebery uttered a profound truth when he said that that +personality was peculiarly English. The great magnificence of the +English character is expressed in the word "service." There is, perhaps, +no nation so vitally theocratical as the English; no nation in which the +strong men have so consistently preferred the instrumental to the +despotic attitude, the pleasures of the loyal to the pleasures of the +royal position. We have had tyrants like Edward I. and Queen Elizabeth, +but even our tyrants have had the worried and responsible air of +stewards of a great estate. Our typical hero is such a man as the Duke +of Wellington, who had<a name="Page_204" id="Page_204"></a> every kind of traditional and external arrogance, +but at the back of all that the strange humility which made it +physically possible for him without a gleam of humour or discomfort to +go on his knees to a preposterous bounder like George IV. Across the +infinite wastes of time and through all the mists of legend we still +feel the presence in Alfred of this strange and unconscious +self-effacement. After the fullest estimate of our misdeeds we can still +say that our very despots have been less self-assertive than many +popular patriots. As we consider these things we grow more and more +impatient of any modern tendencies towards the enthronement of a more +self-conscious and theatrical ideal. Lord Rosebery called up before our +imaginations the picture of what Alfred would have thought of the vast +modern developments of his nation, its immense fleet, its widespread +Empire, its enormous contribution to the mechanical civilisation of the +world. It cannot be anything but profitable to conceive Alfred as full +of astonishment and admiration at these things; it cannot be anything +but good for us that we should <a name="Page_205" id="Page_205"></a>realise that to the childlike eyes of a +great man of old time our inventions and appliances have not the +vulgarity and ugliness that we see in them. To Alfred a steamboat would +be a new and sensational sea-dragon, and the penny postage a miracle +achieved by the despotism of a demi-god.</p> + +<p>But when we have realised all this there is something more to be said in +connection with Lord Rosebery's vision. What would King Alfred have said +if he had been asked to expend the money which he devoted to the health +and education of his people upon a struggle with some race of Visigoths +or Parthians inhabiting a small section of a distant continent? What +would he have said if he had known that that science of letters which he +taught to England would eventually be used not to spread truth, but to +drug the people with political assurances as imbecile in themselves as +the assurance that fire does not burn and water does not drown? What +would he have said if the same people who, in obedience to that ideal of +service and sanity of which he was the example, had<a name="Page_206" id="Page_206"></a> borne every +privation in order to defeat Napoleon, should come at last to find no +better compliment to one of their heroes than to call him the Napoleon +of South Africa? What would he have said if that nation for which he had +inaugurated a long line of incomparable men of principle should forget +all its traditions and coquette with the immoral mysticism of the man of +destiny?</p> + +<p>Let us follow these things by all means if we find them good, and can +see nothing better. But to pretend that Alfred would have admired them +is like pretending that St. Dominic would have seen eye to eye with Mr. +Bradlaugh, or that Fra Angelico would have revelled in the posters of +Mr. Aubrey Beardsley. Let us follow them if we will, but let us take +honestly all the disadvantages of our change; in the wildest moment of +triumph let us feel the shadow upon our glories of the shame of the +great king.</p> + +<hr class="full" /> +<h2><a name="Page_207" id="Page_207"></a><a name="Page_208" id="Page_208"></a><a name="Page_209" id="Page_209"></a> + +<a name="MAETERLINCK" id="MAETERLINCK"></a>MAETERLINCK</h2> + + +<p>The selection of "Thoughts from Maeterlinck" is a very creditable and +also a very useful compilation. Many modern critics object to the +hacking and hewing of a consistent writer which is necessary for this +kind of work, but upon more serious consideration, the view is not +altogether adequate. Maeterlinck is a very great man; and in the long +run this process of mutilation has happened to all great men. It was the +mark of a great patriot to be drawn and quartered and his head set on +one spike in one city and his left leg on another spike in another city. +It was the mark of a saint that even these fragments began to work +miracles. So it has been with all the very great men of the world. +However careless, however botchy, may be the version of Maeterlinck or +of anyone else given<a name="Page_210" id="Page_210"></a> in such a selection as this, it is assuredly far +less careless and far less botchy than the version, the parody, the +wild misrepresentation of Maeterlinck which future ages will hear and +distant critics be called upon to consider.</p> + +<p>No one can feel any reasonable doubt that we have heard about Christ and +Socrates and Buddha and St. Francis a mere chaos of excerpts, a mere +book of quotations. But from those fragmentary epigrams we can deduce +greatness as clearly as we can deduce Venus from the torso of Venus or +Hercules <i>ex pede Herculem</i>. If we knew nothing else about the Founder +of Christianity, for example, beyond the fact that a religious teacher +lived in a remote country, and in the course of his peregrinations and +proclamations consistently called Himself "the Son of Man," we should +know by that alone that he was a man of almost immeasurable greatness. +If future ages happened to record nothing else about Socrates except +that he owned his title to be the wisest of men because he knew that he +knew nothing, they would be able to deduce<a name="Page_211" id="Page_211"></a> from that the height and +energy of his civilisation, the glory that was Greece. The credit of +such random compilations as that which "E.S.S." and Mr. George Allen +have just effected is quite secure. It is the pure, pedantic, literal +editions, the complete works of this author or that author which are +forgotten. It is such books as this that have revolutionised the destiny +of the world. Great things like Christianity or Platonism have never +been founded upon consistent editions; all of them have been founded +upon scrap-books.</p> + +<p>The position of Maeterlinck in modern life is a thing too obvious to be +easily determined in words. It is, perhaps, best expressed by saying +that it is the great glorification of the inside of things at the +expense of the outside. There is one great evil in modern life for which +nobody has found even approximately a tolerable description: I can only +invent a word and call it "remotism." It is the tendency to think first +of things which, as a matter of fact, lie far away from the actual +centre of human experience.<a name="Page_212" id="Page_212"></a> Thus people say, "All our knowledge of life +begins with the amoeba." It is false; our knowledge of life begins with +ourselves. Thus they say that the British Empire is glorious, and at the +very word Empire they think at once of Australia and New Zealand, and +Canada, and Polar bears, and parrots and kangaroos, and it never occurs +to any one of them to think of the Surrey Hills. The one real struggle +in modern life is the struggle between the man like Maeterlinck, who +sees the inside as the truth, and the man like Zola, who sees the +outside as the truth. A hundred cases might be given. We may take, for +the sake of argument, the case of what is called falling in love. The +sincere realist, the man who believes in a certain finality in physical +science, says, "You may, if you like, describe this thing as a divine +and sacred and incredible vision; that is your sentimental theory about +it. But what it is, is an animal and sexual instinct designed for +certain natural purposes." The man on the other side, the idealist, +replies, with quite equal confidence, that this is the very reverse of +the truth. I put it<a name="Page_213" id="Page_213"></a> as it has always struck me; he replies, "Not at all. +You may, if you like, describe this thing as an animal and sexual +instinct, designed for certain natural purposes; that is your +philosophical or zoölogical theory about it. What it is, beyond all +doubt of any kind, is a divine and sacred and incredible vision." The +fact that it is an animal necessity only comes to the naturalistic +philosopher after looking abroad, studying its origins and results, +constructing an explanation of its existence, more or less natural and +conclusive. The fact that it is a spiritual triumph comes to the first +errand boy who happens to feel it. If a lad of seventeen falls in love +and is struck dead by a hansom cab an hour afterwards, he has known the +thing as it is, a spiritual ecstasy; he has never come to trouble about +the thing as it may be, a physical destiny. If anyone says that falling +in love is an animal thing, the answer is very simple. The only way of +testing the matter is to ask those who are experiencing it, and none of +those would admit for a moment that it was an animal thing.<a name="Page_214" id="Page_214"></a></p> + +<p>Maeterlinck's appearance in Europe means primarily this subjective +intensity; by this the materialism is not overthrown: materialism is +undermined. He brings, not something which is more poetic than realism, +not something which is more spiritual than realism, not something which +is more right than realism, but something which is more real than +realism. He discovers the one indestructible thing. This material world +on which such vast systems have been superimposed—this may mean +anything. It may be a dream, it may be a joke, it may be a trap or +temptation, it may be a charade, it may be the beatific vision: the only +thing of which we are certain is this human soul. This human soul finds +itself alone in a terrible world, afraid of the grass. It has brought +forth poetry and religion in order to explain matters; it will bring +them forth again. It matters not one atom how often the lulls of +materialism and scepticism occur; they are always broken by the +reappearance of a fanatic. They have come in our time: they have been +broken by Maeterlinck.</p> + + + +<hr class="full" /><h2><a name="Page_215" id="Page_215"></a><a name="Page_216" id="Page_216"></a><a name="Page_217" id="Page_217"></a> +<a name="RUSKIN2" id="RUSKIN2"></a>RUSKIN<a name="FNanchor_2_2" id="FNanchor_2_2"></a><a href="#Footnote_2_2" class="fnanchor">[2]</a></h2> + + +<p>I do not think anyone could find any fault with the way in which Mr. +Collingwood has discharged his task, except, of course, Mr. Ruskin +himself, who would certainly have scored through all the eulogies in +passionate red ink and declared that his dear friend had selected for +admiration the very parts of his work which were vile, brainless, and +revolting. That, however, was merely Ruskin's humour, and one of the +deepest disappointments with Mr. Collingwood is that he, like everyone +else, fails to appreciate Ruskin as a humourist. Yet he was a great +humourist: half the explosions which are solemnly scolded as "one-sided" +were simply meant to be one-sided, were mere laughing experiments in +language. Like a woman, he saw the humour of his<a name="Page_218" id="Page_218"></a> own prejudices, did not +sophisticate them by logic, but deliberately exaggerated them by +rhetoric. One tenth of his paradoxes would have made the fortune of a +modern young man with gloves of an art yellow. He was as fond of +nonsense as Mr. Max Beerbohm. Only ... he was fond of other things too. +He did not ask humanity to dine on pickles.</p> + +<p>But while his kaleidoscope of fancy and epigram gives him some kinship +with the present day, he was essentially of an earlier type: he was the +last of the prophets. With him vanishes the secret of that early +Victorian simplicity which gave a man the courage to mount a pulpit +above the head of his fellows. Many elements, good and bad, have +destroyed it; humility as well as fear, camaraderie as well as +scepticism, have bred in us a desire to give our advice lightly and +persuasively, to mask our morality, to whisper a word and glide away. +The contrast was in some degree typified in the House of Commons under +the last leadership of Mr. Gladstone: the old order with its fist on the +box, and the new order with its feet on the <a name="Page_219" id="Page_219"></a>table. Doubtless the wine of +that prophecy was too strong even for the strong heads that carried it. +It made Ruskin capricious and despotic, Tennyson lonely and whimsical, +Carlyle harsh to the point of hatred, and Kingsley often rabid to the +ruin of logic and charity. One alone of that race of giants, the +greatest and most neglected, was sober after the cup. No mission, no +frustration could touch with hysteria the humanity of Robert Browning.</p> + +<p>But though Ruskin seems to close the roll of the militant prophets, we +feel how needful are such figures when we consider with what pathetic +eagerness men pay prophetic honours even to those who disclaim the +prophetic character. Ibsen declares that he only depicts life, that as +far as he is concerned there is nothing to be done, and still armies of +"Ibsenites" rally to the flag and enthusiastically do nothing. I have +found traces of a school which avowedly follows Mr. Henry James: an idea +full of humour. I like to think of a crowd with pikes and torches +shouting passages from "The Awkward Age." It is right and<a name="Page_220" id="Page_220"></a> proper for a +multitude to declare its readiness to follow a prophet to the end of the +world, but if he himself explains, with pathetic gesticulations, that +he is only going for a walk in the park, there is not much for the +multitude to do. But the disciple of Ruskin had plenty to do. He made +roads; in his spare moments he studied the whole of geology and botany. +He lifted up paving stones and got down into early Florentine cellars, +where, by hanging upside down, he could catch a glimpse of a Cimabue +unpraisable but by divine silence. He rushed from one end of a city to +the other comparing ceilings. His limbs were weary, his clothes were +torn, and in his eyes was that unfathomable joy of life which man will +never know again until once more he takes himself seriously.</p> + +<p>Mr. Collingwood's excellent chapters on the art criticism of Ruskin +would be better, in my opinion, if they showed more consciousness of the +after revolutions that have reversed, at least in detail, much of +Ruskin's teaching. We no longer think that art became valueless when it +was first corrupted with<a name="Page_221" id="Page_221"></a> anatomical accuracy. But if we return to that +Raphaelism to which he was so unjust, let us not fall into the old +error of intelligent reactionaries, that of ignoring our own debt to +revolutions. Ruskin could not destroy the market of Raphaelism, but he +could and did destroy its monopoly. We may go back to the Renaissance, +but let us remember that we go back free. We can picnic now in the ruins +of our dungeon and deride our deliverer.</p> + +<p>But neither in Mr. Collingwood's book nor in Ruskin's own delightful +"Præterita" shall we ever get to the heart of the matter. The work of +Ruskin and his peers remains incomprehensible by the very completeness +of their victory. Fallen forever is that vast brick temple of +Utilitarianism, of which we may find the fragments but never renew the +spell. Liberal Unionists howl in its high places, and in its ruins Mr. +Lecky builds his nest. Its records read with something of the mysterious +arrogance of Chinese: hardly a generation away from us, we read of a +race who believed in the present with the same sort of servile<a name="Page_222" id="Page_222"></a> optimism +with which the Oriental believes in the past. It may be that banging his +head against that roof for twenty years did not improve the temper of +the prophet. But he made what he praised in the old Italian +pictures—"an opening into eternity."</p> + +<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_2_2" id="Footnote_2_2"></a><a href="#FNanchor_2_2"><span class="label">[2]</span></a> "The Life of John Ruskin." By W.G. Collingwood. London: Methuen.</p></div> +</div> + + +<hr class="full" /><h2><a name="Page_223" id="Page_223"></a><a name="Page_224" id="Page_224"></a><a name="Page_225" id="Page_225"></a> +<a name="QUEEN_VICTORIA" id="QUEEN_VICTORIA"></a>QUEEN VICTORIA</h2> + + +<p>Anyone who possesses spiritual or political courage has made up his mind +to a prospect of immutable mutability; but even in a "transformation" +there is something catastrophic in the removal of the back scene. It is +a truism to say of the wise and noble lady who is gone from us that we +shall always remember her; but there is a subtler and higher compliment +still in confessing that we often forgot her. We forgot her as we forget +the sunshine, as we forget the postulates of an argument, as we commonly +forget our own existence. Mr. Gladstone is the only figure whose loss +prepared us for such earthquakes altering the landscape. But Mr. +Gladstone seemed a fixed and stationary object in our age for the same +reason that one railway train looks stationary from another; because he +and the age<a name="Page_226" id="Page_226"></a> of progress were both travelling at the same impetuous rate +of speed. In the end, indeed, it was probably the age that dropped +behind. For a symbol of the Queen's position we must rather recur to the +image of a stretch of scenery, in which she was as a mountain so huge +and familiar that its disappearance would make the landscape round our +own door seem like a land of strangers. She had an inspired genius for +the familiarising virtues; her sympathy and sanity made us feel at home +even in an age of revolutions. That indestructible sense of security +which for good and evil is so typical of our nation, that almost +scornful optimism which, in the matter of ourselves, cannot take peril +or even decadence seriously, reached by far its highest and healthiest +form in the sense that we were watched over by one so thoroughly English +in her silence and self-control, in her shrewd trustfulness and her +brilliant inaction. Over and above those sublime laws of labour and pity +by which she ordered her life, there are a very large number of minor +intellectual matters in which we might learn a lesson from <a name="Page_227" id="Page_227"></a>the Queen. +There is one especially which is increasingly needed in an age when +moral claims become complicated and hysterical. That Queen Victoria was +a model of political unselfishness is well known; it is less often +remarked that few modern people have an unselfishness so completely free +from morbidity, so fully capable of deciding a moral question without +exaggerating its importance. No eminent person of our time has been so +utterly devoid of that disease of self-assertion which is often rampant +among the unselfish. She had one most rare and valuable faculty, the +faculty of letting things pass—Acts of Parliament and other things. Her +predecessors, whether honest men or knaves, were attacked every now and +then with a nightmare of despotic responsibility; they suddenly +conceived that it rested with them to save the world and the Protestant +Constitution. Queen Victoria had far too much faith in the world to try +to save it. She knew that Acts of Parliament, even bad Acts of +Parliament, do not destroy nations. But she knew that ignorance, +ill-temper, tyranny, and<a name="Page_228" id="Page_228"></a> officiousness do destroy nations, and not upon +any provocation would she set an example in these things. We fancy that +this sense of proportion, this largeness and coolness of intellectual +magnanimity is the one of the thousand virtues of Queen Victoria of +which the near future will stand most in need. We are gaining many new +mental powers, and with them new mental responsibilities. In psychology, +in sociology, above all in education, we are learning to do a great many +clever things. Unless we are much mistaken the next great task will be +to learn not to do them. If that time comes, assuredly we cannot do +better than turn once more to the memory of the great Queen who for +seventy years followed through every possible tangle and distraction the +fairy thread of common sense.</p> + +<p>We are suffering just now from an outbreak of the imagination which +exhibits itself in politics and the most unlikely places. The German +Emperor, for example, is neither a tyrant nor a lunatic, as used to be +absurdly represented; he is simply a minor poet; and he feels just as +any minor poet would feel if he<a name="Page_229" id="Page_229"></a> found himself on the throne of +Barbarossa. The revival of militarism and ecclesiasticism is an invasion +of politics by the artistic sense; it is heraldry rather than chivalry +that is lusted after. Amid all this waving of wands and flaunting of +uniforms, all this hedonistic desire to make the most of everything, +there is something altogether quiet and splendid about the sober disdain +with which this simple and courteous lady in a black dress left idle +beside her the sceptre of a hundred tyrants. The heart of the whole +nation warmed as it had never warmed for centuries at the thought of +having in their midst a woman who cared nothing for her rights, and +nothing for those fantastic duties which are more egotistical than +rights themselves.</p> + +<p>The work of the Queen for progressive politics has surely been greatly +underrated. She invented democratic monarchy as much as James Watt +invented the steam engine. William IV., from whom we think of her as +inheriting her Constitutional position, held in fact a position entirely +different to that which she now<a name="Page_230" id="Page_230"></a> hands on to Edward VII. William IV. was +a limited monarch; that is to say, he had a definite, open, and +admitted power in politics, but it was a limited power. Queen Victoria +was not a limited monarch; in the only way in which she cared to be a +monarch at all she was as unlimited as Haroun Alraschid. She had +unlimited willing obedience, and unlimited social supremacy. To her +belongs the credit of inventing a new kind of monarchy; in which the +Crown, by relinquishing the whole of that political and legal department +of life which is concerned with coercion, regimentation, and punishment, +was enabled to rise above it and become the symbol of the sweeter and +purer relations of humanity, the social intercourse which leads and does +not drive. Too much cannot be said for the wise audacity and confident +completeness with which the Queen cut away all those cords of political +supremacy to which her predecessors had clung madly as the only stays of +the monarchy. She had her reward. For while William IV.'s supremacy may +be called a survival, it is not too much to say that the Queen's +su<a name="Page_231" id="Page_231"></a>premacy might be called a prophecy. By lifting a figure purely human +over the heads of judges and warriors, we uttered in some symbolic +fashion the abiding, if unreasoning, hope which dwells in all human +hearts, that some day we may find a simpler solution of the woes of +nations than the summons and the treadmill, that we may find in some +such influence as the social influence of a woman, what was called in +the noble old language of mediæval monarchy, "a fountain of mercy and a +fountain of honour."</p> + +<p>In the universal reverence paid to the Queen there was hardly anywhere a +touch of snobbishness. Snobbishness, in so far as it went out towards +former sovereigns, went out to them as aristocrats rather than as kings, +as heads of that higher order of men, who were almost angels or demons +in their admitted superiority to common lines of conduct. This kind of +reverence was always a curse: nothing can be conceived as worse for the +mass of the people than that they should think the morality for which +they have to struggle an inferior morality, a thing unfitted for a +haughtier class. But<a name="Page_232" id="Page_232"></a> of this patrician element there was hardly a trace +in the dignity of the Queen. Indeed, the degree to which the middle and +lower classes took her troubles and problems to their hearts was almost +grotesque in its familiarity. No one thought of the Queen as an +aristocrat like the Duke of Devonshire, or even as a member of the +governing classes like Mr. Chamberlain. Men thought of her as something +nearer to them even in being further off; as one who was a good queen, +and who would have been, had her fate demanded, with equal cheerfulness, +a good washerwoman. Herein lay her unexampled triumph, the greatest and +perhaps the last triumph of monarchy. Monarchy in its healthiest days +had the same basis as democracy: the belief in human nature when +entrusted with power. A king was only the first citizen who received the +franchise.</p> + +<p>Both royalty and religion have been accused of despising humanity, and +in practice it has been too often true; but after all both the +conception of the prophet and that of the king were formed by paying +humanity<a name="Page_233" id="Page_233"></a> the supreme compliment of selecting from it almost at random. +This daring idea that a healthy human being, when thrilled by all the +trumpets of a great trust, would rise to the situation, has often been +tested, but never with such complete success as in the case of our dead +Queen. On her was piled the crushing load of a vast and mystical +tradition, and she stood up straight under it. Heralds proclaimed her as +the anointed of God, and it did not seem presumptuous. Brave men died in +thousands shouting her name, and it did not seem unnatural. No mere +intellect, no mere worldly success could, in this age of bold inquiry, +have sustained that tremendous claim; long ago we should have stricken +Cæsar and dethroned Napoleon. But these glories and these sacrifices did +not seem too much to celebrate a hardworking human nature; they were +possible because at the heart of our Empire was nothing but a defiant +humility. If the Queen had stood for any novel or fantastic imperial +claims, the whole would have seemed a nightmare; the whole was +successful because she stood, and no one could deny<a name="Page_234" id="Page_234"></a> that she stood, for +the humblest, the shortest and the most indestructible of human gospels, +that when all troubles and troublemongers have had their say, our work +can be done till sunset, our life can be lived till death.<a name="Page_235" id="Page_235"></a><a name="Page_236" id="Page_236"></a><a name="Page_237" id="Page_237"></a></p> + + + +<hr class="full" /> +<h2><a name="THE_GERMAN_EMPEROR" id="THE_GERMAN_EMPEROR"></a>THE GERMAN EMPEROR</h2> + + +<p>The list of the really serious, the really convinced, the really +important and comprehensible people now alive includes, as most +Englishmen would now be prepared to admit, the German Emperor. He is a +practical man and a poet. I do not know whether there are still people +in existence who think there is some kind of faint antithesis between +these two characters; but I incline to think there must be, because of +the surprise which the career of the German Emperor has generally +evoked. When he came to the throne it became at once apparent that he +was poetical; people assumed in consequence that he was unpractical; +that he would plunge Europe into war, that he would try to annex France, +that he would say he was the Emperor of Russia, that he would stand on +his head in the Reichstag, that he<a name="Page_238" id="Page_238"></a> would become a pirate on the Spanish +Main. Years upon years have passed; he has gone on making speeches, he +has gone on talking about God and his sword, he has poured out an ever +increased rhetoric and æstheticism. And yet all the time people have +slowly and surely realised that he knows what he is about, that he is +one of the best friends of peace, that his influence on Europe is not +only successful, but in many ways good, that he knows what world he is +living in better than a score of materialists.</p> + +<p>The explanation never comes to them—he is a poet; therefore, a +practical man. The affinity of the two words, merely as words, is much +nearer than many people suppose, for the matter of that. There is one +Greek word for "I do" from which we get the word practical, and another +Greek word for "I do" from which we get the word poet. I was doubtless +once informed of a profound difference between the two, but I have +forgotten it. The two words practical and poetical may mean two subtly +different things in that old and subtle language, but they mean the same +in<a name="Page_239" id="Page_239"></a> English and the same in the long run. It is ridiculous to suppose +that the man who can understand the inmost intricacies of a human being +who has never existed at all cannot make a guess at the conduct of man +who lives next door. It is idle to say that a man who has himself felt +the mad longing under the mad moon for a vagabond life cannot know why +his son runs away to sea. It is idle to say that a man who has himself +felt the hunger for any kind of exhilaration, from angel or devil, +cannot know why his butler takes to drink. It is idle to say that a man +who has been fascinated with the wild fastidiousness of destiny does not +know why stockbrokers gamble, to say that a man who has been knocked +into the middle of eternal life by a face in a crowd does not know why +the poor marry young; that a man who found his path to all things kindly +and pleasant blackened and barred suddenly by the body of a man does not +know what it is to desire murder. It is idle, in short, for a man who +has created men to say that he does not understand them. A man who is a +poet may, of course, easily<a name="Page_240" id="Page_240"></a> make mistakes in these personal and +practical relations; such mistakes and similar ones have been made by +poets; such mistakes and greater ones have been made by soldiers and +statesmen and men of business. But in so far as a poet is in these +things less of a practical man he is also less of a poet.</p> + +<p>If Shakespeare really married a bad wife when he had conceived the +character of Beatrice he ought to have been ashamed of himself: he had +failed not only in his life, he had failed in his art. If Balzac got +into rows with his publishers he ought to be rebuked and not +commiserated, having evolved so many consistent business men from his +own inside. The German Emperor is a poet, and therefore he succeeds, +because poetry is so much nearer to reality than all the other human +occupations. He is a poet, and succeeds because the majority of men are +poets. It is true, if that matter is at all important, that the German +Emperor is not a good poet. The majority of men are poets, only they +happen to be bad poets. The German Emperor fails ridiculously, if that +is all that is<a name="Page_241" id="Page_241"></a> in question, in almost every one of the artistic +occupations to which he addresses himself: he is neither a first-rate +critic, nor a first-rate musician, nor a first-rate painter, nor a +first-rate poet. He is a twelfth-rate poet, but because he is a poet at +all he knocks to pieces all the first-rate politicians in the war of +politics.</p> + +<p>Having made clear my position so far, I discover with a certain amount +of interest that I have not yet got to the subject of these remarks. The +German Emperor is a poet, and although, as far as I know, every line he +ever wrote may be nonsense, he is a poet in this real sense, that he has +realised the meaning of every function he has performed. Why should we +jeer at him because he has a great many uniforms, for instance? The very +essence of the really imaginative man is that he realises the various +types or capacities in which he can appear. Every one of us, or almost +every one of us, does in reality fulfil almost as many offices as +Pooh-Bah. Almost every one of us is a ratepayer, an immortal soul, an +Englishman, a <a name="Page_242" id="Page_242"></a>baptised person, a mammal, a minor poet, a juryman, a +married man, a bicyclist, a Christian, a purchaser of newspapers, and a +critic of Mr. Alfred Austin. We ought to have uniforms for all these +things. How beautiful it would be if we appeared to-morrow in the +uniform of a ratepayer, in brown and green, with buttons made in the +shape of coins, and a blue income-tax paper tastefully arranged as a +favour; or, again, if we appeared dressed as immortal souls, in a blue +uniform with stars. It would be very exciting to dress up as Englishmen, +or to go to a fancy dress ball as Christians.</p> + +<p>Some of the costumes I have suggested might appear a little more +difficult to carry out. The dress of a person who purchases newspapers +(though it mostly consists of coloured evening editions arranged in a +stiff skirt, like that of a saltatrice, round the waist of the wearer) +has many mysterious points. The attire of a person prepared to criticise +the Poet Laureate is something so awful and striking that I dare not +even begin to describe it; the one fact which<a name="Page_243" id="Page_243"></a> I am willing to reveal, +and to state seriously and responsibly, is that it buttons up behind.</p> + +<p>But most assuredly we ought not to abuse the Kaiser because he is fond +of putting on all his uniforms; he does so because he has a large number +of established and involuntary incarnations. He tries to do his duty in +that state of life to which it shall please God to call him; and it so +happens that he has been called to as many different estates as there +are regiments in the German Army. He is a huntsman and proud of being a +huntsman, an engineer and proud of being an engineer, an infantry +soldier and proud of being so, a light horseman and proud of being so. +There is nothing wrong in all this; the only wrong thing is that it +should be confined to the merely destructive arts of war. The sight of +the German Kaiser in the most magnificent of the uniforms in which he +had led armies to victory is not in itself so splendid or delightful as +that of many other sights which might come before us without a whisper +of the alarms of war. It is not so splendid or delightful as<a name="Page_244" id="Page_244"></a> the sight +of an ordinary householder showing himself in that magnificent uniform +of purple and silver which should signalise the father of three +children. It is not so splendid or delightful as the appearance of a +young clerk in an insurance office decorated with those three long +crimson plumes which are the well-known insignia of a gentleman who is +just engaged to be married. Nor can it compare with the look of a man +wearing the magnificent green and silver armour by which we know one who +has induced an acquaintance to give up getting drunk, or the blue and +gold which is only accorded to persons who have prevented fights in the +street. We belong to quite as many regiments as the German Kaiser. Our +regiments are regiments that are embattled everywhere; they fight an +unending fight against all that is hopeless and rapacious and of evil +report. The only difference is that we have the regiments, but not the +uniforms.</p> + +<p>Only one obvious point occurs to me to add. If the Kaiser has more than +any other man the sense of the poetry of the ancient things, the sword, +the crown,<a name="Page_245" id="Page_245"></a> the ship, the nation, he has the sense of the poetry of +modern things also. He has one sense, and it is even a joke against +him. He feels the poetry of one thing that is more poetic than sword or +crown or ship or nation, the poetry of the telegram. No one ever sent a +telegram who did not feel like a god. He is a god, for he is a minor +poet; a minor poet, but a poet still.</p> + +<hr class="full" /> +<h2><a name="Page_246" id="Page_246"></a><a name="Page_247" id="Page_247"></a><a name="Page_248" id="Page_248"></a><a name="Page_249" id="Page_249"></a> + +<a name="TENNYSON" id="TENNYSON"></a>TENNYSON</h2> + + +<p>Mr. Morton Luce has written a short study of Tennyson which has +considerable cultivation and suggestiveness, which will be sufficient to +serve as a notebook for Tennyson's admirers, but scarcely sufficient, +perhaps, to serve as a pamphlet against his opponents. If a critic has, +as he ought to have, any of the functions anciently attributed to a +prophet, it ought not to be difficult for him to prophesy that Tennyson +will pass through a period of facile condemnation and neglect before we +arrive at the true appreciation of his work. The same thing has happened +to the most vigorous of essayists, Macaulay, and the most vigorous of +romancers, Dickens, because we live in a time when mere vigour is +considered a vulgar thing. The same idle and frigid reaction will almost +certainly discredit the stateliness and care of Tennyson, as it has +discredited the recklessness and inventiveness of Dickens. It is only +necessary to remember that no action can be discredited<a name="Page_250" id="Page_250"></a> by a reaction.</p> + +<p>The attempts which have been made to discredit the poetical position of +Tennyson are in the main dictated by an entire misunderstanding of the +nature of poetry. When critics like Matthew Arnold, for example, suggest +that his poetry is deficient in elaborate thought, they only prove, as +Matthew Arnold proved, that they themselves could never be great poets. +It is no valid accusation against a poet that the sentiment he expresses +is commonplace. Poetry is always commonplace; it is vulgar in the +noblest sense of that noble word. Unless a man can make the same kind of +ringing appeal to absolute and admitted sentiments that is made by a +popular orator, he has lost touch with emotional literature. Unless he +is to some extent a demagogue, he cannot be a poet. A man who expresses +in poetry new and strange and undiscovered emotions is not a poet; he is +a brain specialist. Tennyson can never be discredited before any serious<a name="Page_251" id="Page_251"></a> +tribunal of criticism because the sentiments and thoughts to which he +dedicates himself are those sentiments and thoughts which occur to +anyone. These are the peculiar province of poetry; poetry, like +religion, is always a democratic thing, even if it pretends the +contrary. The faults of Tennyson, so far as they existed, were not half +so much in the common character of his sentiments as in the arrogant +perfection of his workmanship. He was not by any means so wrong in his +faults as he was in his perfections.</p> + +<p>Men are very much too ready to speak of men's work being ordinary, when +we consider that, properly considered, every man is extraordinary. The +average man is a tribal fable, like the Man-Wolf or the Wise Man of the +Stoics. In every man's heart there is a revolution; how much more in +every poet's? The supreme business of criticism is to discover that part +of a man's work which is his and to ignore that part which belongs to +others. Why should any <a name="Page_252" id="Page_252"></a>critic of poetry spend time and attention on that +part of a man's work which is unpoetical? Why should any man be +interested in aspects which are uninteresting? The business of a critic +is to discover the importance of men and not their crimes. It is true +that the Greek word critic carries with it the meaning of a judge, and +up to this point of history judges have had to do with the valuation of +men's sins, and not with the valuation of their virtues.</p> + +<p>Tennyson's work, disencumbered of all that uninteresting accretion which +he had inherited or copied, resolves itself, like that of any other man +of genius, into those things which he really inaugurated. Underneath all +his exterior of polished and polite rectitude there was in him a genuine +fire of novelty; only that, like all the able men of his period, he +disguised revolution under the name of evolution. He is only a very +shallow critic who cannot see an eternal rebel in the heart of the +Conservative.</p> + +<p>Tennyson had certain absolutely personal ideas, as much his own as the +ideas of Browning or Meredith, though they were fewer in number. One of +these, for example, was the fact that he was the first of all poets<a name="Page_253" id="Page_253"></a> (and +perhaps the last) to attempt to treat poetically that vast and monstrous +vision of fact which science had recently revealed to mankind. +Scientific discoveries seem commonly fables as fantastic in the ears of +poets as poems in the ears of men of science. The poet is always a +Ptolemaist; for him the sun still rises and the earth stands still. +Tennyson really worked the essence of modern science into his poetical +constitution, so that its appalling birds and frightful flowers were +really part of his literary imagery. To him blind and brutal monsters, +the products of the wild babyhood of the Universe, were as the daisies +and the nightingales were to Keats; he absolutely realised the great +literary paradox mentioned in the Book of Job: "He saw Behemoth, and he +played with him as with a bird."</p> + +<p>Instances of this would not be difficult to find. But the tests of +poetry are those instances in which this outrageous scientific +phraseology becomes natural and unconscious. Tennyson wrote one of his +own exquisite lyrics describing the exultation of a lover on <a name="Page_254" id="Page_254"></a>the evening +before his bridal day. This would be an occasion, if ever there was one, +for falling back on those ancient and assured falsehoods of the domed +heaven and the flat earth in which generations of poets have made us +feel at home. We can imagine the poet in such a lyric saluting the +setting sun and prophesying the sun's resurrection. There is something +extraordinarily typical of Tennyson's scientific faith in the fact that +this, one of the most sentimental and elemental of his poems, opens with +the two lines:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span>"Move eastward, happy earth, and leave<br /></span> +<span>Yon orange sunset waning slow."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Rivers had often been commanded to flow by poets, and flowers to blossom +in their season, and both were doubtless grateful for the permission. +But the terrestrial globe of science has only twice, so far as we know, +been encouraged in poetry to continue its course, one instance being +that of this poem, and the other the incomparable "Address to the +Terrestrial Globe" in the "Bab Ballads."</p> + +<p>There was, again, another poetic element entirely <a name="Page_255" id="Page_255"></a>peculiar to Tennyson, +which his critics have, in many cases, ridiculously confused with a +fault. This was the fact that Tennyson stood alone among modern poets +in the attempt to give a poetic character to the conception of Liberal +Conservatism, of splendid compromise. The carping critics who have +abused Tennyson for this do not see that it was far more daring and +original for a poet to defend conventionality than to defend a cart-load +of revolutions. His really sound and essential conception of Liberty,</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span>"Turning to scorn with lips divine<br /></span> +<span>The falsehood of extremes,"<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>is as good a definition of Liberalism as has been uttered in poetry in +the Liberal century. Moderation is <i>not</i> a compromise; moderation is a +passion; the passion of great judges. That Tennyson felt that lyrical +enthusiasm could be devoted to established customs, to indefensible and +ineradicable national constitutions, to the dignity of time and the +empire of unutterable common sense, all this did not make him a tamer +poet, but an infinitely more original one. Any poetaster <a name="Page_256" id="Page_256"></a>can describe a +thunderstorm; it requires a poet to describe the ancient and quiet sky.</p> + + +<p>I cannot, indeed, fall in with Mr. Morton Luce in his somewhat frigid +and patrician theory of poetry. "Dialect," he says, "mostly falls below +the dignity of art." I cannot feel myself that art has any dignity +higher than the indwelling and divine dignity of human nature. Great +poets like Burns were far more undignified when they clothed their +thoughts in what Mr. Morton Luce calls "the seemly raiment of cultured +speech" than when they clothed them in the headlong and flexible patois +in which they thought and prayed and quarrelled and made love. If +Tennyson failed (which I do not admit) in such poems as "The Northern +Farmer," it was not because he used too much of the spirit of the +dialect, but because he used too little.</p> + +<p>Tennyson belonged undoubtedly to a period from which we are divided; the +period in which men had queer ideas of the antagonism of science and +religion; the period in which the Missing Link was really miss<a name="Page_257" id="Page_257"></a>ing. But +his hold upon the old realities of existence never wavered; he was the +apostle of the sanctity of laws, of the sanctity of customs; above all, +like every poet, he was the apostle of the sanctity of words.</p> + +<hr class="full" /> +<h2><a name="Page_258" id="Page_258"></a><a name="Page_259" id="Page_259"></a><a name="Page_260" id="Page_260"></a><a name="Page_261" id="Page_261"></a> + +<a name="ELIZABETH_BARRETT_BROWNING" id="ELIZABETH_BARRETT_BROWNING"></a>ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING</h2> + + +<p>The delightful new edition of Mrs. Browning's "Casa Guidi Windows" which +Mr. John Lane has just issued ought certainly to serve as an opportunity +for the serious criticism and inevitable admiration to which a great +poet is entitled. For Mrs. Browning was a great poet, and not, as is +idly and vulgarly supposed, only a great poetess. The word poetess is +bad English, and it conveys a particularly bad compliment. Nothing is +more remarkable about Mrs. Browning's work than the absence of that +trite and namby-pamby elegance which the last two centuries demanded +from lady writers. Wherever her verse is bad it is bad from some +extravagance of imagery, some violence of comparison, some kind of +debauch of cleverness. Her nonsense never arises from weakness, but from +a confusion of<a name="Page_262" id="Page_262"></a> powers. If the phrase explain itself, she is far more a +great poet than she is a good one.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Browning often appears more luscious and sentimental than many +other literary women, but this was because she was stronger. It requires +a certain amount of internal force to break down. A complete +self-humiliation requires enormous strength, more strength than most of +us possess. When she was writing the poetry of self-abandonment she +really abandoned herself with the valour and decision of an anchorite +abandoning the world. Such a couplet as:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span>"Our Euripides, the human,<br /></span> +<span>With his dropping of warm tears,"<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>gives to most of us a sickly and nauseous sensation. Nothing can be well +conceived more ridiculous than Euripides going about dropping tears with +a loud splash, and Mrs. Browning coming after him with a thermometer. +But the one emphatic point about this idiotic couplet is that Mrs. +Hemans would never have written it. She would have written something +perfectly dignified, perfectly harmless, perfectly in<a name="Page_263" id="Page_263"></a>considerable. Mrs. +Browning was in a great and serious difficulty. She really meant +something. She aimed at a vivid and curious image, and she missed it. +She had that catastrophic and public failure which is, as much as a +medal or a testimonial, the badge of the brave.</p> + +<p>In spite of the tiresome half-truth that art is unmoral, the arts +require a certain considerable number of moral qualities, and more +especially all the arts require courage. The art of drawing, for +example, requires even a kind of physical courage. Anyone who has tried +to draw a straight line and failed knows that he fails chiefly in nerve, +as he might fail to jump off a cliff. And similarly all great literary +art involves the element of risk, and the greatest literary artists have +commonly been those who have run the greatest risk of talking nonsense. +Almost all great poets rant, from Shakespeare downwards. Mrs. Browning +was Elizabethan in her luxuriance and her audacity, and the gigantic +scale of her wit. We often feel with her as we feel with Shakespeare, +that she would have done<a name="Page_264" id="Page_264"></a> better with half as much talent. The great +curse of the Elizabethans is upon her, that she cannot leave anything +alone, she cannot write a single line without a conceit:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span>"And the eyes of the peacock fans<br /></span> +<span>Winked at the alien glory,"<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>she said of the Papal fans in the presence of the Italian tricolour:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span>"And a royal blood sends glances up her princely eye to trouble,<br /></span> +<span>And the shadow of a monarch's crown is softened in her hair,"<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>is her description of a beautiful and aristocratic lady. The notion of +peacock feathers winking like so many London urchins is perhaps one of +her rather aggressive and outrageous figures of speech. The image of a +woman's hair as the softened shadow of a crown is a singularly vivid and +perfect one. But both have the same quality of intellectual fancy and +intellectual concentration. They are both instances of a sort of +ethereal epigram. This is the great and dominant characteristic of Mrs. +Browning, that she was significant alike in failure and success. Just as +every<a name="Page_265" id="Page_265"></a> marriage in the world, good or bad, is a marriage, dramatic, +irrevocable, and big with coming events, so every one of her wild +weddings between alien ideas is an accomplished fact which produces a +certain effect on the imagination, which has for good or evil become +part and parcel of our mental vision forever. She gives the reader the +impression that she never declined a fancy, just as some gentlemen of +the eighteenth century never declined a duel. When she fell it was +always because she missed the foothold, never because she funked the +leap.</p> + +<p>"Casa Guidi Windows" is, in one aspect, a poem very typical of its +author. Mrs. Browning may fairly be called the peculiar poet of +Liberalism, of that great movement of the first half of the nineteenth +century towards the emancipation of men from ancient institutions which +had gradually changed their nature, from the houses of refuge which had +turned into dungeons, and the mystic jewels which remained only as +fetters. It was not what we ordinarily understand by revolt. It had no +hatred in its heart for ancient and<a name="Page_266" id="Page_266"></a> essentially human institutions. It +had that deeply conservative belief in the most ancient of institutions, +the average man, which goes by the name of democracy. It had none of +the spirit of modern Imperialism which is kicking a man because he is +down. But, on the other hand, it had none of the spirit of modern +Anarchism and scepticism which is kicking a man merely because he is up. +It was based fundamentally on a belief in the destiny of humanity, +whether that belief took an irreligious form, as in Swinburne, or a +religious form, as in Mrs. Browning. It had that rooted and natural +conviction that the Millennium was coming to-morrow which has been the +conviction of all iconoclasts and reformers, and for which some +rationalists have been absurd enough to blame the early Christians. But +they had none of that disposition to pin their whole faith to some +black-and-white scientific system which afterwards became the curse of +philosophical Radicalism. They were not like the sociologists who lay +down a final rectification of things, amounting to nothing except an end +of the world, a<a name="Page_267" id="Page_267"></a> great deal more depressing than would be the case if it +were knocked to pieces by a comet. Their ideal, like the ideal of all +sensible people, was a chaotic and confused notion of goodness made up +of English primroses and Greek statues, birds singing in April, and +regiments being cut to pieces for a flag. They were neither Radicals nor +Socialists, but Liberals, and a Liberal is a noble and indispensable +lunatic who tries to make a cosmos of his own head.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Browning and her husband were more liberal than most Liberals. +Theirs was the hospitality of the intellect and the hospitality of the +heart, which is the best definition of the term. They never fell into +the habit of the idle revolutionists of supposing that the past was bad +because the future was good, which amounted to asserting that because +humanity had never made anything but mistakes it was now quite certain +to be right. Browning possessed in a greater degree than any other man +the power of realising that all conventions were only victorious +revolutions. He could follow the mediæval logicians in all their<a name="Page_268" id="Page_268"></a> sowing +of the wind and reaping of the whirlwind with all that generous ardour +which is due to abstract ideas. He could study the ancients with the +young eyes of the Renaissance and read a Greek grammar like a book of +love lyrics. This immense and almost confounding Liberalism of Browning +doubtless had some effect upon his wife. In her vision of New Italy she +went back to the image of Ancient Italy like an honest and true +revolutionist; for does not the very word "revolution" mean a rolling +backward. All true revolutions are reversions to the natural and the +normal. A revolutionist who breaks with the past is a notion fit for an +idiot. For how could a man even wish for something which he had never +heard of? Mrs. Browning's inexhaustible sympathy with all the ancient +and essential passions of humanity was nowhere more in evidence than in +her conception of patriotism. For some dark reason, which it is +difficult indeed to fathom, belief in patriotism in our day is held to +mean principally a belief in every other nation abandoning its patriotic +feelings. In the case of no<a name="Page_269" id="Page_269"></a> other passion does this weird contradiction +exist. Men whose lives are mainly based upon friendship sympathise with +the friendships of others. The interest of engaged couples in each other +is a proverb, and like many other proverbs sometimes a nuisance. In +patriotism alone it is considered correct just now to assume that the +sentiment does not exist in other people. It was not so with the great +Liberals of Mrs. Browning's time. The Brownings had, so to speak, a +disembodied talent for patriotism. They loved England and they loved +Italy; yet they were the very reverse of cosmopolitans. They loved the +two countries as countries, not as arbitrary divisions of the globe. +They had hold of the root and essence of patriotism. They knew how +certain flowers and birds and rivers pass into the mills of the brain +and come out as wars and discoveries, and how some triumphant adventure +or some staggering crime wrought in a remote continent may bear about it +the colour of an Italian city or the soul of a silent village of Surrey.</p> + +<div>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 14203 ***</div> +</body> +</html> diff --git a/14203-h/images/cover.png b/14203-h/images/cover.png Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..e3182bc --- /dev/null +++ b/14203-h/images/cover.png diff --git a/14203-h/images/frontispiece.png b/14203-h/images/frontispiece.png Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..bcf4a55 --- /dev/null +++ b/14203-h/images/frontispiece.png 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..cca5397 --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #14203 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/14203) diff --git a/old/14203-8.txt b/old/14203-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..efc2878 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/14203-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,4061 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Varied Types, by G. K. Chesterton + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere 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 + + +Title: Varied Types + +Author: G. K. Chesterton + +Release Date: November 29, 2004 [EBook #14203] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK VARIED TYPES *** + + + + +Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Melissa Er-Raqabi and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + + + + +_Varied Types_ + +_By_ + +G.K. Chesterton + +Author _of_ "The Defendant," etc. + +New York: _Dodd, Mead and Company_ + + + + +PUBLISHED SEPTEMBER, 1905 + + + + +NOTE + +These papers, with certain alterations and additions, are reprinted +with the kind permission of the Editors of _The Daily News_ and _The +Speaker_. + +G.K.C. + +Kensington. + + + + +CONTENTS + + Page +Charlotte Brontë 3 +William Morris And His School 15 +The Optimism Of Byron 29 +Pope And The Art Of Satire 43 +Francis 59 +Rostand 73 +Charles II. 85 +Stevenson 97 +Thomas Carlyle 109 +Tolstoy And The Cult Of Simplicity 125 +Savonarola 147 +The Position Of Sir Walter Scott 159 +Bret Harte 179 +Alfred The Great 199 +Maeterlinck 209 +Ruskin 217 +Queen Victoria 225 +The German Emperor 227 +Tennyson 249 +Elizabeth Barrett Browning 261 + + + + +CHARLOTTE BRONTË + + +Objection is often raised against realistic biography because it reveals +so much that is important and even sacred about a man's life. The real +objection to it will rather be found in the fact that it reveals about a +man the precise points which are unimportant. It reveals and asserts and +insists on exactly those things in a man's life of which the man himself +is wholly unconscious; his exact class in society, the circumstances of +his ancestry, the place of his present location. These are things which +do not, properly speaking, ever arise before the human vision. They do +not occur to a man's mind; it may be said, with almost equal truth, that +they do not occur in a man's life. A man no more thinks about himself as +the inhabitant of the third house in a row of Brixton villas than he +thinks about himself as a strange animal with two legs. What a man's +name was, what his income was, whom he married, where he lived, these +are not sanctities; they are irrelevancies. + +A very strong case of this is the case of the Brontës. The Brontë is in +the position of the mad lady in a country village; her eccentricities +form an endless source of innocent conversation to that exceedingly mild +and bucolic circle, the literary world. The truly glorious gossips of +literature, like Mr. Augustine Birrell and Mr. Andrew Lang, never tire +of collecting all the glimpses and anecdotes and sermons and side-lights +and sticks and straws which will go to make a Brontë museum. They are +the most personally discussed of all Victorian authors, and the +limelight of biography has left few darkened corners in the dark old +Yorkshire house. And yet the whole of this biographical investigation, +though natural and picturesque, is not wholly suitable to the Brontës. +For the Brontë genius was above all things deputed to assert the supreme +unimportance of externals. Up to that point truth had always been +conceived as existing more or less in the novel of manners. Charlotte +Brontë electrified the world by showing that an infinitely older and +more elemental truth could be conveyed by a novel in which no person, +good or bad, had any manners at all. Her work represents the first great +assertion that the humdrum life of modern civilisation is a disguise as +tawdry and deceptive as the costume of a _bal masqué_. She showed that +abysses may exist inside a governess and eternities inside a +manufacturer; her heroine is the commonplace spinster, with the dress of +merino and the soul of flame. It is significant to notice that Charlotte +Brontë, following consciously or unconsciously the great trend of her +genius, was the first to take away from the heroine not only the +artificial gold and diamonds of wealth and fashion, but even the natural +gold and diamonds of physical beauty and grace. Instinctively she felt +that the whole of the exterior must be made ugly that the whole of the +interior might be made sublime. She chose the ugliest of women in the +ugliest of centuries, and revealed within them all the hells and heavens +of Dante. + +It may, therefore, I think, be legitimately said that the externals of +the Brontës' life, though singularly picturesque in themselves, matter +less than the externals of almost any other writers. It is interesting +to know whether Jane Austen had any knowledge of the lives of the +officers and women of fashion whom she introduced into her masterpieces. +It is interesting to know whether Dickens had ever seen a shipwreck or +been inside a workhouse. For in these authors much of the conviction is +conveyed, not always by adherence to facts, but always by grasp of them. +But the whole aim and purport and meaning of the work of the Brontës is +that the most futile thing in the whole universe is fact. Such a story +as "Jane Eyre" is in itself so monstrous a fable that it ought to be +excluded from a book of fairy tales. The characters do not do what they +ought to do, nor what they would do, nor it might be said, such is the +insanity of the atmosphere, not even what they intend to do. The conduct +of Rochester is so primevally and superhumanly caddish that Bret Harte +in his admirable travesty scarcely exaggerated it. "Then, resuming his +usual manner, he threw his boots at my head and withdrew," does perhaps +reach to something resembling caricature. The scene in which Rochester +dresses up as an old gipsy has something in it which is really not to be +found in any other branch of art, except in the end of the pantomime, +where the Emperor turns into a pantaloon. Yet, despite this vast +nightmare of illusion and morbidity and ignorance of the world, "Jane +Eyre" is perhaps the truest book that was ever written. Its essential +truth to life sometimes makes one catch one's breath. For it is not true +to manners, which are constantly false, or to facts, which are almost +always false; it is true to the only existing thing which is true, +emotion, the irreducible minimum, the indestructible germ. It would not +matter a single straw if a Brontë story were a hundred times more +moonstruck and improbable than "Jane Eyre," or a hundred times more +moonstruck and improbable than "Wuthering Heights." It would not matter +if George Read stood on his head, and Mrs. Read rode on a dragon, if +Fairfax Rochester had four eyes and St. John Rivers three legs, the +story would still remain the truest story in the world. The typical +Brontë character is, indeed, a kind of monster. Everything in him except +the essential is dislocated. His hands are on his legs and his feet on +his arms, his nose is above his eyes, but his heart is in the right +place. + +The great and abiding truth for which the Brontë cycle of fiction stands +is a certain most important truth about the enduring spirit of youth, +the truth of the near kinship between terror and joy. The Brontë +heroine, dingily dressed, badly educated, hampered by a humiliating +inexperience, a kind of ugly innocence, is yet, by the very fact of her +solitude and her gaucherie, full of the greatest delight that is +possible to a human being, the delight of expectation, the delight of an +ardent and flamboyant ignorance. She serves to show how futile it is of +humanity to suppose that pleasure can be attained chiefly by putting on +evening dress every evening, and having a box at the theatre every first +night. It is not the man of pleasure who has pleasure; it is not the man +of the world who appreciates the world. The man who has learnt to do all +conventional things perfectly has at the same time learnt to do them +prosaically. It is the awkward man, whose evening dress does not fit +him, whose gloves will not go on, whose compliments will not come off, +who is really full of the ancient ecstasies of youth. He is frightened +enough of society actually to enjoy his triumphs. He has that element of +fear which is one of the eternal ingredients of joy. This spirit is the +central spirit of the Brontë novel. It is the epic of the exhilaration +of the shy man. As such it is of incalculable value in our time, of +which the curse is that it does not take joy reverently because it does +not take it fearfully. The shabby and inconspicuous governess of +Charlotte Brontë, with the small outlook and the small creed, had more +commerce with the awful and elemental forces which drive the world than +a legion of lawless minor poets. She approached the universe with real +simplicity, and, consequently, with real fear and delight. She was, so +to speak, shy before the multitude of the stars, and in this she had +possessed herself of the only force which can prevent enjoyment being as +black and barren as routine. The faculty of being shy is the first and +the most delicate of the powers of enjoyment. The fear of the Lord is +the beginning of pleasure. + +Upon the whole, therefore, I think it may justifiably be said that the +dark wild youth of the Brontës in their dark wild Yorkshire home has +been somewhat exaggerated as a necessary factor in their work and their +conception. The emotions with which they dealt were universal emotions, +emotions of the morning of existence, the springtide joy and the +springtide terror. Every one of us as a boy or girl has had some +midnight dream of nameless obstacle and unutterable menace, in which +there was, under whatever imbecile forms, all the deadly stress and +panic of "Wuthering Heights." Every one of us has had a day-dream of +our own potential destiny not one atom more reasonable than "Jane Eyre." +And the truth which the Brontës came to tell us is the truth that many +waters cannot quench love, and that suburban respectability cannot touch +or damp a secret enthusiasm. Clapham, like every other earthly city, is +built upon a volcano. Thousands of people go to and fro in the +wilderness of bricks and mortar, earning mean wages, professing a mean +religion, wearing a mean attire, thousands of women who have never found +any expression for their exaltation or their tragedy but to go on +working harder and yet harder at dull and automatic employments, at +scolding children or stitching shirts. But out of all these silent ones +one suddenly became articulate, and spoke a resonant testimony, and her +name was Charlotte Brontë. Spreading around us upon every side to-day +like a huge and radiating geometrical figure are the endless branches of +the great city. There are times when we are almost stricken crazy, as +well we may be, by the multiplicity of those appalling perspectives, the +frantic arithmetic of that unthinkable population. But this thought of +ours is in truth nothing but a fancy. There are no chains of houses; +there are no crowds of men. The colossal diagram of streets and houses +is an illusion, the opium dream of a speculative builder. Each of these +men is supremely solitary and supremely important to himself. Each of +these houses stands in the centre of the world. There is no single house +of all those millions which has not seemed to someone at some time the +heart of all things and the end of travel. + + + + +WILLIAM MORRIS AND HIS SCHOOL + + +It is proper enough that the unveiling of the bust of William Morris +should approximate to a public festival, for while there have been many +men of genius in the Victorian era more despotic than he, there have +been none so representative. He represents not only that rapacious +hunger for beauty which has now for the first time become a serious +problem in the healthy life of humanity, but he represents also that +honourable instinct for finding beauty in common necessities of +workmanship which gives it a stronger and more bony structure. The time +has passed when William Morris was conceived to be irrelevant to be +described as a designer of wall-papers. If Morris had been a hatter +instead of a decorator, we should have become gradually and painfully +conscious of an improvement in our hats. If he had been a tailor, we +should have suddenly found our frock-coats trailing on the ground with +the grandeur of mediæval raiment. If he had been a shoemaker, we should +have found, with no little consternation, our shoes gradually +approximating to the antique sandal. As a hairdresser, he would have +invented some massing of the hair worthy to be the crown of Venus; as an +ironmonger, his nails would have had some noble pattern, fit to be the +nails of the Cross. + +The limitations of William Morris, whatever they were, were not the +limitations of common decoration. It is true that all his work, even his +literary work, was in some sense decorative, had in some degree the +qualities of a splendid wall-paper. His characters, his stories, his +religious and political views, had, in the most emphatic sense, length +and breadth without thickness. He seemed really to believe that men +could enjoy a perfectly flat felicity. He made no account of the +unexplored and explosive possibilities of human nature, of the +unnameable terrors, and the yet more unnameable hopes. So long as a man +was graceful in every circumstance, so long as he had the inspiring +consciousness that the chestnut colour of his hair was relieved against +the blue forest a mile behind, he would be serenely happy. So he would +be, no doubt, if he were really fitted for a decorative existence; if he +were a piece of exquisitely coloured card-board. + +But although Morris took little account of the terrible solidity of +human nature--took little account, so to speak, of human figures in the +round, it is altogether unfair to represent him as a mere æsthete. He +perceived a great public necessity and fulfilled it heroically. The +difficulty with which he grappled was one so immense that we shall have +to be separated from it by many centuries before we can really judge of +it. It was the problem of the elaborate and deliberate ugliness of the +most self-conscious of centuries. Morris at least saw the absurdity of +the thing. He felt it was monstrous that the modern man, who was +pre-eminently capable of realising the strangest and most contradictory +beauties, who could feel at once the fiery aureole of the ascetic and +the colossal calm of the Hellenic god, should himself, by a farcical +bathos, be buried in a black coat, and hidden under a chimney-pot hat. +He could not see why the harmless man who desired to be an artist in +raiment should be condemned to be, at best, a black and white artist. It +is indeed difficult to account for the clinging curse of ugliness which +blights everything brought forth by the most prosperous of centuries. In +all created nature there is not, perhaps, anything so completely ugly as +a pillar-box. Its shape is the most unmeaning of shapes, its height and +thickness just neutralising each other; its colour is the most repulsive +of colours--a fat and soulless red, a red without a touch of blood or +fire, like the scarlet of dead men's sins. Yet there is no reason +whatever why such hideousness should possess an object full of civic +dignity, the treasure-house of a thousand secrets, the fortress of a +thousand souls. If the old Greeks had had such an institution, we may be +sure that it would have been surmounted by the severe, but graceful, +figure of the god of letter-writing. If the mediæval Christians has +possessed it, it would have had a niche filled with the golden aureole +of St. Rowland of the Postage Stamps. As it is, there it stands at all +our street-corners, disguising one of the most beautiful of ideas under +one of the most preposterous of forms. It is useless to deny that the +miracles of science have not been such an incentive to art and +imagination as were the miracles of religion. If men in the twelfth +century had been told that the lightning had been driven for leagues +underground, and had dragged at its destroying tail loads of laughing +human beings, and if they had then been told that the people alluded to +this pulverising portent chirpily as "The Twopenny Tube," they would +have called down the fire of Heaven on us as a race of half-witted +atheists. Probably they would have been quite right. + +This clear and fine perception of what may be called the anæsthetic +element in the Victorian era was, undoubtedly, the work of a great +reformer: it requires a fine effort of the imagination to see an evil +that surrounds us on every side. The manner in which Morris carried out +his crusade may, considering the circumstances, be called triumphant. +Our carpets began to bloom under our feet like the meadows in spring, +and our hitherto prosaic stools and sofas seemed growing legs and arms +at their own wild will. An element of freedom and rugged dignity came in +with plain and strong ornaments of copper and iron. So delicate and +universal has been the revolution in domestic art that almost every +family in England has had its taste cunningly and treacherously +improved, and if we look back at the early Victorian drawing-rooms it is +only to realise the strange but essential truth that art, or human +decoration, has, nine times out of ten in history, made things uglier +than they were before, from the "coiffure" of a Papuan savage to the +wall-paper of a British merchant in 1830. + +But great and beneficent as was the æsthetic revolution of Morris, there +was a very definite limit to it. It did not lie only in the fact that +his revolution was in truth a reaction, though this was a partial +explanation of his partial failure. When he was denouncing the dresses +of modern ladies, "upholstered like arm-chairs instead of being draped +like women," as he forcibly expressed it, he would hold up for practical +imitation the costumes and handicrafts of the Middle Ages. Further than +this retrogressive and imitative movement he never seemed to go. Now, +the men of the time of Chaucer had many evil qualities, but there was at +least one exhibition of moral weakness they did not give. They would +have laughed at the idea of dressing themselves in the manner of the +bowmen at the battle of Senlac, or painting themselves an æsthetic blue, +after the custom of the ancient Britons. They would not have called that +a movement at all. Whatever was beautiful in their dress or manners +sprang honestly and naturally out of the life they led and preferred to +lead. And it may surely be maintained that any real advance in the +beauty of modern dress must spring honestly and naturally out of the +life we lead and prefer to lead. We are not altogether without hints and +hopes of such a change, in the growing orthodoxy of rough and athletic +costumes. But if this cannot be, it will be no substitute or +satisfaction to turn life into an interminable historical fancy-dress +ball. + +But the limitation of Morris's work lay deeper than this. We may best +suggest it by a method after his own heart. Of all the various works he +performed, none, perhaps, was so splendidly and solidly valuable as his +great protest for the fables and superstitions of mankind. He has the +supreme credit of showing that the fairy tales contain the deepest truth +of the earth, the real record of men's feeling for things. Trifling +details may be inaccurate, Jack may not have climbed up so tall a +beanstalk, or killed so tall a giant; but it is not such things that +make a story false; it is a far different class of things that makes +every modern book of history as false as the father of lies; ingenuity, +self-consciousness, hypocritical impartiality. It appears to us that of +all the fairy-tales none contains so vital a moral truth as the old +story, existing in many forms, of Beauty and the Beast. There is +written, with all the authority of a human scripture, the eternal and +essential truth that until we love a thing in all its ugliness we +cannot make it beautiful. This was the weak point in William Morris as a +reformer: that he sought to reform modern life, and that he hated modern +life instead of loving it. Modern London is indeed a beast, big enough +and black enough to be the beast in Apocalypse, blazing with a million +eyes, and roaring with a million voices. But unless the poet can love +this fabulous monster as he is, can feel with some generous excitement +his massive and mysterious _joie-de-vivre_, the vast scale of his iron +anatomy and the beating of his thunderous heart, he cannot and will not +change the beast into the fairy prince. Morris's disadvantage was that +he was not honestly a child of the nineteenth century: he could not +understand its fascination, and consequently he could not really develop +it. An abiding testimony to his tremendous personal influence in the +æsthetic world is the vitality and recurrence of the Arts and Crafts +Exhibitions, which are steeped in his personality like a chapel in that +of a saint. If we look round at the exhibits in one of these æsthetic +shows, we shall be struck by the large mass of modern objects that the +decorative school leaves untouched. There is a noble instinct for giving +the right touch of beauty to common and necessary things, but the things +that are so touched are the ancient things, the things that always to +some extent commended themselves to the lover of beauty. There are +beautiful gates, beautiful fountains, beautiful cups, beautiful chairs, +beautiful reading-desks. But there are no modern things made beautiful. +There are no beautiful lamp-posts, beautiful letter-boxes, beautiful +engines, beautiful bicycles. The spirit of William Morris has not seized +hold of the century and made its humblest necessities beautiful. And +this was because, with all his healthiness and energy, he had not the +supreme courage to face the ugliness of things; Beauty shrank from the +Beast and the fairy-tale had a different ending. + +But herein, indeed, lay Morris's deepest claim to the name of a great +reformer: that he left his work incomplete. There is, perhaps, no better +proof that a man is a mere meteor, merely barren and brilliant, than +that his work is done perfectly. A man like Morris draws attention to +needs he cannot supply. In after-years we may have perhaps a newer and +more daring Arts and Crafts Exhibition. In it we shall not decorate the +armour of the twelfth century, but the machinery of the twentieth. A +lamp-post shall be wrought nobly in twisted iron, fit to hold the +sanctity of fire. A pillar-box shall be carved with figures emblematical +of the secrets of comradeship and the silence and honour of the State. +Railway signals, of all earthly things the most poetical, the coloured +stars of life and death, shall be lamps of green and crimson worthy of +their terrible and faithful service. But if ever this gradual and +genuine movement of our time towards beauty--not backwards, but +forwards--does truly come about, Morris will be the first prophet of it. +Poet of the childhood of nations, craftsman in the new honesties of art, +prophet of a merrier and wiser life, his full-blooded enthusiasm will be +remembered when human life has once more assumed flamboyant colours and +proved that this painful greenish grey of the æsthetic twilight in +which we now live is, in spite of all the pessimists, not of the +greyness of death, but the greyness of dawn. + + + + +OPTIMISM OF BYRON + + +Everything is against our appreciating the spirit and the age of +Byron. The age that has just passed from us is always like a dream when +we wake in the morning, a thing incredible and centuries away. And the +world of Byron seems a sad and faded world, a weird and inhuman world, +where men were romantic in whiskers, ladies lived, apparently, in +bowers, and the very word has the sound of a piece of stage scenery. +Roses and nightingales recur in their poetry with the monotonous +elegance of a wall-paper pattern. The whole is like a revel of dead men, +a revel with splendid vesture and half-witted faces. + +But the more shrewdly and earnestly we study the histories of men, the +less ready shall we be to make use of the word "artificial." Nothing in +the world has ever been artificial. Many customs, many dresses, many +works of art are branded with artificiality because they exhibit vanity +and self-consciousness: as if vanity were not a deep and elemental +thing, like love and hate and the fear of death. Vanity may be found in +darkling deserts, in the hermit and in the wild beasts that crawl around +him. It may be good or evil, but assuredly it is not artificial: vanity +is a voice out of the abyss. + +The remarkable fact is, however, and it bears strongly on the present +position of Byron, that when a thing is unfamiliar to us, when it is +remote and the product of some other age or spirit, we think it not +savage or terrible, but merely artificial. There are many instances of +this: a fair one is the case of tropical plants and birds. When we see +some of the monstrous and flamboyant blossoms that enrich the equatorial +woods, we do not feel that they are conflagrations of nature; silent +explosions of her frightful energy. We simply find it hard to believe +that they are not wax flowers grown under a glass case. When we see some +of the tropic birds, with their tiny bodies attached to gigantic beaks, +we do not feel that they are freaks of the fierce humour of Creation. +We almost believe that they are toys out of a child's play-box, +artificially carved and artificially coloured. So it is with the great +convulsion of Nature which was known as Byronism. The volcano is not an +extinct volcano now; it is the dead stick of a rocket. It is the remains +not of a natural but of an artificial fire. + +But Byron and Byronism were something immeasurably greater than anything +that is represented by such a view as this: their real value and meaning +are indeed little understood. The first of the mistakes about Byron lies +in the fact that he is treated as a pessimist. True, he treated himself +as such, but a critic can hardly have even a slight knowledge of Byron +without knowing that he had the smallest amount of knowledge of himself +that ever fell to the lot of an intelligent man. The real character of +what is known as Byron's pessimism is better worth study than any real +pessimism could ever be. + +It is the standing peculiarity of this curious world of ours that almost +everything in it has been extolled enthusiastically and invariably +extolled to the disadvantage of everything else. + +One after another almost every one of the phenomena of the universe has +been declared to be alone capable of making life worth living. Books, +love, business, religion, alcohol, abstract truth, private emotion, +money, simplicity, mysticism, hard work, a life close to nature, a life +close to Belgrave Square are every one of them passionately maintained +by somebody to be so good that they redeem the evil of an otherwise +indefensible world. Thus, while the world is almost always condemned in +summary, it is always justified, and indeed extolled, in detail after +detail. + +Existence has been praised and absolved by a chorus of pessimists. The +work of giving thanks to Heaven is, as it were, divided ingeniously +among them. Schopenhauer is told off as a kind of librarian in the House +of God, to sing the praises of the austere pleasures of the mind. +Carlyle, as steward, undertakes the working department and eulogises a +life of labour in the fields. Omar Khayyam is established in the +cellar, and swears that it is the only room in the house. Even the +blackest of pessimistic artists enjoys his art. At the precise moment +that he has written some shameless and terrible indictment of Creation, +his one pang of joy in the achievement joins the universal chorus of +gratitude, with the scent of the wild flower and the song of the bird. + +Now Byron had a sensational popularity, and that popularity was, as far +as words and explanations go, founded upon his pessimism. He was adored +by an overwhelming majority, almost every individual of which despised +the majority of mankind. But when we come to regard the matter a little +more deeply we tend in some degree to cease to believe in this +popularity of the pessimist. The popularity of pure and unadulterated +pessimism is an oddity; it is almost a contradiction in terms. Men would +no more receive the news of the failure of existence or of the +harmonious hostility of the stars with ardour or popular rejoicing than +they would light bonfires for the arrival of cholera or dance a +breakdown when they were condemned to be hanged. When the pessimist is +popular it must always be not because he shows all things to be bad, but +because he shows some things to be good. + +Men can only join in a chorus of praise, even if it is the praise of +denunciation. The man who is popular must be optimistic about something, +even if he is only optimistic about pessimism. And this was emphatically +the case with Byron and the Byronists. Their real popularity was founded +not upon the fact that they blamed everything, but upon the fact that +they praised something. They heaped curses upon man, but they used man +merely as a foil. The things they wished to praise by comparison were +the energies of Nature. Man was to them what talk and fashion were to +Carlyle, what philosophical and religious quarrels were to Omar, what +the whole race after practical happiness was to Schopenhauer, the thing +which must be censured in order that somebody else may be exalted. It +was merely a recognition of the fact that one cannot write in white +chalk except on a black-board. + +Surely it is ridiculous to maintain seriously that Byron's love of the +desolate and inhuman in nature was the mark of vital scepticism and +depression. When a young man can elect deliberately to walk alone in +winter by the side of the shattering sea, when he takes pleasure in +storms and stricken peaks, and the lawless melancholy of the older +earth, we may deduce with the certainty of logic that he is very young +and very happy. There is a certain darkness which we see in wine when +seen in shadow; we see it again in the night that has just buried a +gorgeous sunset. The wine seems black, and yet at the same time +powerfully and almost impossibly red; the sky seems black, and yet at +the same time to be only too dense a blend of purple and green. Such was +the darkness which lay around the Byronic school. Darkness with them was +only too dense a purple. They would prefer the sullen hostility of the +earth because amid all the cold and darkness their own hearts were +flaming like their own firesides. + +Matters are very different with the more modern school of doubt and +lamentation. The last movement of pessimism is perhaps expressed in Mr. +Aubrey Beardsley's allegorical designs. Here we have to deal with a +pessimism which tends naturally not towards the oldest elements of the +cosmos, but towards the last and most fantastic fripperies of artificial +life. Byronism tended towards the desert; the new pessimism towards the +restaurant. Byronism was a revolt against artificiality; the new +pessimism is a revolt in its favour. + +The Byronic young man had an affectation of sincerity; the decadent, +going a step deeper into the avenues of the unreal, has positively an +affectation of affectation. And it is by their fopperies and their +frivolities that we know that their sinister philosophy is sincere; in +their lights and garlands and ribbons we read their indwelling despair. +It was so, indeed, with Byron himself; his really bitter moments were +his frivolous moments. He went on year after year calling down fire +upon mankind, summoning the deluge and the destructive sea and all the +ultimate energies of nature to sweep away the cities of the spawn of +man. But through all this his subconscious mind was not that of a +despairer; on the contrary, there is something of a kind of lawless +faith in thus parleying with such immense and immemorial brutalities. It +was not until the time in which he wrote "Don Juan" that he really lost +this inward warmth and geniality, and a sudden shout of hilarious +laughter announced to the world that Lord Byron had really become a +pessimist. + +One of the best tests in the world of what a poet really means is his +metre. He may be a hypocrite in his metaphysics, but he cannot be a +hypocrite in his prosody. And all the time that Byron's language is of +horror and emptiness, his metre is a bounding _pas de quatre_. He may +arraign existence on the most deadly charges, he may condemn it with the +most desolating verdict, but he cannot alter the fact that on some walk +in a spring morning when all the limbs are swinging and all the blood +alive in the body, the lips may be caught repeating: + + "Oh, there's not a joy the world can give like that it takes away, + When the glow of early youth declines in beauty's dull decay; + 'Tis not upon the cheek of youth the blush that fades so fast, + But the tender bloom of heart is gone ere youth itself be past." + +That automatic recitation is the answer to the whole pessimism of Byron. + +The truth is that Byron was one of a class who may be called the +unconscious optimists, who are very often, indeed, the most +uncompromising conscious pessimists, because the exuberance of their +nature demands for an adversary a dragon as big as the world. But the +whole of his essential and unconscious being was spirited and confident, +and that unconscious being, long disguised and buried under emotional +artifices, suddenly sprang into prominence in the face of a cold, hard, +political necessity. In Greece he heard the cry of reality, and at the +time that he was dying, he began to live. He heard suddenly the call of +that buried and subconscious happiness which is in all of us, and which +may emerge suddenly at the sight of the grass of a meadow or the spears +of the enemy. + + + + +POPE AND THE ART OF SATIRE + + +The general critical theory common in this and the last century is +that it was very easy for the imitators of Pope to write English poetry. +The classical couplet was a thing that anyone could do. So far as that +goes, one may justifiably answer by asking anyone to try. It may be +easier really to have wit, than really, in the boldest and most enduring +sense, to have imagination. But it is immeasurably easier to pretend to +have imagination than to pretend to have wit. A man may indulge in a +sham rhapsody, because it may be the triumph of a rhapsody to be +unintelligible. But a man cannot indulge in a sham joke, because it is +the ruin of a joke to be unintelligible. A man may pretend to be a poet: +he can no more pretend to be a wit than he can pretend to bring rabbits +out of a hat without having learnt to be a conjuror. Therefore, it may +be submitted, there was a certain discipline in the old antithetical +couplet of Pope and his followers. If it did not permit of the great +liberty of wisdom used by the minority of great geniuses, neither did it +permit of the great liberty of folly which is used by the majority of +small writers. A prophet could not be a poet in those days, perhaps, but +at least a fool could not be a poet. If we take, for the sake of +example, such a line as Pope's: + + "Damn with faint praise, assent with civil leer," + +the test is comparatively simple. A great poet would not have written +such a line, perhaps. But a minor poet could not. + +Supposing that a lyric poet of the new school really had to deal with +such an idea as that expressed in Pope's line about Man: + + "A being darkly wise and rudely great," + +Is it really so certain that he would go deeper into the matter than +that old antithetical jingle goes? I venture to doubt whether he would +really be any wiser or weirder or more imaginative or more profound. +The one thing that he would really be, would be longer. Instead of +writing, + + "A being darkly wise and rudely great," + +the contemporary poet, in his elaborately ornamented book of verses, +would produce something like the following: + + "A creature + Of feature + More dark, more dark, more dark than skies, + Yea, darkly wise, yea, darkly wise: + Darkly wise as a formless fate. + And if he be great, + If he be great, then rudely great, + Rudely great as a plough that plies, + And darkly wise, and darkly wise." + +Have we really learnt to think more broadly? Or have we only learnt to +spread our thoughts thinner? I have a dark suspicion that a modern poet +might manufacture an admirable lyric out of almost every line of Pope. + +There is, of course, an idea in our time that the very antithesis of the +typical line of Pope is a mark of artificiality. I shall have occasion +more than once to point out that nothing in the world has ever been +artificial. But certainly antithesis is not artificial. An element of +paradox runs through the whole of existence itself. It begins in the +realm of ultimate physics and metaphysics, in the two facts that we +cannot imagine a space that is infinite, and that we cannot imagine a +space that is finite. It runs through the inmost complications of +divinity, in that we cannot conceive that Christ in the wilderness was +truly pure, unless we also conceive that he desired to sin. It runs, in +the same manner, through all the minor matters of morals, so that we +cannot imagine courage existing except in conjunction with fear, or +magnanimity existing except in conjunction with some temptation to +meanness. If Pope and his followers caught this echo of natural +irrationality, they were not any the more artificial. Their antitheses +were fully in harmony with existence, which is itself a contradiction in +terms. + +Pope was really a great poet; he was the last great poet of +civilisation. Immediately after the fall of him and his school come +Burns and Byron, and the reaction towards the savage and the elemental. +But to Pope civilisation was still an exciting experiment. Its perruques +and ruffles were to him what feathers and bangles are to a South Sea +Islander--the real romance of civilisation. And in all the forms of art +which peculiarly belong to civilisation, he was supreme. In one +especially he was supreme--the great and civilised art of satire. And in +this we have fallen away utterly. + +We have had a great revival in our time of the cult of violence and +hostility. Mr. Henley and his young men have an infinite number of +furious epithets with which to overwhelm anyone who differs from them. +It is not a placid or untroubled position to be Mr. Henley's enemy, +though we know that it is certainly safer than to be his friend. And +yet, despite all this, these people produce no satire. Political and +social satire is a lost art, like pottery and stained glass. It may be +worth while to make some attempt to point out a reason for this. + +It may seem a singular observation to say that we are not generous +enough to write great satire. This, however, is approximately a very +accurate way of describing the case. To write great satire, to attack a +man so that he feels the attack and half acknowledges its justice, it is +necessary to have a certain intellectual magnanimity which realises the +merits of the opponent as well as his defects. This is, indeed, only +another way of putting the simple truth that in order to attack an army +we must know not only its weak points, but also its strong points. +England in the present season and spirit fails in satire for the same +simple reason that it fails in war: it despises the enemy. In matters of +battle and conquest we have got firmly rooted in our minds the idea (an +idea fit for the philosophers of Bedlam) that we can best trample on a +people by ignoring all the particular merits which give them a chance of +trampling upon us. It has become a breach of etiquette to praise the +enemy; whereas, when the enemy is strong, every honest scout ought to +praise the enemy. It is impossible to vanquish an army without having a +full account of its strength. It is impossible to satirise a man without +having a full account of his virtues. It is too much the custom in +politics to describe a political opponent as utterly inhuman, as utterly +careless of his country, as utterly cynical, which no man ever was since +the beginning of the world. This kind of invective may often have a +great superficial success: it may hit the mood of the moment; it may +raise excitement and applause; it may impress millions. But there is one +man among all those millions whom it does not impress, whom it hardly +ever touches; that is the man against whom it is directed. The one +person for whom the whole satire has been written in vain is the man +whom it is the whole object of the institution of satire to reach. He +knows that such a description of him is not true. He knows that he is +not utterly unpatriotic, or utterly self-seeking, or utterly barbarous +and revengeful. He knows that he is an ordinary man, and that he can +count as many kindly memories, as many humane instincts, as many hours +of decent work and responsibility as any other ordinary man. But behind +all this he has his real weaknesses, the real ironies of his soul: +behind all these ordinary merits lie the mean compromises, the craven +silences, the sullen vanities, the secret brutalities, the unmanly +visions of revenge. It is to these that satire should reach if it is to +touch the man at whom it is aimed. And to reach these it must pass and +salute a whole army of virtues. + +If we turn to the great English satirists of the seventeenth and +eighteenth centuries, for example, we find that they had this rough, but +firm, grasp of the size and strength, the value and the best points of +their adversary. Dryden, before hewing Ahitophel in pieces, gives a +splendid and spirited account of the insane valour and inspired cunning +of the + + "daring pilot in extremity," + +who was more untrustworthy in calm than in storm, and + + "Steered too near the rocks to boast his wit." + +The whole is, so far as it goes, a sound and picturesque version of the +great Shaftesbury. It would, in many ways, serve as a very sound and +picturesque account of Lord Randolph Churchill. But here comes in very +pointedly the difference between our modern attempts at satire and the +ancient achievement of it. The opponents of Lord Randolph Churchill, +both Liberal and Conservative, did not satirise him nobly and honestly, +as one of those great wits to madness near allied. They represented him +as a mere puppy, a silly and irreverent upstart whose impudence supplied +the lack of policy and character. Churchill had grave and even gross +faults, a certain coarseness, a certain hard boyish assertiveness, a +certain lack of magnanimity, a certain peculiar patrician vulgarity. But +he was a much larger man than satire depicted him, and therefore the +satire could not and did not overwhelm him. And here we have the cause +of the failure of contemporary satire, that it has no magnanimity, that +is to say, no patience. It cannot endure to be told that its opponent +has his strong points, just as Mr. Chamberlain could not endure to be +told that the Boers had a regular army. It can be content with nothing +except persuading itself that its opponent is utterly bad or utterly +stupid--that is, that he is what he is not and what nobody else is. If +we take any prominent politician of the day--such, for example, as Sir +William Harcourt--we shall find that this is the point in which all +party invective fails. The Tory satire at the expense of Sir William +Harcourt is always desperately endeavouring to represent that he is +inept, that he makes a fool of himself, that he is disagreeable and +disgraceful and untrustworthy. The defect of all that is that we all +know that it is untrue. Everyone knows that Sir William Harcourt is not +inept, but is almost the ablest Parliamentarian now alive. Everyone +knows that he is not disagreeable or disgraceful, but a gentleman of the +old school who is on excellent social terms with his antagonists. +Everyone knows that he is not untrustworthy, but a man of unimpeachable +honour who is much trusted. Above all, he knows it himself, and is +therefore affected by the satire exactly as any one of us would be if +we were accused of being black or of keeping a shop for the receiving of +stolen goods. We might be angry at the libel, but not at the satire: for +a man is angry at a libel because it is false, but at a satire because +it is true. + +Mr. Henley and his young men are very fond of invective and satire; if +they wish to know the reason of their failure in these things, they need +only turn to the opening of Pope's superb attack upon Addison. The +Henleyite's idea of satirising a man is to express a violent contempt +for him, and by the heat of this to persuade others and himself that the +man is contemptible. I remember reading a satiric attack on Mr. +Gladstone by one of the young anarchic Tories, which began by asserting +that Mr. Gladstone was a bad public speaker. If these people would, as I +have said, go quietly and read Pope's "Atticus," they would see how a +great satirist approaches a great enemy: + + "Peace to all such! But were there one whose fires + True genius kindles, and fair fame inspires, + Blest with each talent, and each art to please, + And born to write, converse, and live with ease. + Should such a man--" + +And then follows the torrent of that terrible criticism. Pope was not +such a fool as to try to make out that Addison was a fool. He knew that +Addison was not a fool, and he knew that Addison knew it. But hatred, in +Pope's case, had become so great and, I was almost going to say, so +pure, that it illuminated all things, as love illuminates all things. He +said what was really wrong with Addison; and in calm and clear and +everlasting colours he painted the picture of the evil of the literary +temperament: + + "Bear, like the Turk, no brother near the throne, + View him with scornful, yet with jealous eyes, + And hate for arts that caused himself to rise. + + * * * * * + + Like Cato give his little Senate laws, + And sit attentive to his own applause. + While wits and templars every sentence raise, + And wonder with a foolish face of praise." + +This is the kind of thing which really goes to the mark at which it +aims. It is penetrated with sorrow and a kind of reverence, and it is +addressed directly to a man. This is no mock-tournament to gain the +applause of the crowd. It is a deadly duel by the lonely seashore. + +In current political materialism there is everywhere the assumption +that, without understanding anything of his case or his merits, we can +benefit a man practically. Without understanding his case and his +merits, we cannot even hurt him. + + + + +FRANCIS + + +Asceticism is a thing which, in its very nature, we tend in these days +to misunderstand. Asceticism, in the religious sense, is the repudiation +of the great mass of human joys because of the supreme joyfulness of the +one joy, the religious joy. But asceticism is not in the least confined +to religious asceticism: there is scientific asceticism which asserts +that truth is alone satisfying: there is æsthetic asceticism which +asserts that art is alone satisfying: there is amatory asceticism which +asserts that love is alone satisfying. There is even epicurean +asceticism, which asserts that beer and skittles are alone satisfying. +Wherever the manner of praising anything involves the statement that the +speaker could live with that thing alone, there lies the germ and +essence of asceticism. When William Morris, for example, says that "love +is enough," it is obvious that he asserts in those words that art, +science, politics, ambition, money, houses, carriages, concerts, +gloves, walking-sticks, door-knockers, railway-stations, cathedrals, and +any other things one may choose to tabulate are unnecessary. When Omar +Khayyam says: + + "A book of verses underneath the bough, + A loaf of bread, a jug of wine, and thou + Beside me singing in the wilderness-- + O wilderness were Paradise enow." + +It is clear that he speaks fully as much ascetically as he does +æsthetically. He makes a list of things and says that he wants no more. +The same thing was done by a mediæval monk. Examples might, of course, +be multiplied a hundred-fold. One of the most genuinely poetical of our +younger poets says, as the one thing certain, that + + "From quiet home and first beginning + Out to the undiscovered ends-- + There's nothing worth the wear of winning + But laughter and the love of friends." + +Here we have a perfect example of the main important fact, that all true +joy expresses itself in terms of asceticism. + +But if, in any case, it should happen that a class or a generation lose +the sense of the peculiar kind of joy which is being celebrated, they +immediately begin to call the enjoyers of that joy gloomy and +self-destroying. The most formidable liberal philosophers have called +the monks melancholy because they denied themselves the pleasures of +liberty and marriage. They might as well call the trippers on a Bank +Holiday melancholy because they deny themselves, as a rule, the +pleasures of silence and meditation. A simpler and stronger example is, +however, to hand. If ever it should happen that the system of English +athletics should vanish from the public schools and the universities, if +science should supply some new and non-competitive manner of perfecting +the physique, if public ethics swung round to an attitude of absolute +contempt and indifference towards the feeling called sport, then it is +easy to see what would happen. Future historians would simply state that +in the dark days of Queen Victoria young men at Oxford and Cambridge +were subjected to a horrible sort of religious torture. They were +forbidden, by fantastic monastic rules, to indulge in wine or tobacco +during certain arbitrarily fixed periods of time, before certain brutal +fights and festivals. Bigots insisted on their rising at unearthly hours +and running violently around fields for no object. Many men ruined their +health in these dens of superstition, many died there. All this is +perfectly true and irrefutable. Athleticism in England is an asceticism, +as much as the monastic rules. Men have overstrained themselves and +killed themselves through English athleticism. There is one difference +and one only: we do feel the love of sport; we do not feel the love of +religious offices. We see only the price in the one case and only the +purchase in the other. + +The only question that remains is what was the joy of the old Christian +ascetics of which their asceticism was merely the purchasing price? The +mere possibility of the query is an extraordinary example of the way in +which we miss the main points of human history. We are looking at +humanity too close, and see only the details and not the vast and +dominant features. We look at the rise of Christianity, and conceive it +as a rise of self-abnegation and almost of pessimism. It does not occur +to us that the mere assertion that this raging and confounding universe +is governed by justice and mercy is a piece of staggering optimism fit +to set all men capering. The detail over which these monks went mad with +joy was the universe itself; the only thing really worthy of enjoyment. +The white daylight shone over all the world, the endless forests stood +up in their order. The lightning awoke and the tree fell and the sea +gathered into mountains and the ship went down, and all these +disconnected and meaningless and terrible objects were all part of one +dark and fearful conspiracy of goodness, one merciless scheme of mercy. +That this scheme of Nature was not accurate or well founded is perfectly +tenable, but surely it is not tenable that it was not optimistic. We +insist, however, upon treating this matter tail foremost. We insist that +the ascetics were pessimists because they gave up threescore years and +ten for an eternity of happiness. We forget that the bare proposition of +an eternity of happiness is by its very nature ten thousand times more +optimistic than ten thousand pagan saturnalias. + +Mr. Adderley's life of Francis of Assisi does not, of course, bring this +out; nor does it fully bring out the character of Francis. It has rather +the tone of a devotional book. A devotional book is an excellent thing, +but we do not look in it for the portrait of a man, for the same reason +that we do not look in a love-sonnet for the portrait of a woman, +because men in such conditions of mind not only apply all virtues to +their idol, but all virtues in equal quantities. There is no outline, +because the artist cannot bear to put in a black line. This blaze of +benediction, this conflict between lights, has its place in poetry, not +in biography. The successful examples of it may be found, for instance, +in the more idealistic odes of Spenser. The design is sometimes almost +indecipherable, for the poet draws in silver upon white. + +It is natural, of course, that Mr. Adderley should see Francis primarily +as the founder of the Franciscan Order. We suspect this was only one, +perhaps a minor one, of the things that he was; we suspect that one of +the minor things that Christ did was to found Christianity. But the vast +practical work of Francis is assuredly not to be ignored, for this +amazingly unworldly and almost maddeningly simple-minded infant was one +of the most consistently successful men that ever fought with this +bitter world. It is the custom to say that the secret of such men is +their profound belief in themselves, and this is true, but not all the +truth. Workhouses and lunatic asylums are thronged with men who believe +in themselves. Of Francis it is far truer to say that the secret of his +success was his profound belief in other people, and it is the lack of +this that has commonly been the curse of these obscure Napoleons. +Francis always assumed that everyone must be just as anxious about their +common relative, the water-rat, as he was. He planned a visit to the +Emperor to draw his attention to the needs of "his little sisters the +larks." He used to talk to any thieves and robbers he met about their +misfortune in being unable to give rein to their desire for holiness. It +was an innocent habit, and doubtless the robbers often "got round him," +as the phrase goes. Quite as often, however, they discovered that he had +"got round" them, and discovered the other side, the side of secret +nobility. + +Conceiving of St. Francis as primarily the founder of the Franciscan +Order, Mr. Adderley opens his narrative with an admirable sketch of the +history of Monasticism in Europe, which is certainly the best thing in +the book. He distinguishes clearly and fairly between the Manichæan +ideal that underlies so much of Eastern Monasticism and the ideal of +self-discipline which never wholly vanished from the Christian form. But +he does not throw any light on what must be for the outsider the +absorbing problem of this Catholic asceticism, for the excellent reason +that, not being an outsider, he does not find it a problem at all. + +To most people, however, there is a fascinating inconsistency in the +position of St. Francis. He expressed in loftier and bolder language +than any earthly thinker the conception that laughter is as divine as +tears. He called his monks the mountebanks of God. He never forgot to +take pleasure in a bird as it flashed past him, or a drop of water, as +it fell from his finger: he was, perhaps, the happiest of the sons of +men. Yet this man undoubtedly founded his whole polity on the negation +of what we think the most imperious necessities; in his three vows of +poverty, chastity, and obedience, he denied to himself and those he +loved most, property, love, and liberty. Why was it that the most +large-hearted and poetic spirits in that age found their most congenial +atmosphere in these awful renunciations? Why did he who loved where all +men were blind, seek to blind himself where all men loved? Why was he a +monk, and not a troubadour? These questions are far too large to be +answered fully here, but in any life of Francis they ought at least to +have been asked; we have a suspicion that if they were answered, we +should suddenly find that much of the enigma of this sullen time of ours +was answered also. So it was with the monks. The two great parties in +human affairs are only the party which sees life black against white, +and the party which sees it white against black, the party which +macerates and blackens itself with sacrifice because the background is +full of the blaze of an universal mercy, and the party which crowns +itself with flowers and lights itself with bridal torches because it +stands against a black curtain of incalculable night. The revellers are +old, and the monks are young. It was the monks who were the spendthrifts +of happiness, and we who are its misers. + +Doubtless, as is apparent from Mr. Adderley's book, the clear and +tranquil life of the Three Vows had a fine and delicate effect on the +genius of Francis. He was primarily a poet. The perfection of his +literary instinct is shown in his naming the fire "brother," and the +water "sister," in the quaint demagogic dexterity of the appeal in the +sermon to the fishes "that they alone were saved in the Flood." In the +amazingly minute and graphic dramatisation of the life, disappointments, +and excuses of any shrub or beast that he happened to be addressing, his +genius has a curious resemblance to that of Burns. But if he avoided the +weakness of Burns' verses to animals, the occasional morbidity, bombast, +and moralisation on himself, the credit is surely due to a cleaner and +more transparent life. + +The general attitude of St. Francis, like that of his Master, embodied a +kind of terrible common sense. The famous remark of the Caterpillar in +"Alice in Wonderland"--"Why not?" impresses us as his general motto. He +could not see why he should not be on good terms with all things. The +pomp of war and ambition, the great empire of the Middle Ages, and all +its fellows begin to look tawdry and top-heavy, under the rationality of +that innocent stare. His questions were blasting and devastating, like +the questions of a child. He would not have been afraid even of the +nightmares of cosmogony, for he had no fear in him. To him the world +was small, not because he had any views as to its size, but for the +reason that gossiping ladies find it small, because so many relatives +were to be found in it. If you had taken him to the loneliest star that +the madness of an astronomer can conceive, he would have only beheld in +it the features of a new friend. + + + + +ROSTAND + + +When "Cyrano de Bergerac" was published, it bore the subordinate title +of a heroic comedy. We have no tradition in English literature which +would justify us in calling a comedy heroic, though there was once a +poet who called a comedy divine. By the current modern conception, the +hero has his place in a tragedy, and the one kind of strength which is +systematically denied to him is the strength to succeed. That the power +of a man's spirit might possibly go to the length of turning a tragedy +into a comedy is not admitted; nevertheless, almost all the primitive +legends of the world are comedies, not only in the sense that they have +a happy ending, but in the sense that they are based upon a certain +optimistic assumption that the hero is destined to be the destroyer of +the monster. Singularly enough, this modern idea of the essential +disastrous character of life, when seriously considered, connects itself +with a hyper-æsthetic view of tragedy and comedy which is largely due +to the influence of modern France, from which the great heroic comedies +of Monsieur Rostand have come. The French genius has an instinct for +remedying its own evil work, and France gives always the best cure for +"Frenchiness." The idea of comedy which is held in England by the school +which pays most attention to the technical niceties of art is a view +which renders such an idea as that of heroic comedy quite impossible. +The fundamental conception in the minds of the majority of our younger +writers is that comedy is, _par excellence_, a fragile thing. It is +conceived to be a conventional world of the most absolutely delicate and +gimcrack description. Such stories as Mr. Max Beerbohm's "Happy +Hypocrite" are conceptions which would vanish or fall into utter +nonsense if viewed by one single degree too seriously. But great comedy, +the comedy of Shakespeare or Sterne, not only can be, but must be, taken +seriously. There is nothing to which a man must give himself up with +more faith and self-abandonment than to genuine laughter. In such +comedies one laughs with the heroes, and not at them. The humour which +steeps the stories of Falstaff and Uncle Toby is a cosmic and +philosophic humour, a geniality which goes down to the depths. It is not +superficial reading, it is not even, strictly speaking, light reading. +Our sympathies are as much committed to the characters as if they were +the predestined victims in a Greek tragedy. The modern writer of +comedies may be said to boast of the brittleness of his characters. He +seems always on the eve of knocking his puppets to pieces. When John +Oliver Hobbes wrote for the first time a comedy of serious emotions, she +named it, with a thinly-disguised contempt for her own work, "A +Sentimental Comedy." The ground of this conception of the artificiality +of comedy is a profound pessimism. Life in the eyes of these mournful +buffoons is itself an utterly tragic thing; comedy must be as hollow as +a grinning mask. It is a refuge from the world, and not even, properly +speaking, a part of it. Their wit is a thin sheet of shining ice over +the eternal waters of bitterness. + +"Cyrano de Bergerac" came to us as the new decoration of an old truth, +that merriment was one of the world's natural flowers, and not one of +its exotics. The gigantesque levity, the flamboyant eloquence, the +Rabelaisian puns and digressions were seen to be once more what they had +been in Rabelais, the mere outbursts of a human sympathy and bravado as +old and solid as the stars. The human spirit demanded wit as headlong +and haughty as its will. All was expressed in the words of Cyrano at his +highest moment of happiness, _Il me faut des géants_. An essential +aspect of this question of heroic comedy is the question of drama in +rhyme. There is nothing that affords so easy a point of attack for the +dramatic realist as the conduct of a play in verse. According to his +canons, it is indeed absurd to represent a number of characters facing +some terrible crisis in their lives by capping rhymes like a party +playing _bouts rimés_. In his eyes it must appear somewhat ridiculous +that two enemies taunting each other with insupportable insults should +obligingly provide each other with metrical spacing and neat and +convenient rhymes. But the whole of this view rests finally upon the +fact that few persons, if any, to-day understand what is meant by a +poetical play. It is a singular thing that those poetical plays which +are now written in England by the most advanced students of the drama +follow exclusively the lines of Maeterlinck, and use verse and rhyme for +the adornment of a profoundly tragic theme. But rhyme has a supreme +appropriateness for the treatment of the higher comedy. The land of +heroic comedy is, as it were, a paradise of lovers, in which it is not +difficult to imagine that men could talk poetry all day long. It is far +more conceivable that men's speech should flower naturally into these +harmonious forms, when they are filled with the essential spirit of +youth, than when they are sitting gloomily in the presence of immemorial +destiny. The great error consists in supposing that poetry is an +unnatural form of language. We should all like to speak poetry at the +moment when we truly live, and if we do not speak, it is because we have +an impediment in our speech. It is not song that is the narrow or +artificial thing, it is conversation that is a broken and stammering +attempt at song. When we see men in a spiritual extravaganza, like +"Cyrano de Bergerac," speaking in rhyme, it is not our language +disguised or distorted, but our language rounded and made whole. Rhymes +answer each other as the sexes in flowers and in humanity answer each +other. Men do not speak so, it is true. Even when they are inspired or +in love they talk inanities. But the poetic comedy does not misrepresent +the speech one half so much as the speech misrepresents the soul. +Monsieur Rostand showed even more than his usual insight when he called +"Cyrano de Bergerac" a comedy, despite the fact that, strictly speaking, +it ends with disappointment and death. The essence of tragedy is a +spiritual breakdown or decline, and in the great French play the +spiritual sentiment mounts unceasingly until the last line. It is not +the facts themselves, but our feeling about them, that makes tragedy and +comedy, and death is more joyful in Rostand than life in Maeterlinck. +The same apparent contradiction holds good in the case of the drama of +"L'Aiglon," now being performed with so much success. Although the hero +is a weakling, the subject a fiasco, the end a premature death and a +personal disillusionment, yet, in spite of this theme, which might have +been chosen for its depressing qualities, the unconquerable pæan of the +praise of things, the ungovernable gaiety of the poet's song swells so +high that at the end it seems to drown all the weak voices of the +characters in one crashing chorus of great things and great men. A +multitude of mottoes might be taken from the play to indicate and +illustrate, not only its own spirit, but much of the spirit of modern +life. When in the vision of the field of Wagram the horrible voices of +the wounded cry out, _Les corbeaux, les corbeaux_, the Duke, overwhelmed +with a nightmare of hideous trivialities, cries out, _Où, où, sont les +aigles?_ That antithesis might stand alone as an invocation at the +beginning of the twentieth century to the spirit of heroic comedy. When +an ex-General of Napoleon is asked his reason for having betrayed the +Emperor, he replies, _La fatigue_, and at that a veteran private of the +Great Army rushes forward, and crying passionately, _Et nous?_ pours out +a terrible description of the life lived by the commoner soldier. +To-day, when pessimism is almost as much a symbol of wealth and fashion +as jewels or cigars, when the pampered heirs of the ages can sum up life +in few other words but _la fatigue_, there might surely come a cry from +the vast mass of common humanity from the beginning--_et nous?_ It is +this potentiality for enthusiasm among the mass of men that makes the +function of comedy at once common and sublime. Shakespeare's "Much Ado +About Nothing" is a great comedy, because behind it is the whole +pressure of that love of love which is the youth of the world, which is +common to all the young, especially to those who swear they will die +bachelors and old maids. "Love's Labour's Lost" is filled with the same +energy, and there it falls even more definitely into the scope of our +subject, since it is a comedy in rhyme in which all men speak lyrically +as naturally as the birds sing in pairing time. What the love of love +is to the Shakespearean comedies, that other and more mysterious human +passion, the love of death, is to "L'Aiglon." Whether we shall ever have +in England a new tradition of poetic comedy it is difficult at present +to say, but we shall assuredly never have it until we realise that +comedy is built upon everlasting foundations in the nature of things, +that it is not a thing too light to capture, but too deep to plumb. +Monsieur Rostand, in his description of the Battle of Wagram, does not +shrink from bringing about the Duke's ears the frightful voices of +actual battle, of men torn by crows, and suffocated with blood, but when +the Duke, terrified at these dreadful appeals, asks them for their final +word, they all cry together _Vive l'Empereur!_ Monsieur Rostand, +perhaps, did not know that he was writing an allegory. To me that field +of Wagram is the field of the modern war of literature. We hear nothing +but the voices of pain; the whole is one phonograph of horror. It is +right that we should hear these things, it is right that not one of +them should be silenced; but these cries of distress are not in life, as +they are in modern art, the only voices; they are the voices of men, but +not the voice of man. When questioned finally and seriously as to their +conception of their destiny, men have from the beginning of time +answered in a thousand philosophies and religions with a single voice +and in a sense most sacred and tremendous, _Vive l'Empereur_. + + + + +CHARLES II + + +There are a great many bonds which still connect us with Charles II., +one of the idlest men of one of the idlest epochs. Among other things +Charles II. represented one thing which is very rare and very +satisfying; he was a real and consistent sceptic. Scepticism, both in +its advantages and disadvantages, is greatly misunderstood in our time. +There is a curious idea abroad that scepticism has some connection with +such theories as materialism and atheism and secularism. This is of +course a mistake; the true sceptic has nothing to do with these theories +simply because they are theories. The true sceptic is as much a +spiritualist as he is a materialist. He thinks that the savage dancing +round an African idol stands quite as good a chance of being right as +Darwin. He thinks that mysticism is every bit as rational as +rationalism. He has indeed the most profound doubts as to whether St. +Matthew wrote his own gospel. But he has quite equally profound doubts +as to whether the tree he is looking at is a tree and not a rhinoceros. + +This is the real meaning of that mystery which appears so prominently in +the lives of great sceptics, which appears with especial prominence in +the life of Charles II. I mean their constant oscillation between +atheism and Roman Catholicism. Roman Catholicism is indeed a great and +fixed and formidable system, but so is atheism. Atheism is indeed the +most daring of all dogmas, more daring than the vision of a palpable day +of judgment. For it is the assertion of a universal negative; for a man +to say that there is no God in the universe is like saying that there +are no insects in any of the stars. + +Thus it was with that wholesome and systematic sceptic, Charles II. When +he took the Sacrament according to the forms of the Roman Church in his +last hour he was acting consistently as a philosopher. The wafer might +not be God; similarly it might not be a wafer. To the genuine and +poetical sceptic the whole world is incredible, with its bulbous +mountains and its fantastic trees. The whole order of things is as +outrageous as any miracle which could presume to violate it. +Transubstantiation might be a dream, but if it was, it was assuredly a +dream within a dream. Charles II. sought to guard himself against hell +fire because he could not think hell itself more fantastic than the +world as it was revealed by science. The priest crept up the staircase, +the doors were closed, the few of the faithful who were present hushed +themselves respectfully, and so, with every circumstance of secrecy and +sanctity, with the cross uplifted and the prayers poured out, was +consummated the last great act of logical unbelief. + +The problem of Charles II. consists in this, that he has scarcely a +moral virtue to his name, and yet he attracts us morally. We feel that +some of the virtues have been dropped out in the lists made by all the +saints and sages, and that Charles II. was pre-eminently successful in +these wild and unmentionable virtues. The real truth of this matter and +the real relation of Charles II. to the moral ideal is worth somewhat +more exhaustive study. + +It is a commonplace that the Restoration movement can only be understood +when considered as a reaction against Puritanism. But it is +insufficiently realised that the tyranny which half frustrated all the +good work of Puritanism was of a very peculiar kind. It was not the fire +of Puritanism, the exultation in sobriety, the frenzy of a restraint, +which passed away; that still burns in the heart of England, only to be +quenched by the final overwhelming sea. But it is seldom remembered that +the Puritans were in their day emphatically intellectual bullies, that +they relied swaggeringly on the logical necessity of Calvinism, that +they bound omnipotence itself in the chains of syllogism. The Puritans +fell, through the damning fact that they had a complete theory of life, +through the eternal paradox that a satisfactory explanation can never +satisfy. Like Brutus and the logical Romans, like the logical French +Jacobins, like the logical English utilitarians, they taught the lesson +that men's wants have always been right and their arguments always +wrong. Reason is always a kind of brute force; those who appeal to the +head rather than the heart, however pallid and polite, are necessarily +men of violence. We speak of "touching" a man's heart, but we can do +nothing to his head but hit it. The tyranny of the Puritans over the +bodies of men was comparatively a trifle; pikes, bullets, and +conflagrations are comparatively a trifle. Their real tyranny was the +tyranny of aggressive reason over the cowed and demoralised human +spirit. Their brooding and raving can be forgiven, can in truth be loved +and reverenced, for it is humanity on fire; hatred can be genial, +madness can be homely. The Puritans fell, not because they were +fanatics, but because they were rationalists. + +When we consider these things, when we remember that Puritanism, which +means in our day a moral and almost temperamental attitude, meant in +that day a singularly arrogant logical attitude, we shall comprehend a +little more the grain of good that lay in the vulgarity and triviality +of the Restoration. The Restoration, of which Charles II. was a +pre-eminent type, was in part a revolt of all the chaotic and unclassed +parts of human nature, the parts that are left over, and will always be +left over, by every rationalistic system of life. This does not merely +account for the revolt of the vices and of that empty recklessness and +horseplay which is sometimes more irritating than any vice. It accounts +also for the return of the virtue of politeness, for that also is a +nameless thing ignored by logical codes. Politeness has indeed about it +something mystical; like religion, it is everywhere understood and +nowhere defined. Charles is not entirely to be despised because, as the +type of this movement, he let himself float upon this new tide of +politeness. There was some moral and social value in his perfection in +little things. He could not keep the Ten Commandments, but he kept the +ten thousand commandments. His name is unconnected with any great acts +of duty or sacrifice, but it is connected with a great many of those +acts of magnanimous politeness, of a kind of dramatic delicacy, which +lie on the dim borderland between morality and art. "Charles II.," said +Thackeray, with unerring brevity, "was a rascal, but not a snob." Unlike +George IV. he was a gentleman, and a gentleman is a man who obeys +strange statutes, not to be found in any moral text-book, and practises +strange virtues nameless from the beginning of the world. + +So much may be said and should be said for the Restoration, that it was +the revolt of something human, if only the debris of human nature. But +more cannot be said. It was emphatically a fall and not an ascent, a +recoil and not an advance, a sudden weakness and not a sudden strength. +That the bow of human nature was by Puritanism bent immeasurably too +far, that it overstrained the soul by stretching it to the height of an +almost horrible idealism, makes the collapse of the Restoration +infinitely more excusable, but it does not make it any the less a +collapse. Nothing can efface the essential distinction that Puritanism +was one of the world's great efforts after the discovery of the true +order, whereas it was the essence of the Restoration that it involved no +effort at all. It is true that the Restoration was not, as has been +widely assumed, the most immoral epoch of our history. Its vices cannot +compare for a moment in this respect with the monstrous tragedies and +almost suffocating secrecies and villainies of the Court of James I. But +the dram-drinking and nose-slitting of the saturnalia of Charles II. +seem at once more human and more detestable than the passions and +poisons of the Renaissance, much in the same way that a monkey appears +inevitably more human and more detestable than a tiger. Compared with +the Renaissance, there is something Cockney about the Restoration. Not +only was it too indolent for great morality, it was too indolent even +for great art. It lacked that seriousness which is needed even for the +pursuit of pleasure, that discipline which is essential even to a game +of lawn tennis. It would have appeared to Charles II.'s poets quite as +arduous to write "Paradise Lost" as to regain Paradise. + +All old and vigorous languages abound in images and metaphors, which, +though lightly and casually used, are in truth poems in themselves, and +poems of a high and striking order. Perhaps no phrase is so terribly +significant as the phrase "killing time." It is a tremendous and +poetical image, the image of a kind of cosmic parricide. There are on +the earth a race of revellers who do, under all their exuberance, +fundamentally regard time as an enemy. Of these were Charles II. and the +men of the Restoration. Whatever may have been their merits, and as we +have said we think that they had merits, they can never have a place +among the great representatives of the joy of life, for they belonged to +those lower epicureans who kill time, as opposed to those higher +epicureans who make time live. + +Of a people in this temper Charles II. was the natural and rightful +head. He may have been a pantomime King, but he was a King, and with all +his geniality he let nobody forget it. He was not, indeed, the aimless +flaneur that he has been represented. He was a patient and cunning +politician, who disguised his wisdom under so perfect a mask of folly +that he not only deceived his allies and opponents, but has deceived +almost all the historians that have come after him. But if Charles was, +as he emphatically was, the only Stuart who really achieved despotism, +it was greatly due to the temper of the nation and the age. Despotism is +the easiest of all governments, at any rate for the governed. + +It is indeed a form of slavery, and it is the despot who is the slave. +Men in a state of decadence employ professionals to fight for them, +professionals to dance for them, and a professional to rule them. + +Almost all the faces in the portraits of that time look, as it were, +like masks put on artificially with the perruque. A strange unreality +broods over the period. Distracted as we are with civic mysteries and +problems we can afford to rejoice. Our tears are less desolate than +their laughter, our restraints are larger than their liberty. + + + + +STEVENSON[1] + + +A recent incident has finally convinced us that Stevenson was, as we +suspected, a great man. We knew from recent books that we have noticed, +from the scorn of "Ephemera Critica" and Mr. George Moore, that +Stevenson had the first essential qualification of a great man: that of +being misunderstood by his opponents. But from the book which Messrs. +Chatto & Windus have issued, in the same binding as Stevenson's works, +"Robert Louis Stevenson," by Mr. H. Bellyse Baildon, we learn that he +has the other essential qualification, that of being misunderstood by +his admirers. Mr. Baildon has many interesting things to tell us about +Stevenson himself, whom he knew at college. Nor are his criticisms by +any means valueless. That upon the plays, especially "Beau Austin," is +remarkably thoughtful and true. But it is a very singular fact, and goes +far, as we say, to prove that Stevenson had that unfathomable quality +which belongs to the great, that this admiring student of Stevenson can +number and marshal all the master's work and distribute praise and blame +with decision and even severity, without ever thinking for a moment of +the principles of art and ethics which would have struck us as the very +things that Stevenson nearly killed himself to express. + +Mr. Baildon, for example, is perpetually lecturing Stevenson for his +"pessimism"; surely a strange charge against a man who has done more +than any modern artist to make men ashamed of their shame of life. But +he complains that, in "The Master of Ballantrae" and "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. +Hyde," Stevenson gives evil a final victory over good. Now if there was +one point that Stevenson more constantly and passionately emphasised +than any other it was that we must worship good for its own value and +beauty, without any reference whatever to victory or failure in space +and time. "Whatever we are intended to do," he said, "we are not +intended to succeed." That the stars in their courses fight against +virtue, that humanity is in its nature a forlorn hope, this was the very +spirit that through the whole of Stevenson's work sounded a trumpet to +all the brave. The story of Henry Durie is dark enough, but could anyone +stand beside the grave of that sodden monomaniac and not respect him? It +is strange that men should see sublime inspiration in the ruins of an +old church and see none in the ruins of a man. + +The author has most extraordinary ideas about Stevenson's tales of blood +and spoil; he appears to think that they prove Stevenson to have had (we +use Mr. Baildon's own phrase) a kind of "homicidal mania." "He +[Stevenson] arrives pretty much at the paradox that one can hardly be +better employed than in taking life." Mr. Baildon might as well say that +Dr. Conan Doyle delights in committing inexplicable crimes, that Mr. +Clark Russell is a notorious pirate, and that Mr. Wilkie Collins thought +that one could hardly be better employed than in stealing moonstones +and falsifying marriage registers. But Mr. Baildon is scarcely alone in +this error: few people have understood properly the goriness of +Stevenson. Stevenson was essentially the robust schoolboy who draws +skeletons and gibbets in his Latin grammar. It was not that he took +pleasure in death, but that he took pleasure in life, in every muscular +and emphatic action of life, even if it were an action that took the +life of another. + +Let us suppose that one gentleman throws a knife at another gentleman +and pins him to the wall. It is scarcely necessary to remark that there +are in this transaction two somewhat varying personal points of view. +The point of view of the man pinned is the tragic and moral point of +view, and this Stevenson showed clearly that he understood in such +stories as "The Master of Ballantrae" and "Weir of Hermiston." But there +is another view of the matter--that in which the whole act is an abrupt +and brilliant explosion of bodily vitality, like breaking a rock with a +blow of a hammer, or just clearing a five-barred gate. This is the +standpoint of romance, and it is the soul of "Treasure Island" and "The +Wrecker." It was not, indeed, that Stevenson loved men less, but that he +loved clubs and pistols more. He had, in truth, in the devouring +universalism of his soul, a positive love for inanimate objects such as +has not been known since St. Francis called the sun brother and the well +sister. We feel that he was actually in love with the wooden crutch that +Silver sent hurtling in the sunlight, with the box that Billy Bones left +at the "Admiral Benbow," with the knife that Wicks drove through his own +hand and the table. There is always in his work a certain clean-cut +angularity which makes us remember that he was fond of cutting wood with +an axe. + +Stevenson's new biographer, however, cannot make any allowance for this +deep-rooted poetry of mere sight and touch. He is always imputing +something to Stevenson as a crime which Stevenson really professed as an +object. He says of that glorious riot of horror, "The Destroying Angel," +in "The Dynamiter," that it is "highly fantastic and putting a strain +on our credulity." This is rather like describing the travels of Baron +Munchausen as "unconvincing." The whole story of "The Dynamiter" is a +kind of humorous nightmare, and even in that story "The Destroying +Angel" is supposed to be an extravagant lie made up on the spur of the +moment. It is a dream within a dream, and to accuse it of improbability +is like accusing the sky of being blue. But Mr. Baildon, whether from +hasty reading or natural difference of taste, cannot in the least +comprehend that rich and romantic irony of Stevenson's London stories. +He actually says of that portentous monument of humour, Prince Florizel +of Bohemia, that, "though evidently admired by his creator, he is to me +on the whole rather an irritating presence." From this we are almost +driven to believe (though desperately and against our will) that Mr. +Baildon thinks that Prince Florizel is to be taken seriously, as if he +were a man in real life. For ourselves. Prince Florizel is almost our +favourite character in fiction; but we willingly add the proviso that +if we met him in real life we should kill him. + +The fact is, that the whole mass of Stevenson's spiritual and +intellectual virtues have been partly frustrated by one additional +virtue--that of artistic dexterity. If he had chalked up his great +message on a wall, like Walt Whitman, in large and straggling letters, +it would have startled men like a blasphemy. But he wrote his +light-headed paradoxes in so flowing a copy-book hand that everyone +supposed they must be copy-book sentiments. He suffered from his +versatility, not, as is loosely said, by not doing every department well +enough, but by doing every department too well. As child, cockney, +pirate, or Puritan, his disguises were so good that most people could +not see the same man under all. It is an unjust fact that if a man can +play the fiddle, give legal opinions, and black boots just tolerably, he +is called an Admirable Crichton, but if he does all three thoroughly +well, he is apt to be regarded, in the several departments, as a common +fiddler, a common lawyer, and a common boot-black. This is what has +happened in the case of Stevenson. If "Dr. Jekyll," "The Master of +Ballantrae," "The Child's Garden of Verses," and "Across the Plains" had +been each of them one shade less perfectly done than they were, everyone +would have seen that they were all parts of the same message; but by +succeeding in the proverbial miracle of being in five places at once, he +has naturally convinced others that he was five different people. But +the real message of Stevenson was as simple as that of Mohamet, as moral +as that of Dante, as confident as that of Whitman, and as practical as +that of James Watt. The conception which unites the whole varied work of +Stevenson was that romance, or the vision of the possibilities of +things, was far more important than mere occurrences: that one was the +soul of our life, the other the body, and that the soul was the precious +thing. The germ of all his stories lies in the idea that every landscape +or scrap of scenery has a soul: and that soul is a story. Standing +before a stunted orchard with a broken stone wall, we may know as a +mere fact that no one has been through it but an elderly female cook. +But everything exists in the human soul: that orchard grows in our own +brain, and there it is the shrine and theatre of some strange chance +between a girl and a ragged poet and a mad farmer. Stevenson stands for +the conception that ideas are the real incidents: that our fancies are +our adventures. To think of a cow with wings is essentially to have met +one. And this is the reason for his wide diversities of narrative: he +had to make one story as rich as a ruby sunset, another as grey as a +hoary monolith: for the story was the soul, or rather the meaning, of +the bodily vision. It is quite inappropriate to judge "The Teller of +Tales" (as the Samoans called him) by the particular novels he wrote, as +one would judge Mr. George Moore by "Esther Waters." These novels were +only the two or three of his soul's adventures that he happened to tell. +But he died with a thousand stories in his heart. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[1] "Robert Louis Stevenson: A Life Study in Criticism." By H. Bellyse +Baildon. Chatto & Windus. + + + + +THOMAS CARLYLE + + +There are two main moral necessities for the work of a great man: the +first is that he should believe in the truth of his message; the second +is that he should believe in the acceptability of his message. It was +the whole tragedy of Carlyle that he had the first and not the second. + +The ordinary capital, however, which is made out of Carlyle's alleged +gloom is a very paltry matter. Carlyle had his faults, both as a man and +as a writer, but the attempt to explain his gospel in terms of his +"liver" is merely pitiful. If indigestion invariably resulted in a +"Sartor Resartus," it would be a vastly more tolerable thing than it is. +Diseases do not turn into poems; even the decadent really writes with +the healthy part of his organism. If Carlyle's private faults and +literary virtues ran somewhat in the same line, he is only in the +situation of every man; for every one of us it is surely very difficult +to say precisely where our honest opinions end and our personal +predilections begin. But to attempt to denounce Carlyle as a mere savage +egotist cannot arise from anything but a pure inability to grasp +Carlyle's gospel. "Ruskin," says a critic, "did, all the same, verily +believe in God; Carlyle believed only in himself." This is certainly a +distinction between the author he has understood and the author he has +not understood. Carlyle believed in himself, but he could not have +believed in himself more than Ruskin did; they both believed in God, +because they felt that if everything else fell into wrack and ruin, +themselves were permanent witnesses to God. Where they both failed was +not in belief in God or in belief in themselves; they failed in belief +in other people. It is not enough for a prophet to believe in his +message; he must believe in its acceptability. Christ, St. Francis, +Bunyan, Wesley, Mr. Gladstone, Walt Whitman, men of indescribable +variety, were all alike in a certain faculty of treating the average man +as their equal, of trusting to his reason and good feeling without fear +and without condescension. It was this simplicity of confidence, not +only in God, but in the image of God, that was lacking in Carlyle. + +But the attempts to discredit Carlyle's religious sentiment must +absolutely fall to the ground. The profound security of Carlyle's sense +of the unity of the Cosmos is like that of a Hebrew prophet; and it has +the same expression that it had in the Hebrew prophets--humour. A man +must be very full of faith to jest about his divinity. No Neo-Pagan +delicately suggesting a revival of Dionysus, no vague, half-converted +Theosophist groping towards a recognition of Buddha, would ever think of +cracking jokes on the matter. But to the Hebrew prophets their religion +was so solid a thing, like a mountain or a mammoth, that the irony of +its contact with trivial and fleeting matters struck them like a blow. +So it was with Carlyle. His supreme contribution, both to philosophy and +literature, was his sense of the sarcasm of eternity. Other writers had +seen the hope or the terror of the heavens, he alone saw the humour of +them. Other writers had seen that there could be something elemental and +eternal in a song or statute, he alone saw that there could be something +elemental and eternal in a joke. No one who ever read it will forget the +passage, full of dark and agnostic gratification, in which he narrates +that some Court chronicler described Louis XV. as "falling asleep in the +Lord." "Enough for us that he did fall asleep; that, curtained in thick +night, under what keeping we ask not, he at least will never, through +unending ages, insult the face of the sun any more ... and we go on, if +not to better forms of beastliness, at least to fresher ones." + +The supreme value of Carlyle to English literature was that he was the +founder of modern irrationalism; a movement fully as important as modern +rationalism. A great deal is said in these days about the value or +valuelessness of logic. In the main, indeed, logic is not a productive +tool so much as a weapon of defence. A man building up an intellectual +system has to build like Nehemiah, with the sword in one hand and the +trowel in the other. The imagination, the constructive quality, is the +trowel, and argument is the sword. A wide experience of actual +intellectual affairs will lead most people to the conclusion that logic +is mainly valuable as a weapon wherewith to exterminate logicians. + +But though this may be true enough in practice, it scarcely clears up +the position of logic in human affairs. Logic is a machine of the mind, +and if it is used honestly it ought to bring out an honest conclusion. +When people say that you can prove anything by logic, they are not using +words in a fair sense. What they mean is that you can prove anything by +bad logic. Deep in the mystic ingratitude of the soul of man there is an +extraordinary tendency to use the name for an organ, when what is meant +is the abuse or decay of that organ. Thus we speak of a man suffering +from "nerves," which is about as sensible as talking about a man +suffering from ten fingers. We speak of "liver" and "digestion" when we +mean the failure of liver and the absence of digestion. And in the same +manner we speak of the dangers of logic, when what we really mean is the +danger of fallacy. + +But the real point about the limitation of logic and the partial +overthrow of logic by writers like Carlyle is deeper and somewhat +different. The fault of the great mass of logicians is not that they +bring out a false result, or, in other words, are not logicians at all. +Their fault is that by an inevitable psychological habit they tend to +forget that there are two parts of a logical process, the first the +choosing of an assumption, and the second the arguing upon it, and +humanity, if it devotes itself too persistently to the study of sound +reasoning, has a certain tendency to lose the faculty of sound +assumption. It is astonishing how constantly one may hear from rational +and even rationalistic persons such a phrase as "He did not prove the +very thing with which he started," or, "The whole of his case rested +upon a pure assumption," two peculiarities which may be found by the +curious in the works of Euclid. It is astonishing, again, how +constantly one hears rationalists arguing upon some deep topic, +apparently without troubling about the deep assumptions involved, having +lost their sense, as it were, of the real colour and character of a +man's assumption. For instance, two men will argue about whether +patriotism is a good thing and never discover until the end, if at all, +that the cosmopolitan is basing his whole case upon the idea that man +should, if he can, become as God, with equal sympathies and no +prejudices, while the nationalist denies any such duty at the very +start, and regards man as an animal who has preferences, as a bird has +feathers. + + * * * * * + +Thus it was with Carlyle: he startled men by attacking not arguments, +but assumptions. He simply brushed aside all the matters which the men +of the nineteenth century held to be incontrovertible, and appealed +directly to the very different class of matters which they knew to be +true. He induced men to study less the truth of their reasoning, and +more the truth of the assumptions upon which they reasoned. Even where +his view was not the highest truth, it was always a refreshing and +beneficent heresy. He denied every one of the postulates upon which the +age of reason based itself. He denied the theory of progress which +assumed that we must be better off than the people of the twelfth +century. Whether we were better than the people of the twelfth century, +according to him, depended entirely upon whether we chose or deserved to +be. + +He denied every type and species of prop or association or support which +threw the responsibility upon civilisation or society, or anything but +the individual conscience. He has often been called a prophet. The real +ground of the truth of this phrase is often neglected. Since the last +era of purely religious literature, the era of English Puritanism, there +has been no writer in whose eyes the soul stood so much alone. + +Carlyle was, as we have suggested, a mystic, and mysticism was with him, +as with all its genuine professors, only a transcendent form of common +sense. Mysticism and common sense alike consist in a sense of the +dominance of certain truths and tendencies which cannot be formally +demonstrated or even formally named. Mysticism and common sense are +alike appeals to realities that we all know to be real, but which have +no place in argument except as postulates. Carlyle's work did consist in +breaking through formulæ, old and new, to these old and silent and +ironical sanities. Philosophers might abolish kings a hundred times +over, he maintained, they could not alter the fact that every man and +woman does choose a king and repudiate all the pride of citizenship for +the exultation of humility. If inequality of this kind was a weakness, +it was a weakness bound up with the very strength of the universe. About +hero worship, indeed, few critics have done the smallest justice to +Carlyle. Misled by those hasty and choleric passages in which he +sometimes expressed a preference for mere violence, passages which were +a great deal more connected with his temperament than with his +philosophy, they have finally imbibed the notion that Carlyle's theory +of hero worship was a theory of terrified submission to stern and +arrogant men. As a matter of fact, Carlyle is really inhumane about some +questions, but he is never inhumane about hero worship. His view is not +that human nature is so vulgar and silly a thing that it must be guided +and driven; it is, on the contrary, that human nature is so chivalrous +and fundamentally magnanimous a thing that even the meanest have it in +them to love a leader more than themselves, and to prefer loyalty to +rebellion. When he speaks of this trait in human nature Carlyle's tone +invariably softens. We feel that for the moment he is kindled with +admiration of mankind, and almost reaches the verge of Christianity. +Whatever else was acid and captious about Carlyle's utterances, his hero +worship was not only humane, it was almost optimistic. He admired great +men primarily, and perhaps correctly, because he thought that they were +more human than other men. The evil side of the influence of Carlyle and +his religion of hero worship did not consist in the emotional worship +of valour and success; that was a part of him, as, indeed, it is a part +of all healthy children. Where Carlyle really did harm was in the fact +that he, more than any modern man, is responsible for the increase of +that modern habit of what is vulgarly called "Going the whole hog." +Often in matters of passion and conquest it is a singularly hoggish hog. +This remarkable modern craze for making one's philosophy, religion, +politics, and temper all of a piece, of seeking in all incidents for +opportunities to assert and reassert some favourite mental attitude, is +a thing which existed comparatively little in other centuries. Solomon +and Horace, Petrarch and Shakespeare were pessimists when they were +melancholy, and optimists when they were happy. But the optimist of +to-day seems obliged to prove that gout and unrequited love make him +dance with joy, and the pessimist of to-day to prove that sunshine and a +good supper convulse him with inconsolable anguish. Carlyle was strongly +possessed with this mania for spiritual consistency. He wished to take +the same view of the wars of the angels and of the paltriest riot at +Donnybrook Fair. It was this species of insane logic which led him into +his chief errors, never his natural enthusiasms. Let us take an example. +Carlyle's defence of slavery is a thoroughly ridiculous thing, weak +alike in argument and in moral instinct. The truth is, that he only took +it up from the passion for applying everywhere his paradoxical defence +of aristocracy. He blundered, of course, because he did not see that +slavery has nothing in the world to do with aristocracy, that it is, +indeed, almost its opposite. The defence which Carlyle and all its +thoughtful defenders have made for aristocracy was that a few persons +could more rapidly and firmly decide public affairs in the interests of +the people. But slavery is not even supposed to be a government for the +good of the governed. It is a possession of the governed avowedly for +the good of the governors. Aristocracy uses the strong for the service +of the weak; slavery uses the weak for the service of the strong. It is +no derogation to man as a spiritual being, as Carlyle firmly believed +he was, that he should be ruled and guided for his own good like a +child--for a child who is always ruled and guided we regard as the very +type of spiritual existence. But it is a derogation and an absolute +contradiction to that human spirituality in which Carlyle believed that +a man should be owned like a tool for someone else's good, as if he had +no personal destiny in the Cosmos. We draw attention to this particular +error of Carlyle's because we think that it is a curious example of the +waste and unclean places into which that remarkable animal, "the whole +hog," more than once led him. + +In this respect Carlyle has had unquestionably long and an +unquestionably bad influence. The whole of that recent political ethic +which conceives that if we only go far enough we may finish a thing for +once and all, that being strong consists chiefly in being deliberately +deaf and blind, owes a great deal of its complete sway to his example. +Out of him flows most of the philosophy of Nietzsche, who is in modern +times the supreme maniac of this moonstruck consistency. Though +Nietzsche and Carlyle were in reality profoundly different, Carlyle +being a stiff-necked peasant and Nietzsche a very fragile aristocrat, +they were alike in this one quality of which we speak, the strange and +pitiful audacity with which they applied their single ethical test to +everything in heaven and earth. The disciple of Nietzsche, indeed, +embraces immorality like an austere and difficult faith. He urges +himself to lust and cruelty with the same tremulous enthusiasm with +which a Christian urges himself to purity and patience; he struggles as +a monk struggles with bestial visions and temptations with the ancient +necessities of honour and justice and compassion. To this madhouse, it +can hardly be denied, has Carlyle's intellectual courage brought many at +last. + + + + +TOLSTOY AND THE CULT OF SIMPLICITY + + +The whole world is certainly heading for a great simplicity, not +deliberately, but rather inevitably. It is not a mere fashion of false +innocence, like that of the French aristocrats before the Revolution, +who built an altar to Pan, and who taxed the peasantry for the enormous +expenditure which is needed in order to live the simple life of +peasants. The simplicity towards which the world is driving is the +necessary outcome of all our systems and speculations and of our deep +and continuous contemplation of things. For the universe is like +everything in it; we have to look at it repeatedly and habitually before +we see it. It is only when we have seen it for the hundredth time that +we see it for the first time. The more consistently things are +contemplated, the more they tend to unify themselves and therefore to +simplify themselves. The simplification of anything is always +sensational. Thus monotheism is the most sensational of things: it is as +if we gazed long at a design full of disconnected objects, and, +suddenly, with a stunning thrill, they came together into a huge and +staring face. + +Few people will dispute that all the typical movements of our time are +upon this road towards simplification. Each system seeks to be more +fundamental than the other; each seeks, in the literal sense, to +undermine the other. In art, for example, the old conception of man, +classic as the Apollo Belvedere, has first been attacked by the realist, +who asserts that man, as a fact of natural history, is a creature with +colourless hair and a freckled face. Then comes the Impressionist, going +yet deeper, who asserts that to his physical eye, which alone is +certain, man is a creature with purple hair and a grey face. Then comes +the Symbolist, and says that to his soul, which alone is certain, man is +a creature with green hair and a blue face. And all the great writers of +our time represent in one form or another this attempt to reestablish +communication with the elemental, or, as it is sometimes more roughly +and fallaciously expressed, to return to nature. Some think that the +return to nature consists in drinking no wine; some think that it +consists in drinking a great deal more than is good for them. Some think +that the return to nature is achieved by beating swords into +ploughshares; some think it is achieved by turning ploughshares into +very ineffectual British War Office bayonets. It is natural, according +to the Jingo, for a man to kill other people with gunpowder and himself +with gin. It is natural, according to the humanitarian revolutionist, to +kill other people with dynamite and himself with vegetarianism. It would +be too obviously Philistine a sentiment, perhaps, to suggest that the +claim of either of these persons to be obeying the voice of nature is +interesting when we consider that they require huge volumes of +paradoxical argument to persuade themselves or anyone else of the truth +of their conclusions. But the giants of our time are undoubtedly alike +in that they approach by very different roads this conception of the +return to simplicity. Ibsen returns to nature by the angular exterior of +fact, Maeterlinck by the eternal tendencies of fable. Whitman returns to +nature by seeing how much he can accept, Tolstoy by seeing how much he +can reject. + +Now, this heroic desire to return to nature, is, of course, in some +respects, rather like the heroic desire of a kitten to return to its own +tail. A tail is a simple and beautiful object, rhythmic in curve and +soothing in texture; but it is certainly one of the minor but +characteristic qualities of a tail that it should hang behind. It is +impossible to deny that it would in some degree lose its character if +attached to any other part of the anatomy. Now, nature is like a tail in +the sense that it vitally important, if it is to discharge its real +duty, that it should be always behind. To imagine that we can see +nature, especially our own nature, face to face, is a folly; it is even +a blasphemy. It is like the conduct of a cat in some mad fairy-tale, who +should set out on his travels with the firm conviction that he would +find his tail growing like a tree in the meadows at the end of the +world. And the actual effect of the travels of the philosopher in search +of nature, when seen from the outside, looks very like the gyrations of +the tail-pursuing kitten, exhibiting much enthusiasm but little dignity, +much cry and very little tail. The grandeur of nature is that she is +omnipotent and unseen, that she is perhaps ruling us most when we think +that she is heeding us least. "Thou art a God that hidest Thyself," said +the Hebrew poet. It may be said with all reverence that it is behind a +man's back that the spirit of nature hides. + +It is this consideration that lends a certain air of futility even to +all the inspired simplicities and thunderous veracities of Tolstoy. We +feel that a man cannot make himself simple merely by warring on +complexity; we feel, indeed, in our saner moments, that a man cannot +make himself simple at all. A self-conscious simplicity may well be far +more intrinsically ornate than luxury itself. Indeed, a great deal of +the pomp and sumptuousness of the world's history was simple in the +truest sense. It was born of an almost babyish receptiveness; it was the +work of men who had eyes to wonder and men who had ears to hear. + + "King Solomon brought merchant men + Because of his desire + With peacocks, apes, and ivory, + From Tarshish unto Tyre." + +But this proceeding was not a part of the wisdom of Solomon; it was a +part of his folly--I had almost said of his innocence. Tolstoy, we feel, +would not be content with hurling satire and denunciation at "Solomon in +all his glory." With fierce and unimpeachable logic he would go a step +further. He would spend days and nights in the meadows stripping the +shameless crimson coronals off the lilies of the field. + +The new collection of "Tales from Tolstoy," translated and edited by Mr. +R. Nisbet Bain, is calculated to draw particular attention to this +ethical and ascetic side of Tolstoy's work. In one sense, and that the +deepest sense, the work of Tolstoy is, of course, a genuine and noble +appeal to simplicity. The narrow notion that an artist may not teach is +pretty well exploded by now. But the truth of the matter is, that an +artist teaches far more by his mere background and properties, his +landscape, his costume, his idiom and technique--all the part of his +work, in short, of which he is probably entirely unconscious, than by +the elaborate and pompous moral dicta which he fondly imagines to be his +opinions. The real distinction between the ethics of high art and the +ethics of manufactured and didactic art lies in the simple fact that the +bad fable has a moral, while the good fable is a moral. And the real +moral of Tolstoy comes out constantly in these stories, the great moral +which lies at the heart of all his work, of which he is probably +unconscious, and of which it is quite likely that he would vehemently +disapprove. The curious cold white light of morning that shines over all +the tales, the folklore simplicity with which "a man or a woman" are +spoken of without further identification, the love--one might almost say +the lust--for the qualities of brute materials, the hardness of wood, +and the softness of mud, the ingrained belief in a certain ancient +kindliness sitting beside the very cradle of the race of man--these +influences are truly moral. When we put beside them the trumpeting and +tearing nonsense of the didactic Tolstoy, screaming for an obscene +purity, shouting for an inhuman peace, hacking up human life into small +sins with a chopper, sneering at men, women, and children out of respect +to humanity, combining in one chaos of contradictions an unmanly Puritan +and an uncivilised prig, then, indeed, we scarcely know whither Tolstoy +has vanished. We know not what to do with this small and noisy moralist +who is inhabiting one corner of a great and good man. + +It is difficult in every case to reconcile Tolstoy the great artist with +Tolstoy the almost venomous reformer. It is difficult to believe that a +man who draws in such noble outlines the dignity of the daily life of +humanity regards as evil that divine act of procreation by which that +dignity is renewed from age to age. It is difficult to believe that a +man who has painted with so frightful an honesty the heartrending +emptiness of the life of the poor can really grudge them every one of +their pitiful pleasures, from courtship to tobacco. It is difficult to +believe that a poet in prose who has so powerfully exhibited the +earth-born air of man, the essential kinship of a human being, with the +landscape in which he lives, can deny so elemental a virtue as that +which attaches a man to his own ancestors and his own land. It is +difficult to believe that the man who feels so poignantly the detestable +insolence of oppression would not actually, if he had the chance, lay +the oppressor flat with his fist. All, however, arises from the search +after a false simplicity, the aim of being, if I may so express it, more +natural than it is natural to be. It would not only be more human, it +would be more humble of us to be content to be complex. The truest +kinship with humanity would lie in doing as humanity has always done, +accepting with a sportsmanlike relish the estate to which we are called, +the star of our happiness, and the fortunes of the land of our birth. + +The work of Tolstoy has another and more special significance. It +represents the re-assertion of a certain awful common sense which +characterised the most extreme utterances of Christ. It is true that we +cannot turn the cheek to the smiter; it is true that we cannot give our +cloak to the robber; civilisation is too complicated, too vain-glorious, +too emotional. The robber would brag, and we should blush; in other +words, the robber and we are alike sentimentalists. The command of +Christ is impossible, but it is not insane; it is rather sanity preached +to a planet of lunatics. If the whole world was suddenly stricken with a +sense of humour it would find itself mechanically fulfilling the Sermon +on the Mount. It is not the plain facts of the world which stand in the +way of that consummation, but its passions of vanity and +self-advertisement and morbid sensibility. It is true that we cannot +turn the cheek to the smiter, and the sole and sufficient reason is that +we have not the pluck. Tolstoy and his followers have shown that they +have the pluck, and even if we think they are mistaken, by this sign +they conquer. Their theory has the strength of an utterly consistent +thing. It represents that doctrine of mildness and non-resistance which +is the last and most audacious of all the forms of resistance to every +existing authority. It is the great strike of the Quakers which is more +formidable than many sanguinary revolutions. If human beings could only +succeed in achieving a real passive resistance they would be strong with +the appalling strength of inanimate things, they would be calm with the +maddening calm of oak or iron, which conquer without vengeance and are +conquered without humiliation. The theory of Christian duty enunciated +by them is that we should never conquer by force, but always, if we can, +conquer by persuasion. In their mythology St. George did not conquer the +dragon: he tied a pink ribbon round its neck and gave it a saucer of +milk. According to them, a course of consistent kindness to Nero would +have turned him into something only faintly represented by Alfred the +Great. In fact, the policy recommended by this school for dealing with +the bovine stupidity and bovine fury of this world is accurately summed +up in the celebrated verse of Mr. Edward Lear: + + "There was an old man who said, 'How + Shall I flee from this terrible cow? + I will sit on a stile and continue to smile + Till I soften the heart of this cow.'" + +Their confidence in human nature is really honourable and magnificent; +it takes the form of refusing to believe the overwhelming majority of +mankind, even when they set out to explain their own motives. But +although most of us would in all probability tend at first sight to +consider this new sect of Christians as little less outrageous than some +brawling and absurd sect in the Reformation, yet we should fall into a +singular error in doing so. The Christianity of Tolstoy is, when we come +to consider it, one of the most thrilling and dramatic incidents in our +modern civilisation. It represents a tribute to the Christian religion +more sensational than the breaking of seals or the falling of stars. + +From the point of view of a rationalist, the whole world is rendered +almost irrational by the single phenomenon of Christian Socialism. It +turns the scientific universe topsy-turvy, and makes it essentially +possible that the key of all social evolution may be found in the dusty +casket of some discredited creed. It cannot be amiss to consider this +phenomenon as it realty is. + +The religion of Christ has, like many true things, been disproved an +extraordinary number of times. It was disproved by the Neo-Platonist +philosophers at the very moment when it was first starting forth upon +its startling and universal career. It was disproved again by many of +the sceptics of the Renaissance only a few years before its second and +supremely striking embodiment, the religion of Puritanism, was about to +triumph over many kings and civilise many continents. We all agree that +these schools of negation were only interludes in its history; but we +all believe naturally and inevitably that the negation of our own day +is really a breaking up of the theological cosmos, an Armageddon, a +Ragnorak, a twilight of the gods. The man of the nineteenth century, +like a schoolboy of sixteen, believes that his doubt and depression are +symbols of the end of the world. In our day the great irreligionists who +did nothing but dethrone God and drive angels before them have been +outstripped, distanced, and made to look orthodox and humdrum. A newer +race of sceptics has found something infinitely more exciting to do than +nailing down the lids upon a million coffins, and the body upon a single +cross. They have disputed not only the elementary creeds, but the +elementary laws of mankind, property, patriotism, civil obedience. They +have arraigned civilisation as openly as the materialists have arraigned +theology; they have damned all the philosophers even lower than they +have damned the saints. Thousands of modern men move quietly and +conventionally among their fellows while holding views of national +limitation or landed property that would have made Voltaire shudder like +a nun listening to blasphemies. And the last and wildest phase of this +saturnalia of scepticism, the school that goes furthest among thousands +who go so far, the school that denies the moral validity of those ideals +of courage or obedience which are recognised even among pirates, this +school bases itself upon the literal words of Christ, like Dr. Watts or +Messrs. Moody and Sankey. Never in the whole history of the world was +such a tremendous tribute paid to the vitality of an ancient creed. +Compared with this, it would be a small thing if the Red Sea were cloven +asunder, or the sun did stand still at midday. We are faced with the +phenomenon that a set of revolutionists whose contempt for all the +ideals of family and nation would evoke horror in a thieves' kitchen, +who can rid themselves of those elementary instincts of the man and the +gentleman which cling to the very bones of our civilisation, cannot rid +themselves of the influence of two or three remote Oriental anecdotes +written in corrupt Greek. The fact, when realised, has about it +something stunning and hypnotic. The most convinced rationalist is in +its presence suddenly stricken with a strange and ancient vision, sees +the immense sceptical cosmogonies of this age as dreams going the way of +a thousand forgotten heresies, and believes for a moment that the dark +sayings handed down through eighteen centuries may, indeed, contain in +themselves the revolutions of which we have only begun to dream. + +This value which we have above suggested unquestionably belongs to the +Tolstoians, who may roughly be described as the new Quakers. With their +strange optimism, and their almost appalling logical courage, they offer +a tribute to Christianity which no orthodoxies could offer. It cannot +but be remarkable to watch a revolution in which both the rulers and the +rebels march under the same symbol. But the actual theory of +non-resistance itself, with all its kindred theories, is not, I think, +characterised by that intellectual obviousness and necessity which its +supporters claim for it. A pamphlet before us shows us an extraordinary +number of statements about the new Testament, of which the accuracy is +by no means so striking as the confidence. To begin with, we must +protest against a habit of quoting and paraphrasing at the same time. +When a man is discussing what Jesus meant, let him state first of all +what He said, not what the man thinks He would have said if he had +expressed Himself more clearly. Here is an instance of question and +answer: + +Q. "How did our Master Himself sum up the law in a few words?" + +A. "Be ye merciful, be ye perfect even as your Father; your Father in +the spirit world is merciful, is perfect." + +There is nothing in this, perhaps, which Christ might not have said +except the abominable metaphysical modernism of "the spirit world"; but +to say that it is recorded that He did say it, is like saying it is +recorded that He preferred palm trees to sycamores. It is a simple and +unadulterated untruth. The author should know that these words have +meant a thousand things to a thousand people, and that if more ancient +sects had paraphrased them as cheerfully as he, he would never have had +the text upon which he founds his theory. In a pamphlet in which plain +printed words cannot be left alone, it is not surprising if there are +mis-statements upon larger matters. Here is a statement clearly and +philosophically laid down which we can only content ourselves with +flatly denying: "The fifth rule of our Lord is that we should take +special pains to cultivate the same kind of regard for people of foreign +countries, and for those generally who do not belong to us, or even have +an antipathy to us, which we already entertain towards our own people, +and those who are in sympathy with us." I should very much like to know +where in the whole of the New Testament the author finds this violent, +unnatural, and immoral proposition. Christ did not have the same kind of +regard for one person as for another. We are specifically told that +there were certain persons whom He specially loved. It is most +improbable that He thought of other nations as He thought of His own. +The sight of His national city moved Him to tears, and the highest +compliment He paid was, "Behold an Israelite indeed." The author has +simply confused two entirely distinct things. Christ commanded us to +have love for all men, but even if we had equal love for all men, to +speak of having the same love for all men is merely bewildering +nonsense. If we love a man at all, the impression he produces on us must +be vitally different to the impression produced by another man whom we +love. To speak of having the same kind of regard for both is about as +sensible as asking a man whether he prefers chrysanthemums or billiards. +Christ did not love humanity; He never said He loved humanity; He loved +men. Neither He nor anyone else can love humanity; it is like loving a +gigantic centipede. And the reason that the Tolstoians can even endure +to think of an equally distributed affection is that their love of +humanity is a logical love, a love into which they are coerced by their +own theories, a love which would be an insult to a tom-cat. + +But the greatest error of all lies in the mere act of cutting up the +teaching of the New Testament into five rules. It precisely and +ingeniously misses the most dominant characteristic of the teaching--its +absolute spontaneity. The abyss between Christ and all His modern +interpreters is that we have no record that He ever wrote a word, except +with His finger in the sand. The whole is the history of one continuous +and sublime conversation. Thousands of rules have been deduced from it +before these Tolstoian rules were made, and thousands will be deduced +afterwards. It was not for any pompous proclamation, it was not for any +elaborate output of printed volumes; it was for a few splendid and idle +words that the cross was set up on Calvary, and the earth gaped, and the +sun was darkened at noonday. + + + + +SAVONAROLA + + +Savonarola is a man whom we shall probably never understand until we +know what horror may lie at the heart of civilisation. This we shall not +know until we are civilised. It may be hoped, in one sense, that we may +never understand Savonarola. + +The great deliverers of men have, for the most part, saved them from +calamities which we all recognise as evil, from calamities which are the +ancient enemies of humanity. The great law-givers saved us from anarchy: +the great physicians saved us from pestilence: the great reformers saved +us from starvation. But there is a huge and bottomless evil compared +with which all these are fleabites, the most desolating curse that can +fall upon men or nations, and it has no name except we call it +satisfaction. Savonarola did not save men from anarchy, but from order; +not from pestilence, but from paralysis; not from starvation, but from +luxury. Men like Savonarola are the witnesses to the tremendous +psychological fact at the back of all our brains, but for which no name +has ever been found, that ease is the worst enemy of happiness, and +civilisation potentially the end of man. + +For I fancy that Savonarola's thrilling challenge to the luxury of his +day went far deeper than the mere question of sin. The modern +rationalistic admirers of Savonarola, from George Eliot downwards, +dwell, truly enough, upon the sound ethical justification of +Savonarola's anger, upon the hideous and extravagant character of the +crimes which polluted the palaces of the Renaissance. But they need not +be so anxious to show that Savonarola was no ascetic, that he merely +picked out the black specks of wickedness with the priggish +enlightenment of a member of an Ethical Society. Probably he did hate +the civilisation of his time, and not merely its sins; and that is +precisely where he was infinitely more profound than a modern moralist. +He saw, that the actual crimes were not the only evils: that stolen +jewels and poisoned wine and obscene pictures were merely the symptoms; +that the disease was the complete dependence upon jewels and wine and +pictures. This is a thing constantly forgotten in judging of ascetics +and Puritans in old times. A denunciation of harmless sports did not +always mean an ignorant hatred of what no one but a narrow moralist +would call harmful. Sometimes it meant an exceedingly enlightened hatred +of what no one but a narrow moralist would call harmless. Ascetics are +sometimes more advanced than the average man, as well as less. + +Such, at least, was the hatred in the heart of Savonarola. He was making +war against no trivial human sins, but against godless and thankless +quiescence, against getting used to happiness, the mystic sin by which +all creation fell. He was preaching that severity which is the +sign-manual of youth and hope. He was preaching that alertness, that +clean agility and vigilance, which is as necessary to gain pleasure as +to gain holiness, as indispensable in a lover as in a monk. A critic has +truly pointed out that Savonarola could not have been fundamentally +anti-æsthetic, since he had such friends as Michael Angelo, Botticelli, +and Luca della Robbia. The fact is that this purification and austerity +are even more necessary for the appreciation of life and laughter than +for anything else. To let no bird fly past unnoticed, to spell patiently +the stones and weeds, to have the mind a storehouse of sunset, requires +a discipline in pleasure, and an education in gratitude. + +The civilisation which surrounded Savonarola on every side was a +civilisation which had already taken the wrong turn, the turn that leads +to endless inventions and no discoveries, in which new things grow old +with confounding rapidity, but in which no old things ever grow new. The +monstrosity of the crimes of the Renaissance was not a mark of +imagination; it was a mark, as all monstrosity is, of the loss of +imagination. It is only when a man has really ceased to see a horse as +it is, that he invents a centaur, only when he can no longer be +surprised at an ox, that he worships the devil. Diablerie is the +stimulant of the jaded fancy; it is the dram-drinking of the artist. +Savonarola addressed himself to the hardest of all earthly tasks, that +of making men turn back and wonder at the simplicities they had learnt +to ignore. It is strange that the most unpopular of all doctrines is the +doctrine which declares the common life divine. Democracy, of which +Savonarola was so fiery an exponent, is the hardest of gospels; there is +nothing that so terrifies men as the decree that they are all kings. +Christianity, in Savonarola's mind, identical with democracy, is the +hardest of gospels; there is nothing that so strikes men with fear as +the saying that they are all the sons of God. + +Savonarola and his republic fell. The drug of despotism was administered +to the people, and they forgot what they had been. There are some at the +present day who have so strange a respect for art and letters, and for +mere men of genius, that they conceive the reign of the Medici to be an +improvement on that of the great Florentine republican. It is such men +as these and their civilisation that we have at the present day to +fear. We are surrounded on many sides by the same symptoms as those +which awoke the unquenchable wrath of Savonarola--a hedonism that is +more sick of happiness than an invalid is sick of pain, an art sense +that seeks the assistance of crime since it has exhausted nature. In +many modern works we find veiled and horrible hints of a truly +Renaissance sense of the beauty of blood, the poetry of murder. The +bankrupt and depraved imagination does not see that a living man is far +more dramatic than a dead one. Along with this, as in the time of the +Medici, goes the falling back into the arms of despotism, the hunger for +the strong man which is unknown among strong men. The masterful hero is +worshipped as he is worshipped by the readers of the "Bow Bells +Novelettes," and for the same reason--a profound sense of personal +weakness. That tendency to devolve our duties descends on us, which is +the soul of slavery, alike whether for its menial tasks it employs serfs +or emperors. Against all this the great clerical republican stands in +everlasting protest, preferring his failure to his rival's success. The +issue is still between him and Lorenzo, between the responsibilities of +liberty and the license of slavery, between the perils of truth and the +security of silence, between the pleasure of toil and the toil of +pleasure. The supporters of Lorenzo the Magnificent are assuredly among +us, men for whom even nations and empires only exist to satisfy the +moment, men to whom the last hot hour of summer is better than a sharp +and wintry spring. They have an art, a literature, a political +philosophy, which are all alike valued for their immediate effect upon +the taste, not for what they promise of the destiny of the spirit. Their +statuettes and sonnets are rounded and perfect, while "Macbeth" is in +comparison a fragment, and the Moses of Michael Angelo a hint. Their +campaigns and battles are always called triumphant, while Cæsar and +Cromwell wept for many humiliations. And the end of it all is the hell +of no resistance, the hell of an unfathomable softness, until the whole +nature recoils into madness and the chamber of civilisation is no longer +merely a cushioned apartment, but a padded cell. + +This last and worst of human miseries Savonarola saw afar off, and bent +his whole gigantic energies to turning the chariot into another course. +Few men understood his object; some called him a madman, some a +charlatan, some an enemy of human joy. They would not even have +understood if he had told them, if he had said that he was saving them +from a calamity of contentment which should be the end of joys and +sorrows alike. But there are those to-day who feel the same silent +danger, and who bend themselves to the same silent resistance. They also +are supposed to be contending for some trivial political scruple. + +Mr. M'Hardy says, in defending Savonarola, that the number of fine works +of art destroyed in the Burning of the Vanities has been much +exaggerated. I confess that I hope the pile contained stacks of +incomparable masterpieces if the sacrifice made that one real moment +more real. Of one thing I am sure, that Savonarola's friend Michael +Angelo would have piled all his own statues one on top of the other, +and burnt them to ashes, if only he had been certain that the glow +transfiguring the sky was the dawn of a younger and wiser world. + + + + +THE POSITION OF SIR WALTER SCOTT + + +Walter Scott is a writer who should just now be re-emerging into his own +high place in letters, for unquestionably the recent, though now +dwindling, schools of severely technical and æsthetic criticism have +been unfavourable to him. He was a chaotic and unequal writer, and if +there is one thing in which artists have improved since his time, it is +in consistency and equality. It would perhaps be unkind to inquire +whether the level of the modern man of letters, as compared with Scott, +is due to the absence of valleys or the absence of mountains. But in any +case, we have learnt in our day to arrange our literary effects +carefully, and the only point in which we fall short of Scott is in the +incidental misfortune that we have nothing particular to arrange. + +It is said that Scott is neglected by modern readers; if so, the matter +could be more appropriately described by saying that modern readers are +neglected by Providence. The ground of this neglect, in so far as it +exists, must be found, I suppose, in the general sentiment that, like +the beard of Polonius, he is too long. Yet it is surely a peculiar thing +that in literature alone a house should be despised because it is too +large, or a host impugned because he is too generous. If romance be +really a pleasure, it is difficult to understand the modern reader's +consuming desire to get it over, and if it be not a pleasure, it is +difficult to understand his desire to have it at all. Mere size, it +seems to me, cannot be a fault. The fault must lie in some +disproportion. If some of Scott's stories are dull and dilatory, it is +not because they are giants, but because they are hunchbacks or +cripples. Scott was very far indeed from being a perfect writer, but I +do not think that it can be shown that the large and elaborate plan on +which his stories are built was by any means an imperfection. He +arranged his endless prefaces and his colossal introductions just as an +architect plans great gates and long approaches to a really large +house. He did not share the latter-day desire to get quickly through a +story. He enjoyed narrative as a sensation; he did not wish to swallow a +story like a pill, that it should do him good afterwards. He desired to +taste it like a glass of port, that it might do him good at the time. +The reader sits late at his banquets. His characters have that air of +immortality which belongs to those of Dumas and Dickens. We should not +be surprised to meet them in any number of sequels. Scott, in his heart +of hearts, probably would have liked to write an endless story without +either beginning or close. + +Walter Scott is a great, and, therefore, mysterious man. He will never +be understood until Romance is understood, and that will be only when +Time, Man, and Eternity are understood. To say that Scott had more than +any other man that ever lived a sense of the romantic seems, in these +days, a slight and superficial tribute. The whole modern theory arises +from one fundamental mistake--the idea that romance is in some way a +plaything with life, a figment, a conventionality, a thing upon the +outside. No genuine criticism of romance will ever arise until we have +grasped the fact that romance lies not upon the outside of life, but +absolutely in the centre of it. The centre of every man's existence is a +dream. Death, disease, insanity, are merely material accidents, like +toothache or a twisted ankle. That these brutal forces always besiege +and often capture the citadel does not prove that they are the citadel. +The boast of the realist (applying what the reviewers call his scalpel) +is that he cuts into the heart of life; but he makes a very shallow +incision, if he only reaches as deep as habits and calamities and sins. +Deeper than all these lies a man's vision of himself, as swaggering and +sentimental as a penny novelette. The literature of can-dour unearths +innumerable weaknesses and elements of lawlessness which is called +romance. It perceives superficial habits like murder and dipsomania, but +it does not perceive the deepest of sins--the sin of vanity--vanity +which is the mother of all day-dreams and adventures, the one sin that +is not shared with any boon companion, or whispered to any priest. + +In estimating, therefore, the ground of Scott's pre-eminence in romance +we must absolutely rid ourselves of the notion that romance or adventure +are merely materialistic things involved in the tangle of a plot or the +multiplicity of drawn swords. We must remember that it is, like tragedy +or farce, a state of the soul, and that, for some dark and elemental +reason which we can never understand, this state of the soul is evoked +in us by the sight of certain places or the contemplation of certain +human crises, by a stream rushing under a heavy and covered wooden +bridge, or by a man plunging a knife or sword into tough timber. In the +selection of these situations which catch the spirit of romance as in a +net, Scott has never been equalled or even approached. His finest scenes +affect us like fragments of a hilarious dream. They have the same +quality which is often possessed by those nocturnal comedies--that of +seeming more human than our waking life--even while they are less +possible. Sir Arthur Wardour, with his daughter and the old beggar +crouching in a cranny of the cliff as night falls and the tide closes +around them, are actually in the coldest and bitterest of practical +situations. Yet the whole incident has a quality that can only be called +boyish. It is warmed with all the colours of an incredible sunset. Rob +Roy trapped in the Tolbooth, and confronted with Bailie Nicol Jarvie, +draws no sword, leaps from no window, affects none of the dazzling +external acts upon which contemporary romance depends, yet that plain +and humourous dialogue is full of the essential philosophy of romance +which is an almost equal betting upon man and destiny. Perhaps the most +profoundly thrilling of all Scott's situations is that in which the +family of Colonel Mannering are waiting for the carriage which may or +may not arrive by night to bring an unknown man into a princely +possession. Yet almost the whole of that thrilling scene consists of a +ridiculous conversation about food, and flirtation between a frivolous +old lawyer and a fashionable girl. We can say nothing about what makes +these scenes, except that the wind bloweth where it listeth, and that +here the wind blows strong. + +It is in this quality of what may be called spiritual adventurousness +that Scott stands at so different an elevation to the whole of the +contemporary crop of romancers who have followed the leadership of +Dumas. There has, indeed, been a great and inspiriting revival of +romance in our time, but it is partly frustrated in almost every case by +this rooted conception that romance consists in the vast multiplication +of incidents and the violent acceleration of narrative. The heroes of +Mr. Stanley Weyman scarcely ever have their swords out of their hands; +the deeper presence of romance is far better felt when the sword is at +the hip ready for innumerable adventures too terrible to be pictured. +The Stanley Weyman hero has scarcely time to eat his supper except in +the act of leaping from a window or whilst his other hand is employed in +lunging with a rapier. In Scott's heroes, on the other hand, there is no +characteristic so typical or so worthy of humour as their disposition to +linger over their meals. The conviviality of the Clerk of Copmanhurst +or of Mr. Pleydell, and the thoroughly solid things they are described +as eating, is one of the most perfect of Scott's poetic touches. In +short, Mr. Stanley Weyman is filled with the conviction that the sole +essence of romance is to move with insatiable rapidity from incident to +incident. In the truer romance of Scott there is more of the sentiment +of "Oh! still delay, thou art so fair"! more of a certain patriarchal +enjoyment of things as they are--of the sword by the side and the +wine-cup in the hand. Romance, indeed, does not consist by any means so +much in experiencing adventures as in being ready for them. How little +the actual boy cares for incidents in comparison to tools and weapons +may be tested by the fact that the most popular story of adventure is +concerned with a man who lived for years on a desert island with two +guns and a sword, which he never had to use on an enemy. + +Closely connected with this is one of the charges most commonly brought +against Scott, particularly in his own day--the charge of a fanciful +and monotonous insistence upon the details of armour and costume. The +critic in the _Edinburgh Review_ said indignantly that he could tolerate +a somewhat detailed description of the apparel of Marmion, but when it +came to an equally detailed account of the apparel of his pages and +yeomen the mind could bear it no longer. The only thing to be said about +that critic is that he had never been a little boy. He foolishly +imagined that Scott valued the plume and dagger of Marmion for Marmion's +sake. Not being himself romantic, he could not understand that Scott +valued the plume because it was a plume, and the dagger because it was a +dagger. Like a child, he loved weapons with a manual materialistic love, +as one loves the softness of fur or the coolness of marble. One of the +profound philosophical truths which are almost confined to infants is +this love of things, not for their use or origin, but for their own +inherent characteristics, the child's love of the toughness of wood, the +wetness of water, the magnificent soapiness of soap. So it was with +Scott, who had so much of the child in him. Human beings were perhaps +the principal characters in his stories, but they were certainly not the +only characters. A battle-axe was a person of importance, a castle had a +character and ways of its own. A church bell had a word to say in the +matter. Like a true child, he almost ignored the distinction between the +animate and inanimate. A two-handed sword might be carried only by a +menial in a procession, but it was something important and immeasurably +fascinating--it was a two-handed sword. + +There is one quality which is supreme and continuous in Scott which is +little appreciated at present. One of the values we have really lost in +recent fiction is the value of eloquence. The modern literary artist is +compounded of almost every man except the orator. Yet Shakespeare and +Scott are certainly alike in this, that they could both, if literature +had failed, have earned a living as professional demagogues. The feudal +heroes in the "Waverley Novels" retort upon each other with a passionate +dignity, haughty and yet singularly human, which can hardly be +paralleled in political eloquence except in "Julius Cæsar." With a +certain fiery impartiality which stirs the blood, Scott distributes his +noble orations equally among saints and villains. He may deny a villain +every virtue or triumph, but he cannot endure to deny him a telling +word; he will ruin a man, but he will not silence him. In truth, one of +Scott's most splendid traits is his difficulty, or rather incapacity, +for despising any of his characters. He did not scorn the most revolting +miscreant as the realist of to-day commonly scorns his own hero. Though +his soul may be in rags, every man of Scott can speak like a king. + +This quality, as I have said, is sadly to seek in the fiction of the +passing hour. The realist would, of course, repudiate the bare idea of +putting a bold and brilliant tongue in every man's head, but even where +the moment of the story naturally demands eloquence the eloquence seems +frozen in the tap. Take any contemporary work of fiction and turn to the +scene where the young Socialist denounces the millionaire, and then +compare the stilted sociological lecture given by that self-sacrificing +bore with the surging joy of words in Rob Roy's declaration of himself, +or Athelstane's defiance of De Bracy. That ancient sea of human passion +upon which high words and great phrases are the resplendent foam is just +now at a low ebb. We have even gone the length of congratulating +ourselves because we can see the mud and the monsters at the bottom. + +In politics there is not a single man whose position is due to eloquence +in the first degree; its place is taken by repartees and rejoinders +purely intellectual, like those of an omnibus conductor. In discussing +questions like the farm-burning in South Africa no critic of the war +uses his material as Burke or Grattan (perhaps exaggeratively) would +have used it--the speaker is content with facts and expositions of +facts. In another age he might have risen and hurled that great song in +prose, perfect as prose and yet rising into a chant, which Meg Merrilies +hurled at Ellangowan, at the rulers of Britain: "Ride your ways. Laird +of Ellangowan; ride your ways, Godfrey Bertram--this day have ye +quenched seven smoking hearths. See if the fire in your ain parlour +burns the blyther for that. Ye have riven the thack of seven cottar +houses. Look if your ain roof-tree stands the faster for that. Ye may +stable your stirks in the sheilings of Dern-cleugh. See that the hare +does not couch on the hearthstane of Ellangowan. Ride your ways, Godfrey +Bertram." + +The reason is, of course, that these men are afraid of bombast and Scott +was not. A man will not reach eloquence if he is afraid of bombast, just +as a man will not jump a hedge if he is afraid of a ditch. As the object +of all eloquence is to find the least common denominator of men's souls, +to fall just within the natural comprehension, it cannot obviously have +any chance with a literary ambition which aims at falling just outside +it. It is quite right to invent subtle analyses and detached criticisms, +but it is unreasonable to expect them to be punctuated with roars of +popular applause. It is possible to conceive of a mob shouting any +central and simple sentiment, good or bad, but it is impossible to think +of a mob shouting a distinction in terms. In the matter of eloquence, +the whole question is one of the immediate effect of greatness, such as +is produced even by fine bombast. It is absurd to call it merely +superficial; here there is no question of superficiality; we might as +well call a stone that strikes us between the eyes merely superficial. +The very word "superficial" is founded on a fundamental mistake about +life, the idea that second thoughts are best. The superficial impression +of the world is by far the deepest. What we really feel, naturally and +casually, about the look of skies and trees and the face of friends, +that and that alone will almost certainly remain our vital philosophy to +our dying day. + +Scott's bombast, therefore, will always be stirring to anyone who +approaches it, as he should approach all literature, as a little child. +We could easily excuse the contemporary critic for not admiring +melodramas and adventure stories, and Punch and Judy, if he would admit +that it was a slight deficiency in his artistic sensibilities. Beyond +all question, it marks a lack of literary instinct to be unable to +simplify one's mind at the first signal of the advance of romance. "You +do me wrong," said Brian de Bois-Guilbert to Rebecca. "Many a law, many +a commandment have I broken, but my word, never." "Die," cries Balfour +of Burley to the villain in "Old Mortality." "Die, hoping nothing, +believing nothing--" "And fearing nothing," replies the other. This is +the old and honourable fine art of bragging, as it was practised by the +great worthies of antiquity. The man who cannot appreciate it goes along +with the man who cannot appreciate beef or claret or a game with +children or a brass band. They are afraid of making fools of themselves, +and are unaware that that transformation has already been triumphantly +effected. + +Scott is separated, then, from much of the later conception of fiction +by this quality of eloquence. The whole of the best and finest work of +the modern novelist (such as the work of Mr. Henry James) is primarily +concerned with that delicate and fascinating speech which burrows deeper +and deeper like a mole; but we have wholly forgotten that speech which +mounts higher and higher like a wave and falls in a crashing peroration. +Perhaps the most thoroughly brilliant and typical man of this decade is +Mr. Bernard Shaw. In his admirable play of "Candida" it is clearly a +part of the character of the Socialist clergyman that he should be +eloquent, but he is not eloquent because the whole "G.B.S." condition of +mind renders impossible that poetic simplicity which eloquence requires. +Scott takes his heroes and villains seriously, which is, after all, the +way that heroes and villains take themselves--especially villains. It is +the custom to call these old romantic poses artificial; but the word +artificial is the last and silliest evasion of criticism. There was +never anything in the world that was really artificial. It had some +motive or ideal behind it, and generally a much better one than we +think. + +Of the faults of Scott as an artist it is not very necessary to speak, +for faults are generally and easily pointed out, while there is yet no +adequate valuation of the varieties and contrasts of virtue. We have +compiled a complete botanical classification of the weeds in the +poetical garden, but the flowers still flourish, neglected and nameless. +It is true, for example, that Scott had an incomparably stiff and +pedantic way of dealing with his heroines: he made a lively girl of +eighteen refuse an offer in the language of Dr. Johnson. To him, as to +most men of his time, woman was not an individual, but an institution--a +toast that was drunk some time after that of Church and King. But it is +far better to consider the difference rather as a special merit, in that +he stood for all those clean and bracing shocks of incident which are +untouched by passion or weakness, for a certain breezy bachelorhood, +which is almost essential to the literature of adventure. With all his +faults, and all his triumphs, he stands for the great mass of natural +manliness which must be absorbed into art unless art is to be a mere +luxury and freak. An appreciation of Scott might be made almost a test +of decadence. If ever we lose touch with this one most reckless and +defective writer, it will be a proof to us that we have erected round +ourselves a false cosmos, a world of lying and horrible perfection, +leaving outside of it Walter Scott and that strange old world which is +as confused and as indefensible and as inspiring and as healthy as he. + + + + +BRET HARTE + + +There are more than nine hundred and ninety-nine excellent reasons +which we could all have for admiring the work of Bret Harte. But one +supreme reason stands not in a certain general superiority to them +all--a reason which may be stated in three propositions united in a +common conclusion: first, that he was a genuine American; second, that +he was a genuine humourist; and, third, that he was not an American +humourist. Bret Harte had his own peculiar humour, but it had nothing in +particular to do with American humour. American humour has its own +peculiar excellence, but it has nothing in particular to do with Bret +Harte. American humour is purely exaggerative; Bret Harte's humour was +sympathetic and analytical. + +In order fully to understand this, it is necessary to realise, genuinely +and thoroughly, that there is such a thing as an international +difference in humour. If we take the crudest joke in the world--the +joke, let us say, of a man sitting down on his hat--we shall yet find +that all the nations would differ in their way of treating it +humourously, and that if American humour treated it at all, it would be +in a purely American manner. For example, there was a case of an orator +in the House of Commons, who, after denouncing all the public abuses he +could think of, did sit down on his hat. An Irishman immediately rose, +full of the whole wealth of Irish humour, and said, "Should I be in +order, Sir, in congratulating the honourable gentleman on the fact that +when he sat down on his hat his head was not in it?" Here is a glorious +example of Irish humour--the bull not unconscious, not entirely +conscious, but rather an idea so absurd that even the utterer of it can +hardly realise how abysmally absurd it is. But every other nation would +have treated the idea in a manner slightly different. The Frenchman's +humour would have been logical: he would have said, "The orator +denounces modern abuses and destroys to himself the top-hat: behold a +good example!" What the Scotchman's humour would have said I am not so +certain, but it would probably have dealt with the serious advisability +of making such speeches on top of someone else's hat. But American +humour on such a general theme would be the humour of exaggeration. The +American humourist would say that the English politicians so often sat +down on their hats that the noise of the House of Commons was one +crackle of silk. He would say that when an important orator rose to +speak in the House of Commons, long rows of hatters waited outside the +House with note-books to take down orders from the participants in the +debate. He would say that the whole hat trade of London was disorganised +by the news that a clever remark had been made by a young M. P. on the +subject of the imports of Jamaica. In short, American humour, neither +unfathomably absurd like the Irish, nor transfiguringly lucid and +appropriate like the French, nor sharp and sensible and full of +realities of life like the Scotch, is simply the humour of imagination. +It consists in piling towers on towers and mountains on mountains; of +heaping a joke up to the stars and extending it to the end of the world. + +With this distinctively American humour Bret Harte had little or nothing +in common. The wild, sky-breaking humour of America has its fine +qualities, but it must in the nature of things be deficient in two +qualities, not only of supreme importance to life and letters, but of +supreme importance to humour--reverence and sympathy. And these two +qualities were knit into the closest texture of Bret Harte's humour. +Everyone who has read and enjoyed Mark Twain as he ought to be read and +enjoyed will remember a very funny and irreverent story about an +organist who was asked to play appropriate music to an address upon the +parable of the Prodigal Son, and who proceeded to play with great +spirit, "We'll all get blind drunk, when Johnny comes marching home." +The best way of distinguishing Bret Harte from the rest of American +humour is to say that if Bret Harte had described that scene, it would +in some subtle way have combined a sense of the absurdity of the +incident with some sense of the sublimity and pathos of the theme. You +would have felt that the organist's tune was funny, but not that the +Prodigal Son was funny. But America is under a kind of despotism of +humour. Everyone is afraid of humour: the meanest of human nightmares. +Bret Harte had, to express the matter briefly but more or less +essentially, the power of laughing not only at things, but also with +them. America has laughed at things magnificently, with Gargantuan +reverberations of laughter. But she has not even begun to learn the +richer lesson of laughing with them. + +The supreme proof of the fact that Bret Harte had the instinct of +reverence may be found in the fact that he was a really great parodist. +This may have the appearance of being a paradox, but, as in the case of +many other paradoxes, it is not so important whether it is a paradox as +whether it is not obviously true. Mere derision, mere contempt, never +produced or could produce parody. A man who simply despises Paderewski +for having long hair is not necessarily fitted to give an admirable +imitation of his particular touch on the piano. If a man wishes to +parody Paderewski's style of execution, he must emphatically go through +one process first: he must admire it, and even reverence it. Bret Harte +had a real power of imitating great authors, as in his parodies on +Dumas, on Victor Hugo, on Charlotte Brontë. This means, and can only +mean, that he had perceived the real beauty, the real ambition of Dumas +and Victor Hugo and Charlotte Brontë. To take an example, Bret Harte has +in his imitation of Hugo a passage like this: + +"M. Madeline was, if possible, better than M. Myriel. M. Myriel was an +angel. M. Madeline was a good man." I do not know whether Victor Hugo +ever used this antithesis; but I am certain that he would have used it +and thanked his stars if he had thought of it. This is real parody, +inseparable from admiration. It is the same in the parody of Dumas, +which is arranged on the system of "Aramis killed three of them. Porthos +three. Athos three." You cannot write that kind of thing unless you +have first exulted in the arithmetical ingenuity of the plots of Dumas. +It is the same in the parody of Charlotte Brontë, which opens with a +dream of a storm-beaten cliff, containing jewels and pelicans. Bret +Harte could not have written it unless he had really understood the +triumph of the Brontës, the triumph of asserting that great mysteries +lie under the surface of the most sullen life, and that the most real +part of a man is in his dreams. + +This kind of parody is for ever removed from the purview of ordinary +American humour. Can anyone imagine Mark Twain, that admirable author, +writing even a tolerable imitation of authors so intellectually +individual as Hugo or Charlotte Brontë? Mark Twain would yield to the +spirit of contempt which destroys parody. All those who hate authors +fail to satirise them, for they always accuse them of the wrong faults. +The enemies of Thackeray call him a worldling, instead of what he was, a +man too ready to believe in the goodness of the unworldly. The enemies +of Meredith call his gospel too subtle, instead of what it is, a +gospel, if anything, too robust. And it is this vulgar misunderstanding +which we find in most parody--which we find in all American parody--but +which we never find in the parodies of Bret Harte. + + "The skies they were ashen and sober, + The streets they were dirty and drear, + It was the dark month of October, + In that most immemorial year. + Like the skies, I was perfectly sober, + But my thoughts they were palsied and sear, + Yes, my thoughts were decidedly queer." + +This could only be written by a genuine admirer of Edgar Allan Poe, who +permitted himself for a moment to see the fun of the thing. Parody might +indeed be defined as the worshipper's half-holiday. + +The same general characteristic of sympathy amounting to reverence marks +Bret Harte's humour in his better-known class of works, the short +stories. He does not make his characters absurd in order to make them +contemptible: it might almost be said that he makes them absurd in order +to make them dignified. For example, the greatest creation of Bret +Harte, greater even than Colonel Starbottle (and how terrible it is to +speak of anyone greater than Colonel Starbottle!) is that unutterable +being who goes by the name of Yuba Bill. He is, of course, the +coach-driver in the Bret Harte district. Some ingenious person, whose +remarks I read the other day, had compared him on this ground with old +Mr. Weller. It would be difficult to find a comparison indicating a more +completely futile instinct for literature. Tony Weller and Yuba Bill +were both coach-drivers, and this fact establishes a resemblance just +about as much as the fact that Jobson in "Rob Roy" and George Warrington +in "Pendennis" were both lawyers; or that Antonio and Mr. Pickwick were +both merchants; or that Sir Galahad and Sir Willoughby Patten were both +knights. Tony Weller is a magnificent grotesque. He is a gargoyle, and +his mouth, like the mouths of so many gargoyles, is always open. He is +garrulous, exuberant, flowery, preposterously sociable. He holds that +great creed of the convivial, the creed which is at the back of so much +that is greatest in Dickens, the creed that eternity begins at ten +o'clock at night, and that nights last forever. But Yuba Bill is a +figure of a widely different character. He is not convivial; it might +almost be said that he is too great ever to be sociable. A circle of +quiescence and solitude such as that which might ring a saint or a +hermit rings this majestic and profound humourist. His jokes do not flow +upon him like those of Mr. Weller, sparkling, continual, and deliberate, +like the play of a fountain in a pleasure garden; they fall suddenly and +capriciously, like a crash of avalanches from a great mountain. Tony +Weller has the noisy humour of London, Yuba Bill has the silent humour +of the earth. + +One of the worst of the disadvantages of the rich and random fertility +of Bret Harte is the fact that it is very difficult to trace or recover +all the stories that he has written. I have not within reach at the +moment the story in which the character of Yuba Bill is exhibited in its +most solemn grandeur, but I remember that it concerned a ride on the +San Francisco stage coach, a difficulty arising from storm and darkness, +and an intelligent young man who suggested to Yuba Bill that a certain +manner of driving the coach in a certain direction might minimise the +dangers of the journey. A profound silence followed the intelligent +young man's suggestion, and then (I quote from memory) Yuba Bill +observed at last: + +"Air you settin' any value on that remark?" + +The young man professed not fully to comprehend him, and Yuba Bill +continued reflectively: + +"'Cos there's a comic paper in 'Frisco pays for them things, and I've +seen worse in it." + +To be rebuked thus is like being rebuked by the Pyramids or by the +starry heavens. There is about Yuba Bill this air of a pugnacious calm, +a stepping back to get his distance for a shattering blow, which is like +that of Dr. Johnson at his best. And the effect is inexpressively +increased by the background and the whole picture which Bret Harte +paints so powerfully; the stormy skies, the sombre gorge, the rocking +and spinning coach, and high above the feverish passengers the huge +dark form of Yuba Bill, a silent mountain of humour. + +Another unrecovered and possibly irrecoverable fragment about Yuba Bill, +I recall in a story about his visiting a lad who had once been his +protége in the Wild West, and who had since become a distinguished +literary man in Boston. Yuba Bill visits him, and on finding him in +evening dress lifts up his voice in a superb lamentation over the +tragedy of finding his old friend at last "a 'otel waiter." Then, +vindictively pursuing the satire, he calls fiercely to his young friend, +"Hi, Alphonse! bring me a patty de foy gras, damme." These are the +things that make us love the eminent Bill. He is one of those who +achieve the noblest and most difficult of all the triumphs of a +fictitious character--the triumph of giving us the impression of having +a great deal more in him than appears between the two boards of the +story. Smaller characters give us the impression that the author has +told the whole truth about them, greater characters give the impression +that the author has given of them, not the truth, but merely a few hints +and samples. In some mysterious way we seem to feel that even if +Shakespeare was wrong about Falstaff, Falstaff existed and was real; +that even if Dickens was wrong about Micawber, Micawber existed and was +real. So we feel that there is in the great salt-sea of Yuba Bill's +humour as good fish as ever came out of it. The fleeting jests which +Yuba Bill throws to the coach passengers only give us the opportunity of +fancying and deducing the vast mass of jests which Yuba Bill shares with +his creator. + +Bret Harte had to deal with countries and communities of an almost +unexampled laxity, a laxity passing the laxity of savages, the laxity of +civilised men grown savage. He dealt with a life which we in a venerable +and historic society may find it somewhat difficult to realise. It was +the life of an entirely new people, a people who, having no certain +past, could have no certain future. The strangest of all the sardonic +jests that history has ever played may be found in this fact: that +there is a city which is of all cities the most typical of innovation +and dissipation, and a certain almost splendid vulgarity, and that this +city bears the name in a quaint old European language of the most +perfect exponent of the simplicity and holiness of the Christian +tradition; the city is called San Francisco. San Francisco, the capital +of the Bret Harte country, is a city typifying novelty in a manner in +which it is typified by few modern localities. San Francisco has in all +probability its cathedrals, but it may well be that its cathedrals are +less old and less traditional than many of our hotels. If its +inhabitants built a temple to the most primal and forgotten god of whose +worship we can find a trace, that temple would still be a modern thing +compared with many taverns in Suffolk round which there lingers a faint +tradition of Mr. Pickwick. And everything in that new gold country was +new, even to the individual inhabitants. Good, bad, and indifferent, +heroes and dastards, they were all men from nowhere. + +Most of us have come across the practical problem of London landladies, +the problem of the doubtful foreign gentleman in a street of respectable +English people. Those who have done so can form some idea of what it +would be to live in a street full of doubtful foreign gentlemen, in a +parish, in a city, in a nation composed entirely of doubtful foreign +gentlemen. Old California, at the time of the first rush after gold, was +actually this paradox of the nation of foreigners. It was a republic of +incognitos: no one knew who anyone else was, and only the more +ill-mannered and uneasy even desired to know. In such a country as this, +gentlemen took more trouble to conceal their gentility than thieves +living in South Kensington would take to conceal their blackguardism. In +such a country everyone is an equal, because everyone is a stranger. In +such a country it is not strange if men in moral matters feel something +of the irresponsibility of a dream. To plan plans which are continually +miscarrying against men who are continually disappearing by the +assistance of you know not whom, to crush you know not whom, this must +be a demoralising life for any man; it must be beyond description +demoralising for those who have been trained in no lofty or orderly +scheme of right. Small blame to them indeed if they become callous and +supercilious and cynical. And the great glory and achievement of Bret +Harte consists in this, that he realised that they do not become +callous, supercilious, and cynical, but that they do become sentimental +and romantic, and profoundly affectionate. He discovered the intense +sensibility of the primitive man. To him we owe the realisation of the +fact that while modern barbarians of genius like Mr. Henley, and in his +weaker moments Mr. Rudyard Kipling, delight in describing the coarseness +and crude cynicism and fierce humour of the unlettered classes, the +unlettered classes are in reality highly sentimental and religious, and +not in the least like the creations of Mr. Henley and Mr. Kipling. Bret +Harte tells the truth about the wildest, the grossest, the most +rapacious of all the districts of the earth--the truth that, while it is +very rare indeed in the world to find a thoroughly good man, it is +rarer still, rare to the point of monstrosity, to find a man who does +not either desire to be one, or imagine that he is one already. + + + + +ALFRED THE GREAT + + +The celebrations in connection with the millenary of King Alfred struck +a note of sympathy in the midst of much that was unsympathetic, because, +altogether apart from any peculiar historical opinions, all men feel the +sanctifying character of that which is at once strong and remote; the +ancient thing is always the most homely, and the distant thing the most +near. The only possible peacemaker is a dead man, ever since by the +sublime religious story a dead man only could reconcile heaven and +earth. In a certain sense we always feel the past ages as human, and our +own age as strangely and even weirdly dehumanised. In our own time the +details overpower us; men's badges and buttons seem to grow larger and +larger as in a horrible dream. To study humanity in the present is like +studying a mountain with a magnifying glass; to study it in the past is +like studying it through a telescope. + +For this reason England, like every other great and historic nation, has +sought its typical hero in remote and ill-recorded times. The personal +and moral greatness of Alfred is, indeed, beyond question. It does not +depend any more than the greatness of any other human hero upon the +accuracy of any or all of the stories that are told about him. Alfred +may not have done one of the things which are reported of him, but it is +immeasurably easier to do every one of those things than to be the man +of whom such things are reported falsely. Fable is, generally speaking, +far more accurate than fact, for fable describes a man as he was to his +own age, fact describes him as he is to a handful of inconsiderable +antiquarians many centuries after. Whether Alfred watched the cakes for +the neat-herd's wife, whether he sang songs in the Danish camp, is of no +interest to anyone except those who set out to prove under considerable +disadvantages that they are genealogically descended from him. But the +man is better pictured in these stories than in any number of modern +realistic trivialities about his favourite breakfast and his favourite +musical composer. Fable is more historical than fact, because fact tells +us about one man and fable tells us about a million men. If we read of a +man who could make green grass red and turn the sun into the moon, we +may not believe these particular details about him, but we learn +something infinitely more important than such trivialities, the fact +that men could look into his face and believe it possible. The glory and +greatness of Alfred, therefore, is like that of all the heroes of the +morning of the world, set far beyond the chance of that strange and +sudden dethronement which may arise from the unsealing of a manuscript +or the turning over of a stone. Men may have told lies when they said +that he first entrapped the Danes with his song and then overcame them +with his armies, but we know very well that it is not of us that such +lies are told. There may be myths clustering about each of our +personalities; local saga-men and chroniclers have very likely +circulated the story that we are addicted to drink, or that we +ferociously ill-use our wives. But they do not commonly lie to the +effect that we have shed our blood to save all the inhabitants of the +street. A story grows easily, but a heroic story is not a very easy +thing to evoke. Wherever that exists we may be pretty certain that we +are in the presence of a dark but powerful historic personality. We are +in the presence of a thousand lies all pointing with their fantastic +fingers to one undiscovered truth. + +Upon this ground alone every encouragement is due to the cult of Alfred. +Every nation requires to have behind it some historic personality, the +validity of which is proved, as the validity of a gun is proved, by its +long range. It is wonderful and splendid that we treasure, not the +truth, but the very gossip about a man who died a thousand years ago. We +may say to him, as M. Rostand says to the Austrian Prince: + + "Dors, ce n'est pas toujours la Légende qui ment: + Une rêve est parfois moins trompeur qu'un document." + +To have a man so simple and so honourable to represent us in the +darkness of primeval history, binds all the intervening centuries +together, and mollifies all their monstrosities. It makes all history +more comforting and intelligible; it makes the desolate temple of the +ages as human as an inn parlour. + +But whether it come through reliable facts or through more reliable +falsehoods the personality of Alfred has its own unmistakable colour and +stature. Lord Rosebery uttered a profound truth when he said that that +personality was peculiarly English. The great magnificence of the +English character is expressed in the word "service." There is, perhaps, +no nation so vitally theocratical as the English; no nation in which the +strong men have so consistently preferred the instrumental to the +despotic attitude, the pleasures of the loyal to the pleasures of the +royal position. We have had tyrants like Edward I. and Queen Elizabeth, +but even our tyrants have had the worried and responsible air of +stewards of a great estate. Our typical hero is such a man as the Duke +of Wellington, who had every kind of traditional and external arrogance, +but at the back of all that the strange humility which made it +physically possible for him without a gleam of humour or discomfort to +go on his knees to a preposterous bounder like George IV. Across the +infinite wastes of time and through all the mists of legend we still +feel the presence in Alfred of this strange and unconscious +self-effacement. After the fullest estimate of our misdeeds we can still +say that our very despots have been less self-assertive than many +popular patriots. As we consider these things we grow more and more +impatient of any modern tendencies towards the enthronement of a more +self-conscious and theatrical ideal. Lord Rosebery called up before our +imaginations the picture of what Alfred would have thought of the vast +modern developments of his nation, its immense fleet, its widespread +Empire, its enormous contribution to the mechanical civilisation of the +world. It cannot be anything but profitable to conceive Alfred as full +of astonishment and admiration at these things; it cannot be anything +but good for us that we should realise that to the childlike eyes of a +great man of old time our inventions and appliances have not the +vulgarity and ugliness that we see in them. To Alfred a steamboat would +be a new and sensational sea-dragon, and the penny postage a miracle +achieved by the despotism of a demi-god. + +But when we have realised all this there is something more to be said in +connection with Lord Rosebery's vision. What would King Alfred have said +if he had been asked to expend the money which he devoted to the health +and education of his people upon a struggle with some race of Visigoths +or Parthians inhabiting a small section of a distant continent? What +would he have said if he had known that that science of letters which he +taught to England would eventually be used not to spread truth, but to +drug the people with political assurances as imbecile in themselves as +the assurance that fire does not burn and water does not drown? What +would he have said if the same people who, in obedience to that ideal of +service and sanity of which he was the example, had borne every +privation in order to defeat Napoleon, should come at last to find no +better compliment to one of their heroes than to call him the Napoleon +of South Africa? What would he have said if that nation for which he had +inaugurated a long line of incomparable men of principle should forget +all its traditions and coquette with the immoral mysticism of the man of +destiny? + +Let us follow these things by all means if we find them good, and can +see nothing better. But to pretend that Alfred would have admired them +is like pretending that St. Dominic would have seen eye to eye with Mr. +Bradlaugh, or that Fra Angelico would have revelled in the posters of +Mr. Aubrey Beardsley. Let us follow them if we will, but let us take +honestly all the disadvantages of our change; in the wildest moment of +triumph let us feel the shadow upon our glories of the shame of the +great king. + + + + +MAETERLINCK + + +The selection of "Thoughts from Maeterlinck" is a very creditable and +also a very useful compilation. Many modern critics object to the +hacking and hewing of a consistent writer which is necessary for this +kind of work, but upon more serious consideration, the view is not +altogether adequate. Maeterlinck is a very great man; and in the long +run this process of mutilation has happened to all great men. It was the +mark of a great patriot to be drawn and quartered and his head set on +one spike in one city and his left leg on another spike in another city. +It was the mark of a saint that even these fragments began to work +miracles. So it has been with all the very great men of the world. +However careless, however botchy, may be the version of Maeterlinck or +of anyone else given in such a selection as this, it is assuredly far +less careless and far less botchy than the version, the parody, the +wild misrepresentation of Maeterlinck which future ages will hear and +distant critics be called upon to consider. + +No one can feel any reasonable doubt that we have heard about Christ and +Socrates and Buddha and St. Francis a mere chaos of excerpts, a mere +book of quotations. But from those fragmentary epigrams we can deduce +greatness as clearly as we can deduce Venus from the torso of Venus or +Hercules _ex pede Herculem_. If we knew nothing else about the Founder +of Christianity, for example, beyond the fact that a religious teacher +lived in a remote country, and in the course of his peregrinations and +proclamations consistently called Himself "the Son of Man," we should +know by that alone that he was a man of almost immeasurable greatness. +If future ages happened to record nothing else about Socrates except +that he owned his title to be the wisest of men because he knew that he +knew nothing, they would be able to deduce from that the height and +energy of his civilisation, the glory that was Greece. The credit of +such random compilations as that which "E.S.S." and Mr. George Allen +have just effected is quite secure. It is the pure, pedantic, literal +editions, the complete works of this author or that author which are +forgotten. It is such books as this that have revolutionised the destiny +of the world. Great things like Christianity or Platonism have never +been founded upon consistent editions; all of them have been founded +upon scrap-books. + +The position of Maeterlinck in modern life is a thing too obvious to be +easily determined in words. It is, perhaps, best expressed by saying +that it is the great glorification of the inside of things at the +expense of the outside. There is one great evil in modern life for which +nobody has found even approximately a tolerable description: I can only +invent a word and call it "remotism." It is the tendency to think first +of things which, as a matter of fact, lie far away from the actual +centre of human experience. Thus people say, "All our knowledge of life +begins with the amoeba." It is false; our knowledge of life begins with +ourselves. Thus they say that the British Empire is glorious, and at the +very word Empire they think at once of Australia and New Zealand, and +Canada, and Polar bears, and parrots and kangaroos, and it never occurs +to any one of them to think of the Surrey Hills. The one real struggle +in modern life is the struggle between the man like Maeterlinck, who +sees the inside as the truth, and the man like Zola, who sees the +outside as the truth. A hundred cases might be given. We may take, for +the sake of argument, the case of what is called falling in love. The +sincere realist, the man who believes in a certain finality in physical +science, says, "You may, if you like, describe this thing as a divine +and sacred and incredible vision; that is your sentimental theory about +it. But what it is, is an animal and sexual instinct designed for +certain natural purposes." The man on the other side, the idealist, +replies, with quite equal confidence, that this is the very reverse of +the truth. I put it as it has always struck me; he replies, "Not at all. +You may, if you like, describe this thing as an animal and sexual +instinct, designed for certain natural purposes; that is your +philosophical or zoölogical theory about it. What it is, beyond all +doubt of any kind, is a divine and sacred and incredible vision." The +fact that it is an animal necessity only comes to the naturalistic +philosopher after looking abroad, studying its origins and results, +constructing an explanation of its existence, more or less natural and +conclusive. The fact that it is a spiritual triumph comes to the first +errand boy who happens to feel it. If a lad of seventeen falls in love +and is struck dead by a hansom cab an hour afterwards, he has known the +thing as it is, a spiritual ecstasy; he has never come to trouble about +the thing as it may be, a physical destiny. If anyone says that falling +in love is an animal thing, the answer is very simple. The only way of +testing the matter is to ask those who are experiencing it, and none of +those would admit for a moment that it was an animal thing. + +Maeterlinck's appearance in Europe means primarily this subjective +intensity; by this the materialism is not overthrown: materialism is +undermined. He brings, not something which is more poetic than realism, +not something which is more spiritual than realism, not something which +is more right than realism, but something which is more real than +realism. He discovers the one indestructible thing. This material world +on which such vast systems have been superimposed--this may mean +anything. It may be a dream, it may be a joke, it may be a trap or +temptation, it may be a charade, it may be the beatific vision: the only +thing of which we are certain is this human soul. This human soul finds +itself alone in a terrible world, afraid of the grass. It has brought +forth poetry and religion in order to explain matters; it will bring +them forth again. It matters not one atom how often the lulls of +materialism and scepticism occur; they are always broken by the +reappearance of a fanatic. They have come in our time: they have been +broken by Maeterlinck. + + + + +RUSKIN[2] + + +I do not think anyone could find any fault with the way in which Mr. +Collingwood has discharged his task, except, of course, Mr. Ruskin +himself, who would certainly have scored through all the eulogies in +passionate red ink and declared that his dear friend had selected for +admiration the very parts of his work which were vile, brainless, and +revolting. That, however, was merely Ruskin's humour, and one of the +deepest disappointments with Mr. Collingwood is that he, like everyone +else, fails to appreciate Ruskin as a humourist. Yet he was a great +humourist: half the explosions which are solemnly scolded as "one-sided" +were simply meant to be one-sided, were mere laughing experiments in +language. Like a woman, he saw the humour of his own prejudices, did not +sophisticate them by logic, but deliberately exaggerated them by +rhetoric. One tenth of his paradoxes would have made the fortune of a +modern young man with gloves of an art yellow. He was as fond of +nonsense as Mr. Max Beerbohm. Only ... he was fond of other things too. +He did not ask humanity to dine on pickles. + +But while his kaleidoscope of fancy and epigram gives him some kinship +with the present day, he was essentially of an earlier type: he was the +last of the prophets. With him vanishes the secret of that early +Victorian simplicity which gave a man the courage to mount a pulpit +above the head of his fellows. Many elements, good and bad, have +destroyed it; humility as well as fear, camaraderie as well as +scepticism, have bred in us a desire to give our advice lightly and +persuasively, to mask our morality, to whisper a word and glide away. +The contrast was in some degree typified in the House of Commons under +the last leadership of Mr. Gladstone: the old order with its fist on the +box, and the new order with its feet on the table. Doubtless the wine of +that prophecy was too strong even for the strong heads that carried it. +It made Ruskin capricious and despotic, Tennyson lonely and whimsical, +Carlyle harsh to the point of hatred, and Kingsley often rabid to the +ruin of logic and charity. One alone of that race of giants, the +greatest and most neglected, was sober after the cup. No mission, no +frustration could touch with hysteria the humanity of Robert Browning. + +But though Ruskin seems to close the roll of the militant prophets, we +feel how needful are such figures when we consider with what pathetic +eagerness men pay prophetic honours even to those who disclaim the +prophetic character. Ibsen declares that he only depicts life, that as +far as he is concerned there is nothing to be done, and still armies of +"Ibsenites" rally to the flag and enthusiastically do nothing. I have +found traces of a school which avowedly follows Mr. Henry James: an idea +full of humour. I like to think of a crowd with pikes and torches +shouting passages from "The Awkward Age." It is right and proper for a +multitude to declare its readiness to follow a prophet to the end of the +world, but if he himself explains, with pathetic gesticulations, that +he is only going for a walk in the park, there is not much for the +multitude to do. But the disciple of Ruskin had plenty to do. He made +roads; in his spare moments he studied the whole of geology and botany. +He lifted up paving stones and got down into early Florentine cellars, +where, by hanging upside down, he could catch a glimpse of a Cimabue +unpraisable but by divine silence. He rushed from one end of a city to +the other comparing ceilings. His limbs were weary, his clothes were +torn, and in his eyes was that unfathomable joy of life which man will +never know again until once more he takes himself seriously. + +Mr. Collingwood's excellent chapters on the art criticism of Ruskin +would be better, in my opinion, if they showed more consciousness of the +after revolutions that have reversed, at least in detail, much of +Ruskin's teaching. We no longer think that art became valueless when it +was first corrupted with anatomical accuracy. But if we return to that +Raphaelism to which he was so unjust, let us not fall into the old +error of intelligent reactionaries, that of ignoring our own debt to +revolutions. Ruskin could not destroy the market of Raphaelism, but he +could and did destroy its monopoly. We may go back to the Renaissance, +but let us remember that we go back free. We can picnic now in the ruins +of our dungeon and deride our deliverer. + +But neither in Mr. Collingwood's book nor in Ruskin's own delightful +"Præterita" shall we ever get to the heart of the matter. The work of +Ruskin and his peers remains incomprehensible by the very completeness +of their victory. Fallen forever is that vast brick temple of +Utilitarianism, of which we may find the fragments but never renew the +spell. Liberal Unionists howl in its high places, and in its ruins Mr. +Lecky builds his nest. Its records read with something of the mysterious +arrogance of Chinese: hardly a generation away from us, we read of a +race who believed in the present with the same sort of servile optimism +with which the Oriental believes in the past. It may be that banging his +head against that roof for twenty years did not improve the temper of +the prophet. But he made what he praised in the old Italian +pictures--"an opening into eternity." + +FOOTNOTES: + +[2] "The Life of John Ruskin." By W.G. Collingwood. London: Methuen. + + + + +QUEEN VICTORIA + + +Anyone who possesses spiritual or political courage has made up his mind +to a prospect of immutable mutability; but even in a "transformation" +there is something catastrophic in the removal of the back scene. It is +a truism to say of the wise and noble lady who is gone from us that we +shall always remember her; but there is a subtler and higher compliment +still in confessing that we often forgot her. We forgot her as we forget +the sunshine, as we forget the postulates of an argument, as we commonly +forget our own existence. Mr. Gladstone is the only figure whose loss +prepared us for such earthquakes altering the landscape. But Mr. +Gladstone seemed a fixed and stationary object in our age for the same +reason that one railway train looks stationary from another; because he +and the age of progress were both travelling at the same impetuous rate +of speed. In the end, indeed, it was probably the age that dropped +behind. For a symbol of the Queen's position we must rather recur to the +image of a stretch of scenery, in which she was as a mountain so huge +and familiar that its disappearance would make the landscape round our +own door seem like a land of strangers. She had an inspired genius for +the familiarising virtues; her sympathy and sanity made us feel at home +even in an age of revolutions. That indestructible sense of security +which for good and evil is so typical of our nation, that almost +scornful optimism which, in the matter of ourselves, cannot take peril +or even decadence seriously, reached by far its highest and healthiest +form in the sense that we were watched over by one so thoroughly English +in her silence and self-control, in her shrewd trustfulness and her +brilliant inaction. Over and above those sublime laws of labour and pity +by which she ordered her life, there are a very large number of minor +intellectual matters in which we might learn a lesson from the Queen. +There is one especially which is increasingly needed in an age when +moral claims become complicated and hysterical. That Queen Victoria was +a model of political unselfishness is well known; it is less often +remarked that few modern people have an unselfishness so completely free +from morbidity, so fully capable of deciding a moral question without +exaggerating its importance. No eminent person of our time has been so +utterly devoid of that disease of self-assertion which is often rampant +among the unselfish. She had one most rare and valuable faculty, the +faculty of letting things pass--Acts of Parliament and other things. Her +predecessors, whether honest men or knaves, were attacked every now and +then with a nightmare of despotic responsibility; they suddenly +conceived that it rested with them to save the world and the Protestant +Constitution. Queen Victoria had far too much faith in the world to try +to save it. She knew that Acts of Parliament, even bad Acts of +Parliament, do not destroy nations. But she knew that ignorance, +ill-temper, tyranny, and officiousness do destroy nations, and not upon +any provocation would she set an example in these things. We fancy that +this sense of proportion, this largeness and coolness of intellectual +magnanimity is the one of the thousand virtues of Queen Victoria of +which the near future will stand most in need. We are gaining many new +mental powers, and with them new mental responsibilities. In psychology, +in sociology, above all in education, we are learning to do a great many +clever things. Unless we are much mistaken the next great task will be +to learn not to do them. If that time comes, assuredly we cannot do +better than turn once more to the memory of the great Queen who for +seventy years followed through every possible tangle and distraction the +fairy thread of common sense. + +We are suffering just now from an outbreak of the imagination which +exhibits itself in politics and the most unlikely places. The German +Emperor, for example, is neither a tyrant nor a lunatic, as used to be +absurdly represented; he is simply a minor poet; and he feels just as +any minor poet would feel if he found himself on the throne of +Barbarossa. The revival of militarism and ecclesiasticism is an invasion +of politics by the artistic sense; it is heraldry rather than chivalry +that is lusted after. Amid all this waving of wands and flaunting of +uniforms, all this hedonistic desire to make the most of everything, +there is something altogether quiet and splendid about the sober disdain +with which this simple and courteous lady in a black dress left idle +beside her the sceptre of a hundred tyrants. The heart of the whole +nation warmed as it had never warmed for centuries at the thought of +having in their midst a woman who cared nothing for her rights, and +nothing for those fantastic duties which are more egotistical than +rights themselves. + +The work of the Queen for progressive politics has surely been greatly +underrated. She invented democratic monarchy as much as James Watt +invented the steam engine. William IV., from whom we think of her as +inheriting her Constitutional position, held in fact a position entirely +different to that which she now hands on to Edward VII. William IV. was +a limited monarch; that is to say, he had a definite, open, and +admitted power in politics, but it was a limited power. Queen Victoria +was not a limited monarch; in the only way in which she cared to be a +monarch at all she was as unlimited as Haroun Alraschid. She had +unlimited willing obedience, and unlimited social supremacy. To her +belongs the credit of inventing a new kind of monarchy; in which the +Crown, by relinquishing the whole of that political and legal department +of life which is concerned with coercion, regimentation, and punishment, +was enabled to rise above it and become the symbol of the sweeter and +purer relations of humanity, the social intercourse which leads and does +not drive. Too much cannot be said for the wise audacity and confident +completeness with which the Queen cut away all those cords of political +supremacy to which her predecessors had clung madly as the only stays of +the monarchy. She had her reward. For while William IV.'s supremacy may +be called a survival, it is not too much to say that the Queen's +supremacy might be called a prophecy. By lifting a figure purely human +over the heads of judges and warriors, we uttered in some symbolic +fashion the abiding, if unreasoning, hope which dwells in all human +hearts, that some day we may find a simpler solution of the woes of +nations than the summons and the treadmill, that we may find in some +such influence as the social influence of a woman, what was called in +the noble old language of mediæval monarchy, "a fountain of mercy and a +fountain of honour." + +In the universal reverence paid to the Queen there was hardly anywhere a +touch of snobbishness. Snobbishness, in so far as it went out towards +former sovereigns, went out to them as aristocrats rather than as kings, +as heads of that higher order of men, who were almost angels or demons +in their admitted superiority to common lines of conduct. This kind of +reverence was always a curse: nothing can be conceived as worse for the +mass of the people than that they should think the morality for which +they have to struggle an inferior morality, a thing unfitted for a +haughtier class. But of this patrician element there was hardly a trace +in the dignity of the Queen. Indeed, the degree to which the middle and +lower classes took her troubles and problems to their hearts was almost +grotesque in its familiarity. No one thought of the Queen as an +aristocrat like the Duke of Devonshire, or even as a member of the +governing classes like Mr. Chamberlain. Men thought of her as something +nearer to them even in being further off; as one who was a good queen, +and who would have been, had her fate demanded, with equal cheerfulness, +a good washerwoman. Herein lay her unexampled triumph, the greatest and +perhaps the last triumph of monarchy. Monarchy in its healthiest days +had the same basis as democracy: the belief in human nature when +entrusted with power. A king was only the first citizen who received the +franchise. + +Both royalty and religion have been accused of despising humanity, and +in practice it has been too often true; but after all both the +conception of the prophet and that of the king were formed by paying +humanity the supreme compliment of selecting from it almost at random. +This daring idea that a healthy human being, when thrilled by all the +trumpets of a great trust, would rise to the situation, has often been +tested, but never with such complete success as in the case of our dead +Queen. On her was piled the crushing load of a vast and mystical +tradition, and she stood up straight under it. Heralds proclaimed her as +the anointed of God, and it did not seem presumptuous. Brave men died in +thousands shouting her name, and it did not seem unnatural. No mere +intellect, no mere worldly success could, in this age of bold inquiry, +have sustained that tremendous claim; long ago we should have stricken +Cæsar and dethroned Napoleon. But these glories and these sacrifices did +not seem too much to celebrate a hardworking human nature; they were +possible because at the heart of our Empire was nothing but a defiant +humility. If the Queen had stood for any novel or fantastic imperial +claims, the whole would have seemed a nightmare; the whole was +successful because she stood, and no one could deny that she stood, for +the humblest, the shortest and the most indestructible of human gospels, +that when all troubles and troublemongers have had their say, our work +can be done till sunset, our life can be lived till death. + + + + +THE GERMAN EMPEROR + + +The list of the really serious, the really convinced, the really +important and comprehensible people now alive includes, as most +Englishmen would now be prepared to admit, the German Emperor. He is a +practical man and a poet. I do not know whether there are still people +in existence who think there is some kind of faint antithesis between +these two characters; but I incline to think there must be, because of +the surprise which the career of the German Emperor has generally +evoked. When he came to the throne it became at once apparent that he +was poetical; people assumed in consequence that he was unpractical; +that he would plunge Europe into war, that he would try to annex France, +that he would say he was the Emperor of Russia, that he would stand on +his head in the Reichstag, that he would become a pirate on the Spanish +Main. Years upon years have passed; he has gone on making speeches, he +has gone on talking about God and his sword, he has poured out an ever +increased rhetoric and æstheticism. And yet all the time people have +slowly and surely realised that he knows what he is about, that he is +one of the best friends of peace, that his influence on Europe is not +only successful, but in many ways good, that he knows what world he is +living in better than a score of materialists. + +The explanation never comes to them--he is a poet; therefore, a +practical man. The affinity of the two words, merely as words, is much +nearer than many people suppose, for the matter of that. There is one +Greek word for "I do" from which we get the word practical, and another +Greek word for "I do" from which we get the word poet. I was doubtless +once informed of a profound difference between the two, but I have +forgotten it. The two words practical and poetical may mean two subtly +different things in that old and subtle language, but they mean the same +in English and the same in the long run. It is ridiculous to suppose +that the man who can understand the inmost intricacies of a human being +who has never existed at all cannot make a guess at the conduct of man +who lives next door. It is idle to say that a man who has himself felt +the mad longing under the mad moon for a vagabond life cannot know why +his son runs away to sea. It is idle to say that a man who has himself +felt the hunger for any kind of exhilaration, from angel or devil, +cannot know why his butler takes to drink. It is idle to say that a man +who has been fascinated with the wild fastidiousness of destiny does not +know why stockbrokers gamble, to say that a man who has been knocked +into the middle of eternal life by a face in a crowd does not know why +the poor marry young; that a man who found his path to all things kindly +and pleasant blackened and barred suddenly by the body of a man does not +know what it is to desire murder. It is idle, in short, for a man who +has created men to say that he does not understand them. A man who is a +poet may, of course, easily make mistakes in these personal and +practical relations; such mistakes and similar ones have been made by +poets; such mistakes and greater ones have been made by soldiers and +statesmen and men of business. But in so far as a poet is in these +things less of a practical man he is also less of a poet. + +If Shakespeare really married a bad wife when he had conceived the +character of Beatrice he ought to have been ashamed of himself: he had +failed not only in his life, he had failed in his art. If Balzac got +into rows with his publishers he ought to be rebuked and not +commiserated, having evolved so many consistent business men from his +own inside. The German Emperor is a poet, and therefore he succeeds, +because poetry is so much nearer to reality than all the other human +occupations. He is a poet, and succeeds because the majority of men are +poets. It is true, if that matter is at all important, that the German +Emperor is not a good poet. The majority of men are poets, only they +happen to be bad poets. The German Emperor fails ridiculously, if that +is all that is in question, in almost every one of the artistic +occupations to which he addresses himself: he is neither a first-rate +critic, nor a first-rate musician, nor a first-rate painter, nor a +first-rate poet. He is a twelfth-rate poet, but because he is a poet at +all he knocks to pieces all the first-rate politicians in the war of +politics. + +Having made clear my position so far, I discover with a certain amount +of interest that I have not yet got to the subject of these remarks. The +German Emperor is a poet, and although, as far as I know, every line he +ever wrote may be nonsense, he is a poet in this real sense, that he has +realised the meaning of every function he has performed. Why should we +jeer at him because he has a great many uniforms, for instance? The very +essence of the really imaginative man is that he realises the various +types or capacities in which he can appear. Every one of us, or almost +every one of us, does in reality fulfil almost as many offices as +Pooh-Bah. Almost every one of us is a ratepayer, an immortal soul, an +Englishman, a baptised person, a mammal, a minor poet, a juryman, a +married man, a bicyclist, a Christian, a purchaser of newspapers, and a +critic of Mr. Alfred Austin. We ought to have uniforms for all these +things. How beautiful it would be if we appeared to-morrow in the +uniform of a ratepayer, in brown and green, with buttons made in the +shape of coins, and a blue income-tax paper tastefully arranged as a +favour; or, again, if we appeared dressed as immortal souls, in a blue +uniform with stars. It would be very exciting to dress up as Englishmen, +or to go to a fancy dress ball as Christians. + +Some of the costumes I have suggested might appear a little more +difficult to carry out. The dress of a person who purchases newspapers +(though it mostly consists of coloured evening editions arranged in a +stiff skirt, like that of a saltatrice, round the waist of the wearer) +has many mysterious points. The attire of a person prepared to criticise +the Poet Laureate is something so awful and striking that I dare not +even begin to describe it; the one fact which I am willing to reveal, +and to state seriously and responsibly, is that it buttons up behind. + +But most assuredly we ought not to abuse the Kaiser because he is fond +of putting on all his uniforms; he does so because he has a large number +of established and involuntary incarnations. He tries to do his duty in +that state of life to which it shall please God to call him; and it so +happens that he has been called to as many different estates as there +are regiments in the German Army. He is a huntsman and proud of being a +huntsman, an engineer and proud of being an engineer, an infantry +soldier and proud of being so, a light horseman and proud of being so. +There is nothing wrong in all this; the only wrong thing is that it +should be confined to the merely destructive arts of war. The sight of +the German Kaiser in the most magnificent of the uniforms in which he +had led armies to victory is not in itself so splendid or delightful as +that of many other sights which might come before us without a whisper +of the alarms of war. It is not so splendid or delightful as the sight +of an ordinary householder showing himself in that magnificent uniform +of purple and silver which should signalise the father of three +children. It is not so splendid or delightful as the appearance of a +young clerk in an insurance office decorated with those three long +crimson plumes which are the well-known insignia of a gentleman who is +just engaged to be married. Nor can it compare with the look of a man +wearing the magnificent green and silver armour by which we know one who +has induced an acquaintance to give up getting drunk, or the blue and +gold which is only accorded to persons who have prevented fights in the +street. We belong to quite as many regiments as the German Kaiser. Our +regiments are regiments that are embattled everywhere; they fight an +unending fight against all that is hopeless and rapacious and of evil +report. The only difference is that we have the regiments, but not the +uniforms. + +Only one obvious point occurs to me to add. If the Kaiser has more than +any other man the sense of the poetry of the ancient things, the sword, +the crown, the ship, the nation, he has the sense of the poetry of +modern things also. He has one sense, and it is even a joke against +him. He feels the poetry of one thing that is more poetic than sword or +crown or ship or nation, the poetry of the telegram. No one ever sent a +telegram who did not feel like a god. He is a god, for he is a minor +poet; a minor poet, but a poet still. + + + + +TENNYSON + + +Mr. Morton Luce has written a short study of Tennyson which has +considerable cultivation and suggestiveness, which will be sufficient to +serve as a notebook for Tennyson's admirers, but scarcely sufficient, +perhaps, to serve as a pamphlet against his opponents. If a critic has, +as he ought to have, any of the functions anciently attributed to a +prophet, it ought not to be difficult for him to prophesy that Tennyson +will pass through a period of facile condemnation and neglect before we +arrive at the true appreciation of his work. The same thing has happened +to the most vigorous of essayists, Macaulay, and the most vigorous of +romancers, Dickens, because we live in a time when mere vigour is +considered a vulgar thing. The same idle and frigid reaction will almost +certainly discredit the stateliness and care of Tennyson, as it has +discredited the recklessness and inventiveness of Dickens. It is only +necessary to remember that no action can be discredited by a reaction. + +The attempts which have been made to discredit the poetical position of +Tennyson are in the main dictated by an entire misunderstanding of the +nature of poetry. When critics like Matthew Arnold, for example, suggest +that his poetry is deficient in elaborate thought, they only prove, as +Matthew Arnold proved, that they themselves could never be great poets. +It is no valid accusation against a poet that the sentiment he expresses +is commonplace. Poetry is always commonplace; it is vulgar in the +noblest sense of that noble word. Unless a man can make the same kind of +ringing appeal to absolute and admitted sentiments that is made by a +popular orator, he has lost touch with emotional literature. Unless he +is to some extent a demagogue, he cannot be a poet. A man who expresses +in poetry new and strange and undiscovered emotions is not a poet; he is +a brain specialist. Tennyson can never be discredited before any serious +tribunal of criticism because the sentiments and thoughts to which he +dedicates himself are those sentiments and thoughts which occur to +anyone. These are the peculiar province of poetry; poetry, like +religion, is always a democratic thing, even if it pretends the +contrary. The faults of Tennyson, so far as they existed, were not half +so much in the common character of his sentiments as in the arrogant +perfection of his workmanship. He was not by any means so wrong in his +faults as he was in his perfections. + +Men are very much too ready to speak of men's work being ordinary, when +we consider that, properly considered, every man is extraordinary. The +average man is a tribal fable, like the Man-Wolf or the Wise Man of the +Stoics. In every man's heart there is a revolution; how much more in +every poet's? The supreme business of criticism is to discover that part +of a man's work which is his and to ignore that part which belongs to +others. Why should any critic of poetry spend time and attention on that +part of a man's work which is unpoetical? Why should any man be +interested in aspects which are uninteresting? The business of a critic +is to discover the importance of men and not their crimes. It is true +that the Greek word critic carries with it the meaning of a judge, and +up to this point of history judges have had to do with the valuation of +men's sins, and not with the valuation of their virtues. + +Tennyson's work, disencumbered of all that uninteresting accretion which +he had inherited or copied, resolves itself, like that of any other man +of genius, into those things which he really inaugurated. Underneath all +his exterior of polished and polite rectitude there was in him a genuine +fire of novelty; only that, like all the able men of his period, he +disguised revolution under the name of evolution. He is only a very +shallow critic who cannot see an eternal rebel in the heart of the +Conservative. + +Tennyson had certain absolutely personal ideas, as much his own as the +ideas of Browning or Meredith, though they were fewer in number. One of +these, for example, was the fact that he was the first of all poets (and +perhaps the last) to attempt to treat poetically that vast and monstrous +vision of fact which science had recently revealed to mankind. +Scientific discoveries seem commonly fables as fantastic in the ears of +poets as poems in the ears of men of science. The poet is always a +Ptolemaist; for him the sun still rises and the earth stands still. +Tennyson really worked the essence of modern science into his poetical +constitution, so that its appalling birds and frightful flowers were +really part of his literary imagery. To him blind and brutal monsters, +the products of the wild babyhood of the Universe, were as the daisies +and the nightingales were to Keats; he absolutely realised the great +literary paradox mentioned in the Book of Job: "He saw Behemoth, and he +played with him as with a bird." + +Instances of this would not be difficult to find. But the tests of +poetry are those instances in which this outrageous scientific +phraseology becomes natural and unconscious. Tennyson wrote one of his +own exquisite lyrics describing the exultation of a lover on the evening +before his bridal day. This would be an occasion, if ever there was one, +for falling back on those ancient and assured falsehoods of the domed +heaven and the flat earth in which generations of poets have made us +feel at home. We can imagine the poet in such a lyric saluting the +setting sun and prophesying the sun's resurrection. There is something +extraordinarily typical of Tennyson's scientific faith in the fact that +this, one of the most sentimental and elemental of his poems, opens with +the two lines: + + "Move eastward, happy earth, and leave + Yon orange sunset waning slow." + +Rivers had often been commanded to flow by poets, and flowers to blossom +in their season, and both were doubtless grateful for the permission. +But the terrestrial globe of science has only twice, so far as we know, +been encouraged in poetry to continue its course, one instance being +that of this poem, and the other the incomparable "Address to the +Terrestrial Globe" in the "Bab Ballads." + +There was, again, another poetic element entirely peculiar to Tennyson, +which his critics have, in many cases, ridiculously confused with a +fault. This was the fact that Tennyson stood alone among modern poets +in the attempt to give a poetic character to the conception of Liberal +Conservatism, of splendid compromise. The carping critics who have +abused Tennyson for this do not see that it was far more daring and +original for a poet to defend conventionality than to defend a cart-load +of revolutions. His really sound and essential conception of Liberty, + + "Turning to scorn with lips divine + The falsehood of extremes," + +is as good a definition of Liberalism as has been uttered in poetry in +the Liberal century. Moderation is _not_ a compromise; moderation is a +passion; the passion of great judges. That Tennyson felt that lyrical +enthusiasm could be devoted to established customs, to indefensible and +ineradicable national constitutions, to the dignity of time and the +empire of unutterable common sense, all this did not make him a tamer +poet, but an infinitely more original one. Any poetaster can describe a +thunderstorm; it requires a poet to describe the ancient and quiet sky. + + +I cannot, indeed, fall in with Mr. Morton Luce in his somewhat frigid +and patrician theory of poetry. "Dialect," he says, "mostly falls below +the dignity of art." I cannot feel myself that art has any dignity +higher than the indwelling and divine dignity of human nature. Great +poets like Burns were far more undignified when they clothed their +thoughts in what Mr. Morton Luce calls "the seemly raiment of cultured +speech" than when they clothed them in the headlong and flexible patois +in which they thought and prayed and quarrelled and made love. If +Tennyson failed (which I do not admit) in such poems as "The Northern +Farmer," it was not because he used too much of the spirit of the +dialect, but because he used too little. + +Tennyson belonged undoubtedly to a period from which we are divided; the +period in which men had queer ideas of the antagonism of science and +religion; the period in which the Missing Link was really missing. But +his hold upon the old realities of existence never wavered; he was the +apostle of the sanctity of laws, of the sanctity of customs; above all, +like every poet, he was the apostle of the sanctity of words. + + + + +ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING + + +The delightful new edition of Mrs. Browning's "Casa Guidi Windows" which +Mr. John Lane has just issued ought certainly to serve as an opportunity +for the serious criticism and inevitable admiration to which a great +poet is entitled. For Mrs. Browning was a great poet, and not, as is +idly and vulgarly supposed, only a great poetess. The word poetess is +bad English, and it conveys a particularly bad compliment. Nothing is +more remarkable about Mrs. Browning's work than the absence of that +trite and namby-pamby elegance which the last two centuries demanded +from lady writers. Wherever her verse is bad it is bad from some +extravagance of imagery, some violence of comparison, some kind of +debauch of cleverness. Her nonsense never arises from weakness, but from +a confusion of powers. If the phrase explain itself, she is far more a +great poet than she is a good one. + +Mrs. Browning often appears more luscious and sentimental than many +other literary women, but this was because she was stronger. It requires +a certain amount of internal force to break down. A complete +self-humiliation requires enormous strength, more strength than most of +us possess. When she was writing the poetry of self-abandonment she +really abandoned herself with the valour and decision of an anchorite +abandoning the world. Such a couplet as: + + "Our Euripides, the human, + With his dropping of warm tears," + +gives to most of us a sickly and nauseous sensation. Nothing can be well +conceived more ridiculous than Euripides going about dropping tears with +a loud splash, and Mrs. Browning coming after him with a thermometer. +But the one emphatic point about this idiotic couplet is that Mrs. +Hemans would never have written it. She would have written something +perfectly dignified, perfectly harmless, perfectly inconsiderable. Mrs. +Browning was in a great and serious difficulty. She really meant +something. She aimed at a vivid and curious image, and she missed it. +She had that catastrophic and public failure which is, as much as a +medal or a testimonial, the badge of the brave. + +In spite of the tiresome half-truth that art is unmoral, the arts +require a certain considerable number of moral qualities, and more +especially all the arts require courage. The art of drawing, for +example, requires even a kind of physical courage. Anyone who has tried +to draw a straight line and failed knows that he fails chiefly in nerve, +as he might fail to jump off a cliff. And similarly all great literary +art involves the element of risk, and the greatest literary artists have +commonly been those who have run the greatest risk of talking nonsense. +Almost all great poets rant, from Shakespeare downwards. Mrs. Browning +was Elizabethan in her luxuriance and her audacity, and the gigantic +scale of her wit. We often feel with her as we feel with Shakespeare, +that she would have done better with half as much talent. The great +curse of the Elizabethans is upon her, that she cannot leave anything +alone, she cannot write a single line without a conceit: + + "And the eyes of the peacock fans + Winked at the alien glory," + +she said of the Papal fans in the presence of the Italian tricolour: + + "And a royal blood sends glances up her princely eye to trouble, + And the shadow of a monarch's crown is softened in her hair," + +is her description of a beautiful and aristocratic lady. The notion of +peacock feathers winking like so many London urchins is perhaps one of +her rather aggressive and outrageous figures of speech. The image of a +woman's hair as the softened shadow of a crown is a singularly vivid and +perfect one. But both have the same quality of intellectual fancy and +intellectual concentration. They are both instances of a sort of +ethereal epigram. This is the great and dominant characteristic of Mrs. +Browning, that she was significant alike in failure and success. Just as +every marriage in the world, good or bad, is a marriage, dramatic, +irrevocable, and big with coming events, so every one of her wild +weddings between alien ideas is an accomplished fact which produces a +certain effect on the imagination, which has for good or evil become +part and parcel of our mental vision forever. She gives the reader the +impression that she never declined a fancy, just as some gentlemen of +the eighteenth century never declined a duel. When she fell it was +always because she missed the foothold, never because she funked the +leap. + +"Casa Guidi Windows" is, in one aspect, a poem very typical of its +author. Mrs. Browning may fairly be called the peculiar poet of +Liberalism, of that great movement of the first half of the nineteenth +century towards the emancipation of men from ancient institutions which +had gradually changed their nature, from the houses of refuge which had +turned into dungeons, and the mystic jewels which remained only as +fetters. It was not what we ordinarily understand by revolt. It had no +hatred in its heart for ancient and essentially human institutions. It +had that deeply conservative belief in the most ancient of institutions, +the average man, which goes by the name of democracy. It had none of +the spirit of modern Imperialism which is kicking a man because he is +down. But, on the other hand, it had none of the spirit of modern +Anarchism and scepticism which is kicking a man merely because he is up. +It was based fundamentally on a belief in the destiny of humanity, +whether that belief took an irreligious form, as in Swinburne, or a +religious form, as in Mrs. Browning. It had that rooted and natural +conviction that the Millennium was coming to-morrow which has been the +conviction of all iconoclasts and reformers, and for which some +rationalists have been absurd enough to blame the early Christians. But +they had none of that disposition to pin their whole faith to some +black-and-white scientific system which afterwards became the curse of +philosophical Radicalism. They were not like the sociologists who lay +down a final rectification of things, amounting to nothing except an end +of the world, a great deal more depressing than would be the case if it +were knocked to pieces by a comet. Their ideal, like the ideal of all +sensible people, was a chaotic and confused notion of goodness made up +of English primroses and Greek statues, birds singing in April, and +regiments being cut to pieces for a flag. They were neither Radicals nor +Socialists, but Liberals, and a Liberal is a noble and indispensable +lunatic who tries to make a cosmos of his own head. + +Mrs. Browning and her husband were more liberal than most Liberals. +Theirs was the hospitality of the intellect and the hospitality of the +heart, which is the best definition of the term. They never fell into +the habit of the idle revolutionists of supposing that the past was bad +because the future was good, which amounted to asserting that because +humanity had never made anything but mistakes it was now quite certain +to be right. Browning possessed in a greater degree than any other man +the power of realising that all conventions were only victorious +revolutions. He could follow the mediæval logicians in all their sowing +of the wind and reaping of the whirlwind with all that generous ardour +which is due to abstract ideas. He could study the ancients with the +young eyes of the Renaissance and read a Greek grammar like a book of +love lyrics. This immense and almost confounding Liberalism of Browning +doubtless had some effect upon his wife. In her vision of New Italy she +went back to the image of Ancient Italy like an honest and true +revolutionist; for does not the very word "revolution" mean a rolling +backward. All true revolutions are reversions to the natural and the +normal. A revolutionist who breaks with the past is a notion fit for an +idiot. For how could a man even wish for something which he had never +heard of? Mrs. Browning's inexhaustible sympathy with all the ancient +and essential passions of humanity was nowhere more in evidence than in +her conception of patriotism. For some dark reason, which it is +difficult indeed to fathom, belief in patriotism in our day is held to +mean principally a belief in every other nation abandoning its patriotic +feelings. In the case of no other passion does this weird contradiction +exist. Men whose lives are mainly based upon friendship sympathise with +the friendships of others. The interest of engaged couples in each other +is a proverb, and like many other proverbs sometimes a nuisance. In +patriotism alone it is considered correct just now to assume that the +sentiment does not exist in other people. It was not so with the great +Liberals of Mrs. Browning's time. The Brownings had, so to speak, a +disembodied talent for patriotism. They loved England and they loved +Italy; yet they were the very reverse of cosmopolitans. They loved the +two countries as countries, not as arbitrary divisions of the globe. +They had hold of the root and essence of patriotism. They knew how +certain flowers and birds and rivers pass into the mills of the brain +and come out as wars and discoveries, and how some triumphant adventure +or some staggering crime wrought in a remote continent may bear about it +the colour of an Italian city or the soul of a silent village of Surrey. + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Varied Types, by G. K. 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Chesterton. + </title> + <style type="text/css"> +/*<![CDATA[ XML blockout */ +<!-- + p { margin-top: .75em; + text-align: justify; + margin-bottom: .75em; + } + h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6 { + text-align: center; /* all headings centered */ + clear: both; + } + hr {text-align: center; width: 50%;} + html>body hr {margin-right: 25%; margin-left: 25%; width: 50%;} + hr.full {width: 80%; margin-top: 2em; margin-bottom: 2em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; clear: both;} + html>body hr.full {margin-right: 10%; margin-left: 10%; width: 80%;} + hr.short {text-align: center; width: 20%;} + html>body hr.short {margin-right: 40%; margin-left: 40%; width: 20%;} + + table {margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;font-variant: small-caps;} + + body{margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; + } + + .linenum {position: absolute; top: auto; left: 4%;} /* poetry number */ + .blockquot{margin-left: 5%; margin-right: 10%;} + .pagenum {position: absolute; left: 92%; font-size: smaller; text-align: right;} /* page numbers */ + .sidenote {width: 20%; padding-bottom: .5em; padding-top: .5em; + padding-left: .5em; padding-right: .5em; margin-left: 1em; + float: right; clear: right; margin-top: 1em; + font-size: smaller; background: #eeeeee; border: dashed 1px;} + + .bb {border-bottom: solid 2px;} + .bl {border-left: solid 2px;} + .bt {border-top: solid 2px;} + .br {border-right: solid 2px;} + .bbox {border: solid 2px;} + + .center {text-align: center;} + .smcap {font-variant: small-caps;} + + .figcenter {margin: auto; text-align: center;} + + .figleft {float: left; clear: left; margin-left: 0; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-top: + 1em; margin-right: 1em; padding: 0; text-align: center;} + + .figright {float: right; clear: right; margin-left: 1em; margin-bottom: 1em; + margin-top: 1em; margin-right: 0; padding: 0; text-align: center;} + + .footnotes {border: dashed 1px;} + .footnote {margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; font-size: 0.9em;} + .footnote .label {position: absolute; right: 84%; text-align: right;} + .fnanchor {vertical-align: super; font-size: .8em; text-decoration: none;} + + .poem {margin-left:10%; margin-right:10%; text-align: left;} + .poem br {display: none;} + .poem .stanza {margin: 1em 0em 1em 0em;} + .poem span {display: block; margin: 0; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;} + .poem span.i2 {display: block; margin-left: 2em;} + .poem span.i4 {display: block; margin-left: 4em;} + // --> + /* XML end ]]>*/ + </style> + </head> +<body> + + +<pre> + +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Varied Types, by G. K. Chesterton + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere 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 + + +Title: Varied Types + +Author: G. K. Chesterton + +Release Date: November 29, 2004 [EBook #14203] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK VARIED TYPES *** + + + + +Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Melissa Er-Raqabi and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + +</pre> + + +<p class="figcenter"><img src="images/cover.png" alt="Cover Illustration" title="Cover Illustration" /></p> + + +<h1><i>Varied Types</i></h1> + +<h3><i>By</i></h3> + +<h2>G.K. Chesterton</h2> + +<h5>Author <i>of</i> "The Defendant," etc.</h5> + +<h5>New York: <i>Dodd, Mead and Company</i></h5> + +<h5 class="smcap">Published September, 1905</h5> + + +<hr class="full" /> + + +<h4>NOTE</h4> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>These papers, with certain alterations and additions, are reprinted +with the kind permission of the Editors of <i>The Daily News</i> and <i>The +Speaker</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>G. K. C.</p></div> + +<div class="blockquot"><p class="smcap">Kensington.</p></div> + +<p class="figcenter"><img src="images/frontispiece.png" alt="G. K. Chesterton" title="G. K. Chesterton" /></p> +<p class="figcenter">G. K. Chesterton</p> +<hr class="full" /> +<h2>CONTENTS</h2> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" summary="Table of Contents"> +<tr><td align='left'> </td><td align='right'>Page</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#CHARLOTTE_BRONTE">Charlotte Brontë</a></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_3">3</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#WILLIAM_MORRIS_AND_HIS_SCHOOL">William Morris And His School</a></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_15">15</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#OPTIMISM_OF_BYRON">The Optimism Of Byron</a></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_29">29</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#POPE_AND_THE_ART_OF_SATIRE">Pope And The Art Of Satire</a></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_43">43</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#FRANCIS">Francis</a></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_59">59</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#ROSTAND">Rostand</a></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_73">73</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#CHARLES_II">Charles II.</a></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_85">85</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#STEVENSON1">Stevenson</a></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_97">97</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#THOMAS_CARLYLE">Thomas Carlyle</a></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_109">109</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#TOLSTOY_AND_THE_CULT_OF_SIMPLICITY">Tolstoy And The Cult Of Simplicity</a></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_125">125</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#SAVONAROLA">Savonarola</a></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_147">147</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#THE_POSITION_OF_SIR_WALTER_SCOTT">The Position Of Sir Walter Scott</a></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_159">159</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#BRET_HARTE">Bret Harte</a></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_179">179</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#ALFRED_THE_GREAT">Alfred The Great</a></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_199">199</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#MAETERLINCK">Maeterlinck</a></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_209">209</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#RUSKIN2">Ruskin</a></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_217">217</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#QUEEN_VICTORIA">Queen Victoria</a></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_225">225</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#THE_GERMAN_EMPEROR">The German Emperor</a></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_227">227</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#TENNYSON">Tennyson</a></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_249">249</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#ELIZABETH_BARRETT_BROWNING">Elizabeth Barrett Browning</a></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_261">261</a></td></tr> +</table> + + +<p><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1"></a><a name="Page_2" id="Page_2"></a><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3"></a></p> + + +<hr class="full" /> +<h2><a name="CHARLOTTE_BRONTE" id="CHARLOTTE_BRONTE"></a>CHARLOTTE BRONTË</h2> + + +<p>Objection is often raised against realistic biography because it reveals +so much that is important and even sacred about a man's life. The real +objection to it will rather be found in the fact that it reveals about a +man the precise points which are unimportant. It reveals and asserts and +insists on exactly those things in a man's life of which the man himself +is wholly unconscious; his exact class in society, the circumstances of +his ancestry, the place of his present location. These are things which +do not, properly speaking, ever arise before the human vision. They do +not occur to a man's mind; it may be said, with almost equal truth, that +they do not occur in a man's life. A man no more thinks about himself as<a name="Page_4" id="Page_4"></a> +the inhabitant of the third house in a row of Brixton villas than he +thinks about himself as a strange animal with two legs. What a man's +name was, what his income was, whom he married, where he lived, these +are not sanctities; they are irrelevancies.</p> + +<p>A very strong case of this is the case of the Brontës. The Brontë is in +the position of the mad lady in a country village; her eccentricities +form an endless source of innocent conversation to that exceedingly mild +and bucolic circle, the literary world. The truly glorious gossips of +literature, like Mr. Augustine Birrell and Mr. Andrew Lang, never tire +of collecting all the glimpses and anecdotes and sermons and side-lights +and sticks and straws which will go to make a Brontë museum. They are +the most personally discussed of all Victorian authors, and the +limelight of biography has left few darkened corners in the dark old +Yorkshire house. And yet the whole of this biographical investigation, +though natural and picturesque, is not wholly suitable to the Brontës. +For the Brontë genius was above all things deputed to assert the supreme<a name="Page_5" id="Page_5"></a> +unimportance of externals. Up to that point truth had always been +conceived as existing more or less in the novel of manners. Charlotte +Brontë electrified the world by showing that an infinitely older and +more elemental truth could be conveyed by a novel in which no person, +good or bad, had any manners at all. Her work represents the first great +assertion that the humdrum life of modern civilisation is a disguise as +tawdry and deceptive as the costume of a <i>bal masqué</i>. She showed that +abysses may exist inside a governess and eternities inside a +manufacturer; her heroine is the commonplace spinster, with the dress of +merino and the soul of flame. It is significant to notice that Charlotte +Brontë, following consciously or unconsciously the great trend of her +genius, was the first to take away from the heroine not only the +artificial gold and diamonds of wealth and fashion, but even the natural +gold and diamonds of physical beauty and grace. Instinctively she felt +that the whole of the exterior <a name="Page_6" id="Page_6"></a>must be made ugly that the whole of the +interior might be made sublime. She chose the ugliest of women in the +ugliest of centuries, and revealed within them all the hells and heavens +of Dante.</p> + +<p>It may, therefore, I think, be legitimately said that the externals of +the Brontës' life, though singularly picturesque in themselves, matter +less than the externals of almost any other writers. It is interesting +to know whether Jane Austen had any knowledge of the lives of the +officers and women of fashion whom she introduced into her masterpieces. +It is interesting to know whether Dickens had ever seen a shipwreck or +been inside a workhouse. For in these authors much of the conviction is +conveyed, not always by adherence to facts, but always by grasp of them. +But the whole aim and purport and meaning of the work of the Brontës is +that the most futile thing in the whole universe is fact. Such a story +as "Jane Eyre" is in itself so monstrous a fable that it ought to be +excluded from a book of fairy tales. The characters do not do what they +ought to do, nor what they would <a name="Page_7" id="Page_7"></a>do, nor it might be said, such is the +insanity of the atmosphere, not even what they intend to do. The conduct +of Rochester is so primevally and superhumanly caddish that Bret Harte +in his admirable travesty scarcely exaggerated it. "Then, resuming his +usual manner, he threw his boots at my head and withdrew," does perhaps +reach to something resembling caricature. The scene in which Rochester +dresses up as an old gipsy has something in it which is really not to be +found in any other branch of art, except in the end of the pantomime, +where the Emperor turns into a pantaloon. Yet, despite this vast +nightmare of illusion and morbidity and ignorance of the world, "Jane +Eyre" is perhaps the truest book that was ever written. Its essential +truth to life sometimes makes one catch one's breath. For it is not true +to manners, which are constantly false, or to facts, which are almost +always false; it is true to the only existing thing which is true, +emotion, the irreducible minimum, the indestructible germ. It would not +matter a single straw if a Brontë story were a hundred times more +moonstruck and im<a name="Page_8" id="Page_8"></a>probable than "Jane Eyre," or a hundred times more +moonstruck and improbable than "Wuthering Heights." It would not matter +if George Read stood on his head, and Mrs. Read rode on a dragon, if +Fairfax Rochester had four eyes and St. John Rivers three legs, the +story would still remain the truest story in the world. The typical +Brontë character is, indeed, a kind of monster. Everything in him except +the essential is dislocated. His hands are on his legs and his feet on +his arms, his nose is above his eyes, but his heart is in the right +place.</p> + +<p>The great and abiding truth for which the Brontë cycle of fiction stands +is a certain most important truth about the enduring spirit of youth, +the truth of the near kinship between terror and joy. The Brontë +heroine, dingily dressed, badly educated, hampered by a humiliating +inexperience, a kind of ugly innocence, is yet, by the very fact of her +solitude and her gaucherie, full of the greatest delight that is +possible to a human being, the delight of expectation, the delight of an +ardent and flamboyant ign<a name="Page_9" id="Page_9"></a>orance. She serves to show how futile it is of +humanity to suppose that pleasure can be attained chiefly by putting on +evening dress every evening, and having a box at the theatre every first +night. It is not the man of pleasure who has pleasure; it is not the man +of the world who appreciates the world. The man who has learnt to do all +conventional things perfectly has at the same time learnt to do them +prosaically. It is the awkward man, whose evening dress does not fit +him, whose gloves will not go on, whose compliments will not come off, +who is really full of the ancient ecstasies of youth. He is frightened +enough of society actually to enjoy his triumphs. He has that element of +fear which is one of the eternal ingredients of joy. This spirit is the +central spirit of the Brontë novel. It is the epic of the exhilaration +of the shy man. As such it is of incalculable value in our time, of +which the curse is that it does not take joy reverently because it does +not take it fearfully. The shabby and inconspicuous governess of +Charlotte Brontë, with the small outlook and the small creed,<a name="Page_10" id="Page_10"></a> had more +commerce with the awful and elemental forces which drive the world than +a legion of lawless minor poets. She approached the universe with real +simplicity, and, consequently, with real fear and delight. She was, so +to speak, shy before the multitude of the stars, and in this she had +possessed herself of the only force which can prevent enjoyment being as +black and barren as routine. The faculty of being shy is the first and +the most delicate of the powers of enjoyment. The fear of the Lord is +the beginning of pleasure.</p> + +<p>Upon the whole, therefore, I think it may justifiably be said that the +dark wild youth of the Brontës in their dark wild Yorkshire home has +been somewhat exaggerated as a necessary factor in their work and their +conception. The emotions with which they dealt were universal emotions, +emotions of the morning of existence, the springtide joy and the +springtide terror. Every one of us as a boy or girl has had some +midnight dream of nameless obstacle and unutterable menace, in which +there was, under whatever imbecile<a name="Page_11" id="Page_11"></a> forms, all the deadly stress and +panic of "Wuthering Heights." Every one of us has had a day-dream of +our own potential destiny not one atom more reasonable than "Jane Eyre." +And the truth which the Brontës came to tell us is the truth that many +waters cannot quench love, and that suburban respectability cannot touch +or damp a secret enthusiasm. Clapham, like every other earthly city, is +built upon a volcano. Thousands of people go to and fro in the +wilderness of bricks and mortar, earning mean wages, professing a mean +religion, wearing a mean attire, thousands of women who have never found +any expression for their exaltation or their tragedy but to go on +working harder and yet harder at dull and automatic employments, at +scolding children or stitching shirts. But out of all these silent ones +one suddenly became articulate, and spoke a resonant testimony, and her +name was Charlotte Brontë. Spreading around us upon every side to-day +like a huge and radiating geometrical figure are the endless branches of +the great city. There are times when we are almost stricken crazy,<a name="Page_12" id="Page_12"></a> as +well we may be, by the multiplicity of those appalling perspectives, the +frantic arithmetic of that unthinkable population. But this thought of +ours is in truth nothing but a fancy. There are no chains of houses; +there are no crowds of men. The colossal diagram of streets and houses +is an illusion, the opium dream of a speculative builder. Each of these +men is supremely solitary and supremely important to himself. Each of +these houses stands in the centre of the world. There is no single house +of all those millions which has not seemed to someone at some time the +heart of all things and the end of travel.<a name="Page_13" id="Page_13"></a><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14"></a><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15"></a></p> + + + +<hr class="full" /> +<h2><a name="WILLIAM_MORRIS_AND_HIS_SCHOOL" id="WILLIAM_MORRIS_AND_HIS_SCHOOL"></a>WILLIAM MORRIS AND HIS SCHOOL</h2> + + +<p>It is proper enough that the unveiling of the bust of William Morris +should approximate to a public festival, for while there have been many +men of genius in the Victorian era more despotic than he, there have +been none so representative. He represents not only that rapacious +hunger for beauty which has now for the first time become a serious +problem in the healthy life of humanity, but he represents also that +honourable instinct for finding beauty in common necessities of +workmanship which gives it a stronger and more bony structure. The time +has passed when William Morris was conceived to be irrelevant to be +described as a designer of wall-papers. If Morris had been a hatter +instead of a decorator, we should have become gradually and painfully +conscious of an improvement in our hats. If he had been<a name="Page_16" id="Page_16"></a> a tailor, we +should have suddenly found our frock-coats trailing on the ground with +the grandeur of mediæval raiment. If he had been a shoemaker, we should +have found, with no little consternation, our shoes gradually +approximating to the antique sandal. As a hairdresser, he would have +invented some massing of the hair worthy to be the crown of Venus; as an +ironmonger, his nails would have had some noble pattern, fit to be the +nails of the Cross.</p> + +<p>The limitations of William Morris, whatever they were, were not the +limitations of common decoration. It is true that all his work, even his +literary work, was in some sense decorative, had in some degree the +qualities of a splendid wall-paper. His characters, his stories, his +religious and political views, had, in the most emphatic sense, length +and breadth without thickness. He seemed really to believe that men +could enjoy a perfectly flat felicity. He made no account of the +unexplored and explosive possibilities of human nature, of the +unnameable terrors, and the yet more unnameable hopes. So long as a man +was grace<a name="Page_17" id="Page_17"></a>ful in every circumstance, so long as he had the inspiring +consciousness that the chestnut colour of his hair was relieved against +the blue forest a mile behind, he would be serenely happy. So he would +be, no doubt, if he were really fitted for a decorative existence; if he +were a piece of exquisitely coloured card-board.</p> + +<p>But although Morris took little account of the terrible solidity of +human nature—took little account, so to speak, of human figures in the +round, it is altogether unfair to represent him as a mere æsthete. He +perceived a great public necessity and fulfilled it heroically. The +difficulty with which he grappled was one so immense that we shall have +to be separated from it by many centuries before we can really judge of +it. It was the problem of the elaborate and deliberate ugliness of the +most self-conscious of centuries. Morris at least saw the absurdity of +the thing. He felt it was monstrous that the modern man, who was +pre-eminently capable of realising the strangest and most contradictory +beauties, who could feel at once the<a name="Page_18" id="Page_18"></a> fiery aureole of the ascetic and +the colossal calm of the Hellenic god, should himself, by a farcical +bathos, be buried in a black coat, and hidden under a chimney-pot hat. +He could not see why the harmless man who desired to be an artist in +raiment should be condemned to be, at best, a black and white artist. It +is indeed difficult to account for the clinging curse of ugliness which +blights everything brought forth by the most prosperous of centuries. In +all created nature there is not, perhaps, anything so completely ugly as +a pillar-box. Its shape is the most unmeaning of shapes, its height and +thickness just neutralising each other; its colour is the most repulsive +of colours—a fat and soulless red, a red without a touch of blood or +fire, like the scarlet of dead men's sins. Yet there is no reason +whatever why such hideousness should possess an object full of civic +dignity, the treasure-house of a thousand secrets, the fortress of a +thousand souls. If the old Greeks had had such an institution, we may be +sure that it would have been surmounted by the severe, but graceful, +figure of the<a name="Page_19" id="Page_19"></a> god of letter-writing. If the mediæval Christians has +possessed it, it would have had a niche filled with the golden aureole +of St. Rowland of the Postage Stamps. As it is, there it stands at all +our street-corners, disguising one of the most beautiful of ideas under +one of the most preposterous of forms. It is useless to deny that the +miracles of science have not been such an incentive to art and +imagination as were the miracles of religion. If men in the twelfth +century had been told that the lightning had been driven for leagues +underground, and had dragged at its destroying tail loads of laughing +human beings, and if they had then been told that the people alluded to +this pulverising portent chirpily as "The Twopenny Tube," they would +have called down the fire of Heaven on us as a race of half-witted +atheists. Probably they would have been quite right.</p> + +<p>This clear and fine perception of what may be called the anæsthetic +element in the Victorian era was, undoubtedly, the work of a great +reformer: it requires a fine effort of the imagination to see an evil +that sur<a name="Page_20" id="Page_20"></a>rounds us on every side. The manner in which Morris carried out +his crusade may, considering the circumstances, be called triumphant. +Our carpets began to bloom under our feet like the meadows in spring, +and our hitherto prosaic stools and sofas seemed growing legs and arms +at their own wild will. An element of freedom and rugged dignity came in +with plain and strong ornaments of copper and iron. So delicate and +universal has been the revolution in domestic art that almost every +family in England has had its taste cunningly and treacherously +improved, and if we look back at the early Victorian drawing-rooms it is +only to realise the strange but essential truth that art, or human +decoration, has, nine times out of ten in history, made things uglier +than they were before, from the "coiffure" of a Papuan savage to the +wall-paper of a British merchant in 1830.</p> + +<p>But great and beneficent as was the æsthetic revolution of Morris, there +was a very definite limit to it. It did not lie only in the fact that +his revolution was in truth a reaction, though this was a partial +explana<a name="Page_21" id="Page_21"></a>tion of his partial failure. When he was denouncing the dresses +of modern ladies, "upholstered like arm-chairs instead of being draped +like women," as he forcibly expressed it, he would hold up for practical +imitation the costumes and handicrafts of the Middle Ages. Further than +this retrogressive and imitative movement he never seemed to go. Now, +the men of the time of Chaucer had many evil qualities, but there was at +least one exhibition of moral weakness they did not give. They would +have laughed at the idea of dressing themselves in the manner of the +bowmen at the battle of Senlac, or painting themselves an æsthetic blue, +after the custom of the ancient Britons. They would not have called that +a movement at all. Whatever was beautiful in their dress or manners +sprang honestly and naturally out of the life they led and preferred to +lead. And it may surely be maintained that any real advance in the +beauty of modern dress must spring honestly and naturally out of the +life we lead and prefer to lead. We are not altogether without hints and +hopes of such a change, in<a name="Page_22" id="Page_22"></a> the growing orthodoxy of rough and athletic +costumes. But if this cannot be, it will be no substitute or +satisfaction to turn life into an interminable historical fancy-dress +ball.</p> + +<p>But the limitation of Morris's work lay deeper than this. We may best +suggest it by a method after his own heart. Of all the various works he +performed, none, perhaps, was so splendidly and solidly valuable as his +great protest for the fables and superstitions of mankind. He has the +supreme credit of showing that the fairy tales contain the deepest truth +of the earth, the real record of men's feeling for things. Trifling +details may be inaccurate, Jack may not have climbed up so tall a +beanstalk, or killed so tall a giant; but it is not such things that +make a story false; it is a far different class of things that makes +every modern book of history as false as the father of lies; ingenuity, +self-consciousness, hypocritical impartiality. It appears to us that of +all the fairy-tales none contains so vital a moral truth as the old +story, existing in many forms, of Beauty and the Beast. There is +written,<a name="Page_23" id="Page_23"></a> with all the authority of a human scripture, the eternal and +essential truth that until we love a thing in all its ugliness we +cannot make it beautiful. This was the weak point in William Morris as a +reformer: that he sought to reform modern life, and that he hated modern +life instead of loving it. Modern London is indeed a beast, big enough +and black enough to be the beast in Apocalypse, blazing with a million +eyes, and roaring with a million voices. But unless the poet can love +this fabulous monster as he is, can feel with some generous excitement +his massive and mysterious <i>joie-de-vivre</i>, the vast scale of his iron +anatomy and the beating of his thunderous heart, he cannot and will not +change the beast into the fairy prince. Morris's disadvantage was that +he was not honestly a child of the nineteenth century: he could not +understand its fascination, and consequently he could not really develop +it. An abiding testimony to his tremendous personal influence in the +æsthetic world is the vitality and recurrence of the Arts and Crafts +Exhibitions, which are steeped in his personality like a <a name="Page_24" id="Page_24"></a>chapel in that +of a saint. If we look round at the exhibits in one of these æsthetic +shows, we shall be struck by the large mass of modern objects that the +decorative school leaves untouched. There is a noble instinct for giving +the right touch of beauty to common and necessary things, but the things +that are so touched are the ancient things, the things that always to +some extent commended themselves to the lover of beauty. There are +beautiful gates, beautiful fountains, beautiful cups, beautiful chairs, +beautiful reading-desks. But there are no modern things made beautiful. +There are no beautiful lamp-posts, beautiful letter-boxes, beautiful +engines, beautiful bicycles. The spirit of William Morris has not seized +hold of the century and made its humblest necessities beautiful. And +this was because, with all his healthiness and energy, he had not the +supreme courage to face the ugliness of things; Beauty shrank from the +Beast and the fairy-tale had a different ending.</p> + +<p>But herein, indeed, lay Morris's deepest claim to the name of a great +reformer: that he left his work <a name="Page_25" id="Page_25"></a>incomplete. There is, perhaps, no better +proof that a man is a mere meteor, merely barren and brilliant, than +that his work is done perfectly. A man like Morris draws attention to +needs he cannot supply. In after-years we may have perhaps a newer and +more daring Arts and Crafts Exhibition. In it we shall not decorate the +armour of the twelfth century, but the machinery of the twentieth. A +lamp-post shall be wrought nobly in twisted iron, fit to hold the +sanctity of fire. A pillar-box shall be carved with figures emblematical +of the secrets of comradeship and the silence and honour of the State. +Railway signals, of all earthly things the most poetical, the coloured +stars of life and death, shall be lamps of green and crimson worthy of +their terrible and faithful service. But if ever this gradual and +genuine movement of our time towards beauty—not backwards, but +forwards—does truly come about, Morris will be the first prophet of it. +Poet of the childhood of nations, craftsman in the new honesties of art, +prophet of a merrier and wiser life, his full-blooded enthusiasm will be +remem<a name="Page_26" id="Page_26"></a>bered when human life has once more assumed flamboyant colours and +proved that this painful greenish grey of the æsthetic twilight in +which we now live is, in spite of all the pessimists, not of the +greyness of death, but the greyness of dawn.<a name="Page_27" id="Page_27"></a><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28"></a><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29"></a></p> + + + +<hr class="full" /> +<h2><a name="OPTIMISM_OF_BYRON" id="OPTIMISM_OF_BYRON"></a>OPTIMISM OF BYRON</h2> + + +<p>Everything is against our appreciating the spirit and the age of +Byron. The age that has just passed from us is always like a dream when +we wake in the morning, a thing incredible and centuries away. And the +world of Byron seems a sad and faded world, a weird and inhuman world, +where men were romantic in whiskers, ladies lived, apparently, in +bowers, and the very word has the sound of a piece of stage scenery. +Roses and nightingales recur in their poetry with the monotonous +elegance of a wall-paper pattern. The whole is like a revel of dead men, +a revel with splendid vesture and half-witted faces.</p> + +<p>But the more shrewdly and earnestly we study the histories of men, the +less ready shall we be to make use of the word "artificial." Nothing in +the world has<a name="Page_30" id="Page_30"></a> ever been artificial. Many customs, many dresses, many +works of art are branded with artificiality because they exhibit vanity +and self-consciousness: as if vanity were not a deep and elemental +thing, like love and hate and the fear of death. Vanity may be found in +darkling deserts, in the hermit and in the wild beasts that crawl around +him. It may be good or evil, but assuredly it is not artificial: vanity +is a voice out of the abyss.</p> + +<p>The remarkable fact is, however, and it bears strongly on the present +position of Byron, that when a thing is unfamiliar to us, when it is +remote and the product of some other age or spirit, we think it not +savage or terrible, but merely artificial. There are many instances of +this: a fair one is the case of tropical plants and birds. When we see +some of the monstrous and flamboyant blossoms that enrich the equatorial +woods, we do not feel that they are conflagrations of nature; silent +explosions of her frightful energy. We simply find it hard to believe +that they are not wax flowers grown under a glass case.<a name="Page_31" id="Page_31"></a> When we see some +of the tropic birds, with their tiny bodies attached to gigantic beaks, +we do not feel that they are freaks of the fierce humour of Creation. +We almost believe that they are toys out of a child's play-box, +artificially carved and artificially coloured. So it is with the great +convulsion of Nature which was known as Byronism. The volcano is not an +extinct volcano now; it is the dead stick of a rocket. It is the remains +not of a natural but of an artificial fire.</p> + +<p>But Byron and Byronism were something immeasurably greater than anything +that is represented by such a view as this: their real value and meaning +are indeed little understood. The first of the mistakes about Byron lies +in the fact that he is treated as a pessimist. True, he treated himself +as such, but a critic can hardly have even a slight knowledge of Byron +without knowing that he had the smallest amount of knowledge of himself +that ever fell to the lot of an intelligent man. The real character of +what is known as Byron's pessimism is better worth study than any real +pessimism could ever be.<a name="Page_32" id="Page_32"></a></p> + +<p>It is the standing peculiarity of this curious world of ours that almost +everything in it has been extolled enthusiastically and invariably +extolled to the disadvantage of everything else.</p> + +<p>One after another almost every one of the phenomena of the universe has +been declared to be alone capable of making life worth living. Books, +love, business, religion, alcohol, abstract truth, private emotion, +money, simplicity, mysticism, hard work, a life close to nature, a life +close to Belgrave Square are every one of them passionately maintained +by somebody to be so good that they redeem the evil of an otherwise +indefensible world. Thus, while the world is almost always condemned in +summary, it is always justified, and indeed extolled, in detail after +detail.</p> + +<p>Existence has been praised and absolved by a chorus of pessimists. The +work of giving thanks to Heaven is, as it were, divided ingeniously +among them. Schopenhauer is told off as a kind of librarian in the House +of God, to sing the praises of the austere pleas<a name="Page_33" id="Page_33"></a>ures of the mind. +Carlyle, as steward, undertakes the working department and eulogises a +life of labour in the fields. Omar Khayyam is established in the +cellar, and swears that it is the only room in the house. Even the +blackest of pessimistic artists enjoys his art. At the precise moment +that he has written some shameless and terrible indictment of Creation, +his one pang of joy in the achievement joins the universal chorus of +gratitude, with the scent of the wild flower and the song of the bird.</p> + +<p>Now Byron had a sensational popularity, and that popularity was, as far +as words and explanations go, founded upon his pessimism. He was adored +by an overwhelming majority, almost every individual of which despised +the majority of mankind. But when we come to regard the matter a little +more deeply we tend in some degree to cease to believe in this +popularity of the pessimist. The popularity of pure and unadulterated +pessimism is an oddity; it is almost a contradiction in terms. Men would +no more receive the news of the failure of existence or of the +har<a name="Page_34" id="Page_34"></a>monious hostility of the stars with ardour or popular rejoicing than +they would light bonfires for the arrival of cholera or dance a +breakdown when they were condemned to be hanged. When the pessimist is +popular it must always be not because he shows all things to be bad, but +because he shows some things to be good.</p> + +<p>Men can only join in a chorus of praise, even if it is the praise of +denunciation. The man who is popular must be optimistic about something, +even if he is only optimistic about pessimism. And this was emphatically +the case with Byron and the Byronists. Their real popularity was founded +not upon the fact that they blamed everything, but upon the fact that +they praised something. They heaped curses upon man, but they used man +merely as a foil. The things they wished to praise by comparison were +the energies of Nature. Man was to them what talk and fashion were to +Carlyle, what philosophical and religious quarrels were to Omar, what +the whole race after practical happiness was to Schopenhauer, the thing +which<a name="Page_35" id="Page_35"></a> must be censured in order that somebody else may be exalted. It +was merely a recognition of the fact that one cannot write in white +chalk except on a black-board.</p> + +<p>Surely it is ridiculous to maintain seriously that Byron's love of the +desolate and inhuman in nature was the mark of vital scepticism and +depression. When a young man can elect deliberately to walk alone in +winter by the side of the shattering sea, when he takes pleasure in +storms and stricken peaks, and the lawless melancholy of the older +earth, we may deduce with the certainty of logic that he is very young +and very happy. There is a certain darkness which we see in wine when +seen in shadow; we see it again in the night that has just buried a +gorgeous sunset. The wine seems black, and yet at the same time +powerfully and almost impossibly red; the sky seems black, and yet at +the same time to be only too dense a blend of purple and green. Such was +the darkness which lay around the Byronic school. Darkness with them was +only too dense a purple. They <a name="Page_36" id="Page_36"></a>would prefer the sullen hostility of the +earth because amid all the cold and darkness their own hearts were +flaming like their own firesides.</p> + +<p>Matters are very different with the more modern school of doubt and +lamentation. The last movement of pessimism is perhaps expressed in Mr. +Aubrey Beardsley's allegorical designs. Here we have to deal with a +pessimism which tends naturally not towards the oldest elements of the +cosmos, but towards the last and most fantastic fripperies of artificial +life. Byronism tended towards the desert; the new pessimism towards the +restaurant. Byronism was a revolt against artificiality; the new +pessimism is a revolt in its favour.</p> + +<p>The Byronic young man had an affectation of sincerity; the decadent, +going a step deeper into the avenues of the unreal, has positively an +affectation of affectation. And it is by their fopperies and their +frivolities that we know that their sinister philosophy is sincere; in +their lights and garlands and ribbons we read their indwelling despair. +It was so, in<a name="Page_37" id="Page_37"></a>deed, with Byron himself; his really bitter moments were +his frivolous moments. He went on year after year calling down fire +upon mankind, summoning the deluge and the destructive sea and all the +ultimate energies of nature to sweep away the cities of the spawn of +man. But through all this his subconscious mind was not that of a +despairer; on the contrary, there is something of a kind of lawless +faith in thus parleying with such immense and immemorial brutalities. It +was not until the time in which he wrote "Don Juan" that he really lost +this inward warmth and geniality, and a sudden shout of hilarious +laughter announced to the world that Lord Byron had really become a +pessimist.</p> + +<p>One of the best tests in the world of what a poet really means is his +metre. He may be a hypocrite in his metaphysics, but he cannot be a +hypocrite in his prosody. And all the time that Byron's language is of +horror and emptiness, his metre is a bounding <i>pas de quatre</i>. He may +arraign existence on the most deadly charges, he may condemn it with the +most <a name="Page_38" id="Page_38"></a>desolating verdict, but he cannot alter the fact that on some walk +in a spring morning when all the limbs are swinging and all the blood +alive in the body, the lips may be caught repeating:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span>"Oh, there's not a joy the world can give like that it takes away,<br /></span> +<span>When the glow of early youth declines in beauty's dull decay;<br /></span> +<span>'Tis not upon the cheek of youth the blush that fades so fast,<br /></span> +<span>But the tender bloom of heart is gone ere youth itself be past."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>That automatic recitation is the answer to the whole pessimism of Byron.</p> + +<p>The truth is that Byron was one of a class who may be called the +unconscious optimists, who are very often, indeed, the most +uncompromising conscious pessimists, because the exuberance of their +nature demands for an adversary a dragon as big as the world. But the +whole of his essential and unconscious being was spirited and confident, +and that unconscious being, long disguised and buried under emotional +artifices, suddenly sprang into prominence in the face of a cold, hard, +political necessity. In Greece he heard the cry of reality, and at the +time that he was dying,<a name="Page_39" id="Page_39"></a> he began to live. He heard suddenly the call of +that buried and subconscious happiness which is in all of us, and which +may emerge suddenly at the sight of the grass of a meadow or the spears +of the enemy.</p> + +<hr class="full" /> +<h2><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40"></a><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41"></a><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42"></a><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43"></a> + +<a name="POPE_AND_THE_ART_OF_SATIRE" id="POPE_AND_THE_ART_OF_SATIRE"></a>POPE AND THE ART OF SATIRE</h2> + + +<p>The general critical theory common in this and the last century is +that it was very easy for the imitators of Pope to write English poetry. +The classical couplet was a thing that anyone could do. So far as that +goes, one may justifiably answer by asking anyone to try. It may be +easier really to have wit, than really, in the boldest and most enduring +sense, to have imagination. But it is immeasurably easier to pretend to +have imagination than to pretend to have wit. A man may indulge in a +sham rhapsody, because it may be the triumph of a rhapsody to be +unintelligible. But a man cannot indulge in a sham joke, because it is +the ruin of a joke to be unintelligible. A man may pretend to be a poet: +he can no more pretend to be a wit than he can pretend to bring rabbits +out of a hat without<a name="Page_44" id="Page_44"></a> having learnt to be a conjuror. Therefore, it may +be submitted, there was a certain discipline in the old antithetical +couplet of Pope and his followers. If it did not permit of the great +liberty of wisdom used by the minority of great geniuses, neither did it +permit of the great liberty of folly which is used by the majority of +small writers. A prophet could not be a poet in those days, perhaps, but +at least a fool could not be a poet. If we take, for the sake of +example, such a line as Pope's:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span>"Damn with faint praise, assent with civil leer,"<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>the test is comparatively simple. A great poet would not have written +such a line, perhaps. But a minor poet could not.</p> + +<p>Supposing that a lyric poet of the new school really had to deal with +such an idea as that expressed in Pope's line about Man:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span>"A being darkly wise and rudely great,"<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Is it really so certain that he would go deeper into the matter than +that old antithetical jingle goes? I<a name="Page_45" id="Page_45"></a> venture to doubt whether he would +really be any wiser or weirder or more imaginative or more profound. +The one thing that he would really be, would be longer. Instead of +writing,</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span>"A being darkly wise and rudely great,"<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>the contemporary poet, in his elaborately ornamented book of verses, +would produce something like the following:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span>"A creature<br /></span> +<span>Of feature<br /></span> +<span>More dark, more dark, more dark than skies,<br /></span> +<span>Yea, darkly wise, yea, darkly wise:<br /></span> +<span>Darkly wise as a formless fate.<br /></span> +<span>And if he be great,<br /></span> +<span>If he be great, then rudely great,<br /></span> +<span>Rudely great as a plough that plies,<br /></span> +<span>And darkly wise, and darkly wise."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Have we really learnt to think more broadly? Or have we only learnt to +spread our thoughts thinner? I have a dark suspicion that a modern poet +might manufacture an admirable lyric out of almost every line of Pope.</p> + +<p>There is, of course, an idea in our time that the <a name="Page_46" id="Page_46"></a>very antithesis of the +typical line of Pope is a mark of artificiality. I shall have occasion +more than once to point out that nothing in the world has ever been +artificial. But certainly antithesis is not artificial. An element of +paradox runs through the whole of existence itself. It begins in the +realm of ultimate physics and metaphysics, in the two facts that we +cannot imagine a space that is infinite, and that we cannot imagine a +space that is finite. It runs through the inmost complications of +divinity, in that we cannot conceive that Christ in the wilderness was +truly pure, unless we also conceive that he desired to sin. It runs, in +the same manner, through all the minor matters of morals, so that we +cannot imagine courage existing except in conjunction with fear, or +magnanimity existing except in conjunction with some temptation to +meanness. If Pope and his followers caught this echo of natural +irrationality, they were not any the more artificial. Their antitheses +were fully in harmony with existence, which is itself a contradiction in +terms.<a name="Page_47" id="Page_47"></a></p> + +<p>Pope was really a great poet; he was the last great poet of +civilisation. Immediately after the fall of him and his school come +Burns and Byron, and the reaction towards the savage and the elemental. +But to Pope civilisation was still an exciting experiment. Its perruques +and ruffles were to him what feathers and bangles are to a South Sea +Islander—the real romance of civilisation. And in all the forms of art +which peculiarly belong to civilisation, he was supreme. In one +especially he was supreme—the great and civilised art of satire. And in +this we have fallen away utterly.</p> + +<p>We have had a great revival in our time of the cult of violence and +hostility. Mr. Henley and his young men have an infinite number of +furious epithets with which to overwhelm anyone who differs from them. +It is not a placid or untroubled position to be Mr. Henley's enemy, +though we know that it is certainly safer than to be his friend. And +yet, despite all this, these people produce no satire. Political and +social satire is a lost art, like pottery and stained glass. It <a name="Page_48" id="Page_48"></a>may be +worth while to make some attempt to point out a reason for this.</p> + +<p>It may seem a singular observation to say that we are not generous +enough to write great satire. This, however, is approximately a very +accurate way of describing the case. To write great satire, to attack a +man so that he feels the attack and half acknowledges its justice, it is +necessary to have a certain intellectual magnanimity which realises the +merits of the opponent as well as his defects. This is, indeed, only +another way of putting the simple truth that in order to attack an army +we must know not only its weak points, but also its strong points. +England in the present season and spirit fails in satire for the same +simple reason that it fails in war: it despises the enemy. In matters of +battle and conquest we have got firmly rooted in our minds the idea (an +idea fit for the philosophers of Bedlam) that we can best trample on a +people by ignoring all the particular merits which give them a chance of +trampling upon us. It has become a breach of etiquette to praise the<a name="Page_49" id="Page_49"></a> +enemy; whereas, when the enemy is strong, every honest scout ought to +praise the enemy. It is impossible to vanquish an army without having a +full account of its strength. It is impossible to satirise a man without +having a full account of his virtues. It is too much the custom in +politics to describe a political opponent as utterly inhuman, as utterly +careless of his country, as utterly cynical, which no man ever was since +the beginning of the world. This kind of invective may often have a +great superficial success: it may hit the mood of the moment; it may +raise excitement and applause; it may impress millions. But there is one +man among all those millions whom it does not impress, whom it hardly +ever touches; that is the man against whom it is directed. The one +person for whom the whole satire has been written in vain is the man +whom it is the whole object of the institution of satire to reach. He +knows that such a description of him is not true. He knows that he is +not utterly unpatriotic, or utterly self-seeking, or utterly barbarous +and revengeful. He knows that he<a name="Page_50" id="Page_50"></a> is an ordinary man, and that he can +count as many kindly memories, as many humane instincts, as many hours +of decent work and responsibility as any other ordinary man. But behind +all this he has his real weaknesses, the real ironies of his soul: +behind all these ordinary merits lie the mean compromises, the craven +silences, the sullen vanities, the secret brutalities, the unmanly +visions of revenge. It is to these that satire should reach if it is to +touch the man at whom it is aimed. And to reach these it must pass and +salute a whole army of virtues.</p> + +<p>If we turn to the great English satirists of the seventeenth and +eighteenth centuries, for example, we find that they had this rough, but +firm, grasp of the size and strength, the value and the best points of +their adversary. Dryden, before hewing Ahitophel in pieces, gives a +splendid and spirited account of the insane valour and inspired cunning +of the</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span>"daring pilot in extremity,"<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>who was more untrustworthy in calm than in storm, and<a name="Page_51" id="Page_51"></a></p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span>"Steered too near the rocks to boast his wit."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>The whole is, so far as it goes, a sound and picturesque version of the +great Shaftesbury. It would, in many ways, serve as a very sound and +picturesque account of Lord Randolph Churchill. But here comes in very +pointedly the difference between our modern attempts at satire and the +ancient achievement of it. The opponents of Lord Randolph Churchill, +both Liberal and Conservative, did not satirise him nobly and honestly, +as one of those great wits to madness near allied. They represented him +as a mere puppy, a silly and irreverent upstart whose impudence supplied +the lack of policy and character. Churchill had grave and even gross +faults, a certain coarseness, a certain hard boyish assertiveness, a +certain lack of magnanimity, a certain peculiar patrician vulgarity. But +he was a much larger man than satire depicted him, and therefore the +satire could not and did not overwhelm him. And here we have the cause +of the failure of contemporary satire, that it has no magnanimity, that +is to say, no patience. It cannot en<a name="Page_52" id="Page_52"></a>dure to be told that its opponent +has his strong points, just as Mr. Chamberlain could not endure to be +told that the Boers had a regular army. It can be content with nothing +except persuading itself that its opponent is utterly bad or utterly +stupid—that is, that he is what he is not and what nobody else is. If +we take any prominent politician of the day—such, for example, as Sir +William Harcourt—we shall find that this is the point in which all +party invective fails. The Tory satire at the expense of Sir William +Harcourt is always desperately endeavouring to represent that he is +inept, that he makes a fool of himself, that he is disagreeable and +disgraceful and untrustworthy. The defect of all that is that we all +know that it is untrue. Everyone knows that Sir William Harcourt is not +inept, but is almost the ablest Parliamentarian now alive. Everyone +knows that he is not disagreeable or disgraceful, but a gentleman of the +old school who is on excellent social terms with his antagonists. +Everyone knows that he is not untrustworthy, but a man of unimpeachable +honour who is much trusted. <a name="Page_53" id="Page_53"></a>Above all, he knows it himself, and is +therefore affected by the satire exactly as any one of us would be if +we were accused of being black or of keeping a shop for the receiving of +stolen goods. We might be angry at the libel, but not at the satire: for +a man is angry at a libel because it is false, but at a satire because +it is true.</p> + +<p>Mr. Henley and his young men are very fond of invective and satire; if +they wish to know the reason of their failure in these things, they need +only turn to the opening of Pope's superb attack upon Addison. The +Henleyite's idea of satirising a man is to express a violent contempt +for him, and by the heat of this to persuade others and himself that the +man is contemptible. I remember reading a satiric attack on Mr. +Gladstone by one of the young anarchic Tories, which began by asserting +that Mr. Gladstone was a bad public speaker. If these people would, as I +have said, go quietly and read Pope's "Atticus," they would see how a +great satirist approaches a great enemy:<a name="Page_54" id="Page_54"></a></p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span>"Peace to all such! But were there one whose fires<br /></span> +<span>True genius kindles, and fair fame inspires,<br /></span> +<span>Blest with each talent, and each art to please,<br /></span> +<span>And born to write, converse, and live with ease.<br /></span> +<span>Should such a man—"<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>And then follows the torrent of that terrible criticism. Pope was not +such a fool as to try to make out that Addison was a fool. He knew that +Addison was not a fool, and he knew that Addison knew it. But hatred, in +Pope's case, had become so great and, I was almost going to say, so +pure, that it illuminated all things, as love illuminates all things. He +said what was really wrong with Addison; and in calm and clear and +everlasting colours he painted the picture of the evil of the literary +temperament:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span>"Bear, like the Turk, no brother near the throne,<br /></span> +<span>View him with scornful, yet with jealous eyes,<br /></span> +<span>And hate for arts that caused himself to rise.<br /></span> +<span> * + * + * + * + *</span> +<span>Like Cato give his little Senate laws,<br /></span> +<span>And sit attentive to his own applause.<br /></span> +<span>While wits and templars every sentence raise,<br /></span> +<span>And wonder with a foolish face of praise."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>This is the kind of thing which really goes to the<a name="Page_55" id="Page_55"></a> mark at which it +aims. It is penetrated with sorrow and a kind of reverence, and it is +addressed directly to a man. This is no mock-tournament to gain the +applause of the crowd. It is a deadly duel by the lonely seashore.</p> + +<p>In current political materialism there is everywhere the assumption +that, without understanding anything of his case or his merits, we can +benefit a man practically. Without understanding his case and his +merits, we cannot even hurt him.<a name="Page_56" id="Page_56"></a><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57"></a><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58"></a><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59"></a></p> + + + +<hr class="full" /> +<h2><a name="FRANCIS" id="FRANCIS"></a>FRANCIS</h2> + + +<p>Asceticism is a thing which, in its very nature, we tend in these days +to misunderstand. Asceticism, in the religious sense, is the repudiation +of the great mass of human joys because of the supreme joyfulness of the +one joy, the religious joy. But asceticism is not in the least confined +to religious asceticism: there is scientific asceticism which asserts +that truth is alone satisfying: there is æsthetic asceticism which +asserts that art is alone satisfying: there is amatory asceticism which +asserts that love is alone satisfying. There is even epicurean +asceticism, which asserts that beer and skittles are alone satisfying. +Wherever the manner of praising anything involves the statement that the +speaker could live with that thing alone, there lies the germ and +essence of asceticism. When William Morris, for <a name="Page_60" id="Page_60"></a>example, says that "love +is enough," it is obvious that he asserts in those words that art, +science, politics, ambition, money, houses, carriages, concerts, +gloves, walking-sticks, door-knockers, railway-stations, cathedrals, and +any other things one may choose to tabulate are unnecessary. When Omar +Khayyam says:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span>"A book of verses underneath the bough,<br /></span> +<span>A loaf of bread, a jug of wine, and thou<br /></span> +<span>Beside me singing in the wilderness—<br /></span> +<span>O wilderness were Paradise enow."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>It is clear that he speaks fully as much ascetically as he does +æsthetically. He makes a list of things and says that he wants no more. +The same thing was done by a mediæval monk. Examples might, of course, +be multiplied a hundred-fold. One of the most genuinely poetical of our +younger poets says, as the one thing certain, that</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span>"From quiet home and first beginning<br /></span> +<span>Out to the undiscovered ends—<br /></span> +<span>There's nothing worth the wear of winning<br /></span> +<span>But laughter and the love of friends."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Here we have a perfect example of the main important<a name="Page_61" id="Page_61"></a> fact, that all true +joy expresses itself in terms of asceticism.</p> + +<p>But if, in any case, it should happen that a class or a generation lose +the sense of the peculiar kind of joy which is being celebrated, they +immediately begin to call the enjoyers of that joy gloomy and +self-destroying. The most formidable liberal philosophers have called +the monks melancholy because they denied themselves the pleasures of +liberty and marriage. They might as well call the trippers on a Bank +Holiday melancholy because they deny themselves, as a rule, the +pleasures of silence and meditation. A simpler and stronger example is, +however, to hand. If ever it should happen that the system of English +athletics should vanish from the public schools and the universities, if +science should supply some new and non-competitive manner of perfecting +the physique, if public ethics swung round to an attitude of absolute +contempt and indifference towards the feeling called sport, then it is +easy to see what would happen. Future historians would simply state that +in the dark<a name="Page_62" id="Page_62"></a> days of Queen Victoria young men at Oxford and Cambridge +were subjected to a horrible sort of religious torture. They were +forbidden, by fantastic monastic rules, to indulge in wine or tobacco +during certain arbitrarily fixed periods of time, before certain brutal +fights and festivals. Bigots insisted on their rising at unearthly hours +and running violently around fields for no object. Many men ruined their +health in these dens of superstition, many died there. All this is +perfectly true and irrefutable. Athleticism in England is an asceticism, +as much as the monastic rules. Men have overstrained themselves and +killed themselves through English athleticism. There is one difference +and one only: we do feel the love of sport; we do not feel the love of +religious offices. We see only the price in the one case and only the +purchase in the other.</p> + +<p>The only question that remains is what was the joy of the old Christian +ascetics of which their asceticism was merely the purchasing price? The +mere possibility of the query is an extraordinary example of <a name="Page_63" id="Page_63"></a>the way in +which we miss the main points of human history. We are looking at +humanity too close, and see only the details and not the vast and +dominant features. We look at the rise of Christianity, and conceive it +as a rise of self-abnegation and almost of pessimism. It does not occur +to us that the mere assertion that this raging and confounding universe +is governed by justice and mercy is a piece of staggering optimism fit +to set all men capering. The detail over which these monks went mad with +joy was the universe itself; the only thing really worthy of enjoyment. +The white daylight shone over all the world, the endless forests stood +up in their order. The lightning awoke and the tree fell and the sea +gathered into mountains and the ship went down, and all these +disconnected and meaningless and terrible objects were all part of one +dark and fearful conspiracy of goodness, one merciless scheme of mercy. +That this scheme of Nature was not accurate or well founded is perfectly +tenable, but surely it is not tenable that it was not optimistic. We +insist, however, upon treat<a name="Page_64" id="Page_64"></a>ing this matter tail foremost. We insist that +the ascetics were pessimists because they gave up threescore years and +ten for an eternity of happiness. We forget that the bare proposition of +an eternity of happiness is by its very nature ten thousand times more +optimistic than ten thousand pagan saturnalias.</p> + +<p>Mr. Adderley's life of Francis of Assisi does not, of course, bring this +out; nor does it fully bring out the character of Francis. It has rather +the tone of a devotional book. A devotional book is an excellent thing, +but we do not look in it for the portrait of a man, for the same reason +that we do not look in a love-sonnet for the portrait of a woman, +because men in such conditions of mind not only apply all virtues to +their idol, but all virtues in equal quantities. There is no outline, +because the artist cannot bear to put in a black line. This blaze of +benediction, this conflict between lights, has its place in poetry, not +in biography. The successful examples of it may be found, for instance, +in the more idealistic odes of Spenser.<a name="Page_65" id="Page_65"></a> The design is sometimes almost +indecipherable, for the poet draws in silver upon white.</p> + +<p>It is natural, of course, that Mr. Adderley should see Francis primarily +as the founder of the Franciscan Order. We suspect this was only one, +perhaps a minor one, of the things that he was; we suspect that one of +the minor things that Christ did was to found Christianity. But the vast +practical work of Francis is assuredly not to be ignored, for this +amazingly unworldly and almost maddeningly simple-minded infant was one +of the most consistently successful men that ever fought with this +bitter world. It is the custom to say that the secret of such men is +their profound belief in themselves, and this is true, but not all the +truth. Workhouses and lunatic asylums are thronged with men who believe +in themselves. Of Francis it is far truer to say that the secret of his +success was his profound belief in other people, and it is the lack of +this that has commonly been the curse of these obscure Napoleons. +Francis always assumed that everyone must be just as anxious about their +common rela<a name="Page_66" id="Page_66"></a>tive, the water-rat, as he was. He planned a visit to the +Emperor to draw his attention to the needs of "his little sisters the +larks." He used to talk to any thieves and robbers he met about their +misfortune in being unable to give rein to their desire for holiness. It +was an innocent habit, and doubtless the robbers often "got round him," +as the phrase goes. Quite as often, however, they discovered that he had +"got round" them, and discovered the other side, the side of secret +nobility.</p> + +<p>Conceiving of St. Francis as primarily the founder of the Franciscan +Order, Mr. Adderley opens his narrative with an admirable sketch of the +history of Monasticism in Europe, which is certainly the best thing in +the book. He distinguishes clearly and fairly between the Manichæan +ideal that underlies so much of Eastern Monasticism and the ideal of +self-discipline which never wholly vanished from the Christian form. But +he does not throw any light on what must be for the outsider the +absorbing problem of this Catholic asceticism, for the excellent reason +that, not<a name="Page_67" id="Page_67"></a> being an outsider, he does not find it a problem at all.</p> + +<p>To most people, however, there is a fascinating inconsistency in the +position of St. Francis. He expressed in loftier and bolder language +than any earthly thinker the conception that laughter is as divine as +tears. He called his monks the mountebanks of God. He never forgot to +take pleasure in a bird as it flashed past him, or a drop of water, as +it fell from his finger: he was, perhaps, the happiest of the sons of +men. Yet this man undoubtedly founded his whole polity on the negation +of what we think the most imperious necessities; in his three vows of +poverty, chastity, and obedience, he denied to himself and those he +loved most, property, love, and liberty. Why was it that the most +large-hearted and poetic spirits in that age found their most congenial +atmosphere in these awful renunciations? Why did he who loved where all +men were blind, seek to blind himself where all men loved? Why was he a +monk, and not a troubadour? These questions are far too large to be +answered fully<a name="Page_68" id="Page_68"></a> here, but in any life of Francis they ought at least to +have been asked; we have a suspicion that if they were answered, we +should suddenly find that much of the enigma of this sullen time of ours +was answered also. So it was with the monks. The two great parties in +human affairs are only the party which sees life black against white, +and the party which sees it white against black, the party which +macerates and blackens itself with sacrifice because the background is +full of the blaze of an universal mercy, and the party which crowns +itself with flowers and lights itself with bridal torches because it +stands against a black curtain of incalculable night. The revellers are +old, and the monks are young. It was the monks who were the spendthrifts +of happiness, and we who are its misers.</p> + +<p>Doubtless, as is apparent from Mr. Adderley's book, the clear and +tranquil life of the Three Vows had a fine and delicate effect on the +genius of Francis. He was primarily a poet. The perfection of his +literary instinct is shown in his naming the fire "brother," and<a name="Page_69" id="Page_69"></a> the +water "sister," in the quaint demagogic dexterity of the appeal in the +sermon to the fishes "that they alone were saved in the Flood." In the +amazingly minute and graphic dramatisation of the life, disappointments, +and excuses of any shrub or beast that he happened to be addressing, his +genius has a curious resemblance to that of Burns. But if he avoided the +weakness of Burns' verses to animals, the occasional morbidity, bombast, +and moralisation on himself, the credit is surely due to a cleaner and +more transparent life.</p> + +<p>The general attitude of St. Francis, like that of his Master, embodied a +kind of terrible common sense. The famous remark of the Caterpillar in +"Alice in Wonderland"—"Why not?" impresses us as his general motto. He +could not see why he should not be on good terms with all things. The +pomp of war and ambition, the great empire of the Middle Ages, and all +its fellows begin to look tawdry and top-heavy, under the rationality of +that innocent stare. His questions were blasting and devastating, like +the questions of a<a name="Page_70" id="Page_70"></a> child. He would not have been afraid even of the +nightmares of cosmogony, for he had no fear in him. To him the world +was small, not because he had any views as to its size, but for the +reason that gossiping ladies find it small, because so many relatives +were to be found in it. If you had taken him to the loneliest star that +the madness of an astronomer can conceive, he would have only beheld in +it the features of a new friend.</p> + +<hr class="full" /> +<h2><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71"></a><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72"></a><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73"></a> + +<a name="ROSTAND" id="ROSTAND"></a>ROSTAND</h2> + + +<p>When "Cyrano de Bergerac" was published, it bore the subordinate title +of a heroic comedy. We have no tradition in English literature which +would justify us in calling a comedy heroic, though there was once a +poet who called a comedy divine. By the current modern conception, the +hero has his place in a tragedy, and the one kind of strength which is +systematically denied to him is the strength to succeed. That the power +of a man's spirit might possibly go to the length of turning a tragedy +into a comedy is not admitted; nevertheless, almost all the primitive +legends of the world are comedies, not only in the sense that they have +a happy ending, but in the sense that they are based upon a certain +optimistic assumption that the hero is destined to be the destroyer of +the monster. Singularly enough, this modern idea of the essential +disas<a name="Page_74" id="Page_74"></a>trous character of life, when seriously considered, connects itself +with a hyper-æsthetic view of tragedy and comedy which is largely due +to the influence of modern France, from which the great heroic comedies +of Monsieur Rostand have come. The French genius has an instinct for +remedying its own evil work, and France gives always the best cure for +"Frenchiness." The idea of comedy which is held in England by the school +which pays most attention to the technical niceties of art is a view +which renders such an idea as that of heroic comedy quite impossible. +The fundamental conception in the minds of the majority of our younger +writers is that comedy is, <i>par excellence</i>, a fragile thing. It is +conceived to be a conventional world of the most absolutely delicate and +gimcrack description. Such stories as Mr. Max Beerbohm's "Happy +Hypocrite" are conceptions which would vanish or fall into utter +nonsense if viewed by one single degree too seriously. But great comedy, +the comedy of Shakespeare or Sterne, not only can be, but must be, taken +seriously. There is nothing to which a <a name="Page_75" id="Page_75"></a>man must give himself up with +more faith and self-abandonment than to genuine laughter. In such +comedies one laughs with the heroes, and not at them. The humour which +steeps the stories of Falstaff and Uncle Toby is a cosmic and +philosophic humour, a geniality which goes down to the depths. It is not +superficial reading, it is not even, strictly speaking, light reading. +Our sympathies are as much committed to the characters as if they were +the predestined victims in a Greek tragedy. The modern writer of +comedies may be said to boast of the brittleness of his characters. He +seems always on the eve of knocking his puppets to pieces. When John +Oliver Hobbes wrote for the first time a comedy of serious emotions, she +named it, with a thinly-disguised contempt for her own work, "A +Sentimental Comedy." The ground of this conception of the artificiality +of comedy is a profound pessimism. Life in the eyes of these mournful +buffoons is itself an utterly tragic thing; comedy must be as hollow as +a grinning mask. It is a refuge from the world, and not even, properly +speaking, a part <a name="Page_76" id="Page_76"></a>of it. Their wit is a thin sheet of shining ice over +the eternal waters of bitterness.</p> + +<p>"Cyrano de Bergerac" came to us as the new decoration of an old truth, +that merriment was one of the world's natural flowers, and not one of +its exotics. The gigantesque levity, the flamboyant eloquence, the +Rabelaisian puns and digressions were seen to be once more what they had +been in Rabelais, the mere outbursts of a human sympathy and bravado as +old and solid as the stars. The human spirit demanded wit as headlong +and haughty as its will. All was expressed in the words of Cyrano at his +highest moment of happiness, <i>Il me faut des géants</i>. An essential +aspect of this question of heroic comedy is the question of drama in +rhyme. There is nothing that affords so easy a point of attack for the +dramatic realist as the conduct of a play in verse. According to his +canons, it is indeed absurd to represent a number of characters facing +some terrible crisis in their lives by capping rhymes like a party +playing <i>bouts rimés</i>. In his eyes it must appear<a name="Page_77" id="Page_77"></a> somewhat ridiculous +that two enemies taunting each other with insupportable insults should +obligingly provide each other with metrical spacing and neat and +convenient rhymes. But the whole of this view rests finally upon the +fact that few persons, if any, to-day understand what is meant by a +poetical play. It is a singular thing that those poetical plays which +are now written in England by the most advanced students of the drama +follow exclusively the lines of Maeterlinck, and use verse and rhyme for +the adornment of a profoundly tragic theme. But rhyme has a supreme +appropriateness for the treatment of the higher comedy. The land of +heroic comedy is, as it were, a paradise of lovers, in which it is not +difficult to imagine that men could talk poetry all day long. It is far +more conceivable that men's speech should flower naturally into these +harmonious forms, when they are filled with the essential spirit of +youth, than when they are sitting gloomily in the presence of immemorial +destiny. The great error consists in supposing that poetry is an +unnatural form of language. We should<a name="Page_78" id="Page_78"></a> all like to speak poetry at the +moment when we truly live, and if we do not speak, it is because we have +an impediment in our speech. It is not song that is the narrow or +artificial thing, it is conversation that is a broken and stammering +attempt at song. When we see men in a spiritual extravaganza, like +"Cyrano de Bergerac," speaking in rhyme, it is not our language +disguised or distorted, but our language rounded and made whole. Rhymes +answer each other as the sexes in flowers and in humanity answer each +other. Men do not speak so, it is true. Even when they are inspired or +in love they talk inanities. But the poetic comedy does not misrepresent +the speech one half so much as the speech misrepresents the soul. +Monsieur Rostand showed even more than his usual insight when he called +"Cyrano de Bergerac" a comedy, despite the fact that, strictly speaking, +it ends with disappointment and death. The essence of tragedy is a +spiritual breakdown or decline, and in the great French play the +spiritual sentiment mounts unceasingly until the last line. It is not +the facts themselves, but our<a name="Page_79" id="Page_79"></a> feeling about them, that makes tragedy and +comedy, and death is more joyful in Rostand than life in Maeterlinck. +The same apparent contradiction holds good in the case of the drama of +"L'Aiglon," now being performed with so much success. Although the hero +is a weakling, the subject a fiasco, the end a premature death and a +personal disillusionment, yet, in spite of this theme, which might have +been chosen for its depressing qualities, the unconquerable pæan of the +praise of things, the ungovernable gaiety of the poet's song swells so +high that at the end it seems to drown all the weak voices of the +characters in one crashing chorus of great things and great men. A +multitude of mottoes might be taken from the play to indicate and +illustrate, not only its own spirit, but much of the spirit of modern +life. When in the vision of the field of Wagram the horrible voices of +the wounded cry out, <i>Les corbeaux, les corbeaux</i>, the Duke, overwhelmed +with a nightmare of hideous trivialities, cries out, <i>Où, où, sont les +aigles?</i> That antithesis might stand alone as an invocation<a name="Page_80" id="Page_80"></a> at the +beginning of the twentieth century to the spirit of heroic comedy. When +an ex-General of Napoleon is asked his reason for having betrayed the +Emperor, he replies, <i>La fatigue</i>, and at that a veteran private of the +Great Army rushes forward, and crying passionately, <i>Et nous?</i> pours out +a terrible description of the life lived by the commoner soldier. +To-day, when pessimism is almost as much a symbol of wealth and fashion +as jewels or cigars, when the pampered heirs of the ages can sum up life +in few other words but <i>la fatigue</i>, there might surely come a cry from +the vast mass of common humanity from the beginning—<i>et nous?</i> It is +this potentiality for enthusiasm among the mass of men that makes the +function of comedy at once common and sublime. Shakespeare's "Much Ado +About Nothing" is a great comedy, because behind it is the whole +pressure of that love of love which is the youth of the world, which is +common to all the young, especially to those who swear they will die +bachelors and old maids. "Love's Labour's Lost" is filled with the same +energy, and there it falls even more<a name="Page_81" id="Page_81"></a> definitely into the scope of our +subject, since it is a comedy in rhyme in which all men speak lyrically +as naturally as the birds sing in pairing time. What the love of love +is to the Shakespearean comedies, that other and more mysterious human +passion, the love of death, is to "L'Aiglon." Whether we shall ever have +in England a new tradition of poetic comedy it is difficult at present +to say, but we shall assuredly never have it until we realise that +comedy is built upon everlasting foundations in the nature of things, +that it is not a thing too light to capture, but too deep to plumb. +Monsieur Rostand, in his description of the Battle of Wagram, does not +shrink from bringing about the Duke's ears the frightful voices of +actual battle, of men torn by crows, and suffocated with blood, but when +the Duke, terrified at these dreadful appeals, asks them for their final +word, they all cry together <i>Vive l'Empereur!</i> Monsieur Rostand, +perhaps, did not know that he was writing an allegory. To me that field +of Wagram is the field of the modern war of literature. We hear nothing +but the voices of<a name="Page_82" id="Page_82"></a> pain; the whole is one phonograph of horror. It is +right that we should hear these things, it is right that not one of +them should be silenced; but these cries of distress are not in life, as +they are in modern art, the only voices; they are the voices of men, but +not the voice of man. When questioned finally and seriously as to their +conception of their destiny, men have from the beginning of time +answered in a thousand philosophies and religions with a single voice +and in a sense most sacred and tremendous, <i>Vive l'Empereur</i>.</p> + + + +<hr class="full" /><h2><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83"></a><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84"></a><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85"></a> +<a name="CHARLES_II" id="CHARLES_II"></a>CHARLES II</h2> + + +<p>There are a great many bonds which still connect us with Charles II., +one of the idlest men of one of the idlest epochs. Among other things +Charles II. represented one thing which is very rare and very +satisfying; he was a real and consistent sceptic. Scepticism, both in +its advantages and disadvantages, is greatly misunderstood in our time. +There is a curious idea abroad that scepticism has some connection with +such theories as materialism and atheism and secularism. This is of +course a mistake; the true sceptic has nothing to do with these theories +simply because they are theories. The true sceptic is as much a +spiritualist as he is a materialist. He thinks that the savage dancing +round an African idol stands quite as good a chance of being right as +Darwin. He thinks that mysticism<a name="Page_86" id="Page_86"></a> is every bit as rational as +rationalism. He has indeed the most profound doubts as to whether St. +Matthew wrote his own gospel. But he has quite equally profound doubts +as to whether the tree he is looking at is a tree and not a rhinoceros.</p> + +<p>This is the real meaning of that mystery which appears so prominently in +the lives of great sceptics, which appears with especial prominence in +the life of Charles II. I mean their constant oscillation between +atheism and Roman Catholicism. Roman Catholicism is indeed a great and +fixed and formidable system, but so is atheism. Atheism is indeed the +most daring of all dogmas, more daring than the vision of a palpable day +of judgment. For it is the assertion of a universal negative; for a man +to say that there is no God in the universe is like saying that there +are no insects in any of the stars.</p> + +<p>Thus it was with that wholesome and systematic sceptic, Charles II. When +he took the Sacrament according to the forms of the Roman Church in his +last hour he was acting consistently as a philosopher. <a name="Page_87" id="Page_87"></a>The wafer might +not be God; similarly it might not be a wafer. To the genuine and +poetical sceptic the whole world is incredible, with its bulbous +mountains and its fantastic trees. The whole order of things is as +outrageous as any miracle which could presume to violate it. +Transubstantiation might be a dream, but if it was, it was assuredly a +dream within a dream. Charles II. sought to guard himself against hell +fire because he could not think hell itself more fantastic than the +world as it was revealed by science. The priest crept up the staircase, +the doors were closed, the few of the faithful who were present hushed +themselves respectfully, and so, with every circumstance of secrecy and +sanctity, with the cross uplifted and the prayers poured out, was +consummated the last great act of logical unbelief.</p> + +<p>The problem of Charles II. consists in this, that he has scarcely a +moral virtue to his name, and yet he attracts us morally. We feel that +some of the virtues have been dropped out in the lists made by all the +saints and sages, and that Charles II. was pre<a name="Page_88" id="Page_88"></a>-eminently successful in +these wild and unmentionable virtues. The real truth of this matter and +the real relation of Charles II. to the moral ideal is worth somewhat +more exhaustive study.</p> + +<p>It is a commonplace that the Restoration movement can only be understood +when considered as a reaction against Puritanism. But it is +insufficiently realised that the tyranny which half frustrated all the +good work of Puritanism was of a very peculiar kind. It was not the fire +of Puritanism, the exultation in sobriety, the frenzy of a restraint, +which passed away; that still burns in the heart of England, only to be +quenched by the final overwhelming sea. But it is seldom remembered that +the Puritans were in their day emphatically intellectual bullies, that +they relied swaggeringly on the logical necessity of Calvinism, that +they bound omnipotence itself in the chains of syllogism. The Puritans +fell, through the damning fact that they had a complete theory of life, +through the eternal paradox that a satisfactory explanation can never +satisfy. Like Brutus and the logical Romans, <a name="Page_89" id="Page_89"></a>like the logical French +Jacobins, like the logical English utilitarians, they taught the lesson +that men's wants have always been right and their arguments always +wrong. Reason is always a kind of brute force; those who appeal to the +head rather than the heart, however pallid and polite, are necessarily +men of violence. We speak of "touching" a man's heart, but we can do +nothing to his head but hit it. The tyranny of the Puritans over the +bodies of men was comparatively a trifle; pikes, bullets, and +conflagrations are comparatively a trifle. Their real tyranny was the +tyranny of aggressive reason over the cowed and demoralised human +spirit. Their brooding and raving can be forgiven, can in truth be loved +and reverenced, for it is humanity on fire; hatred can be genial, +madness can be homely. The Puritans fell, not because they were +fanatics, but because they were rationalists.</p> + +<p>When we consider these things, when we remember that Puritanism, which +means in our day a moral and almost temperamental attitude, meant in +that day a<a name="Page_90" id="Page_90"></a> singularly arrogant logical attitude, we shall comprehend a +little more the grain of good that lay in the vulgarity and triviality +of the Restoration. The Restoration, of which Charles II. was a +pre-eminent type, was in part a revolt of all the chaotic and unclassed +parts of human nature, the parts that are left over, and will always be +left over, by every rationalistic system of life. This does not merely +account for the revolt of the vices and of that empty recklessness and +horseplay which is sometimes more irritating than any vice. It accounts +also for the return of the virtue of politeness, for that also is a +nameless thing ignored by logical codes. Politeness has indeed about it +something mystical; like religion, it is everywhere understood and +nowhere defined. Charles is not entirely to be despised because, as the +type of this movement, he let himself float upon this new tide of +politeness. There was some moral and social value in his perfection in +little things. He could not keep the Ten Commandments, but he kept the +ten thousand commandments. His name is unconnected with any great<a name="Page_91" id="Page_91"></a> acts +of duty or sacrifice, but it is connected with a great many of those +acts of magnanimous politeness, of a kind of dramatic delicacy, which +lie on the dim borderland between morality and art. "Charles II.," said +Thackeray, with unerring brevity, "was a rascal, but not a snob." Unlike +George IV. he was a gentleman, and a gentleman is a man who obeys +strange statutes, not to be found in any moral text-book, and practises +strange virtues nameless from the beginning of the world.</p> + +<p>So much may be said and should be said for the Restoration, that it was +the revolt of something human, if only the debris of human nature. But +more cannot be said. It was emphatically a fall and not an ascent, a +recoil and not an advance, a sudden weakness and not a sudden strength. +That the bow of human nature was by Puritanism bent immeasurably too +far, that it overstrained the soul by stretching it to the height of an +almost horrible idealism, makes the collapse of the Restoration +infinitely more excusable, but it does not make it any the less a +collapse.<a name="Page_92" id="Page_92"></a> Nothing can efface the essential distinction that Puritanism +was one of the world's great efforts after the discovery of the true +order, whereas it was the essence of the Restoration that it involved no +effort at all. It is true that the Restoration was not, as has been +widely assumed, the most immoral epoch of our history. Its vices cannot +compare for a moment in this respect with the monstrous tragedies and +almost suffocating secrecies and villainies of the Court of James I. But +the dram-drinking and nose-slitting of the saturnalia of Charles II. +seem at once more human and more detestable than the passions and +poisons of the Renaissance, much in the same way that a monkey appears +inevitably more human and more detestable than a tiger. Compared with +the Renaissance, there is something Cockney about the Restoration. Not +only was it too indolent for great morality, it was too indolent even +for great art. It lacked that seriousness which is needed even for the +pursuit of pleasure, that discipline which is essential even to a game +of lawn tennis. It would have appeared to<a name="Page_93" id="Page_93"></a> Charles II.'s poets quite as +arduous to write "Paradise Lost" as to regain Paradise.</p> + +<p>All old and vigorous languages abound in images and metaphors, which, +though lightly and casually used, are in truth poems in themselves, and +poems of a high and striking order. Perhaps no phrase is so terribly +significant as the phrase "killing time." It is a tremendous and +poetical image, the image of a kind of cosmic parricide. There are on +the earth a race of revellers who do, under all their exuberance, +fundamentally regard time as an enemy. Of these were Charles II. and the +men of the Restoration. Whatever may have been their merits, and as we +have said we think that they had merits, they can never have a place +among the great representatives of the joy of life, for they belonged to +those lower epicureans who kill time, as opposed to those higher +epicureans who make time live.</p> + +<p>Of a people in this temper Charles II. was the natural and rightful +head. He may have been a pantomime King, but he was a King, and with all +his<a name="Page_94" id="Page_94"></a> geniality he let nobody forget it. He was not, indeed, the aimless +flaneur that he has been represented. He was a patient and cunning +politician, who disguised his wisdom under so perfect a mask of folly +that he not only deceived his allies and opponents, but has deceived +almost all the historians that have come after him. But if Charles was, +as he emphatically was, the only Stuart who really achieved despotism, +it was greatly due to the temper of the nation and the age. Despotism is +the easiest of all governments, at any rate for the governed.</p> + +<p>It is indeed a form of slavery, and it is the despot who is the slave. +Men in a state of decadence employ professionals to fight for them, +professionals to dance for them, and a professional to rule them.</p> + +<p>Almost all the faces in the portraits of that time look, as it were, +like masks put on artificially with the perruque. A strange unreality +broods over the period. Distracted as we are with civic mysteries and +problems we can afford to rejoice. Our tears are less desolate than +their laughter, our restraints are larger than their liberty.</p> + +<hr class="full" /> +<h2><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95"></a><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96"></a><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97"></a> +<a name="STEVENSON1" id="STEVENSON1"></a>STEVENSON<a name="FNanchor_1_1" id="FNanchor_1_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_1_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a></h2> + + +<p>A recent incident has finally convinced us that Stevenson was, as we +suspected, a great man. We knew from recent books that we have noticed, +from the scorn of "Ephemera Critica" and Mr. George Moore, that +Stevenson had the first essential qualification of a great man: that of +being misunderstood by his opponents. But from the book which Messrs. +Chatto & Windus have issued, in the same binding as Stevenson's works, +"Robert Louis Stevenson," by Mr. H. Bellyse Baildon, we learn that he +has the other essential qualification, that of being misunderstood by +his admirers. Mr. Baildon has many interesting things to tell us about +Stevenson himself, whom he knew at college. Nor are his criticisms by +any means valueless. That upon the plays,<a name="Page_98" id="Page_98"></a> especially "Beau Austin," is +remarkably thoughtful and true. But it is a very singular fact, and goes +far, as we say, to prove that Stevenson had that unfathomable quality +which belongs to the great, that this admiring student of Stevenson can +number and marshal all the master's work and distribute praise and blame +with decision and even severity, without ever thinking for a moment of +the principles of art and ethics which would have struck us as the very +things that Stevenson nearly killed himself to express.</p> + +<p>Mr. Baildon, for example, is perpetually lecturing Stevenson for his +"pessimism"; surely a strange charge against a man who has done more +than any modern artist to make men ashamed of their shame of life. But +he complains that, in "The Master of Ballantrae" and "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. +Hyde," Stevenson gives evil a final victory over good. Now if there was +one point that Stevenson more constantly and passionately emphasised +than any other it was that we must worship good for its own value and<a name="Page_99" id="Page_99"></a> +beauty, without any reference whatever to victory or failure in space +and time. "Whatever we are intended to do," he said, "we are not +intended to succeed." That the stars in their courses fight against +virtue, that humanity is in its nature a forlorn hope, this was the very +spirit that through the whole of Stevenson's work sounded a trumpet to +all the brave. The story of Henry Durie is dark enough, but could anyone +stand beside the grave of that sodden monomaniac and not respect him? It +is strange that men should see sublime inspiration in the ruins of an +old church and see none in the ruins of a man.</p> + +<p>The author has most extraordinary ideas about Stevenson's tales of blood +and spoil; he appears to think that they prove Stevenson to have had (we +use Mr. Baildon's own phrase) a kind of "homicidal mania." "He +[Stevenson] arrives pretty much at the paradox that one can hardly be +better employed than in taking life." Mr. Baildon might as well say that +Dr. Conan Doyle delights in committing inexplicable crimes, that Mr. +Clark Russell is a notorious<a name="Page_100" id="Page_100"></a> pirate, and that Mr. Wilkie Collins thought +that one could hardly be better employed than in stealing moonstones +and falsifying marriage registers. But Mr. Baildon is scarcely alone in +this error: few people have understood properly the goriness of +Stevenson. Stevenson was essentially the robust schoolboy who draws +skeletons and gibbets in his Latin grammar. It was not that he took +pleasure in death, but that he took pleasure in life, in every muscular +and emphatic action of life, even if it were an action that took the +life of another.</p> + +<p>Let us suppose that one gentleman throws a knife at another gentleman +and pins him to the wall. It is scarcely necessary to remark that there +are in this transaction two somewhat varying personal points of view. +The point of view of the man pinned is the tragic and moral point of +view, and this Stevenson showed clearly that he understood in such +stories as "The Master of Ballantrae" and "Weir of Hermiston." But there +is another view of the matter—that in which the whole act is an abrupt +and brilliant<a name="Page_101" id="Page_101"></a> explosion of bodily vitality, like breaking a rock with a +blow of a hammer, or just clearing a five-barred gate. This is the +standpoint of romance, and it is the soul of "Treasure Island" and "The +Wrecker." It was not, indeed, that Stevenson loved men less, but that he +loved clubs and pistols more. He had, in truth, in the devouring +universalism of his soul, a positive love for inanimate objects such as +has not been known since St. Francis called the sun brother and the well +sister. We feel that he was actually in love with the wooden crutch that +Silver sent hurtling in the sunlight, with the box that Billy Bones left +at the "Admiral Benbow," with the knife that Wicks drove through his own +hand and the table. There is always in his work a certain clean-cut +angularity which makes us remember that he was fond of cutting wood with +an axe.</p> + +<p>Stevenson's new biographer, however, cannot make any allowance for this +deep-rooted poetry of mere sight and touch. He is always imputing +something to Stevenson as a crime which Stevenson really pro<a name="Page_102" id="Page_102"></a>fessed as an +object. He says of that glorious riot of horror, "The Destroying Angel," +in "The Dynamiter," that it is "highly fantastic and putting a strain +on our credulity." This is rather like describing the travels of Baron +Munchausen as "unconvincing." The whole story of "The Dynamiter" is a +kind of humorous nightmare, and even in that story "The Destroying +Angel" is supposed to be an extravagant lie made up on the spur of the +moment. It is a dream within a dream, and to accuse it of improbability +is like accusing the sky of being blue. But Mr. Baildon, whether from +hasty reading or natural difference of taste, cannot in the least +comprehend that rich and romantic irony of Stevenson's London stories. +He actually says of that portentous monument of humour, Prince Florizel +of Bohemia, that, "though evidently admired by his creator, he is to me +on the whole rather an irritating presence." From this we are almost +driven to believe (though desperately and against our will) that Mr. +Baildon thinks that Prince Florizel is to be taken seriously,<a name="Page_103" id="Page_103"></a> as if he +were a man in real life. For ourselves. Prince Florizel is almost our +favourite character in fiction; but we willingly add the proviso that +if we met him in real life we should kill him.</p> + +<p>The fact is, that the whole mass of Stevenson's spiritual and +intellectual virtues have been partly frustrated by one additional +virtue—that of artistic dexterity. If he had chalked up his great +message on a wall, like Walt Whitman, in large and straggling letters, +it would have startled men like a blasphemy. But he wrote his +light-headed paradoxes in so flowing a copy-book hand that everyone +supposed they must be copy-book sentiments. He suffered from his +versatility, not, as is loosely said, by not doing every department well +enough, but by doing every department too well. As child, cockney, +pirate, or Puritan, his disguises were so good that most people could +not see the same man under all. It is an unjust fact that if a man can +play the fiddle, give legal opinions, and black boots just tolerably, he +is called an Admirable Crichton, but if he does all three thoroughly +well, he<a name="Page_104" id="Page_104"></a> is apt to be regarded, in the several departments, as a common +fiddler, a common lawyer, and a common boot-black. This is what has +happened in the case of Stevenson. If "Dr. Jekyll," "The Master of +Ballantrae," "The Child's Garden of Verses," and "Across the Plains" had +been each of them one shade less perfectly done than they were, everyone +would have seen that they were all parts of the same message; but by +succeeding in the proverbial miracle of being in five places at once, he +has naturally convinced others that he was five different people. But +the real message of Stevenson was as simple as that of Mohamet, as moral +as that of Dante, as confident as that of Whitman, and as practical as +that of James Watt. The conception which unites the whole varied work of +Stevenson was that romance, or the vision of the possibilities of +things, was far more important than mere occurrences: that one was the +soul of our life, the other the body, and that the soul was the precious +thing. The germ of all his stories lies in the idea that every landscape +or scrap of scenery has a soul:<a name="Page_105" id="Page_105"></a> and that soul is a story. Standing +before a stunted orchard with a broken stone wall, we may know as a +mere fact that no one has been through it but an elderly female cook. +But everything exists in the human soul: that orchard grows in our own +brain, and there it is the shrine and theatre of some strange chance +between a girl and a ragged poet and a mad farmer. Stevenson stands for +the conception that ideas are the real incidents: that our fancies are +our adventures. To think of a cow with wings is essentially to have met +one. And this is the reason for his wide diversities of narrative: he +had to make one story as rich as a ruby sunset, another as grey as a +hoary monolith: for the story was the soul, or rather the meaning, of +the bodily vision. It is quite inappropriate to judge "The Teller of +Tales" (as the Samoans called him) by the particular novels he wrote, as +one would judge Mr. George Moore by "Esther Waters." These novels were +only the two or three of his soul's adventures that he happened to tell. +But he died with a thousand stories in his heart.</p> + +<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1_1" id="Footnote_1_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1_1"><span class="label">[1]</span></a> "Robert Louis Stevenson: A Life Study in Criticism." By H. Bellyse +Baildon. Chatto & Windus.</p></div> +</div> + +<hr class="full" /> +<h2><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106"></a><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107"></a><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108"></a><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109"></a> + +<a name="THOMAS_CARLYLE" id="THOMAS_CARLYLE"></a>THOMAS CARLYLE</h2> + + +<p>There are two main moral necessities for the work of a great man: the +first is that he should believe in the truth of his message; the second +is that he should believe in the acceptability of his message. It was +the whole tragedy of Carlyle that he had the first and not the second.</p> + +<p>The ordinary capital, however, which is made out of Carlyle's alleged +gloom is a very paltry matter. Carlyle had his faults, both as a man and +as a writer, but the attempt to explain his gospel in terms of his +"liver" is merely pitiful. If indigestion invariably resulted in a +"Sartor Resartus," it would be a vastly more tolerable thing than it is. +Diseases do not turn into poems; even the decadent really writes with +the healthy part of his organism. If Carlyle's private faults and +literary virtues ran somewhat in the same<a name="Page_110" id="Page_110"></a> line, he is only in the +situation of every man; for every one of us it is surely very difficult +to say precisely where our honest opinions end and our personal +predilections begin. But to attempt to denounce Carlyle as a mere savage +egotist cannot arise from anything but a pure inability to grasp +Carlyle's gospel. "Ruskin," says a critic, "did, all the same, verily +believe in God; Carlyle believed only in himself." This is certainly a +distinction between the author he has understood and the author he has +not understood. Carlyle believed in himself, but he could not have +believed in himself more than Ruskin did; they both believed in God, +because they felt that if everything else fell into wrack and ruin, +themselves were permanent witnesses to God. Where they both failed was +not in belief in God or in belief in themselves; they failed in belief +in other people. It is not enough for a prophet to believe in his +message; he must believe in its acceptability. Christ, St. Francis, +Bunyan, Wesley, Mr. Gladstone, Walt Whitman, men of indescribable +variety, were all alike in<a name="Page_111" id="Page_111"></a> a certain faculty of treating the average man +as their equal, of trusting to his reason and good feeling without fear +and without condescension. It was this simplicity of confidence, not +only in God, but in the image of God, that was lacking in Carlyle.</p> + +<p>But the attempts to discredit Carlyle's religious sentiment must +absolutely fall to the ground. The profound security of Carlyle's sense +of the unity of the Cosmos is like that of a Hebrew prophet; and it has +the same expression that it had in the Hebrew prophets—humour. A man +must be very full of faith to jest about his divinity. No Neo-Pagan +delicately suggesting a revival of Dionysus, no vague, half-converted +Theosophist groping towards a recognition of Buddha, would ever think of +cracking jokes on the matter. But to the Hebrew prophets their religion +was so solid a thing, like a mountain or a mammoth, that the irony of +its contact with trivial and fleeting matters struck them like a blow. +So it was with Carlyle. His supreme contribution, both to philosophy and +literature, was his sense of<a name="Page_112" id="Page_112"></a> the sarcasm of eternity. Other writers had +seen the hope or the terror of the heavens, he alone saw the humour of +them. Other writers had seen that there could be something elemental and +eternal in a song or statute, he alone saw that there could be something +elemental and eternal in a joke. No one who ever read it will forget the +passage, full of dark and agnostic gratification, in which he narrates +that some Court chronicler described Louis XV. as "falling asleep in the +Lord." "Enough for us that he did fall asleep; that, curtained in thick +night, under what keeping we ask not, he at least will never, through +unending ages, insult the face of the sun any more ... and we go on, if +not to better forms of beastliness, at least to fresher ones."</p> + +<p>The supreme value of Carlyle to English literature was that he was the +founder of modern irrationalism; a movement fully as important as modern +rationalism. A great deal is said in these days about the value or +valuelessness of logic. In the main, indeed, logic is not a productive +tool so much as a weapon of defence.<a name="Page_113" id="Page_113"></a> A man building up an intellectual +system has to build like Nehemiah, with the sword in one hand and the +trowel in the other. The imagination, the constructive quality, is the +trowel, and argument is the sword. A wide experience of actual +intellectual affairs will lead most people to the conclusion that logic +is mainly valuable as a weapon wherewith to exterminate logicians.</p> + +<p>But though this may be true enough in practice, it scarcely clears up +the position of logic in human affairs. Logic is a machine of the mind, +and if it is used honestly it ought to bring out an honest conclusion. +When people say that you can prove anything by logic, they are not using +words in a fair sense. What they mean is that you can prove anything by +bad logic. Deep in the mystic ingratitude of the soul of man there is an +extraordinary tendency to use the name for an organ, when what is meant +is the abuse or decay of that organ. Thus we speak of a man suffering +from "nerves," which is about as sensible as talking about a man +suffering from ten <a name="Page_114" id="Page_114"></a>fingers. We speak of "liver" and "digestion" when we +mean the failure of liver and the absence of digestion. And in the same +manner we speak of the dangers of logic, when what we really mean is the +danger of fallacy.</p> + +<p>But the real point about the limitation of logic and the partial +overthrow of logic by writers like Carlyle is deeper and somewhat +different. The fault of the great mass of logicians is not that they +bring out a false result, or, in other words, are not logicians at all. +Their fault is that by an inevitable psychological habit they tend to +forget that there are two parts of a logical process, the first the +choosing of an assumption, and the second the arguing upon it, and +humanity, if it devotes itself too persistently to the study of sound +reasoning, has a certain tendency to lose the faculty of sound +assumption. It is astonishing how constantly one may hear from rational +and even rationalistic persons such a phrase as "He did not prove the +very thing with which he started," or, "The whole of his case rested +upon a pure assump<a name="Page_115" id="Page_115"></a>tion," two peculiarities which may be found by the +curious in the works of Euclid. It is astonishing, again, how +constantly one hears rationalists arguing upon some deep topic, +apparently without troubling about the deep assumptions involved, having +lost their sense, as it were, of the real colour and character of a +man's assumption. For instance, two men will argue about whether +patriotism is a good thing and never discover until the end, if at all, +that the cosmopolitan is basing his whole case upon the idea that man +should, if he can, become as God, with equal sympathies and no +prejudices, while the nationalist denies any such duty at the very +start, and regards man as an animal who has preferences, as a bird has +feathers.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p>Thus it was with Carlyle: he startled men by attacking not arguments, +but assumptions. He simply brushed aside all the matters which the men +of the nineteenth century held to be incontrovertible, and appealed +directly to the very different class of matters<a name="Page_116" id="Page_116"></a> which they knew to be +true. He induced men to study less the truth of their reasoning, and +more the truth of the assumptions upon which they reasoned. Even where +his view was not the highest truth, it was always a refreshing and +beneficent heresy. He denied every one of the postulates upon which the +age of reason based itself. He denied the theory of progress which +assumed that we must be better off than the people of the twelfth +century. Whether we were better than the people of the twelfth century, +according to him, depended entirely upon whether we chose or deserved to +be.</p> + +<p>He denied every type and species of prop or association or support which +threw the responsibility upon civilisation or society, or anything but +the individual conscience. He has often been called a prophet. The real +ground of the truth of this phrase is often neglected. Since the last +era of purely religious literature, the era of English Puritanism, there +has been no writer in whose eyes the soul stood so much alone.</p> + +<p>Carlyle was, as we have suggested, a mystic, and<a name="Page_117" id="Page_117"></a> mysticism was with him, +as with all its genuine professors, only a transcendent form of common +sense. Mysticism and common sense alike consist in a sense of the +dominance of certain truths and tendencies which cannot be formally +demonstrated or even formally named. Mysticism and common sense are +alike appeals to realities that we all know to be real, but which have +no place in argument except as postulates. Carlyle's work did consist in +breaking through formulæ, old and new, to these old and silent and +ironical sanities. Philosophers might abolish kings a hundred times +over, he maintained, they could not alter the fact that every man and +woman does choose a king and repudiate all the pride of citizenship for +the exultation of humility. If inequality of this kind was a weakness, +it was a weakness bound up with the very strength of the universe. About +hero worship, indeed, few critics have done the smallest justice to +Carlyle. Misled by those hasty and choleric passages in which he +sometimes expressed a preference for mere violence, passages<a name="Page_118" id="Page_118"></a> which were +a great deal more connected with his temperament than with his +philosophy, they have finally imbibed the notion that Carlyle's theory +of hero worship was a theory of terrified submission to stern and +arrogant men. As a matter of fact, Carlyle is really inhumane about some +questions, but he is never inhumane about hero worship. His view is not +that human nature is so vulgar and silly a thing that it must be guided +and driven; it is, on the contrary, that human nature is so chivalrous +and fundamentally magnanimous a thing that even the meanest have it in +them to love a leader more than themselves, and to prefer loyalty to +rebellion. When he speaks of this trait in human nature Carlyle's tone +invariably softens. We feel that for the moment he is kindled with +admiration of mankind, and almost reaches the verge of Christianity. +Whatever else was acid and captious about Carlyle's utterances, his hero +worship was not only humane, it was almost optimistic. He admired great +men primarily, and perhaps correctly, because he thought that they were +more human than<a name="Page_119" id="Page_119"></a> other men. The evil side of the influence of Carlyle and +his religion of hero worship did not consist in the emotional worship +of valour and success; that was a part of him, as, indeed, it is a part +of all healthy children. Where Carlyle really did harm was in the fact +that he, more than any modern man, is responsible for the increase of +that modern habit of what is vulgarly called "Going the whole hog." +Often in matters of passion and conquest it is a singularly hoggish hog. +This remarkable modern craze for making one's philosophy, religion, +politics, and temper all of a piece, of seeking in all incidents for +opportunities to assert and reassert some favourite mental attitude, is +a thing which existed comparatively little in other centuries. Solomon +and Horace, Petrarch and Shakespeare were pessimists when they were +melancholy, and optimists when they were happy. But the optimist of +to-day seems obliged to prove that gout and unrequited love make him +dance with joy, and the pessimist of to-day to prove that sunshine and a +good supper convulse him with inconsolable anguish. Car<a name="Page_120" id="Page_120"></a>lyle was strongly +possessed with this mania for spiritual consistency. He wished to take +the same view of the wars of the angels and of the paltriest riot at +Donnybrook Fair. It was this species of insane logic which led him into +his chief errors, never his natural enthusiasms. Let us take an example. +Carlyle's defence of slavery is a thoroughly ridiculous thing, weak +alike in argument and in moral instinct. The truth is, that he only took +it up from the passion for applying everywhere his paradoxical defence +of aristocracy. He blundered, of course, because he did not see that +slavery has nothing in the world to do with aristocracy, that it is, +indeed, almost its opposite. The defence which Carlyle and all its +thoughtful defenders have made for aristocracy was that a few persons +could more rapidly and firmly decide public affairs in the interests of +the people. But slavery is not even supposed to be a government for the +good of the governed. It is a possession of the governed avowedly for +the good of the governors. Aristocracy uses the strong for the service +of the weak; slavery<a name="Page_121" id="Page_121"></a> uses the weak for the service of the strong. It is +no derogation to man as a spiritual being, as Carlyle firmly believed +he was, that he should be ruled and guided for his own good like a +child—for a child who is always ruled and guided we regard as the very +type of spiritual existence. But it is a derogation and an absolute +contradiction to that human spirituality in which Carlyle believed that +a man should be owned like a tool for someone else's good, as if he had +no personal destiny in the Cosmos. We draw attention to this particular +error of Carlyle's because we think that it is a curious example of the +waste and unclean places into which that remarkable animal, "the whole +hog," more than once led him.</p> + +<p>In this respect Carlyle has had unquestionably long and an +unquestionably bad influence. The whole of that recent political ethic +which conceives that if we only go far enough we may finish a thing for +once and all, that being strong consists chiefly in being deliberately +deaf and blind, owes a great deal of its complete sway to his example. +Out of him flows most<a name="Page_122" id="Page_122"></a> of the philosophy of Nietzsche, who is in modern +times the supreme maniac of this moonstruck consistency. Though +Nietzsche and Carlyle were in reality profoundly different, Carlyle +being a stiff-necked peasant and Nietzsche a very fragile aristocrat, +they were alike in this one quality of which we speak, the strange and +pitiful audacity with which they applied their single ethical test to +everything in heaven and earth. The disciple of Nietzsche, indeed, +embraces immorality like an austere and difficult faith. He urges +himself to lust and cruelty with the same tremulous enthusiasm with +which a Christian urges himself to purity and patience; he struggles as +a monk struggles with bestial visions and temptations with the ancient +necessities of honour and justice and compassion. To this madhouse, it +can hardly be denied, has Carlyle's intellectual courage brought many at +last.<a name="Page_123" id="Page_123"></a><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124"></a><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125"></a></p> + + + +<hr class="full" /> +<h2><a name="TOLSTOY_AND_THE_CULT_OF_SIMPLICITY" id="TOLSTOY_AND_THE_CULT_OF_SIMPLICITY"></a>TOLSTOY AND THE CULT OF SIMPLICITY</h2> + + +<p>The whole world is certainly heading for a great simplicity, not +deliberately, but rather inevitably. It is not a mere fashion of false +innocence, like that of the French aristocrats before the Revolution, +who built an altar to Pan, and who taxed the peasantry for the enormous +expenditure which is needed in order to live the simple life of +peasants. The simplicity towards which the world is driving is the +necessary outcome of all our systems and speculations and of our deep +and continuous contemplation of things. For the universe is like +everything in it; we have to look at it repeatedly and habitually before +we see it. It is only when we have seen it for the hundredth time that +we see it for the first time. The more consistently things are +contem<a name="Page_126" id="Page_126"></a>plated, the more they tend to unify themselves and therefore to +simplify themselves. The simplification of anything is always +sensational. Thus monotheism is the most sensational of things: it is as +if we gazed long at a design full of disconnected objects, and, +suddenly, with a stunning thrill, they came together into a huge and +staring face.</p> + +<p>Few people will dispute that all the typical movements of our time are +upon this road towards simplification. Each system seeks to be more +fundamental than the other; each seeks, in the literal sense, to +undermine the other. In art, for example, the old conception of man, +classic as the Apollo Belvedere, has first been attacked by the realist, +who asserts that man, as a fact of natural history, is a creature with +colourless hair and a freckled face. Then comes the Impressionist, going +yet deeper, who asserts that to his physical eye, which alone is +certain, man is a creature with purple hair and a grey face. Then comes +the Symbolist, and says that to his soul, which alone is certain, man is +a creature with green hair and<a name="Page_127" id="Page_127"></a> a blue face. And all the great writers of +our time represent in one form or another this attempt to reestablish +communication with the elemental, or, as it is sometimes more roughly +and fallaciously expressed, to return to nature. Some think that the +return to nature consists in drinking no wine; some think that it +consists in drinking a great deal more than is good for them. Some think +that the return to nature is achieved by beating swords into +ploughshares; some think it is achieved by turning ploughshares into +very ineffectual British War Office bayonets. It is natural, according +to the Jingo, for a man to kill other people with gunpowder and himself +with gin. It is natural, according to the humanitarian revolutionist, to +kill other people with dynamite and himself with vegetarianism. It would +be too obviously Philistine a sentiment, perhaps, to suggest that the +claim of either of these persons to be obeying the voice of nature is +interesting when we consider that they require huge volumes of +paradoxical argument to persuade themselves or anyone else of the truth +of their conclusions. <a name="Page_128" id="Page_128"></a>But the giants of our time are undoubtedly alike +in that they approach by very different roads this conception of the +return to simplicity. Ibsen returns to nature by the angular exterior of +fact, Maeterlinck by the eternal tendencies of fable. Whitman returns to +nature by seeing how much he can accept, Tolstoy by seeing how much he +can reject.</p> + +<p>Now, this heroic desire to return to nature, is, of course, in some +respects, rather like the heroic desire of a kitten to return to its own +tail. A tail is a simple and beautiful object, rhythmic in curve and +soothing in texture; but it is certainly one of the minor but +characteristic qualities of a tail that it should hang behind. It is +impossible to deny that it would in some degree lose its character if +attached to any other part of the anatomy. Now, nature is like a tail in +the sense that it vitally important, if it is to discharge its real +duty, that it should be always behind. To imagine that we can see +nature, especially our own nature, face to face, is a folly; it is even +a blasphemy. It is like the conduct of a cat in some mad fairy-tale,<a name="Page_129" id="Page_129"></a> who +should set out on his travels with the firm conviction that he would +find his tail growing like a tree in the meadows at the end of the +world. And the actual effect of the travels of the philosopher in search +of nature, when seen from the outside, looks very like the gyrations of +the tail-pursuing kitten, exhibiting much enthusiasm but little dignity, +much cry and very little tail. The grandeur of nature is that she is +omnipotent and unseen, that she is perhaps ruling us most when we think +that she is heeding us least. "Thou art a God that hidest Thyself," said +the Hebrew poet. It may be said with all reverence that it is behind a +man's back that the spirit of nature hides.</p> + +<p>It is this consideration that lends a certain air of futility even to +all the inspired simplicities and thunderous veracities of Tolstoy. We +feel that a man cannot make himself simple merely by warring on +complexity; we feel, indeed, in our saner moments, that a man cannot +make himself simple at all. A self-conscious simplicity may well be far +more intrin<a name="Page_130" id="Page_130"></a>sically ornate than luxury itself. Indeed, a great deal of +the pomp and sumptuousness of the world's history was simple in the +truest sense. It was born of an almost babyish receptiveness; it was the +work of men who had eyes to wonder and men who had ears to hear.</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span>"King Solomon brought merchant men<br /></span> +<span>Because of his desire<br /></span> +<span>With peacocks, apes, and ivory,<br /></span> +<span>From Tarshish unto Tyre."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>But this proceeding was not a part of the wisdom of Solomon; it was a +part of his folly—I had almost said of his innocence. Tolstoy, we feel, +would not be content with hurling satire and denunciation at "Solomon in +all his glory." With fierce and unimpeachable logic he would go a step +further. He would spend days and nights in the meadows stripping the +shameless crimson coronals off the lilies of the field.</p> + +<p>The new collection of "Tales from Tolstoy," translated and edited by Mr. +R. Nisbet Bain, is calculated to draw particular attention to this +ethical and ascetic<a name="Page_131" id="Page_131"></a> side of Tolstoy's work. In one sense, and that the +deepest sense, the work of Tolstoy is, of course, a genuine and noble +appeal to simplicity. The narrow notion that an artist may not teach is +pretty well exploded by now. But the truth of the matter is, that an +artist teaches far more by his mere background and properties, his +landscape, his costume, his idiom and technique—all the part of his +work, in short, of which he is probably entirely unconscious, than by +the elaborate and pompous moral dicta which he fondly imagines to be his +opinions. The real distinction between the ethics of high art and the +ethics of manufactured and didactic art lies in the simple fact that the +bad fable has a moral, while the good fable is a moral. And the real +moral of Tolstoy comes out constantly in these stories, the great moral +which lies at the heart of all his work, of which he is probably +unconscious, and of which it is quite likely that he would vehemently +disapprove. The curious cold white light of morning that shines over all +the tales, the folklore simplicity with which "a<a name="Page_132" id="Page_132"></a> man or a woman" are +spoken of without further identification, the love—one might almost say +the lust—for the qualities of brute materials, the hardness of wood, +and the softness of mud, the ingrained belief in a certain ancient +kindliness sitting beside the very cradle of the race of man—these +influences are truly moral. When we put beside them the trumpeting and +tearing nonsense of the didactic Tolstoy, screaming for an obscene +purity, shouting for an inhuman peace, hacking up human life into small +sins with a chopper, sneering at men, women, and children out of respect +to humanity, combining in one chaos of contradictions an unmanly Puritan +and an uncivilised prig, then, indeed, we scarcely know whither Tolstoy +has vanished. We know not what to do with this small and noisy moralist +who is inhabiting one corner of a great and good man.</p> + +<p>It is difficult in every case to reconcile Tolstoy the great artist with +Tolstoy the almost venomous reformer. It is difficult to believe that a +man who draws in such noble outlines the dignity of the daily life<a name="Page_133" id="Page_133"></a> of +humanity regards as evil that divine act of procreation by which that +dignity is renewed from age to age. It is difficult to believe that a +man who has painted with so frightful an honesty the heartrending +emptiness of the life of the poor can really grudge them every one of +their pitiful pleasures, from courtship to tobacco. It is difficult to +believe that a poet in prose who has so powerfully exhibited the +earth-born air of man, the essential kinship of a human being, with the +landscape in which he lives, can deny so elemental a virtue as that +which attaches a man to his own ancestors and his own land. It is +difficult to believe that the man who feels so poignantly the detestable +insolence of oppression would not actually, if he had the chance, lay +the oppressor flat with his fist. All, however, arises from the search +after a false simplicity, the aim of being, if I may so express it, more +natural than it is natural to be. It would not only be more human, it +would be more humble of us to be content to be complex. The truest +kinship with humanity would lie in doing as humanity has always<a name="Page_134" id="Page_134"></a> done, +accepting with a sportsmanlike relish the estate to which we are called, +the star of our happiness, and the fortunes of the land of our birth.</p> + +<p>The work of Tolstoy has another and more special significance. It +represents the re-assertion of a certain awful common sense which +characterised the most extreme utterances of Christ. It is true that we +cannot turn the cheek to the smiter; it is true that we cannot give our +cloak to the robber; civilisation is too complicated, too vain-glorious, +too emotional. The robber would brag, and we should blush; in other +words, the robber and we are alike sentimentalists. The command of +Christ is impossible, but it is not insane; it is rather sanity preached +to a planet of lunatics. If the whole world was suddenly stricken with a +sense of humour it would find itself mechanically fulfilling the Sermon +on the Mount. It is not the plain facts of the world which stand in the +way of that consummation, but its passions of vanity and +self-advertisement and morbid sensibility. It is true that we cannot +turn the cheek to the smiter, and the <a name="Page_135" id="Page_135"></a>sole and sufficient reason is that +we have not the pluck. Tolstoy and his followers have shown that they +have the pluck, and even if we think they are mistaken, by this sign +they conquer. Their theory has the strength of an utterly consistent +thing. It represents that doctrine of mildness and non-resistance which +is the last and most audacious of all the forms of resistance to every +existing authority. It is the great strike of the Quakers which is more +formidable than many sanguinary revolutions. If human beings could only +succeed in achieving a real passive resistance they would be strong with +the appalling strength of inanimate things, they would be calm with the +maddening calm of oak or iron, which conquer without vengeance and are +conquered without humiliation. The theory of Christian duty enunciated +by them is that we should never conquer by force, but always, if we can, +conquer by persuasion. In their mythology St. George did not conquer the +dragon: he tied a pink ribbon round its neck and gave it a saucer of +milk. According to them, a course of consistent kindness to Nero<a name="Page_136" id="Page_136"></a> would +have turned him into something only faintly represented by Alfred the +Great. In fact, the policy recommended by this school for dealing with +the bovine stupidity and bovine fury of this world is accurately summed +up in the celebrated verse of Mr. Edward Lear:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span>"There was an old man who said, 'How<br /></span> +<span>Shall I flee from this terrible cow?<br /></span> +<span>I will sit on a stile and continue to smile<br /></span> +<span>Till I soften the heart of this cow.'"<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Their confidence in human nature is really honourable and magnificent; +it takes the form of refusing to believe the overwhelming majority of +mankind, even when they set out to explain their own motives. But +although most of us would in all probability tend at first sight to +consider this new sect of Christians as little less outrageous than some +brawling and absurd sect in the Reformation, yet we should fall into a +singular error in doing so. The Christianity of Tolstoy is, when we come +to consider it, one of the most thrilling and dramatic incidents in our +modern civili<a name="Page_137" id="Page_137"></a>sation. It represents a tribute to the Christian religion +more sensational than the breaking of seals or the falling of stars.</p> + +<p>From the point of view of a rationalist, the whole world is rendered +almost irrational by the single phenomenon of Christian Socialism. It +turns the scientific universe topsy-turvy, and makes it essentially +possible that the key of all social evolution may be found in the dusty +casket of some discredited creed. It cannot be amiss to consider this +phenomenon as it realty is.</p> + +<p>The religion of Christ has, like many true things, been disproved an +extraordinary number of times. It was disproved by the Neo-Platonist +philosophers at the very moment when it was first starting forth upon +its startling and universal career. It was disproved again by many of +the sceptics of the Renaissance only a few years before its second and +supremely striking embodiment, the religion of Puritanism, was about to +triumph over many kings and civilise many continents. We all agree that +these schools of negation<a name="Page_138" id="Page_138"></a> were only interludes in its history; but we +all believe naturally and inevitably that the negation of our own day +is really a breaking up of the theological cosmos, an Armageddon, a +Ragnorak, a twilight of the gods. The man of the nineteenth century, +like a schoolboy of sixteen, believes that his doubt and depression are +symbols of the end of the world. In our day the great irreligionists who +did nothing but dethrone God and drive angels before them have been +outstripped, distanced, and made to look orthodox and humdrum. A newer +race of sceptics has found something infinitely more exciting to do than +nailing down the lids upon a million coffins, and the body upon a single +cross. They have disputed not only the elementary creeds, but the +elementary laws of mankind, property, patriotism, civil obedience. They +have arraigned civilisation as openly as the materialists have arraigned +theology; they have damned all the philosophers even lower than they +have damned the saints. Thousands of modern men move quietly and +conventionally among their fellows while holding views of<a name="Page_139" id="Page_139"></a> national +limitation or landed property that would have made Voltaire shudder like +a nun listening to blasphemies. And the last and wildest phase of this +saturnalia of scepticism, the school that goes furthest among thousands +who go so far, the school that denies the moral validity of those ideals +of courage or obedience which are recognised even among pirates, this +school bases itself upon the literal words of Christ, like Dr. Watts or +Messrs. Moody and Sankey. Never in the whole history of the world was +such a tremendous tribute paid to the vitality of an ancient creed. +Compared with this, it would be a small thing if the Red Sea were cloven +asunder, or the sun did stand still at midday. We are faced with the +phenomenon that a set of revolutionists whose contempt for all the +ideals of family and nation would evoke horror in a thieves' kitchen, +who can rid themselves of those elementary instincts of the man and the +gentleman which cling to the very bones of our civilisation, cannot rid +themselves of the influence of two or three remote Oriental anecdotes +written in corrupt<a name="Page_140" id="Page_140"></a> Greek. The fact, when realised, has about it +something stunning and hypnotic. The most convinced rationalist is in +its presence suddenly stricken with a strange and ancient vision, sees +the immense sceptical cosmogonies of this age as dreams going the way of +a thousand forgotten heresies, and believes for a moment that the dark +sayings handed down through eighteen centuries may, indeed, contain in +themselves the revolutions of which we have only begun to dream.</p> + +<p>This value which we have above suggested unquestionably belongs to the +Tolstoians, who may roughly be described as the new Quakers. With their +strange optimism, and their almost appalling logical courage, they offer +a tribute to Christianity which no orthodoxies could offer. It cannot +but be remarkable to watch a revolution in which both the rulers and the +rebels march under the same symbol. But the actual theory of +non-resistance itself, with all its kindred theories, is not, I think, +characterised by that intellectual obviousness and necessity which its +sup<a name="Page_141" id="Page_141"></a>porters claim for it. A pamphlet before us shows us an extraordinary +number of statements about the new Testament, of which the accuracy is +by no means so striking as the confidence. To begin with, we must +protest against a habit of quoting and paraphrasing at the same time. +When a man is discussing what Jesus meant, let him state first of all +what He said, not what the man thinks He would have said if he had +expressed Himself more clearly. Here is an instance of question and +answer:</p> + +<p>Q. "How did our Master Himself sum up the law in a few words?"</p> + +<p>A. "Be ye merciful, be ye perfect even as your Father; your Father in +the spirit world is merciful, is perfect."</p> + +<p>There is nothing in this, perhaps, which Christ might not have said +except the abominable metaphysical modernism of "the spirit world"; but +to say that it is recorded that He did say it, is like saying it is +recorded that He preferred palm trees to sycamores. It is a simple and +unadulterated un<a name="Page_142" id="Page_142"></a>truth. The author should know that these words have +meant a thousand things to a thousand people, and that if more ancient +sects had paraphrased them as cheerfully as he, he would never have had +the text upon which he founds his theory. In a pamphlet in which plain +printed words cannot be left alone, it is not surprising if there are +mis-statements upon larger matters. Here is a statement clearly and +philosophically laid down which we can only content ourselves with +flatly denying: "The fifth rule of our Lord is that we should take +special pains to cultivate the same kind of regard for people of foreign +countries, and for those generally who do not belong to us, or even have +an antipathy to us, which we already entertain towards our own people, +and those who are in sympathy with us." I should very much like to know +where in the whole of the New Testament the author finds this violent, +unnatural, and immoral proposition. Christ did not have the same kind of +regard for one person as for another. We are specifically told that +there were certain persons whom He<a name="Page_143" id="Page_143"></a> specially loved. It is most +improbable that He thought of other nations as He thought of His own. +The sight of His national city moved Him to tears, and the highest +compliment He paid was, "Behold an Israelite indeed." The author has +simply confused two entirely distinct things. Christ commanded us to +have love for all men, but even if we had equal love for all men, to +speak of having the same love for all men is merely bewildering +nonsense. If we love a man at all, the impression he produces on us must +be vitally different to the impression produced by another man whom we +love. To speak of having the same kind of regard for both is about as +sensible as asking a man whether he prefers chrysanthemums or billiards. +Christ did not love humanity; He never said He loved humanity; He loved +men. Neither He nor anyone else can love humanity; it is like loving a +gigantic centipede. And the reason that the Tolstoians can even endure +to think of an equally distributed affection is that their love of +humanity is a logical love, a love into which they are<a name="Page_144" id="Page_144"></a> coerced by their +own theories, a love which would be an insult to a tom-cat.</p> + +<p>But the greatest error of all lies in the mere act of cutting up the +teaching of the New Testament into five rules. It precisely and +ingeniously misses the most dominant characteristic of the teaching—its +absolute spontaneity. The abyss between Christ and all His modern +interpreters is that we have no record that He ever wrote a word, except +with His finger in the sand. The whole is the history of one continuous +and sublime conversation. Thousands of rules have been deduced from it +before these Tolstoian rules were made, and thousands will be deduced +afterwards. It was not for any pompous proclamation, it was not for any +elaborate output of printed volumes; it was for a few splendid and idle +words that the cross was set up on Calvary, and the earth gaped, and the +sun was darkened at noonday.<a name="Page_145" id="Page_145"></a><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146"></a><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147"></a></p> + + + +<hr class="full" /> +<h2><a name="SAVONAROLA" id="SAVONAROLA"></a>SAVONAROLA</h2> + + +<p>Savonarola is a man whom we shall probably never understand until we +know what horror may lie at the heart of civilisation. This we shall not +know until we are civilised. It may be hoped, in one sense, that we may +never understand Savonarola.</p> + +<p>The great deliverers of men have, for the most part, saved them from +calamities which we all recognise as evil, from calamities which are the +ancient enemies of humanity. The great law-givers saved us from anarchy: +the great physicians saved us from pestilence: the great reformers saved +us from starvation. But there is a huge and bottomless evil compared +with which all these are fleabites, the most desolating curse that can +fall upon men or nations, and it has no name except we call it +satisfaction. Savon<a name="Page_148" id="Page_148"></a>arola did not save men from anarchy, but from order; +not from pestilence, but from paralysis; not from starvation, but from +luxury. Men like Savonarola are the witnesses to the tremendous +psychological fact at the back of all our brains, but for which no name +has ever been found, that ease is the worst enemy of happiness, and +civilisation potentially the end of man.</p> + +<p>For I fancy that Savonarola's thrilling challenge to the luxury of his +day went far deeper than the mere question of sin. The modern +rationalistic admirers of Savonarola, from George Eliot downwards, +dwell, truly enough, upon the sound ethical justification of +Savonarola's anger, upon the hideous and extravagant character of the +crimes which polluted the palaces of the Renaissance. But they need not +be so anxious to show that Savonarola was no ascetic, that he merely +picked out the black specks of wickedness with the priggish +enlightenment of a member of an Ethical Society. Probably he did hate +the civilisation of his time, and not merely its sins; and that is +precisely where he was infinitely more pro<a name="Page_149" id="Page_149"></a>found than a modern moralist. +He saw, that the actual crimes were not the only evils: that stolen +jewels and poisoned wine and obscene pictures were merely the symptoms; +that the disease was the complete dependence upon jewels and wine and +pictures. This is a thing constantly forgotten in judging of ascetics +and Puritans in old times. A denunciation of harmless sports did not +always mean an ignorant hatred of what no one but a narrow moralist +would call harmful. Sometimes it meant an exceedingly enlightened hatred +of what no one but a narrow moralist would call harmless. Ascetics are +sometimes more advanced than the average man, as well as less.</p> + +<p>Such, at least, was the hatred in the heart of Savonarola. He was making +war against no trivial human sins, but against godless and thankless +quiescence, against getting used to happiness, the mystic sin by which +all creation fell. He was preaching that severity which is the +sign-manual of youth and hope. He was preaching that alertness, that +clean agility and vigilance, which is as necessary to gain pleasure as<a name="Page_150" id="Page_150"></a> +to gain holiness, as indispensable in a lover as in a monk. A critic has +truly pointed out that Savonarola could not have been fundamentally +anti-æsthetic, since he had such friends as Michael Angelo, Botticelli, +and Luca della Robbia. The fact is that this purification and austerity +are even more necessary for the appreciation of life and laughter than +for anything else. To let no bird fly past unnoticed, to spell patiently +the stones and weeds, to have the mind a storehouse of sunset, requires +a discipline in pleasure, and an education in gratitude.</p> + +<p>The civilisation which surrounded Savonarola on every side was a +civilisation which had already taken the wrong turn, the turn that leads +to endless inventions and no discoveries, in which new things grow old +with confounding rapidity, but in which no old things ever grow new. The +monstrosity of the crimes of the Renaissance was not a mark of +imagination; it was a mark, as all monstrosity is, of the loss of +imagination. It is only when a man has really ceased to see a horse as +it is, that he invents a centaur, only<a name="Page_151" id="Page_151"></a> when he can no longer be +surprised at an ox, that he worships the devil. Diablerie is the +stimulant of the jaded fancy; it is the dram-drinking of the artist. +Savonarola addressed himself to the hardest of all earthly tasks, that +of making men turn back and wonder at the simplicities they had learnt +to ignore. It is strange that the most unpopular of all doctrines is the +doctrine which declares the common life divine. Democracy, of which +Savonarola was so fiery an exponent, is the hardest of gospels; there is +nothing that so terrifies men as the decree that they are all kings. +Christianity, in Savonarola's mind, identical with democracy, is the +hardest of gospels; there is nothing that so strikes men with fear as +the saying that they are all the sons of God.</p> + +<p>Savonarola and his republic fell. The drug of despotism was administered +to the people, and they forgot what they had been. There are some at the +present day who have so strange a respect for art and letters, and for +mere men of genius, that they conceive the reign of the Medici to be an +improvement on that<a name="Page_152" id="Page_152"></a> of the great Florentine republican. It is such men +as these and their civilisation that we have at the present day to +fear. We are surrounded on many sides by the same symptoms as those +which awoke the unquenchable wrath of Savonarola—a hedonism that is +more sick of happiness than an invalid is sick of pain, an art sense +that seeks the assistance of crime since it has exhausted nature. In +many modern works we find veiled and horrible hints of a truly +Renaissance sense of the beauty of blood, the poetry of murder. The +bankrupt and depraved imagination does not see that a living man is far +more dramatic than a dead one. Along with this, as in the time of the +Medici, goes the falling back into the arms of despotism, the hunger for +the strong man which is unknown among strong men. The masterful hero is +worshipped as he is worshipped by the readers of the "Bow Bells +Novelettes," and for the same reason—a profound sense of personal +weakness. That tendency to devolve our duties descends on us, which is +the soul of slavery, alike whether for its menial tasks it employs<a name="Page_153" id="Page_153"></a> serfs +or emperors. Against all this the great clerical republican stands in +everlasting protest, preferring his failure to his rival's success. The +issue is still between him and Lorenzo, between the responsibilities of +liberty and the license of slavery, between the perils of truth and the +security of silence, between the pleasure of toil and the toil of +pleasure. The supporters of Lorenzo the Magnificent are assuredly among +us, men for whom even nations and empires only exist to satisfy the +moment, men to whom the last hot hour of summer is better than a sharp +and wintry spring. They have an art, a literature, a political +philosophy, which are all alike valued for their immediate effect upon +the taste, not for what they promise of the destiny of the spirit. Their +statuettes and sonnets are rounded and perfect, while "Macbeth" is in +comparison a fragment, and the Moses of Michael Angelo a hint. Their +campaigns and battles are always called triumphant, while Cæsar and +Cromwell wept for many humiliations. And the end of it all is the hell +of no resistance, the hell of an unfathomable soft<a name="Page_154" id="Page_154"></a>ness, until the whole +nature recoils into madness and the chamber of civilisation is no longer +merely a cushioned apartment, but a padded cell.</p> + +<p>This last and worst of human miseries Savonarola saw afar off, and bent +his whole gigantic energies to turning the chariot into another course. +Few men understood his object; some called him a madman, some a +charlatan, some an enemy of human joy. They would not even have +understood if he had told them, if he had said that he was saving them +from a calamity of contentment which should be the end of joys and +sorrows alike. But there are those to-day who feel the same silent +danger, and who bend themselves to the same silent resistance. They also +are supposed to be contending for some trivial political scruple.</p> + +<p>Mr. M'Hardy says, in defending Savonarola, that the number of fine works +of art destroyed in the Burning of the Vanities has been much +exaggerated. I confess that I hope the pile contained stacks of +incomparable masterpieces if the sacrifice made that one real moment +more real. Of one thing I am sure, that<a name="Page_155" id="Page_155"></a> Savonarola's friend Michael +Angelo would have piled all his own statues one on top of the other, +and burnt them to ashes, if only he had been certain that the glow +transfiguring the sky was the dawn of a younger and wiser world.</p> + +<hr class="full" /> +<h2><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156"></a><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157"></a><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158"></a><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159"></a> + +<a name="THE_POSITION_OF_SIR_WALTER_SCOTT" id="THE_POSITION_OF_SIR_WALTER_SCOTT"></a>THE POSITION OF SIR WALTER SCOTT</h2> + + +<p>Walter Scott is a writer who should just now be re-emerging into his own +high place in letters, for unquestionably the recent, though now +dwindling, schools of severely technical and æsthetic criticism have +been unfavourable to him. He was a chaotic and unequal writer, and if +there is one thing in which artists have improved since his time, it is +in consistency and equality. It would perhaps be unkind to inquire +whether the level of the modern man of letters, as compared with Scott, +is due to the absence of valleys or the absence of mountains. But in any +case, we have learnt in our day to arrange our literary effects +carefully, and the only point in which we fall short of Scott is in the +incidental misfortune that we have nothing particular to arrange.<a name="Page_160" id="Page_160"></a></p> + +<p>It is said that Scott is neglected by modern readers; if so, the matter +could be more appropriately described by saying that modern readers are +neglected by Providence. The ground of this neglect, in so far as it +exists, must be found, I suppose, in the general sentiment that, like +the beard of Polonius, he is too long. Yet it is surely a peculiar thing +that in literature alone a house should be despised because it is too +large, or a host impugned because he is too generous. If romance be +really a pleasure, it is difficult to understand the modern reader's +consuming desire to get it over, and if it be not a pleasure, it is +difficult to understand his desire to have it at all. Mere size, it +seems to me, cannot be a fault. The fault must lie in some +disproportion. If some of Scott's stories are dull and dilatory, it is +not because they are giants, but because they are hunchbacks or +cripples. Scott was very far indeed from being a perfect writer, but I +do not think that it can be shown that the large and elaborate plan on +which his stories are built was by any means an imperfection. He +ar<a name="Page_161" id="Page_161"></a>ranged his endless prefaces and his colossal introductions just as an +architect plans great gates and long approaches to a really large +house. He did not share the latter-day desire to get quickly through a +story. He enjoyed narrative as a sensation; he did not wish to swallow a +story like a pill, that it should do him good afterwards. He desired to +taste it like a glass of port, that it might do him good at the time. +The reader sits late at his banquets. His characters have that air of +immortality which belongs to those of Dumas and Dickens. We should not +be surprised to meet them in any number of sequels. Scott, in his heart +of hearts, probably would have liked to write an endless story without +either beginning or close.</p> + +<p>Walter Scott is a great, and, therefore, mysterious man. He will never +be understood until Romance is understood, and that will be only when +Time, Man, and Eternity are understood. To say that Scott had more than +any other man that ever lived a sense of the romantic seems, in these +days, a slight and superficial tribute. The whole modern theory arises +from one<a name="Page_162" id="Page_162"></a> fundamental mistake—the idea that romance is in some way a +plaything with life, a figment, a conventionality, a thing upon the +outside. No genuine criticism of romance will ever arise until we have +grasped the fact that romance lies not upon the outside of life, but +absolutely in the centre of it. The centre of every man's existence is a +dream. Death, disease, insanity, are merely material accidents, like +toothache or a twisted ankle. That these brutal forces always besiege +and often capture the citadel does not prove that they are the citadel. +The boast of the realist (applying what the reviewers call his scalpel) +is that he cuts into the heart of life; but he makes a very shallow +incision, if he only reaches as deep as habits and calamities and sins. +Deeper than all these lies a man's vision of himself, as swaggering and +sentimental as a penny novelette. The literature of can-dour unearths +innumerable weaknesses and elements of lawlessness which is called +romance. It perceives superficial habits like murder and dipsomania, but +it does not perceive the deepest of sins—the sin of vanity—<a name="Page_163" id="Page_163"></a>vanity +which is the mother of all day-dreams and adventures, the one sin that +is not shared with any boon companion, or whispered to any priest.</p> + +<p>In estimating, therefore, the ground of Scott's pre-eminence in romance +we must absolutely rid ourselves of the notion that romance or adventure +are merely materialistic things involved in the tangle of a plot or the +multiplicity of drawn swords. We must remember that it is, like tragedy +or farce, a state of the soul, and that, for some dark and elemental +reason which we can never understand, this state of the soul is evoked +in us by the sight of certain places or the contemplation of certain +human crises, by a stream rushing under a heavy and covered wooden +bridge, or by a man plunging a knife or sword into tough timber. In the +selection of these situations which catch the spirit of romance as in a +net, Scott has never been equalled or even approached. His finest scenes +affect us like fragments of a hilarious dream. They have the same +quality which is often possessed by those nocturnal comedies—that of +seeming more human<a name="Page_164" id="Page_164"></a> than our waking life—even while they are less +possible. Sir Arthur Wardour, with his daughter and the old beggar +crouching in a cranny of the cliff as night falls and the tide closes +around them, are actually in the coldest and bitterest of practical +situations. Yet the whole incident has a quality that can only be called +boyish. It is warmed with all the colours of an incredible sunset. Rob +Roy trapped in the Tolbooth, and confronted with Bailie Nicol Jarvie, +draws no sword, leaps from no window, affects none of the dazzling +external acts upon which contemporary romance depends, yet that plain +and humourous dialogue is full of the essential philosophy of romance +which is an almost equal betting upon man and destiny. Perhaps the most +profoundly thrilling of all Scott's situations is that in which the +family of Colonel Mannering are waiting for the carriage which may or +may not arrive by night to bring an unknown man into a princely +possession. Yet almost the whole of that thrilling scene consists of a +ridiculous conversation about food, and flirtation between a frivolous +old<a name="Page_165" id="Page_165"></a> lawyer and a fashionable girl. We can say nothing about what makes +these scenes, except that the wind bloweth where it listeth, and that +here the wind blows strong.</p> + +<p>It is in this quality of what may be called spiritual adventurousness +that Scott stands at so different an elevation to the whole of the +contemporary crop of romancers who have followed the leadership of +Dumas. There has, indeed, been a great and inspiriting revival of +romance in our time, but it is partly frustrated in almost every case by +this rooted conception that romance consists in the vast multiplication +of incidents and the violent acceleration of narrative. The heroes of +Mr. Stanley Weyman scarcely ever have their swords out of their hands; +the deeper presence of romance is far better felt when the sword is at +the hip ready for innumerable adventures too terrible to be pictured. +The Stanley Weyman hero has scarcely time to eat his supper except in +the act of leaping from a window or whilst his other hand is employed in +lunging with a rapier. In Scott's heroes, on the other<a name="Page_166" id="Page_166"></a> hand, there is no +characteristic so typical or so worthy of humour as their disposition to +linger over their meals. The conviviality of the Clerk of Copmanhurst +or of Mr. Pleydell, and the thoroughly solid things they are described +as eating, is one of the most perfect of Scott's poetic touches. In +short, Mr. Stanley Weyman is filled with the conviction that the sole +essence of romance is to move with insatiable rapidity from incident to +incident. In the truer romance of Scott there is more of the sentiment +of "Oh! still delay, thou art so fair"! more of a certain patriarchal +enjoyment of things as they are—of the sword by the side and the +wine-cup in the hand. Romance, indeed, does not consist by any means so +much in experiencing adventures as in being ready for them. How little +the actual boy cares for incidents in comparison to tools and weapons +may be tested by the fact that the most popular story of adventure is +concerned with a man who lived for years on a desert island with two +guns and a sword, which he never had to use on an enemy.<a name="Page_167" id="Page_167"></a></p> + +<p>Closely connected with this is one of the charges most commonly brought +against Scott, particularly in his own day—the charge of a fanciful +and monotonous insistence upon the details of armour and costume. The +critic in the <i>Edinburgh Review</i> said indignantly that he could tolerate +a somewhat detailed description of the apparel of Marmion, but when it +came to an equally detailed account of the apparel of his pages and +yeomen the mind could bear it no longer. The only thing to be said about +that critic is that he had never been a little boy. He foolishly +imagined that Scott valued the plume and dagger of Marmion for Marmion's +sake. Not being himself romantic, he could not understand that Scott +valued the plume because it was a plume, and the dagger because it was a +dagger. Like a child, he loved weapons with a manual materialistic love, +as one loves the softness of fur or the coolness of marble. One of the +profound philosophical truths which are almost confined to infants is +this love of things, not for their use or origin, but for their own +inherent characteristics, the child's<a name="Page_168" id="Page_168"></a> love of the toughness of wood, the +wetness of water, the magnificent soapiness of soap. So it was with +Scott, who had so much of the child in him. Human beings were perhaps +the principal characters in his stories, but they were certainly not the +only characters. A battle-axe was a person of importance, a castle had a +character and ways of its own. A church bell had a word to say in the +matter. Like a true child, he almost ignored the distinction between the +animate and inanimate. A two-handed sword might be carried only by a +menial in a procession, but it was something important and immeasurably +fascinating—it was a two-handed sword.</p> + +<p>There is one quality which is supreme and continuous in Scott which is +little appreciated at present. One of the values we have really lost in +recent fiction is the value of eloquence. The modern literary artist is +compounded of almost every man except the orator. Yet Shakespeare and +Scott are certainly alike in this, that they could both, if literature +had failed, have earned a living as professional demagogues. The <a name="Page_169" id="Page_169"></a>feudal +heroes in the "Waverley Novels" retort upon each other with a passionate +dignity, haughty and yet singularly human, which can hardly be +paralleled in political eloquence except in "Julius Cæsar." With a +certain fiery impartiality which stirs the blood, Scott distributes his +noble orations equally among saints and villains. He may deny a villain +every virtue or triumph, but he cannot endure to deny him a telling +word; he will ruin a man, but he will not silence him. In truth, one of +Scott's most splendid traits is his difficulty, or rather incapacity, +for despising any of his characters. He did not scorn the most revolting +miscreant as the realist of to-day commonly scorns his own hero. Though +his soul may be in rags, every man of Scott can speak like a king.</p> + +<p>This quality, as I have said, is sadly to seek in the fiction of the +passing hour. The realist would, of course, repudiate the bare idea of +putting a bold and brilliant tongue in every man's head, but even where +the moment of the story naturally demands eloquence the eloquence seems +frozen in the tap. Take any con<a name="Page_170" id="Page_170"></a>temporary work of fiction and turn to the +scene where the young Socialist denounces the millionaire, and then +compare the stilted sociological lecture given by that self-sacrificing +bore with the surging joy of words in Rob Roy's declaration of himself, +or Athelstane's defiance of De Bracy. That ancient sea of human passion +upon which high words and great phrases are the resplendent foam is just +now at a low ebb. We have even gone the length of congratulating +ourselves because we can see the mud and the monsters at the bottom.</p> + +<p>In politics there is not a single man whose position is due to eloquence +in the first degree; its place is taken by repartees and rejoinders +purely intellectual, like those of an omnibus conductor. In discussing +questions like the farm-burning in South Africa no critic of the war +uses his material as Burke or Grattan (perhaps exaggeratively) would +have used it—the speaker is content with facts and expositions of +facts. In another age he might have risen and hurled that great song in +prose, perfect as prose and<a name="Page_171" id="Page_171"></a> yet rising into a chant, which Meg Merrilies +hurled at Ellangowan, at the rulers of Britain: "Ride your ways. Laird +of Ellangowan; ride your ways, Godfrey Bertram—this day have ye +quenched seven smoking hearths. See if the fire in your ain parlour +burns the blyther for that. Ye have riven the thack of seven cottar +houses. Look if your ain roof-tree stands the faster for that. Ye may +stable your stirks in the sheilings of Dern-cleugh. See that the hare +does not couch on the hearthstane of Ellangowan. Ride your ways, Godfrey +Bertram."</p> + +<p>The reason is, of course, that these men are afraid of bombast and Scott +was not. A man will not reach eloquence if he is afraid of bombast, just +as a man will not jump a hedge if he is afraid of a ditch. As the object +of all eloquence is to find the least common denominator of men's souls, +to fall just within the natural comprehension, it cannot obviously have +any chance with a literary ambition which aims at falling just outside +it. It is quite right to invent subtle analyses and detached criticisms, +but it is unreasonable<a name="Page_172" id="Page_172"></a> to expect them to be punctuated with roars of +popular applause. It is possible to conceive of a mob shouting any +central and simple sentiment, good or bad, but it is impossible to think +of a mob shouting a distinction in terms. In the matter of eloquence, +the whole question is one of the immediate effect of greatness, such as +is produced even by fine bombast. It is absurd to call it merely +superficial; here there is no question of superficiality; we might as +well call a stone that strikes us between the eyes merely superficial. +The very word "superficial" is founded on a fundamental mistake about +life, the idea that second thoughts are best. The superficial impression +of the world is by far the deepest. What we really feel, naturally and +casually, about the look of skies and trees and the face of friends, +that and that alone will almost certainly remain our vital philosophy to +our dying day.</p> + +<p>Scott's bombast, therefore, will always be stirring to anyone who +approaches it, as he should approach all literature, as a little child. +We could easily excuse<a name="Page_173" id="Page_173"></a> the contemporary critic for not admiring +melodramas and adventure stories, and Punch and Judy, if he would admit +that it was a slight deficiency in his artistic sensibilities. Beyond +all question, it marks a lack of literary instinct to be unable to +simplify one's mind at the first signal of the advance of romance. "You +do me wrong," said Brian de Bois-Guilbert to Rebecca. "Many a law, many +a commandment have I broken, but my word, never." "Die," cries Balfour +of Burley to the villain in "Old Mortality." "Die, hoping nothing, +believing nothing—" "And fearing nothing," replies the other. This is +the old and honourable fine art of bragging, as it was practised by the +great worthies of antiquity. The man who cannot appreciate it goes along +with the man who cannot appreciate beef or claret or a game with +children or a brass band. They are afraid of making fools of themselves, +and are unaware that that transformation has already been triumphantly +effected.</p> + +<p>Scott is separated, then, from much of the later<a name="Page_174" id="Page_174"></a> conception of fiction +by this quality of eloquence. The whole of the best and finest work of +the modern novelist (such as the work of Mr. Henry James) is primarily +concerned with that delicate and fascinating speech which burrows deeper +and deeper like a mole; but we have wholly forgotten that speech which +mounts higher and higher like a wave and falls in a crashing peroration. +Perhaps the most thoroughly brilliant and typical man of this decade is +Mr. Bernard Shaw. In his admirable play of "Candida" it is clearly a +part of the character of the Socialist clergyman that he should be +eloquent, but he is not eloquent because the whole "G.B.S." condition of +mind renders impossible that poetic simplicity which eloquence requires. +Scott takes his heroes and villains seriously, which is, after all, the +way that heroes and villains take themselves—especially villains. It is +the custom to call these old romantic poses artificial; but the word +artificial is the last and silliest evasion of criticism. There was +never anything in the world that was really arti<a name="Page_175" id="Page_175"></a>ficial. It had some +motive or ideal behind it, and generally a much better one than we +think.</p> + +<p>Of the faults of Scott as an artist it is not very necessary to speak, +for faults are generally and easily pointed out, while there is yet no +adequate valuation of the varieties and contrasts of virtue. We have +compiled a complete botanical classification of the weeds in the +poetical garden, but the flowers still flourish, neglected and nameless. +It is true, for example, that Scott had an incomparably stiff and +pedantic way of dealing with his heroines: he made a lively girl of +eighteen refuse an offer in the language of Dr. Johnson. To him, as to +most men of his time, woman was not an individual, but an institution—a +toast that was drunk some time after that of Church and King. But it is +far better to consider the difference rather as a special merit, in that +he stood for all those clean and bracing shocks of incident which are +untouched by passion or weakness, for a certain breezy bachelorhood, +which is almost essential to the literature of adventure. With all his +faults,<a name="Page_176" id="Page_176"></a> and all his triumphs, he stands for the great mass of natural +manliness which must be absorbed into art unless art is to be a mere +luxury and freak. An appreciation of Scott might be made almost a test +of decadence. If ever we lose touch with this one most reckless and +defective writer, it will be a proof to us that we have erected round +ourselves a false cosmos, a world of lying and horrible perfection, +leaving outside of it Walter Scott and that strange old world which is +as confused and as indefensible and as inspiring and as healthy as he.<a name="Page_177" id="Page_177"></a><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178"></a><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179"></a></p> + + + +<hr class="full" /> +<h2><a name="BRET_HARTE" id="BRET_HARTE"></a>BRET HARTE</h2> + + +<p>There are more than nine hundred and ninety-nine excellent reasons +which we could all have for admiring the work of Bret Harte. But one +supreme reason stands not in a certain general superiority to them +all—a reason which may be stated in three propositions united in a +common conclusion: first, that he was a genuine American; second, that +he was a genuine humourist; and, third, that he was not an American +humourist. Bret Harte had his own peculiar humour, but it had nothing in +particular to do with American humour. American humour has its own +peculiar excellence, but it has nothing in particular to do with Bret +Harte. American humour is purely exaggerative; Bret Harte's humour was +sympathetic and analytical.</p> + +<p>In order fully to understand this, it is necessary<a name="Page_180" id="Page_180"></a> to realise, genuinely +and thoroughly, that there is such a thing as an international +difference in humour. If we take the crudest joke in the world—the +joke, let us say, of a man sitting down on his hat—we shall yet find +that all the nations would differ in their way of treating it +humourously, and that if American humour treated it at all, it would be +in a purely American manner. For example, there was a case of an orator +in the House of Commons, who, after denouncing all the public abuses he +could think of, did sit down on his hat. An Irishman immediately rose, +full of the whole wealth of Irish humour, and said, "Should I be in +order, Sir, in congratulating the honourable gentleman on the fact that +when he sat down on his hat his head was not in it?" Here is a glorious +example of Irish humour—the bull not unconscious, not entirely +conscious, but rather an idea so absurd that even the utterer of it can +hardly realise how abysmally absurd it is. But every other nation would +have treated the idea in a manner slightly different. The Frenchman's +humour would have been <a name="Page_181" id="Page_181"></a>logical: he would have said, "The orator +denounces modern abuses and destroys to himself the top-hat: behold a +good example!" What the Scotchman's humour would have said I am not so +certain, but it would probably have dealt with the serious advisability +of making such speeches on top of someone else's hat. But American +humour on such a general theme would be the humour of exaggeration. The +American humourist would say that the English politicians so often sat +down on their hats that the noise of the House of Commons was one +crackle of silk. He would say that when an important orator rose to +speak in the House of Commons, long rows of hatters waited outside the +House with note-books to take down orders from the participants in the +debate. He would say that the whole hat trade of London was disorganised +by the news that a clever remark had been made by a young M. P. on the +subject of the imports of Jamaica. In short, American humour, neither +unfathomably absurd like the Irish, nor transfiguringly lucid and +appropriate like the French, nor sharp and<a name="Page_182" id="Page_182"></a> sensible and full of +realities of life like the Scotch, is simply the humour of imagination. +It consists in piling towers on towers and mountains on mountains; of +heaping a joke up to the stars and extending it to the end of the world.</p> + +<p>With this distinctively American humour Bret Harte had little or nothing +in common. The wild, sky-breaking humour of America has its fine +qualities, but it must in the nature of things be deficient in two +qualities, not only of supreme importance to life and letters, but of +supreme importance to humour—reverence and sympathy. And these two +qualities were knit into the closest texture of Bret Harte's humour. +Everyone who has read and enjoyed Mark Twain as he ought to be read and +enjoyed will remember a very funny and irreverent story about an +organist who was asked to play appropriate music to an address upon the +parable of the Prodigal Son, and who proceeded to play with great +spirit, "We'll all get blind drunk, when Johnny comes marching home." +The best way of distinguishing Bret Harte from the<a name="Page_183" id="Page_183"></a> rest of American +humour is to say that if Bret Harte had described that scene, it would +in some subtle way have combined a sense of the absurdity of the +incident with some sense of the sublimity and pathos of the theme. You +would have felt that the organist's tune was funny, but not that the +Prodigal Son was funny. But America is under a kind of despotism of +humour. Everyone is afraid of humour: the meanest of human nightmares. +Bret Harte had, to express the matter briefly but more or less +essentially, the power of laughing not only at things, but also with +them. America has laughed at things magnificently, with Gargantuan +reverberations of laughter. But she has not even begun to learn the +richer lesson of laughing with them.</p> + +<p>The supreme proof of the fact that Bret Harte had the instinct of +reverence may be found in the fact that he was a really great parodist. +This may have the appearance of being a paradox, but, as in the case of +many other paradoxes, it is not so important whether it is a paradox as +whether it is not obviously<a name="Page_184" id="Page_184"></a> true. Mere derision, mere contempt, never +produced or could produce parody. A man who simply despises Paderewski +for having long hair is not necessarily fitted to give an admirable +imitation of his particular touch on the piano. If a man wishes to +parody Paderewski's style of execution, he must emphatically go through +one process first: he must admire it, and even reverence it. Bret Harte +had a real power of imitating great authors, as in his parodies on +Dumas, on Victor Hugo, on Charlotte Brontë. This means, and can only +mean, that he had perceived the real beauty, the real ambition of Dumas +and Victor Hugo and Charlotte Brontë. To take an example, Bret Harte has +in his imitation of Hugo a passage like this:</p> + +<p>"M. Madeline was, if possible, better than M. Myriel. M. Myriel was an +angel. M. Madeline was a good man." I do not know whether Victor Hugo +ever used this antithesis; but I am certain that he would have used it +and thanked his stars if he had thought of it. This is real parody, +inseparable from admiration. It is the same in the parody of Dumas,<a name="Page_185" id="Page_185"></a> +which is arranged on the system of "Aramis killed three of them. Porthos +three. Athos three." You cannot write that kind of thing unless you +have first exulted in the arithmetical ingenuity of the plots of Dumas. +It is the same in the parody of Charlotte Brontë, which opens with a +dream of a storm-beaten cliff, containing jewels and pelicans. Bret +Harte could not have written it unless he had really understood the +triumph of the Brontës, the triumph of asserting that great mysteries +lie under the surface of the most sullen life, and that the most real +part of a man is in his dreams.</p> + +<p>This kind of parody is for ever removed from the purview of ordinary +American humour. Can anyone imagine Mark Twain, that admirable author, +writing even a tolerable imitation of authors so intellectually +individual as Hugo or Charlotte Brontë? Mark Twain would yield to the +spirit of contempt which destroys parody. All those who hate authors +fail to satirise them, for they always accuse them of the wrong faults. +The enemies of Thackeray call him a<a name="Page_186" id="Page_186"></a> worldling, instead of what he was, a +man too ready to believe in the goodness of the unworldly. The enemies +of Meredith call his gospel too subtle, instead of what it is, a +gospel, if anything, too robust. And it is this vulgar misunderstanding +which we find in most parody—which we find in all American parody—but +which we never find in the parodies of Bret Harte.</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span>"The skies they were ashen and sober,<br /></span> +<span>The streets they were dirty and drear,<br /></span> +<span>It was the dark month of October,<br /></span> +<span>In that most immemorial year.<br /></span> +<span>Like the skies, I was perfectly sober,<br /></span> +<span>But my thoughts they were palsied and sear,<br /></span> +<span>Yes, my thoughts were decidedly queer."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>This could only be written by a genuine admirer of Edgar Allan Poe, who +permitted himself for a moment to see the fun of the thing. Parody might +indeed be defined as the worshipper's half-holiday.</p> + +<p>The same general characteristic of sympathy amounting to reverence marks +Bret Harte's humour in his better-known class of works, the short +stories. He does not make his characters absurd in order to<a name="Page_187" id="Page_187"></a> make them +contemptible: it might almost be said that he makes them absurd in order +to make them dignified. For example, the greatest creation of Bret +Harte, greater even than Colonel Starbottle (and how terrible it is to +speak of anyone greater than Colonel Starbottle!) is that unutterable +being who goes by the name of Yuba Bill. He is, of course, the +coach-driver in the Bret Harte district. Some ingenious person, whose +remarks I read the other day, had compared him on this ground with old +Mr. Weller. It would be difficult to find a comparison indicating a more +completely futile instinct for literature. Tony Weller and Yuba Bill +were both coach-drivers, and this fact establishes a resemblance just +about as much as the fact that Jobson in "Rob Roy" and George Warrington +in "Pendennis" were both lawyers; or that Antonio and Mr. Pickwick were +both merchants; or that Sir Galahad and Sir Willoughby Patten were both +knights. Tony Weller is a magnificent grotesque. He is a gargoyle, and +his mouth, like the mouths of so many gargoyles, is always open. He is<a name="Page_188" id="Page_188"></a> +garrulous, exuberant, flowery, preposterously sociable. He holds that +great creed of the convivial, the creed which is at the back of so much +that is greatest in Dickens, the creed that eternity begins at ten +o'clock at night, and that nights last forever. But Yuba Bill is a +figure of a widely different character. He is not convivial; it might +almost be said that he is too great ever to be sociable. A circle of +quiescence and solitude such as that which might ring a saint or a +hermit rings this majestic and profound humourist. His jokes do not flow +upon him like those of Mr. Weller, sparkling, continual, and deliberate, +like the play of a fountain in a pleasure garden; they fall suddenly and +capriciously, like a crash of avalanches from a great mountain. Tony +Weller has the noisy humour of London, Yuba Bill has the silent humour +of the earth.</p> + +<p>One of the worst of the disadvantages of the rich and random fertility +of Bret Harte is the fact that it is very difficult to trace or recover +all the stories that he has written. I have not within reach at the +moment<a name="Page_189" id="Page_189"></a> the story in which the character of Yuba Bill is exhibited in its +most solemn grandeur, but I remember that it concerned a ride on the +San Francisco stage coach, a difficulty arising from storm and darkness, +and an intelligent young man who suggested to Yuba Bill that a certain +manner of driving the coach in a certain direction might minimise the +dangers of the journey. A profound silence followed the intelligent +young man's suggestion, and then (I quote from memory) Yuba Bill +observed at last:</p> + +<p>"Air you settin' any value on that remark?"</p> + +<p>The young man professed not fully to comprehend him, and Yuba Bill +continued reflectively:</p> + +<p>"'Cos there's a comic paper in 'Frisco pays for them things, and I've +seen worse in it."</p> + +<p>To be rebuked thus is like being rebuked by the Pyramids or by the +starry heavens. There is about Yuba Bill this air of a pugnacious calm, +a stepping back to get his distance for a shattering blow, which is like +that of Dr. Johnson at his best. And the effect is inexpressively +increased by the background and <a name="Page_190" id="Page_190"></a>the whole picture which Bret Harte +paints so powerfully; the stormy skies, the sombre gorge, the rocking +and spinning coach, and high above the feverish passengers the huge +dark form of Yuba Bill, a silent mountain of humour.</p> + +<p>Another unrecovered and possibly irrecoverable fragment about Yuba Bill, +I recall in a story about his visiting a lad who had once been his +protége in the Wild West, and who had since become a distinguished +literary man in Boston. Yuba Bill visits him, and on finding him in +evening dress lifts up his voice in a superb lamentation over the +tragedy of finding his old friend at last "a 'otel waiter." Then, +vindictively pursuing the satire, he calls fiercely to his young friend, +"Hi, Alphonse! bring me a patty de foy gras, damme." These are the +things that make us love the eminent Bill. He is one of those who +achieve the noblest and most difficult of all the triumphs of a +fictitious character—the triumph of giving us the impression of having +a great deal more in him than appears between the two boards of the +story. Smaller<a name="Page_191" id="Page_191"></a> characters give us the impression that the author has +told the whole truth about them, greater characters give the impression +that the author has given of them, not the truth, but merely a few hints +and samples. In some mysterious way we seem to feel that even if +Shakespeare was wrong about Falstaff, Falstaff existed and was real; +that even if Dickens was wrong about Micawber, Micawber existed and was +real. So we feel that there is in the great salt-sea of Yuba Bill's +humour as good fish as ever came out of it. The fleeting jests which +Yuba Bill throws to the coach passengers only give us the opportunity of +fancying and deducing the vast mass of jests which Yuba Bill shares with +his creator.</p> + +<p>Bret Harte had to deal with countries and communities of an almost +unexampled laxity, a laxity passing the laxity of savages, the laxity of +civilised men grown savage. He dealt with a life which we in a venerable +and historic society may find it somewhat difficult to realise. It was +the life of an entirely new people, a people who, having no certain +past,<a name="Page_192" id="Page_192"></a> could have no certain future. The strangest of all the sardonic +jests that history has ever played may be found in this fact: that +there is a city which is of all cities the most typical of innovation +and dissipation, and a certain almost splendid vulgarity, and that this +city bears the name in a quaint old European language of the most +perfect exponent of the simplicity and holiness of the Christian +tradition; the city is called San Francisco. San Francisco, the capital +of the Bret Harte country, is a city typifying novelty in a manner in +which it is typified by few modern localities. San Francisco has in all +probability its cathedrals, but it may well be that its cathedrals are +less old and less traditional than many of our hotels. If its +inhabitants built a temple to the most primal and forgotten god of whose +worship we can find a trace, that temple would still be a modern thing +compared with many taverns in Suffolk round which there lingers a faint +tradition of Mr. Pickwick. And everything in that new gold country was +new, even to the individual inhabitants. Good, bad, and indifferent,<a name="Page_193" id="Page_193"></a> +heroes and dastards, they were all men from nowhere.</p> + +<p>Most of us have come across the practical problem of London landladies, +the problem of the doubtful foreign gentleman in a street of respectable +English people. Those who have done so can form some idea of what it +would be to live in a street full of doubtful foreign gentlemen, in a +parish, in a city, in a nation composed entirely of doubtful foreign +gentlemen. Old California, at the time of the first rush after gold, was +actually this paradox of the nation of foreigners. It was a republic of +incognitos: no one knew who anyone else was, and only the more +ill-mannered and uneasy even desired to know. In such a country as this, +gentlemen took more trouble to conceal their gentility than thieves +living in South Kensington would take to conceal their blackguardism. In +such a country everyone is an equal, because everyone is a stranger. In +such a country it is not strange if men in moral matters feel something +of the irresponsibility of a dream. To plan plans which are continually +mis<a name="Page_194" id="Page_194"></a>carrying against men who are continually disappearing by the +assistance of you know not whom, to crush you know not whom, this must +be a demoralising life for any man; it must be beyond description +demoralising for those who have been trained in no lofty or orderly +scheme of right. Small blame to them indeed if they become callous and +supercilious and cynical. And the great glory and achievement of Bret +Harte consists in this, that he realised that they do not become +callous, supercilious, and cynical, but that they do become sentimental +and romantic, and profoundly affectionate. He discovered the intense +sensibility of the primitive man. To him we owe the realisation of the +fact that while modern barbarians of genius like Mr. Henley, and in his +weaker moments Mr. Rudyard Kipling, delight in describing the coarseness +and crude cynicism and fierce humour of the unlettered classes, the +unlettered classes are in reality highly sentimental and religious, and +not in the least like the creations of Mr. Henley and Mr. Kipling. Bret +Harte tells the truth about the wildest, the grossest, the most +rapa<a name="Page_195" id="Page_195"></a>cious of all the districts of the earth—the truth that, while it is +very rare indeed in the world to find a thoroughly good man, it is +rarer still, rare to the point of monstrosity, to find a man who does +not either desire to be one, or imagine that he is one already.</p> + +<hr class="full" /> +<h2><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196"></a><a name="Page_197" id="Page_197"></a><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198"></a><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199"></a> + +<a name="ALFRED_THE_GREAT" id="ALFRED_THE_GREAT"></a>ALFRED THE GREAT</h2> + + +<p>The celebrations in connection with the millenary of King Alfred struck +a note of sympathy in the midst of much that was unsympathetic, because, +altogether apart from any peculiar historical opinions, all men feel the +sanctifying character of that which is at once strong and remote; the +ancient thing is always the most homely, and the distant thing the most +near. The only possible peacemaker is a dead man, ever since by the +sublime religious story a dead man only could reconcile heaven and +earth. In a certain sense we always feel the past ages as human, and our +own age as strangely and even weirdly dehumanised. In our own time the +details overpower us; men's badges and buttons seem to grow larger and +larger as in a horrible dream. To study humanity in the present is like<a name="Page_200" id="Page_200"></a> +studying a mountain with a magnifying glass; to study it in the past is +like studying it through a telescope.</p> + +<p>For this reason England, like every other great and historic nation, has +sought its typical hero in remote and ill-recorded times. The personal +and moral greatness of Alfred is, indeed, beyond question. It does not +depend any more than the greatness of any other human hero upon the +accuracy of any or all of the stories that are told about him. Alfred +may not have done one of the things which are reported of him, but it is +immeasurably easier to do every one of those things than to be the man +of whom such things are reported falsely. Fable is, generally speaking, +far more accurate than fact, for fable describes a man as he was to his +own age, fact describes him as he is to a handful of inconsiderable +antiquarians many centuries after. Whether Alfred watched the cakes for +the neat-herd's wife, whether he sang songs in the Danish camp, is of no +interest to anyone except those who set out to prove under considerable +disadvantages that they are <a name="Page_201" id="Page_201"></a>genealogically descended from him. But the +man is better pictured in these stories than in any number of modern +realistic trivialities about his favourite breakfast and his favourite +musical composer. Fable is more historical than fact, because fact tells +us about one man and fable tells us about a million men. If we read of a +man who could make green grass red and turn the sun into the moon, we +may not believe these particular details about him, but we learn +something infinitely more important than such trivialities, the fact +that men could look into his face and believe it possible. The glory and +greatness of Alfred, therefore, is like that of all the heroes of the +morning of the world, set far beyond the chance of that strange and +sudden dethronement which may arise from the unsealing of a manuscript +or the turning over of a stone. Men may have told lies when they said +that he first entrapped the Danes with his song and then overcame them +with his armies, but we know very well that it is not of us that such +lies are told. There may be myths clustering about each of our +personalities; local<a name="Page_202" id="Page_202"></a> saga-men and chroniclers have very likely +circulated the story that we are addicted to drink, or that we +ferociously ill-use our wives. But they do not commonly lie to the +effect that we have shed our blood to save all the inhabitants of the +street. A story grows easily, but a heroic story is not a very easy +thing to evoke. Wherever that exists we may be pretty certain that we +are in the presence of a dark but powerful historic personality. We are +in the presence of a thousand lies all pointing with their fantastic +fingers to one undiscovered truth.</p> + +<p>Upon this ground alone every encouragement is due to the cult of Alfred. +Every nation requires to have behind it some historic personality, the +validity of which is proved, as the validity of a gun is proved, by its +long range. It is wonderful and splendid that we treasure, not the +truth, but the very gossip about a man who died a thousand years ago. We +may say to him, as M. Rostand says to the Austrian Prince:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span>"Dors, ce n'est pas toujours la Légende qui ment:<br /></span> +<span>Une rêve est parfois moins trompeur qu'un document."<br /></span> +</div></div><p><a name="Page_203" id="Page_203"></a></p> + +<p>To have a man so simple and so honourable to represent us in the +darkness of primeval history, binds all the intervening centuries +together, and mollifies all their monstrosities. It makes all history +more comforting and intelligible; it makes the desolate temple of the +ages as human as an inn parlour.</p> + +<p>But whether it come through reliable facts or through more reliable +falsehoods the personality of Alfred has its own unmistakable colour and +stature. Lord Rosebery uttered a profound truth when he said that that +personality was peculiarly English. The great magnificence of the +English character is expressed in the word "service." There is, perhaps, +no nation so vitally theocratical as the English; no nation in which the +strong men have so consistently preferred the instrumental to the +despotic attitude, the pleasures of the loyal to the pleasures of the +royal position. We have had tyrants like Edward I. and Queen Elizabeth, +but even our tyrants have had the worried and responsible air of +stewards of a great estate. Our typical hero is such a man as the Duke +of Wellington, who had<a name="Page_204" id="Page_204"></a> every kind of traditional and external arrogance, +but at the back of all that the strange humility which made it +physically possible for him without a gleam of humour or discomfort to +go on his knees to a preposterous bounder like George IV. Across the +infinite wastes of time and through all the mists of legend we still +feel the presence in Alfred of this strange and unconscious +self-effacement. After the fullest estimate of our misdeeds we can still +say that our very despots have been less self-assertive than many +popular patriots. As we consider these things we grow more and more +impatient of any modern tendencies towards the enthronement of a more +self-conscious and theatrical ideal. Lord Rosebery called up before our +imaginations the picture of what Alfred would have thought of the vast +modern developments of his nation, its immense fleet, its widespread +Empire, its enormous contribution to the mechanical civilisation of the +world. It cannot be anything but profitable to conceive Alfred as full +of astonishment and admiration at these things; it cannot be anything +but good for us that we should <a name="Page_205" id="Page_205"></a>realise that to the childlike eyes of a +great man of old time our inventions and appliances have not the +vulgarity and ugliness that we see in them. To Alfred a steamboat would +be a new and sensational sea-dragon, and the penny postage a miracle +achieved by the despotism of a demi-god.</p> + +<p>But when we have realised all this there is something more to be said in +connection with Lord Rosebery's vision. What would King Alfred have said +if he had been asked to expend the money which he devoted to the health +and education of his people upon a struggle with some race of Visigoths +or Parthians inhabiting a small section of a distant continent? What +would he have said if he had known that that science of letters which he +taught to England would eventually be used not to spread truth, but to +drug the people with political assurances as imbecile in themselves as +the assurance that fire does not burn and water does not drown? What +would he have said if the same people who, in obedience to that ideal of +service and sanity of which he was the example, had<a name="Page_206" id="Page_206"></a> borne every +privation in order to defeat Napoleon, should come at last to find no +better compliment to one of their heroes than to call him the Napoleon +of South Africa? What would he have said if that nation for which he had +inaugurated a long line of incomparable men of principle should forget +all its traditions and coquette with the immoral mysticism of the man of +destiny?</p> + +<p>Let us follow these things by all means if we find them good, and can +see nothing better. But to pretend that Alfred would have admired them +is like pretending that St. Dominic would have seen eye to eye with Mr. +Bradlaugh, or that Fra Angelico would have revelled in the posters of +Mr. Aubrey Beardsley. Let us follow them if we will, but let us take +honestly all the disadvantages of our change; in the wildest moment of +triumph let us feel the shadow upon our glories of the shame of the +great king.</p> + +<hr class="full" /> +<h2><a name="Page_207" id="Page_207"></a><a name="Page_208" id="Page_208"></a><a name="Page_209" id="Page_209"></a> + +<a name="MAETERLINCK" id="MAETERLINCK"></a>MAETERLINCK</h2> + + +<p>The selection of "Thoughts from Maeterlinck" is a very creditable and +also a very useful compilation. Many modern critics object to the +hacking and hewing of a consistent writer which is necessary for this +kind of work, but upon more serious consideration, the view is not +altogether adequate. Maeterlinck is a very great man; and in the long +run this process of mutilation has happened to all great men. It was the +mark of a great patriot to be drawn and quartered and his head set on +one spike in one city and his left leg on another spike in another city. +It was the mark of a saint that even these fragments began to work +miracles. So it has been with all the very great men of the world. +However careless, however botchy, may be the version of Maeterlinck or +of anyone else given<a name="Page_210" id="Page_210"></a> in such a selection as this, it is assuredly far +less careless and far less botchy than the version, the parody, the +wild misrepresentation of Maeterlinck which future ages will hear and +distant critics be called upon to consider.</p> + +<p>No one can feel any reasonable doubt that we have heard about Christ and +Socrates and Buddha and St. Francis a mere chaos of excerpts, a mere +book of quotations. But from those fragmentary epigrams we can deduce +greatness as clearly as we can deduce Venus from the torso of Venus or +Hercules <i>ex pede Herculem</i>. If we knew nothing else about the Founder +of Christianity, for example, beyond the fact that a religious teacher +lived in a remote country, and in the course of his peregrinations and +proclamations consistently called Himself "the Son of Man," we should +know by that alone that he was a man of almost immeasurable greatness. +If future ages happened to record nothing else about Socrates except +that he owned his title to be the wisest of men because he knew that he +knew nothing, they would be able to deduce<a name="Page_211" id="Page_211"></a> from that the height and +energy of his civilisation, the glory that was Greece. The credit of +such random compilations as that which "E.S.S." and Mr. George Allen +have just effected is quite secure. It is the pure, pedantic, literal +editions, the complete works of this author or that author which are +forgotten. It is such books as this that have revolutionised the destiny +of the world. Great things like Christianity or Platonism have never +been founded upon consistent editions; all of them have been founded +upon scrap-books.</p> + +<p>The position of Maeterlinck in modern life is a thing too obvious to be +easily determined in words. It is, perhaps, best expressed by saying +that it is the great glorification of the inside of things at the +expense of the outside. There is one great evil in modern life for which +nobody has found even approximately a tolerable description: I can only +invent a word and call it "remotism." It is the tendency to think first +of things which, as a matter of fact, lie far away from the actual +centre of human experience.<a name="Page_212" id="Page_212"></a> Thus people say, "All our knowledge of life +begins with the amoeba." It is false; our knowledge of life begins with +ourselves. Thus they say that the British Empire is glorious, and at the +very word Empire they think at once of Australia and New Zealand, and +Canada, and Polar bears, and parrots and kangaroos, and it never occurs +to any one of them to think of the Surrey Hills. The one real struggle +in modern life is the struggle between the man like Maeterlinck, who +sees the inside as the truth, and the man like Zola, who sees the +outside as the truth. A hundred cases might be given. We may take, for +the sake of argument, the case of what is called falling in love. The +sincere realist, the man who believes in a certain finality in physical +science, says, "You may, if you like, describe this thing as a divine +and sacred and incredible vision; that is your sentimental theory about +it. But what it is, is an animal and sexual instinct designed for +certain natural purposes." The man on the other side, the idealist, +replies, with quite equal confidence, that this is the very reverse of +the truth. I put it<a name="Page_213" id="Page_213"></a> as it has always struck me; he replies, "Not at all. +You may, if you like, describe this thing as an animal and sexual +instinct, designed for certain natural purposes; that is your +philosophical or zoölogical theory about it. What it is, beyond all +doubt of any kind, is a divine and sacred and incredible vision." The +fact that it is an animal necessity only comes to the naturalistic +philosopher after looking abroad, studying its origins and results, +constructing an explanation of its existence, more or less natural and +conclusive. The fact that it is a spiritual triumph comes to the first +errand boy who happens to feel it. If a lad of seventeen falls in love +and is struck dead by a hansom cab an hour afterwards, he has known the +thing as it is, a spiritual ecstasy; he has never come to trouble about +the thing as it may be, a physical destiny. If anyone says that falling +in love is an animal thing, the answer is very simple. The only way of +testing the matter is to ask those who are experiencing it, and none of +those would admit for a moment that it was an animal thing.<a name="Page_214" id="Page_214"></a></p> + +<p>Maeterlinck's appearance in Europe means primarily this subjective +intensity; by this the materialism is not overthrown: materialism is +undermined. He brings, not something which is more poetic than realism, +not something which is more spiritual than realism, not something which +is more right than realism, but something which is more real than +realism. He discovers the one indestructible thing. This material world +on which such vast systems have been superimposed—this may mean +anything. It may be a dream, it may be a joke, it may be a trap or +temptation, it may be a charade, it may be the beatific vision: the only +thing of which we are certain is this human soul. This human soul finds +itself alone in a terrible world, afraid of the grass. It has brought +forth poetry and religion in order to explain matters; it will bring +them forth again. It matters not one atom how often the lulls of +materialism and scepticism occur; they are always broken by the +reappearance of a fanatic. They have come in our time: they have been +broken by Maeterlinck.</p> + + + +<hr class="full" /><h2><a name="Page_215" id="Page_215"></a><a name="Page_216" id="Page_216"></a><a name="Page_217" id="Page_217"></a> +<a name="RUSKIN2" id="RUSKIN2"></a>RUSKIN<a name="FNanchor_2_2" id="FNanchor_2_2"></a><a href="#Footnote_2_2" class="fnanchor">[2]</a></h2> + + +<p>I do not think anyone could find any fault with the way in which Mr. +Collingwood has discharged his task, except, of course, Mr. Ruskin +himself, who would certainly have scored through all the eulogies in +passionate red ink and declared that his dear friend had selected for +admiration the very parts of his work which were vile, brainless, and +revolting. That, however, was merely Ruskin's humour, and one of the +deepest disappointments with Mr. Collingwood is that he, like everyone +else, fails to appreciate Ruskin as a humourist. Yet he was a great +humourist: half the explosions which are solemnly scolded as "one-sided" +were simply meant to be one-sided, were mere laughing experiments in +language. Like a woman, he saw the humour of his<a name="Page_218" id="Page_218"></a> own prejudices, did not +sophisticate them by logic, but deliberately exaggerated them by +rhetoric. One tenth of his paradoxes would have made the fortune of a +modern young man with gloves of an art yellow. He was as fond of +nonsense as Mr. Max Beerbohm. Only ... he was fond of other things too. +He did not ask humanity to dine on pickles.</p> + +<p>But while his kaleidoscope of fancy and epigram gives him some kinship +with the present day, he was essentially of an earlier type: he was the +last of the prophets. With him vanishes the secret of that early +Victorian simplicity which gave a man the courage to mount a pulpit +above the head of his fellows. Many elements, good and bad, have +destroyed it; humility as well as fear, camaraderie as well as +scepticism, have bred in us a desire to give our advice lightly and +persuasively, to mask our morality, to whisper a word and glide away. +The contrast was in some degree typified in the House of Commons under +the last leadership of Mr. Gladstone: the old order with its fist on the +box, and the new order with its feet on the <a name="Page_219" id="Page_219"></a>table. Doubtless the wine of +that prophecy was too strong even for the strong heads that carried it. +It made Ruskin capricious and despotic, Tennyson lonely and whimsical, +Carlyle harsh to the point of hatred, and Kingsley often rabid to the +ruin of logic and charity. One alone of that race of giants, the +greatest and most neglected, was sober after the cup. No mission, no +frustration could touch with hysteria the humanity of Robert Browning.</p> + +<p>But though Ruskin seems to close the roll of the militant prophets, we +feel how needful are such figures when we consider with what pathetic +eagerness men pay prophetic honours even to those who disclaim the +prophetic character. Ibsen declares that he only depicts life, that as +far as he is concerned there is nothing to be done, and still armies of +"Ibsenites" rally to the flag and enthusiastically do nothing. I have +found traces of a school which avowedly follows Mr. Henry James: an idea +full of humour. I like to think of a crowd with pikes and torches +shouting passages from "The Awkward Age." It is right and<a name="Page_220" id="Page_220"></a> proper for a +multitude to declare its readiness to follow a prophet to the end of the +world, but if he himself explains, with pathetic gesticulations, that +he is only going for a walk in the park, there is not much for the +multitude to do. But the disciple of Ruskin had plenty to do. He made +roads; in his spare moments he studied the whole of geology and botany. +He lifted up paving stones and got down into early Florentine cellars, +where, by hanging upside down, he could catch a glimpse of a Cimabue +unpraisable but by divine silence. He rushed from one end of a city to +the other comparing ceilings. His limbs were weary, his clothes were +torn, and in his eyes was that unfathomable joy of life which man will +never know again until once more he takes himself seriously.</p> + +<p>Mr. Collingwood's excellent chapters on the art criticism of Ruskin +would be better, in my opinion, if they showed more consciousness of the +after revolutions that have reversed, at least in detail, much of +Ruskin's teaching. We no longer think that art became valueless when it +was first corrupted with<a name="Page_221" id="Page_221"></a> anatomical accuracy. But if we return to that +Raphaelism to which he was so unjust, let us not fall into the old +error of intelligent reactionaries, that of ignoring our own debt to +revolutions. Ruskin could not destroy the market of Raphaelism, but he +could and did destroy its monopoly. We may go back to the Renaissance, +but let us remember that we go back free. We can picnic now in the ruins +of our dungeon and deride our deliverer.</p> + +<p>But neither in Mr. Collingwood's book nor in Ruskin's own delightful +"Præterita" shall we ever get to the heart of the matter. The work of +Ruskin and his peers remains incomprehensible by the very completeness +of their victory. Fallen forever is that vast brick temple of +Utilitarianism, of which we may find the fragments but never renew the +spell. Liberal Unionists howl in its high places, and in its ruins Mr. +Lecky builds his nest. Its records read with something of the mysterious +arrogance of Chinese: hardly a generation away from us, we read of a +race who believed in the present with the same sort of servile<a name="Page_222" id="Page_222"></a> optimism +with which the Oriental believes in the past. It may be that banging his +head against that roof for twenty years did not improve the temper of +the prophet. But he made what he praised in the old Italian +pictures—"an opening into eternity."</p> + +<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_2_2" id="Footnote_2_2"></a><a href="#FNanchor_2_2"><span class="label">[2]</span></a> "The Life of John Ruskin." By W.G. Collingwood. London: Methuen.</p></div> +</div> + + +<hr class="full" /><h2><a name="Page_223" id="Page_223"></a><a name="Page_224" id="Page_224"></a><a name="Page_225" id="Page_225"></a> +<a name="QUEEN_VICTORIA" id="QUEEN_VICTORIA"></a>QUEEN VICTORIA</h2> + + +<p>Anyone who possesses spiritual or political courage has made up his mind +to a prospect of immutable mutability; but even in a "transformation" +there is something catastrophic in the removal of the back scene. It is +a truism to say of the wise and noble lady who is gone from us that we +shall always remember her; but there is a subtler and higher compliment +still in confessing that we often forgot her. We forgot her as we forget +the sunshine, as we forget the postulates of an argument, as we commonly +forget our own existence. Mr. Gladstone is the only figure whose loss +prepared us for such earthquakes altering the landscape. But Mr. +Gladstone seemed a fixed and stationary object in our age for the same +reason that one railway train looks stationary from another; because he +and the age<a name="Page_226" id="Page_226"></a> of progress were both travelling at the same impetuous rate +of speed. In the end, indeed, it was probably the age that dropped +behind. For a symbol of the Queen's position we must rather recur to the +image of a stretch of scenery, in which she was as a mountain so huge +and familiar that its disappearance would make the landscape round our +own door seem like a land of strangers. She had an inspired genius for +the familiarising virtues; her sympathy and sanity made us feel at home +even in an age of revolutions. That indestructible sense of security +which for good and evil is so typical of our nation, that almost +scornful optimism which, in the matter of ourselves, cannot take peril +or even decadence seriously, reached by far its highest and healthiest +form in the sense that we were watched over by one so thoroughly English +in her silence and self-control, in her shrewd trustfulness and her +brilliant inaction. Over and above those sublime laws of labour and pity +by which she ordered her life, there are a very large number of minor +intellectual matters in which we might learn a lesson from <a name="Page_227" id="Page_227"></a>the Queen. +There is one especially which is increasingly needed in an age when +moral claims become complicated and hysterical. That Queen Victoria was +a model of political unselfishness is well known; it is less often +remarked that few modern people have an unselfishness so completely free +from morbidity, so fully capable of deciding a moral question without +exaggerating its importance. No eminent person of our time has been so +utterly devoid of that disease of self-assertion which is often rampant +among the unselfish. She had one most rare and valuable faculty, the +faculty of letting things pass—Acts of Parliament and other things. Her +predecessors, whether honest men or knaves, were attacked every now and +then with a nightmare of despotic responsibility; they suddenly +conceived that it rested with them to save the world and the Protestant +Constitution. Queen Victoria had far too much faith in the world to try +to save it. She knew that Acts of Parliament, even bad Acts of +Parliament, do not destroy nations. But she knew that ignorance, +ill-temper, tyranny, and<a name="Page_228" id="Page_228"></a> officiousness do destroy nations, and not upon +any provocation would she set an example in these things. We fancy that +this sense of proportion, this largeness and coolness of intellectual +magnanimity is the one of the thousand virtues of Queen Victoria of +which the near future will stand most in need. We are gaining many new +mental powers, and with them new mental responsibilities. In psychology, +in sociology, above all in education, we are learning to do a great many +clever things. Unless we are much mistaken the next great task will be +to learn not to do them. If that time comes, assuredly we cannot do +better than turn once more to the memory of the great Queen who for +seventy years followed through every possible tangle and distraction the +fairy thread of common sense.</p> + +<p>We are suffering just now from an outbreak of the imagination which +exhibits itself in politics and the most unlikely places. The German +Emperor, for example, is neither a tyrant nor a lunatic, as used to be +absurdly represented; he is simply a minor poet; and he feels just as +any minor poet would feel if he<a name="Page_229" id="Page_229"></a> found himself on the throne of +Barbarossa. The revival of militarism and ecclesiasticism is an invasion +of politics by the artistic sense; it is heraldry rather than chivalry +that is lusted after. Amid all this waving of wands and flaunting of +uniforms, all this hedonistic desire to make the most of everything, +there is something altogether quiet and splendid about the sober disdain +with which this simple and courteous lady in a black dress left idle +beside her the sceptre of a hundred tyrants. The heart of the whole +nation warmed as it had never warmed for centuries at the thought of +having in their midst a woman who cared nothing for her rights, and +nothing for those fantastic duties which are more egotistical than +rights themselves.</p> + +<p>The work of the Queen for progressive politics has surely been greatly +underrated. She invented democratic monarchy as much as James Watt +invented the steam engine. William IV., from whom we think of her as +inheriting her Constitutional position, held in fact a position entirely +different to that which she now<a name="Page_230" id="Page_230"></a> hands on to Edward VII. William IV. was +a limited monarch; that is to say, he had a definite, open, and +admitted power in politics, but it was a limited power. Queen Victoria +was not a limited monarch; in the only way in which she cared to be a +monarch at all she was as unlimited as Haroun Alraschid. She had +unlimited willing obedience, and unlimited social supremacy. To her +belongs the credit of inventing a new kind of monarchy; in which the +Crown, by relinquishing the whole of that political and legal department +of life which is concerned with coercion, regimentation, and punishment, +was enabled to rise above it and become the symbol of the sweeter and +purer relations of humanity, the social intercourse which leads and does +not drive. Too much cannot be said for the wise audacity and confident +completeness with which the Queen cut away all those cords of political +supremacy to which her predecessors had clung madly as the only stays of +the monarchy. She had her reward. For while William IV.'s supremacy may +be called a survival, it is not too much to say that the Queen's +su<a name="Page_231" id="Page_231"></a>premacy might be called a prophecy. By lifting a figure purely human +over the heads of judges and warriors, we uttered in some symbolic +fashion the abiding, if unreasoning, hope which dwells in all human +hearts, that some day we may find a simpler solution of the woes of +nations than the summons and the treadmill, that we may find in some +such influence as the social influence of a woman, what was called in +the noble old language of mediæval monarchy, "a fountain of mercy and a +fountain of honour."</p> + +<p>In the universal reverence paid to the Queen there was hardly anywhere a +touch of snobbishness. Snobbishness, in so far as it went out towards +former sovereigns, went out to them as aristocrats rather than as kings, +as heads of that higher order of men, who were almost angels or demons +in their admitted superiority to common lines of conduct. This kind of +reverence was always a curse: nothing can be conceived as worse for the +mass of the people than that they should think the morality for which +they have to struggle an inferior morality, a thing unfitted for a +haughtier class. But<a name="Page_232" id="Page_232"></a> of this patrician element there was hardly a trace +in the dignity of the Queen. Indeed, the degree to which the middle and +lower classes took her troubles and problems to their hearts was almost +grotesque in its familiarity. No one thought of the Queen as an +aristocrat like the Duke of Devonshire, or even as a member of the +governing classes like Mr. Chamberlain. Men thought of her as something +nearer to them even in being further off; as one who was a good queen, +and who would have been, had her fate demanded, with equal cheerfulness, +a good washerwoman. Herein lay her unexampled triumph, the greatest and +perhaps the last triumph of monarchy. Monarchy in its healthiest days +had the same basis as democracy: the belief in human nature when +entrusted with power. A king was only the first citizen who received the +franchise.</p> + +<p>Both royalty and religion have been accused of despising humanity, and +in practice it has been too often true; but after all both the +conception of the prophet and that of the king were formed by paying +humanity<a name="Page_233" id="Page_233"></a> the supreme compliment of selecting from it almost at random. +This daring idea that a healthy human being, when thrilled by all the +trumpets of a great trust, would rise to the situation, has often been +tested, but never with such complete success as in the case of our dead +Queen. On her was piled the crushing load of a vast and mystical +tradition, and she stood up straight under it. Heralds proclaimed her as +the anointed of God, and it did not seem presumptuous. Brave men died in +thousands shouting her name, and it did not seem unnatural. No mere +intellect, no mere worldly success could, in this age of bold inquiry, +have sustained that tremendous claim; long ago we should have stricken +Cæsar and dethroned Napoleon. But these glories and these sacrifices did +not seem too much to celebrate a hardworking human nature; they were +possible because at the heart of our Empire was nothing but a defiant +humility. If the Queen had stood for any novel or fantastic imperial +claims, the whole would have seemed a nightmare; the whole was +successful because she stood, and no one could deny<a name="Page_234" id="Page_234"></a> that she stood, for +the humblest, the shortest and the most indestructible of human gospels, +that when all troubles and troublemongers have had their say, our work +can be done till sunset, our life can be lived till death.<a name="Page_235" id="Page_235"></a><a name="Page_236" id="Page_236"></a><a name="Page_237" id="Page_237"></a></p> + + + +<hr class="full" /> +<h2><a name="THE_GERMAN_EMPEROR" id="THE_GERMAN_EMPEROR"></a>THE GERMAN EMPEROR</h2> + + +<p>The list of the really serious, the really convinced, the really +important and comprehensible people now alive includes, as most +Englishmen would now be prepared to admit, the German Emperor. He is a +practical man and a poet. I do not know whether there are still people +in existence who think there is some kind of faint antithesis between +these two characters; but I incline to think there must be, because of +the surprise which the career of the German Emperor has generally +evoked. When he came to the throne it became at once apparent that he +was poetical; people assumed in consequence that he was unpractical; +that he would plunge Europe into war, that he would try to annex France, +that he would say he was the Emperor of Russia, that he would stand on +his head in the Reichstag, that he<a name="Page_238" id="Page_238"></a> would become a pirate on the Spanish +Main. Years upon years have passed; he has gone on making speeches, he +has gone on talking about God and his sword, he has poured out an ever +increased rhetoric and æstheticism. And yet all the time people have +slowly and surely realised that he knows what he is about, that he is +one of the best friends of peace, that his influence on Europe is not +only successful, but in many ways good, that he knows what world he is +living in better than a score of materialists.</p> + +<p>The explanation never comes to them—he is a poet; therefore, a +practical man. The affinity of the two words, merely as words, is much +nearer than many people suppose, for the matter of that. There is one +Greek word for "I do" from which we get the word practical, and another +Greek word for "I do" from which we get the word poet. I was doubtless +once informed of a profound difference between the two, but I have +forgotten it. The two words practical and poetical may mean two subtly +different things in that old and subtle language, but they mean the same +in<a name="Page_239" id="Page_239"></a> English and the same in the long run. It is ridiculous to suppose +that the man who can understand the inmost intricacies of a human being +who has never existed at all cannot make a guess at the conduct of man +who lives next door. It is idle to say that a man who has himself felt +the mad longing under the mad moon for a vagabond life cannot know why +his son runs away to sea. It is idle to say that a man who has himself +felt the hunger for any kind of exhilaration, from angel or devil, +cannot know why his butler takes to drink. It is idle to say that a man +who has been fascinated with the wild fastidiousness of destiny does not +know why stockbrokers gamble, to say that a man who has been knocked +into the middle of eternal life by a face in a crowd does not know why +the poor marry young; that a man who found his path to all things kindly +and pleasant blackened and barred suddenly by the body of a man does not +know what it is to desire murder. It is idle, in short, for a man who +has created men to say that he does not understand them. A man who is a +poet may, of course, easily<a name="Page_240" id="Page_240"></a> make mistakes in these personal and +practical relations; such mistakes and similar ones have been made by +poets; such mistakes and greater ones have been made by soldiers and +statesmen and men of business. But in so far as a poet is in these +things less of a practical man he is also less of a poet.</p> + +<p>If Shakespeare really married a bad wife when he had conceived the +character of Beatrice he ought to have been ashamed of himself: he had +failed not only in his life, he had failed in his art. If Balzac got +into rows with his publishers he ought to be rebuked and not +commiserated, having evolved so many consistent business men from his +own inside. The German Emperor is a poet, and therefore he succeeds, +because poetry is so much nearer to reality than all the other human +occupations. He is a poet, and succeeds because the majority of men are +poets. It is true, if that matter is at all important, that the German +Emperor is not a good poet. The majority of men are poets, only they +happen to be bad poets. The German Emperor fails ridiculously, if that +is all that is<a name="Page_241" id="Page_241"></a> in question, in almost every one of the artistic +occupations to which he addresses himself: he is neither a first-rate +critic, nor a first-rate musician, nor a first-rate painter, nor a +first-rate poet. He is a twelfth-rate poet, but because he is a poet at +all he knocks to pieces all the first-rate politicians in the war of +politics.</p> + +<p>Having made clear my position so far, I discover with a certain amount +of interest that I have not yet got to the subject of these remarks. The +German Emperor is a poet, and although, as far as I know, every line he +ever wrote may be nonsense, he is a poet in this real sense, that he has +realised the meaning of every function he has performed. Why should we +jeer at him because he has a great many uniforms, for instance? The very +essence of the really imaginative man is that he realises the various +types or capacities in which he can appear. Every one of us, or almost +every one of us, does in reality fulfil almost as many offices as +Pooh-Bah. Almost every one of us is a ratepayer, an immortal soul, an +Englishman, a <a name="Page_242" id="Page_242"></a>baptised person, a mammal, a minor poet, a juryman, a +married man, a bicyclist, a Christian, a purchaser of newspapers, and a +critic of Mr. Alfred Austin. We ought to have uniforms for all these +things. How beautiful it would be if we appeared to-morrow in the +uniform of a ratepayer, in brown and green, with buttons made in the +shape of coins, and a blue income-tax paper tastefully arranged as a +favour; or, again, if we appeared dressed as immortal souls, in a blue +uniform with stars. It would be very exciting to dress up as Englishmen, +or to go to a fancy dress ball as Christians.</p> + +<p>Some of the costumes I have suggested might appear a little more +difficult to carry out. The dress of a person who purchases newspapers +(though it mostly consists of coloured evening editions arranged in a +stiff skirt, like that of a saltatrice, round the waist of the wearer) +has many mysterious points. The attire of a person prepared to criticise +the Poet Laureate is something so awful and striking that I dare not +even begin to describe it; the one fact which<a name="Page_243" id="Page_243"></a> I am willing to reveal, +and to state seriously and responsibly, is that it buttons up behind.</p> + +<p>But most assuredly we ought not to abuse the Kaiser because he is fond +of putting on all his uniforms; he does so because he has a large number +of established and involuntary incarnations. He tries to do his duty in +that state of life to which it shall please God to call him; and it so +happens that he has been called to as many different estates as there +are regiments in the German Army. He is a huntsman and proud of being a +huntsman, an engineer and proud of being an engineer, an infantry +soldier and proud of being so, a light horseman and proud of being so. +There is nothing wrong in all this; the only wrong thing is that it +should be confined to the merely destructive arts of war. The sight of +the German Kaiser in the most magnificent of the uniforms in which he +had led armies to victory is not in itself so splendid or delightful as +that of many other sights which might come before us without a whisper +of the alarms of war. It is not so splendid or delightful as<a name="Page_244" id="Page_244"></a> the sight +of an ordinary householder showing himself in that magnificent uniform +of purple and silver which should signalise the father of three +children. It is not so splendid or delightful as the appearance of a +young clerk in an insurance office decorated with those three long +crimson plumes which are the well-known insignia of a gentleman who is +just engaged to be married. Nor can it compare with the look of a man +wearing the magnificent green and silver armour by which we know one who +has induced an acquaintance to give up getting drunk, or the blue and +gold which is only accorded to persons who have prevented fights in the +street. We belong to quite as many regiments as the German Kaiser. Our +regiments are regiments that are embattled everywhere; they fight an +unending fight against all that is hopeless and rapacious and of evil +report. The only difference is that we have the regiments, but not the +uniforms.</p> + +<p>Only one obvious point occurs to me to add. If the Kaiser has more than +any other man the sense of the poetry of the ancient things, the sword, +the crown,<a name="Page_245" id="Page_245"></a> the ship, the nation, he has the sense of the poetry of +modern things also. He has one sense, and it is even a joke against +him. He feels the poetry of one thing that is more poetic than sword or +crown or ship or nation, the poetry of the telegram. No one ever sent a +telegram who did not feel like a god. He is a god, for he is a minor +poet; a minor poet, but a poet still.</p> + +<hr class="full" /> +<h2><a name="Page_246" id="Page_246"></a><a name="Page_247" id="Page_247"></a><a name="Page_248" id="Page_248"></a><a name="Page_249" id="Page_249"></a> + +<a name="TENNYSON" id="TENNYSON"></a>TENNYSON</h2> + + +<p>Mr. Morton Luce has written a short study of Tennyson which has +considerable cultivation and suggestiveness, which will be sufficient to +serve as a notebook for Tennyson's admirers, but scarcely sufficient, +perhaps, to serve as a pamphlet against his opponents. If a critic has, +as he ought to have, any of the functions anciently attributed to a +prophet, it ought not to be difficult for him to prophesy that Tennyson +will pass through a period of facile condemnation and neglect before we +arrive at the true appreciation of his work. The same thing has happened +to the most vigorous of essayists, Macaulay, and the most vigorous of +romancers, Dickens, because we live in a time when mere vigour is +considered a vulgar thing. The same idle and frigid reaction will almost +certainly discredit the stateliness and care of Tennyson, as it has +discredited the recklessness and inventiveness of Dickens. It is only +necessary to remember that no action can be discredited<a name="Page_250" id="Page_250"></a> by a reaction.</p> + +<p>The attempts which have been made to discredit the poetical position of +Tennyson are in the main dictated by an entire misunderstanding of the +nature of poetry. When critics like Matthew Arnold, for example, suggest +that his poetry is deficient in elaborate thought, they only prove, as +Matthew Arnold proved, that they themselves could never be great poets. +It is no valid accusation against a poet that the sentiment he expresses +is commonplace. Poetry is always commonplace; it is vulgar in the +noblest sense of that noble word. Unless a man can make the same kind of +ringing appeal to absolute and admitted sentiments that is made by a +popular orator, he has lost touch with emotional literature. Unless he +is to some extent a demagogue, he cannot be a poet. A man who expresses +in poetry new and strange and undiscovered emotions is not a poet; he is +a brain specialist. Tennyson can never be discredited before any serious<a name="Page_251" id="Page_251"></a> +tribunal of criticism because the sentiments and thoughts to which he +dedicates himself are those sentiments and thoughts which occur to +anyone. These are the peculiar province of poetry; poetry, like +religion, is always a democratic thing, even if it pretends the +contrary. The faults of Tennyson, so far as they existed, were not half +so much in the common character of his sentiments as in the arrogant +perfection of his workmanship. He was not by any means so wrong in his +faults as he was in his perfections.</p> + +<p>Men are very much too ready to speak of men's work being ordinary, when +we consider that, properly considered, every man is extraordinary. The +average man is a tribal fable, like the Man-Wolf or the Wise Man of the +Stoics. In every man's heart there is a revolution; how much more in +every poet's? The supreme business of criticism is to discover that part +of a man's work which is his and to ignore that part which belongs to +others. Why should any <a name="Page_252" id="Page_252"></a>critic of poetry spend time and attention on that +part of a man's work which is unpoetical? Why should any man be +interested in aspects which are uninteresting? The business of a critic +is to discover the importance of men and not their crimes. It is true +that the Greek word critic carries with it the meaning of a judge, and +up to this point of history judges have had to do with the valuation of +men's sins, and not with the valuation of their virtues.</p> + +<p>Tennyson's work, disencumbered of all that uninteresting accretion which +he had inherited or copied, resolves itself, like that of any other man +of genius, into those things which he really inaugurated. Underneath all +his exterior of polished and polite rectitude there was in him a genuine +fire of novelty; only that, like all the able men of his period, he +disguised revolution under the name of evolution. He is only a very +shallow critic who cannot see an eternal rebel in the heart of the +Conservative.</p> + +<p>Tennyson had certain absolutely personal ideas, as much his own as the +ideas of Browning or Meredith, though they were fewer in number. One of +these, for example, was the fact that he was the first of all poets<a name="Page_253" id="Page_253"></a> (and +perhaps the last) to attempt to treat poetically that vast and monstrous +vision of fact which science had recently revealed to mankind. +Scientific discoveries seem commonly fables as fantastic in the ears of +poets as poems in the ears of men of science. The poet is always a +Ptolemaist; for him the sun still rises and the earth stands still. +Tennyson really worked the essence of modern science into his poetical +constitution, so that its appalling birds and frightful flowers were +really part of his literary imagery. To him blind and brutal monsters, +the products of the wild babyhood of the Universe, were as the daisies +and the nightingales were to Keats; he absolutely realised the great +literary paradox mentioned in the Book of Job: "He saw Behemoth, and he +played with him as with a bird."</p> + +<p>Instances of this would not be difficult to find. But the tests of +poetry are those instances in which this outrageous scientific +phraseology becomes natural and unconscious. Tennyson wrote one of his +own exquisite lyrics describing the exultation of a lover on <a name="Page_254" id="Page_254"></a>the evening +before his bridal day. This would be an occasion, if ever there was one, +for falling back on those ancient and assured falsehoods of the domed +heaven and the flat earth in which generations of poets have made us +feel at home. We can imagine the poet in such a lyric saluting the +setting sun and prophesying the sun's resurrection. There is something +extraordinarily typical of Tennyson's scientific faith in the fact that +this, one of the most sentimental and elemental of his poems, opens with +the two lines:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span>"Move eastward, happy earth, and leave<br /></span> +<span>Yon orange sunset waning slow."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Rivers had often been commanded to flow by poets, and flowers to blossom +in their season, and both were doubtless grateful for the permission. +But the terrestrial globe of science has only twice, so far as we know, +been encouraged in poetry to continue its course, one instance being +that of this poem, and the other the incomparable "Address to the +Terrestrial Globe" in the "Bab Ballads."</p> + +<p>There was, again, another poetic element entirely <a name="Page_255" id="Page_255"></a>peculiar to Tennyson, +which his critics have, in many cases, ridiculously confused with a +fault. This was the fact that Tennyson stood alone among modern poets +in the attempt to give a poetic character to the conception of Liberal +Conservatism, of splendid compromise. The carping critics who have +abused Tennyson for this do not see that it was far more daring and +original for a poet to defend conventionality than to defend a cart-load +of revolutions. His really sound and essential conception of Liberty,</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span>"Turning to scorn with lips divine<br /></span> +<span>The falsehood of extremes,"<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>is as good a definition of Liberalism as has been uttered in poetry in +the Liberal century. Moderation is <i>not</i> a compromise; moderation is a +passion; the passion of great judges. That Tennyson felt that lyrical +enthusiasm could be devoted to established customs, to indefensible and +ineradicable national constitutions, to the dignity of time and the +empire of unutterable common sense, all this did not make him a tamer +poet, but an infinitely more original one. Any poetaster <a name="Page_256" id="Page_256"></a>can describe a +thunderstorm; it requires a poet to describe the ancient and quiet sky.</p> + + +<p>I cannot, indeed, fall in with Mr. Morton Luce in his somewhat frigid +and patrician theory of poetry. "Dialect," he says, "mostly falls below +the dignity of art." I cannot feel myself that art has any dignity +higher than the indwelling and divine dignity of human nature. Great +poets like Burns were far more undignified when they clothed their +thoughts in what Mr. Morton Luce calls "the seemly raiment of cultured +speech" than when they clothed them in the headlong and flexible patois +in which they thought and prayed and quarrelled and made love. If +Tennyson failed (which I do not admit) in such poems as "The Northern +Farmer," it was not because he used too much of the spirit of the +dialect, but because he used too little.</p> + +<p>Tennyson belonged undoubtedly to a period from which we are divided; the +period in which men had queer ideas of the antagonism of science and +religion; the period in which the Missing Link was really miss<a name="Page_257" id="Page_257"></a>ing. But +his hold upon the old realities of existence never wavered; he was the +apostle of the sanctity of laws, of the sanctity of customs; above all, +like every poet, he was the apostle of the sanctity of words.</p> + +<hr class="full" /> +<h2><a name="Page_258" id="Page_258"></a><a name="Page_259" id="Page_259"></a><a name="Page_260" id="Page_260"></a><a name="Page_261" id="Page_261"></a> + +<a name="ELIZABETH_BARRETT_BROWNING" id="ELIZABETH_BARRETT_BROWNING"></a>ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING</h2> + + +<p>The delightful new edition of Mrs. Browning's "Casa Guidi Windows" which +Mr. John Lane has just issued ought certainly to serve as an opportunity +for the serious criticism and inevitable admiration to which a great +poet is entitled. For Mrs. Browning was a great poet, and not, as is +idly and vulgarly supposed, only a great poetess. The word poetess is +bad English, and it conveys a particularly bad compliment. Nothing is +more remarkable about Mrs. Browning's work than the absence of that +trite and namby-pamby elegance which the last two centuries demanded +from lady writers. Wherever her verse is bad it is bad from some +extravagance of imagery, some violence of comparison, some kind of +debauch of cleverness. Her nonsense never arises from weakness, but from +a confusion of<a name="Page_262" id="Page_262"></a> powers. If the phrase explain itself, she is far more a +great poet than she is a good one.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Browning often appears more luscious and sentimental than many +other literary women, but this was because she was stronger. It requires +a certain amount of internal force to break down. A complete +self-humiliation requires enormous strength, more strength than most of +us possess. When she was writing the poetry of self-abandonment she +really abandoned herself with the valour and decision of an anchorite +abandoning the world. Such a couplet as:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span>"Our Euripides, the human,<br /></span> +<span>With his dropping of warm tears,"<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>gives to most of us a sickly and nauseous sensation. Nothing can be well +conceived more ridiculous than Euripides going about dropping tears with +a loud splash, and Mrs. Browning coming after him with a thermometer. +But the one emphatic point about this idiotic couplet is that Mrs. +Hemans would never have written it. She would have written something +perfectly dignified, perfectly harmless, perfectly in<a name="Page_263" id="Page_263"></a>considerable. Mrs. +Browning was in a great and serious difficulty. She really meant +something. She aimed at a vivid and curious image, and she missed it. +She had that catastrophic and public failure which is, as much as a +medal or a testimonial, the badge of the brave.</p> + +<p>In spite of the tiresome half-truth that art is unmoral, the arts +require a certain considerable number of moral qualities, and more +especially all the arts require courage. The art of drawing, for +example, requires even a kind of physical courage. Anyone who has tried +to draw a straight line and failed knows that he fails chiefly in nerve, +as he might fail to jump off a cliff. And similarly all great literary +art involves the element of risk, and the greatest literary artists have +commonly been those who have run the greatest risk of talking nonsense. +Almost all great poets rant, from Shakespeare downwards. Mrs. Browning +was Elizabethan in her luxuriance and her audacity, and the gigantic +scale of her wit. We often feel with her as we feel with Shakespeare, +that she would have done<a name="Page_264" id="Page_264"></a> better with half as much talent. The great +curse of the Elizabethans is upon her, that she cannot leave anything +alone, she cannot write a single line without a conceit:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span>"And the eyes of the peacock fans<br /></span> +<span>Winked at the alien glory,"<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>she said of the Papal fans in the presence of the Italian tricolour:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span>"And a royal blood sends glances up her princely eye to trouble,<br /></span> +<span>And the shadow of a monarch's crown is softened in her hair,"<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>is her description of a beautiful and aristocratic lady. The notion of +peacock feathers winking like so many London urchins is perhaps one of +her rather aggressive and outrageous figures of speech. The image of a +woman's hair as the softened shadow of a crown is a singularly vivid and +perfect one. But both have the same quality of intellectual fancy and +intellectual concentration. They are both instances of a sort of +ethereal epigram. This is the great and dominant characteristic of Mrs. +Browning, that she was significant alike in failure and success. Just as +every<a name="Page_265" id="Page_265"></a> marriage in the world, good or bad, is a marriage, dramatic, +irrevocable, and big with coming events, so every one of her wild +weddings between alien ideas is an accomplished fact which produces a +certain effect on the imagination, which has for good or evil become +part and parcel of our mental vision forever. She gives the reader the +impression that she never declined a fancy, just as some gentlemen of +the eighteenth century never declined a duel. When she fell it was +always because she missed the foothold, never because she funked the +leap.</p> + +<p>"Casa Guidi Windows" is, in one aspect, a poem very typical of its +author. Mrs. Browning may fairly be called the peculiar poet of +Liberalism, of that great movement of the first half of the nineteenth +century towards the emancipation of men from ancient institutions which +had gradually changed their nature, from the houses of refuge which had +turned into dungeons, and the mystic jewels which remained only as +fetters. It was not what we ordinarily understand by revolt. It had no +hatred in its heart for ancient and<a name="Page_266" id="Page_266"></a> essentially human institutions. It +had that deeply conservative belief in the most ancient of institutions, +the average man, which goes by the name of democracy. It had none of +the spirit of modern Imperialism which is kicking a man because he is +down. But, on the other hand, it had none of the spirit of modern +Anarchism and scepticism which is kicking a man merely because he is up. +It was based fundamentally on a belief in the destiny of humanity, +whether that belief took an irreligious form, as in Swinburne, or a +religious form, as in Mrs. Browning. It had that rooted and natural +conviction that the Millennium was coming to-morrow which has been the +conviction of all iconoclasts and reformers, and for which some +rationalists have been absurd enough to blame the early Christians. But +they had none of that disposition to pin their whole faith to some +black-and-white scientific system which afterwards became the curse of +philosophical Radicalism. They were not like the sociologists who lay +down a final rectification of things, amounting to nothing except an end +of the world, a<a name="Page_267" id="Page_267"></a> great deal more depressing than would be the case if it +were knocked to pieces by a comet. Their ideal, like the ideal of all +sensible people, was a chaotic and confused notion of goodness made up +of English primroses and Greek statues, birds singing in April, and +regiments being cut to pieces for a flag. They were neither Radicals nor +Socialists, but Liberals, and a Liberal is a noble and indispensable +lunatic who tries to make a cosmos of his own head.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Browning and her husband were more liberal than most Liberals. +Theirs was the hospitality of the intellect and the hospitality of the +heart, which is the best definition of the term. They never fell into +the habit of the idle revolutionists of supposing that the past was bad +because the future was good, which amounted to asserting that because +humanity had never made anything but mistakes it was now quite certain +to be right. Browning possessed in a greater degree than any other man +the power of realising that all conventions were only victorious +revolutions. He could follow the mediæval logicians in all their<a name="Page_268" id="Page_268"></a> sowing +of the wind and reaping of the whirlwind with all that generous ardour +which is due to abstract ideas. He could study the ancients with the +young eyes of the Renaissance and read a Greek grammar like a book of +love lyrics. This immense and almost confounding Liberalism of Browning +doubtless had some effect upon his wife. In her vision of New Italy she +went back to the image of Ancient Italy like an honest and true +revolutionist; for does not the very word "revolution" mean a rolling +backward. All true revolutions are reversions to the natural and the +normal. A revolutionist who breaks with the past is a notion fit for an +idiot. For how could a man even wish for something which he had never +heard of? Mrs. Browning's inexhaustible sympathy with all the ancient +and essential passions of humanity was nowhere more in evidence than in +her conception of patriotism. For some dark reason, which it is +difficult indeed to fathom, belief in patriotism in our day is held to +mean principally a belief in every other nation abandoning its patriotic +feelings. In the case of no<a name="Page_269" id="Page_269"></a> other passion does this weird contradiction +exist. Men whose lives are mainly based upon friendship sympathise with +the friendships of others. The interest of engaged couples in each other +is a proverb, and like many other proverbs sometimes a nuisance. In +patriotism alone it is considered correct just now to assume that the +sentiment does not exist in other people. It was not so with the great +Liberals of Mrs. Browning's time. The Brownings had, so to speak, a +disembodied talent for patriotism. They loved England and they loved +Italy; yet they were the very reverse of cosmopolitans. They loved the +two countries as countries, not as arbitrary divisions of the globe. +They had hold of the root and essence of patriotism. They knew how +certain flowers and birds and rivers pass into the mills of the brain +and come out as wars and discoveries, and how some triumphant adventure +or some staggering crime wrought in a remote continent may bear about it +the colour of an Italian city or the soul of a silent village of Surrey.</p> + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Varied Types, by G. K. Chesterton + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK VARIED TYPES *** + +***** This file should be named 14203-h.htm or 14203-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/4/2/0/14203/ + +Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Melissa Er-Raqabi and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions 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. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. 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K. Chesterton + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere 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 + + +Title: Varied Types + +Author: G. K. Chesterton + +Release Date: November 29, 2004 [EBook #14203] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK VARIED TYPES *** + + + + +Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Melissa Er-Raqabi and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + + + + +_Varied Types_ + +_By_ + +G.K. Chesterton + +Author _of_ "The Defendant," etc. + +New York: _Dodd, Mead and Company_ + + + + +PUBLISHED SEPTEMBER, 1905 + + + + +NOTE + +These papers, with certain alterations and additions, are reprinted +with the kind permission of the Editors of _The Daily News_ and _The +Speaker_. + +G.K.C. + +Kensington. + + + + +CONTENTS + + Page +Charlotte Bronte 3 +William Morris And His School 15 +The Optimism Of Byron 29 +Pope And The Art Of Satire 43 +Francis 59 +Rostand 73 +Charles II. 85 +Stevenson 97 +Thomas Carlyle 109 +Tolstoy And The Cult Of Simplicity 125 +Savonarola 147 +The Position Of Sir Walter Scott 159 +Bret Harte 179 +Alfred The Great 199 +Maeterlinck 209 +Ruskin 217 +Queen Victoria 225 +The German Emperor 227 +Tennyson 249 +Elizabeth Barrett Browning 261 + + + + +CHARLOTTE BRONTE + + +Objection is often raised against realistic biography because it reveals +so much that is important and even sacred about a man's life. The real +objection to it will rather be found in the fact that it reveals about a +man the precise points which are unimportant. It reveals and asserts and +insists on exactly those things in a man's life of which the man himself +is wholly unconscious; his exact class in society, the circumstances of +his ancestry, the place of his present location. These are things which +do not, properly speaking, ever arise before the human vision. They do +not occur to a man's mind; it may be said, with almost equal truth, that +they do not occur in a man's life. A man no more thinks about himself as +the inhabitant of the third house in a row of Brixton villas than he +thinks about himself as a strange animal with two legs. What a man's +name was, what his income was, whom he married, where he lived, these +are not sanctities; they are irrelevancies. + +A very strong case of this is the case of the Brontes. The Bronte is in +the position of the mad lady in a country village; her eccentricities +form an endless source of innocent conversation to that exceedingly mild +and bucolic circle, the literary world. The truly glorious gossips of +literature, like Mr. Augustine Birrell and Mr. Andrew Lang, never tire +of collecting all the glimpses and anecdotes and sermons and side-lights +and sticks and straws which will go to make a Bronte museum. They are +the most personally discussed of all Victorian authors, and the +limelight of biography has left few darkened corners in the dark old +Yorkshire house. And yet the whole of this biographical investigation, +though natural and picturesque, is not wholly suitable to the Brontes. +For the Bronte genius was above all things deputed to assert the supreme +unimportance of externals. Up to that point truth had always been +conceived as existing more or less in the novel of manners. Charlotte +Bronte electrified the world by showing that an infinitely older and +more elemental truth could be conveyed by a novel in which no person, +good or bad, had any manners at all. Her work represents the first great +assertion that the humdrum life of modern civilisation is a disguise as +tawdry and deceptive as the costume of a _bal masque_. She showed that +abysses may exist inside a governess and eternities inside a +manufacturer; her heroine is the commonplace spinster, with the dress of +merino and the soul of flame. It is significant to notice that Charlotte +Bronte, following consciously or unconsciously the great trend of her +genius, was the first to take away from the heroine not only the +artificial gold and diamonds of wealth and fashion, but even the natural +gold and diamonds of physical beauty and grace. Instinctively she felt +that the whole of the exterior must be made ugly that the whole of the +interior might be made sublime. She chose the ugliest of women in the +ugliest of centuries, and revealed within them all the hells and heavens +of Dante. + +It may, therefore, I think, be legitimately said that the externals of +the Brontes' life, though singularly picturesque in themselves, matter +less than the externals of almost any other writers. It is interesting +to know whether Jane Austen had any knowledge of the lives of the +officers and women of fashion whom she introduced into her masterpieces. +It is interesting to know whether Dickens had ever seen a shipwreck or +been inside a workhouse. For in these authors much of the conviction is +conveyed, not always by adherence to facts, but always by grasp of them. +But the whole aim and purport and meaning of the work of the Brontes is +that the most futile thing in the whole universe is fact. Such a story +as "Jane Eyre" is in itself so monstrous a fable that it ought to be +excluded from a book of fairy tales. The characters do not do what they +ought to do, nor what they would do, nor it might be said, such is the +insanity of the atmosphere, not even what they intend to do. The conduct +of Rochester is so primevally and superhumanly caddish that Bret Harte +in his admirable travesty scarcely exaggerated it. "Then, resuming his +usual manner, he threw his boots at my head and withdrew," does perhaps +reach to something resembling caricature. The scene in which Rochester +dresses up as an old gipsy has something in it which is really not to be +found in any other branch of art, except in the end of the pantomime, +where the Emperor turns into a pantaloon. Yet, despite this vast +nightmare of illusion and morbidity and ignorance of the world, "Jane +Eyre" is perhaps the truest book that was ever written. Its essential +truth to life sometimes makes one catch one's breath. For it is not true +to manners, which are constantly false, or to facts, which are almost +always false; it is true to the only existing thing which is true, +emotion, the irreducible minimum, the indestructible germ. It would not +matter a single straw if a Bronte story were a hundred times more +moonstruck and improbable than "Jane Eyre," or a hundred times more +moonstruck and improbable than "Wuthering Heights." It would not matter +if George Read stood on his head, and Mrs. Read rode on a dragon, if +Fairfax Rochester had four eyes and St. John Rivers three legs, the +story would still remain the truest story in the world. The typical +Bronte character is, indeed, a kind of monster. Everything in him except +the essential is dislocated. His hands are on his legs and his feet on +his arms, his nose is above his eyes, but his heart is in the right +place. + +The great and abiding truth for which the Bronte cycle of fiction stands +is a certain most important truth about the enduring spirit of youth, +the truth of the near kinship between terror and joy. The Bronte +heroine, dingily dressed, badly educated, hampered by a humiliating +inexperience, a kind of ugly innocence, is yet, by the very fact of her +solitude and her gaucherie, full of the greatest delight that is +possible to a human being, the delight of expectation, the delight of an +ardent and flamboyant ignorance. She serves to show how futile it is of +humanity to suppose that pleasure can be attained chiefly by putting on +evening dress every evening, and having a box at the theatre every first +night. It is not the man of pleasure who has pleasure; it is not the man +of the world who appreciates the world. The man who has learnt to do all +conventional things perfectly has at the same time learnt to do them +prosaically. It is the awkward man, whose evening dress does not fit +him, whose gloves will not go on, whose compliments will not come off, +who is really full of the ancient ecstasies of youth. He is frightened +enough of society actually to enjoy his triumphs. He has that element of +fear which is one of the eternal ingredients of joy. This spirit is the +central spirit of the Bronte novel. It is the epic of the exhilaration +of the shy man. As such it is of incalculable value in our time, of +which the curse is that it does not take joy reverently because it does +not take it fearfully. The shabby and inconspicuous governess of +Charlotte Bronte, with the small outlook and the small creed, had more +commerce with the awful and elemental forces which drive the world than +a legion of lawless minor poets. She approached the universe with real +simplicity, and, consequently, with real fear and delight. She was, so +to speak, shy before the multitude of the stars, and in this she had +possessed herself of the only force which can prevent enjoyment being as +black and barren as routine. The faculty of being shy is the first and +the most delicate of the powers of enjoyment. The fear of the Lord is +the beginning of pleasure. + +Upon the whole, therefore, I think it may justifiably be said that the +dark wild youth of the Brontes in their dark wild Yorkshire home has +been somewhat exaggerated as a necessary factor in their work and their +conception. The emotions with which they dealt were universal emotions, +emotions of the morning of existence, the springtide joy and the +springtide terror. Every one of us as a boy or girl has had some +midnight dream of nameless obstacle and unutterable menace, in which +there was, under whatever imbecile forms, all the deadly stress and +panic of "Wuthering Heights." Every one of us has had a day-dream of +our own potential destiny not one atom more reasonable than "Jane Eyre." +And the truth which the Brontes came to tell us is the truth that many +waters cannot quench love, and that suburban respectability cannot touch +or damp a secret enthusiasm. Clapham, like every other earthly city, is +built upon a volcano. Thousands of people go to and fro in the +wilderness of bricks and mortar, earning mean wages, professing a mean +religion, wearing a mean attire, thousands of women who have never found +any expression for their exaltation or their tragedy but to go on +working harder and yet harder at dull and automatic employments, at +scolding children or stitching shirts. But out of all these silent ones +one suddenly became articulate, and spoke a resonant testimony, and her +name was Charlotte Bronte. Spreading around us upon every side to-day +like a huge and radiating geometrical figure are the endless branches of +the great city. There are times when we are almost stricken crazy, as +well we may be, by the multiplicity of those appalling perspectives, the +frantic arithmetic of that unthinkable population. But this thought of +ours is in truth nothing but a fancy. There are no chains of houses; +there are no crowds of men. The colossal diagram of streets and houses +is an illusion, the opium dream of a speculative builder. Each of these +men is supremely solitary and supremely important to himself. Each of +these houses stands in the centre of the world. There is no single house +of all those millions which has not seemed to someone at some time the +heart of all things and the end of travel. + + + + +WILLIAM MORRIS AND HIS SCHOOL + + +It is proper enough that the unveiling of the bust of William Morris +should approximate to a public festival, for while there have been many +men of genius in the Victorian era more despotic than he, there have +been none so representative. He represents not only that rapacious +hunger for beauty which has now for the first time become a serious +problem in the healthy life of humanity, but he represents also that +honourable instinct for finding beauty in common necessities of +workmanship which gives it a stronger and more bony structure. The time +has passed when William Morris was conceived to be irrelevant to be +described as a designer of wall-papers. If Morris had been a hatter +instead of a decorator, we should have become gradually and painfully +conscious of an improvement in our hats. If he had been a tailor, we +should have suddenly found our frock-coats trailing on the ground with +the grandeur of mediaeval raiment. If he had been a shoemaker, we should +have found, with no little consternation, our shoes gradually +approximating to the antique sandal. As a hairdresser, he would have +invented some massing of the hair worthy to be the crown of Venus; as an +ironmonger, his nails would have had some noble pattern, fit to be the +nails of the Cross. + +The limitations of William Morris, whatever they were, were not the +limitations of common decoration. It is true that all his work, even his +literary work, was in some sense decorative, had in some degree the +qualities of a splendid wall-paper. His characters, his stories, his +religious and political views, had, in the most emphatic sense, length +and breadth without thickness. He seemed really to believe that men +could enjoy a perfectly flat felicity. He made no account of the +unexplored and explosive possibilities of human nature, of the +unnameable terrors, and the yet more unnameable hopes. So long as a man +was graceful in every circumstance, so long as he had the inspiring +consciousness that the chestnut colour of his hair was relieved against +the blue forest a mile behind, he would be serenely happy. So he would +be, no doubt, if he were really fitted for a decorative existence; if he +were a piece of exquisitely coloured card-board. + +But although Morris took little account of the terrible solidity of +human nature--took little account, so to speak, of human figures in the +round, it is altogether unfair to represent him as a mere aesthete. He +perceived a great public necessity and fulfilled it heroically. The +difficulty with which he grappled was one so immense that we shall have +to be separated from it by many centuries before we can really judge of +it. It was the problem of the elaborate and deliberate ugliness of the +most self-conscious of centuries. Morris at least saw the absurdity of +the thing. He felt it was monstrous that the modern man, who was +pre-eminently capable of realising the strangest and most contradictory +beauties, who could feel at once the fiery aureole of the ascetic and +the colossal calm of the Hellenic god, should himself, by a farcical +bathos, be buried in a black coat, and hidden under a chimney-pot hat. +He could not see why the harmless man who desired to be an artist in +raiment should be condemned to be, at best, a black and white artist. It +is indeed difficult to account for the clinging curse of ugliness which +blights everything brought forth by the most prosperous of centuries. In +all created nature there is not, perhaps, anything so completely ugly as +a pillar-box. Its shape is the most unmeaning of shapes, its height and +thickness just neutralising each other; its colour is the most repulsive +of colours--a fat and soulless red, a red without a touch of blood or +fire, like the scarlet of dead men's sins. Yet there is no reason +whatever why such hideousness should possess an object full of civic +dignity, the treasure-house of a thousand secrets, the fortress of a +thousand souls. If the old Greeks had had such an institution, we may be +sure that it would have been surmounted by the severe, but graceful, +figure of the god of letter-writing. If the mediaeval Christians has +possessed it, it would have had a niche filled with the golden aureole +of St. Rowland of the Postage Stamps. As it is, there it stands at all +our street-corners, disguising one of the most beautiful of ideas under +one of the most preposterous of forms. It is useless to deny that the +miracles of science have not been such an incentive to art and +imagination as were the miracles of religion. If men in the twelfth +century had been told that the lightning had been driven for leagues +underground, and had dragged at its destroying tail loads of laughing +human beings, and if they had then been told that the people alluded to +this pulverising portent chirpily as "The Twopenny Tube," they would +have called down the fire of Heaven on us as a race of half-witted +atheists. Probably they would have been quite right. + +This clear and fine perception of what may be called the anaesthetic +element in the Victorian era was, undoubtedly, the work of a great +reformer: it requires a fine effort of the imagination to see an evil +that surrounds us on every side. The manner in which Morris carried out +his crusade may, considering the circumstances, be called triumphant. +Our carpets began to bloom under our feet like the meadows in spring, +and our hitherto prosaic stools and sofas seemed growing legs and arms +at their own wild will. An element of freedom and rugged dignity came in +with plain and strong ornaments of copper and iron. So delicate and +universal has been the revolution in domestic art that almost every +family in England has had its taste cunningly and treacherously +improved, and if we look back at the early Victorian drawing-rooms it is +only to realise the strange but essential truth that art, or human +decoration, has, nine times out of ten in history, made things uglier +than they were before, from the "coiffure" of a Papuan savage to the +wall-paper of a British merchant in 1830. + +But great and beneficent as was the aesthetic revolution of Morris, there +was a very definite limit to it. It did not lie only in the fact that +his revolution was in truth a reaction, though this was a partial +explanation of his partial failure. When he was denouncing the dresses +of modern ladies, "upholstered like arm-chairs instead of being draped +like women," as he forcibly expressed it, he would hold up for practical +imitation the costumes and handicrafts of the Middle Ages. Further than +this retrogressive and imitative movement he never seemed to go. Now, +the men of the time of Chaucer had many evil qualities, but there was at +least one exhibition of moral weakness they did not give. They would +have laughed at the idea of dressing themselves in the manner of the +bowmen at the battle of Senlac, or painting themselves an aesthetic blue, +after the custom of the ancient Britons. They would not have called that +a movement at all. Whatever was beautiful in their dress or manners +sprang honestly and naturally out of the life they led and preferred to +lead. And it may surely be maintained that any real advance in the +beauty of modern dress must spring honestly and naturally out of the +life we lead and prefer to lead. We are not altogether without hints and +hopes of such a change, in the growing orthodoxy of rough and athletic +costumes. But if this cannot be, it will be no substitute or +satisfaction to turn life into an interminable historical fancy-dress +ball. + +But the limitation of Morris's work lay deeper than this. We may best +suggest it by a method after his own heart. Of all the various works he +performed, none, perhaps, was so splendidly and solidly valuable as his +great protest for the fables and superstitions of mankind. He has the +supreme credit of showing that the fairy tales contain the deepest truth +of the earth, the real record of men's feeling for things. Trifling +details may be inaccurate, Jack may not have climbed up so tall a +beanstalk, or killed so tall a giant; but it is not such things that +make a story false; it is a far different class of things that makes +every modern book of history as false as the father of lies; ingenuity, +self-consciousness, hypocritical impartiality. It appears to us that of +all the fairy-tales none contains so vital a moral truth as the old +story, existing in many forms, of Beauty and the Beast. There is +written, with all the authority of a human scripture, the eternal and +essential truth that until we love a thing in all its ugliness we +cannot make it beautiful. This was the weak point in William Morris as a +reformer: that he sought to reform modern life, and that he hated modern +life instead of loving it. Modern London is indeed a beast, big enough +and black enough to be the beast in Apocalypse, blazing with a million +eyes, and roaring with a million voices. But unless the poet can love +this fabulous monster as he is, can feel with some generous excitement +his massive and mysterious _joie-de-vivre_, the vast scale of his iron +anatomy and the beating of his thunderous heart, he cannot and will not +change the beast into the fairy prince. Morris's disadvantage was that +he was not honestly a child of the nineteenth century: he could not +understand its fascination, and consequently he could not really develop +it. An abiding testimony to his tremendous personal influence in the +aesthetic world is the vitality and recurrence of the Arts and Crafts +Exhibitions, which are steeped in his personality like a chapel in that +of a saint. If we look round at the exhibits in one of these aesthetic +shows, we shall be struck by the large mass of modern objects that the +decorative school leaves untouched. There is a noble instinct for giving +the right touch of beauty to common and necessary things, but the things +that are so touched are the ancient things, the things that always to +some extent commended themselves to the lover of beauty. There are +beautiful gates, beautiful fountains, beautiful cups, beautiful chairs, +beautiful reading-desks. But there are no modern things made beautiful. +There are no beautiful lamp-posts, beautiful letter-boxes, beautiful +engines, beautiful bicycles. The spirit of William Morris has not seized +hold of the century and made its humblest necessities beautiful. And +this was because, with all his healthiness and energy, he had not the +supreme courage to face the ugliness of things; Beauty shrank from the +Beast and the fairy-tale had a different ending. + +But herein, indeed, lay Morris's deepest claim to the name of a great +reformer: that he left his work incomplete. There is, perhaps, no better +proof that a man is a mere meteor, merely barren and brilliant, than +that his work is done perfectly. A man like Morris draws attention to +needs he cannot supply. In after-years we may have perhaps a newer and +more daring Arts and Crafts Exhibition. In it we shall not decorate the +armour of the twelfth century, but the machinery of the twentieth. A +lamp-post shall be wrought nobly in twisted iron, fit to hold the +sanctity of fire. A pillar-box shall be carved with figures emblematical +of the secrets of comradeship and the silence and honour of the State. +Railway signals, of all earthly things the most poetical, the coloured +stars of life and death, shall be lamps of green and crimson worthy of +their terrible and faithful service. But if ever this gradual and +genuine movement of our time towards beauty--not backwards, but +forwards--does truly come about, Morris will be the first prophet of it. +Poet of the childhood of nations, craftsman in the new honesties of art, +prophet of a merrier and wiser life, his full-blooded enthusiasm will be +remembered when human life has once more assumed flamboyant colours and +proved that this painful greenish grey of the aesthetic twilight in +which we now live is, in spite of all the pessimists, not of the +greyness of death, but the greyness of dawn. + + + + +OPTIMISM OF BYRON + + +Everything is against our appreciating the spirit and the age of +Byron. The age that has just passed from us is always like a dream when +we wake in the morning, a thing incredible and centuries away. And the +world of Byron seems a sad and faded world, a weird and inhuman world, +where men were romantic in whiskers, ladies lived, apparently, in +bowers, and the very word has the sound of a piece of stage scenery. +Roses and nightingales recur in their poetry with the monotonous +elegance of a wall-paper pattern. The whole is like a revel of dead men, +a revel with splendid vesture and half-witted faces. + +But the more shrewdly and earnestly we study the histories of men, the +less ready shall we be to make use of the word "artificial." Nothing in +the world has ever been artificial. Many customs, many dresses, many +works of art are branded with artificiality because they exhibit vanity +and self-consciousness: as if vanity were not a deep and elemental +thing, like love and hate and the fear of death. Vanity may be found in +darkling deserts, in the hermit and in the wild beasts that crawl around +him. It may be good or evil, but assuredly it is not artificial: vanity +is a voice out of the abyss. + +The remarkable fact is, however, and it bears strongly on the present +position of Byron, that when a thing is unfamiliar to us, when it is +remote and the product of some other age or spirit, we think it not +savage or terrible, but merely artificial. There are many instances of +this: a fair one is the case of tropical plants and birds. When we see +some of the monstrous and flamboyant blossoms that enrich the equatorial +woods, we do not feel that they are conflagrations of nature; silent +explosions of her frightful energy. We simply find it hard to believe +that they are not wax flowers grown under a glass case. When we see some +of the tropic birds, with their tiny bodies attached to gigantic beaks, +we do not feel that they are freaks of the fierce humour of Creation. +We almost believe that they are toys out of a child's play-box, +artificially carved and artificially coloured. So it is with the great +convulsion of Nature which was known as Byronism. The volcano is not an +extinct volcano now; it is the dead stick of a rocket. It is the remains +not of a natural but of an artificial fire. + +But Byron and Byronism were something immeasurably greater than anything +that is represented by such a view as this: their real value and meaning +are indeed little understood. The first of the mistakes about Byron lies +in the fact that he is treated as a pessimist. True, he treated himself +as such, but a critic can hardly have even a slight knowledge of Byron +without knowing that he had the smallest amount of knowledge of himself +that ever fell to the lot of an intelligent man. The real character of +what is known as Byron's pessimism is better worth study than any real +pessimism could ever be. + +It is the standing peculiarity of this curious world of ours that almost +everything in it has been extolled enthusiastically and invariably +extolled to the disadvantage of everything else. + +One after another almost every one of the phenomena of the universe has +been declared to be alone capable of making life worth living. Books, +love, business, religion, alcohol, abstract truth, private emotion, +money, simplicity, mysticism, hard work, a life close to nature, a life +close to Belgrave Square are every one of them passionately maintained +by somebody to be so good that they redeem the evil of an otherwise +indefensible world. Thus, while the world is almost always condemned in +summary, it is always justified, and indeed extolled, in detail after +detail. + +Existence has been praised and absolved by a chorus of pessimists. The +work of giving thanks to Heaven is, as it were, divided ingeniously +among them. Schopenhauer is told off as a kind of librarian in the House +of God, to sing the praises of the austere pleasures of the mind. +Carlyle, as steward, undertakes the working department and eulogises a +life of labour in the fields. Omar Khayyam is established in the +cellar, and swears that it is the only room in the house. Even the +blackest of pessimistic artists enjoys his art. At the precise moment +that he has written some shameless and terrible indictment of Creation, +his one pang of joy in the achievement joins the universal chorus of +gratitude, with the scent of the wild flower and the song of the bird. + +Now Byron had a sensational popularity, and that popularity was, as far +as words and explanations go, founded upon his pessimism. He was adored +by an overwhelming majority, almost every individual of which despised +the majority of mankind. But when we come to regard the matter a little +more deeply we tend in some degree to cease to believe in this +popularity of the pessimist. The popularity of pure and unadulterated +pessimism is an oddity; it is almost a contradiction in terms. Men would +no more receive the news of the failure of existence or of the +harmonious hostility of the stars with ardour or popular rejoicing than +they would light bonfires for the arrival of cholera or dance a +breakdown when they were condemned to be hanged. When the pessimist is +popular it must always be not because he shows all things to be bad, but +because he shows some things to be good. + +Men can only join in a chorus of praise, even if it is the praise of +denunciation. The man who is popular must be optimistic about something, +even if he is only optimistic about pessimism. And this was emphatically +the case with Byron and the Byronists. Their real popularity was founded +not upon the fact that they blamed everything, but upon the fact that +they praised something. They heaped curses upon man, but they used man +merely as a foil. The things they wished to praise by comparison were +the energies of Nature. Man was to them what talk and fashion were to +Carlyle, what philosophical and religious quarrels were to Omar, what +the whole race after practical happiness was to Schopenhauer, the thing +which must be censured in order that somebody else may be exalted. It +was merely a recognition of the fact that one cannot write in white +chalk except on a black-board. + +Surely it is ridiculous to maintain seriously that Byron's love of the +desolate and inhuman in nature was the mark of vital scepticism and +depression. When a young man can elect deliberately to walk alone in +winter by the side of the shattering sea, when he takes pleasure in +storms and stricken peaks, and the lawless melancholy of the older +earth, we may deduce with the certainty of logic that he is very young +and very happy. There is a certain darkness which we see in wine when +seen in shadow; we see it again in the night that has just buried a +gorgeous sunset. The wine seems black, and yet at the same time +powerfully and almost impossibly red; the sky seems black, and yet at +the same time to be only too dense a blend of purple and green. Such was +the darkness which lay around the Byronic school. Darkness with them was +only too dense a purple. They would prefer the sullen hostility of the +earth because amid all the cold and darkness their own hearts were +flaming like their own firesides. + +Matters are very different with the more modern school of doubt and +lamentation. The last movement of pessimism is perhaps expressed in Mr. +Aubrey Beardsley's allegorical designs. Here we have to deal with a +pessimism which tends naturally not towards the oldest elements of the +cosmos, but towards the last and most fantastic fripperies of artificial +life. Byronism tended towards the desert; the new pessimism towards the +restaurant. Byronism was a revolt against artificiality; the new +pessimism is a revolt in its favour. + +The Byronic young man had an affectation of sincerity; the decadent, +going a step deeper into the avenues of the unreal, has positively an +affectation of affectation. And it is by their fopperies and their +frivolities that we know that their sinister philosophy is sincere; in +their lights and garlands and ribbons we read their indwelling despair. +It was so, indeed, with Byron himself; his really bitter moments were +his frivolous moments. He went on year after year calling down fire +upon mankind, summoning the deluge and the destructive sea and all the +ultimate energies of nature to sweep away the cities of the spawn of +man. But through all this his subconscious mind was not that of a +despairer; on the contrary, there is something of a kind of lawless +faith in thus parleying with such immense and immemorial brutalities. It +was not until the time in which he wrote "Don Juan" that he really lost +this inward warmth and geniality, and a sudden shout of hilarious +laughter announced to the world that Lord Byron had really become a +pessimist. + +One of the best tests in the world of what a poet really means is his +metre. He may be a hypocrite in his metaphysics, but he cannot be a +hypocrite in his prosody. And all the time that Byron's language is of +horror and emptiness, his metre is a bounding _pas de quatre_. He may +arraign existence on the most deadly charges, he may condemn it with the +most desolating verdict, but he cannot alter the fact that on some walk +in a spring morning when all the limbs are swinging and all the blood +alive in the body, the lips may be caught repeating: + + "Oh, there's not a joy the world can give like that it takes away, + When the glow of early youth declines in beauty's dull decay; + 'Tis not upon the cheek of youth the blush that fades so fast, + But the tender bloom of heart is gone ere youth itself be past." + +That automatic recitation is the answer to the whole pessimism of Byron. + +The truth is that Byron was one of a class who may be called the +unconscious optimists, who are very often, indeed, the most +uncompromising conscious pessimists, because the exuberance of their +nature demands for an adversary a dragon as big as the world. But the +whole of his essential and unconscious being was spirited and confident, +and that unconscious being, long disguised and buried under emotional +artifices, suddenly sprang into prominence in the face of a cold, hard, +political necessity. In Greece he heard the cry of reality, and at the +time that he was dying, he began to live. He heard suddenly the call of +that buried and subconscious happiness which is in all of us, and which +may emerge suddenly at the sight of the grass of a meadow or the spears +of the enemy. + + + + +POPE AND THE ART OF SATIRE + + +The general critical theory common in this and the last century is +that it was very easy for the imitators of Pope to write English poetry. +The classical couplet was a thing that anyone could do. So far as that +goes, one may justifiably answer by asking anyone to try. It may be +easier really to have wit, than really, in the boldest and most enduring +sense, to have imagination. But it is immeasurably easier to pretend to +have imagination than to pretend to have wit. A man may indulge in a +sham rhapsody, because it may be the triumph of a rhapsody to be +unintelligible. But a man cannot indulge in a sham joke, because it is +the ruin of a joke to be unintelligible. A man may pretend to be a poet: +he can no more pretend to be a wit than he can pretend to bring rabbits +out of a hat without having learnt to be a conjuror. Therefore, it may +be submitted, there was a certain discipline in the old antithetical +couplet of Pope and his followers. If it did not permit of the great +liberty of wisdom used by the minority of great geniuses, neither did it +permit of the great liberty of folly which is used by the majority of +small writers. A prophet could not be a poet in those days, perhaps, but +at least a fool could not be a poet. If we take, for the sake of +example, such a line as Pope's: + + "Damn with faint praise, assent with civil leer," + +the test is comparatively simple. A great poet would not have written +such a line, perhaps. But a minor poet could not. + +Supposing that a lyric poet of the new school really had to deal with +such an idea as that expressed in Pope's line about Man: + + "A being darkly wise and rudely great," + +Is it really so certain that he would go deeper into the matter than +that old antithetical jingle goes? I venture to doubt whether he would +really be any wiser or weirder or more imaginative or more profound. +The one thing that he would really be, would be longer. Instead of +writing, + + "A being darkly wise and rudely great," + +the contemporary poet, in his elaborately ornamented book of verses, +would produce something like the following: + + "A creature + Of feature + More dark, more dark, more dark than skies, + Yea, darkly wise, yea, darkly wise: + Darkly wise as a formless fate. + And if he be great, + If he be great, then rudely great, + Rudely great as a plough that plies, + And darkly wise, and darkly wise." + +Have we really learnt to think more broadly? Or have we only learnt to +spread our thoughts thinner? I have a dark suspicion that a modern poet +might manufacture an admirable lyric out of almost every line of Pope. + +There is, of course, an idea in our time that the very antithesis of the +typical line of Pope is a mark of artificiality. I shall have occasion +more than once to point out that nothing in the world has ever been +artificial. But certainly antithesis is not artificial. An element of +paradox runs through the whole of existence itself. It begins in the +realm of ultimate physics and metaphysics, in the two facts that we +cannot imagine a space that is infinite, and that we cannot imagine a +space that is finite. It runs through the inmost complications of +divinity, in that we cannot conceive that Christ in the wilderness was +truly pure, unless we also conceive that he desired to sin. It runs, in +the same manner, through all the minor matters of morals, so that we +cannot imagine courage existing except in conjunction with fear, or +magnanimity existing except in conjunction with some temptation to +meanness. If Pope and his followers caught this echo of natural +irrationality, they were not any the more artificial. Their antitheses +were fully in harmony with existence, which is itself a contradiction in +terms. + +Pope was really a great poet; he was the last great poet of +civilisation. Immediately after the fall of him and his school come +Burns and Byron, and the reaction towards the savage and the elemental. +But to Pope civilisation was still an exciting experiment. Its perruques +and ruffles were to him what feathers and bangles are to a South Sea +Islander--the real romance of civilisation. And in all the forms of art +which peculiarly belong to civilisation, he was supreme. In one +especially he was supreme--the great and civilised art of satire. And in +this we have fallen away utterly. + +We have had a great revival in our time of the cult of violence and +hostility. Mr. Henley and his young men have an infinite number of +furious epithets with which to overwhelm anyone who differs from them. +It is not a placid or untroubled position to be Mr. Henley's enemy, +though we know that it is certainly safer than to be his friend. And +yet, despite all this, these people produce no satire. Political and +social satire is a lost art, like pottery and stained glass. It may be +worth while to make some attempt to point out a reason for this. + +It may seem a singular observation to say that we are not generous +enough to write great satire. This, however, is approximately a very +accurate way of describing the case. To write great satire, to attack a +man so that he feels the attack and half acknowledges its justice, it is +necessary to have a certain intellectual magnanimity which realises the +merits of the opponent as well as his defects. This is, indeed, only +another way of putting the simple truth that in order to attack an army +we must know not only its weak points, but also its strong points. +England in the present season and spirit fails in satire for the same +simple reason that it fails in war: it despises the enemy. In matters of +battle and conquest we have got firmly rooted in our minds the idea (an +idea fit for the philosophers of Bedlam) that we can best trample on a +people by ignoring all the particular merits which give them a chance of +trampling upon us. It has become a breach of etiquette to praise the +enemy; whereas, when the enemy is strong, every honest scout ought to +praise the enemy. It is impossible to vanquish an army without having a +full account of its strength. It is impossible to satirise a man without +having a full account of his virtues. It is too much the custom in +politics to describe a political opponent as utterly inhuman, as utterly +careless of his country, as utterly cynical, which no man ever was since +the beginning of the world. This kind of invective may often have a +great superficial success: it may hit the mood of the moment; it may +raise excitement and applause; it may impress millions. But there is one +man among all those millions whom it does not impress, whom it hardly +ever touches; that is the man against whom it is directed. The one +person for whom the whole satire has been written in vain is the man +whom it is the whole object of the institution of satire to reach. He +knows that such a description of him is not true. He knows that he is +not utterly unpatriotic, or utterly self-seeking, or utterly barbarous +and revengeful. He knows that he is an ordinary man, and that he can +count as many kindly memories, as many humane instincts, as many hours +of decent work and responsibility as any other ordinary man. But behind +all this he has his real weaknesses, the real ironies of his soul: +behind all these ordinary merits lie the mean compromises, the craven +silences, the sullen vanities, the secret brutalities, the unmanly +visions of revenge. It is to these that satire should reach if it is to +touch the man at whom it is aimed. And to reach these it must pass and +salute a whole army of virtues. + +If we turn to the great English satirists of the seventeenth and +eighteenth centuries, for example, we find that they had this rough, but +firm, grasp of the size and strength, the value and the best points of +their adversary. Dryden, before hewing Ahitophel in pieces, gives a +splendid and spirited account of the insane valour and inspired cunning +of the + + "daring pilot in extremity," + +who was more untrustworthy in calm than in storm, and + + "Steered too near the rocks to boast his wit." + +The whole is, so far as it goes, a sound and picturesque version of the +great Shaftesbury. It would, in many ways, serve as a very sound and +picturesque account of Lord Randolph Churchill. But here comes in very +pointedly the difference between our modern attempts at satire and the +ancient achievement of it. The opponents of Lord Randolph Churchill, +both Liberal and Conservative, did not satirise him nobly and honestly, +as one of those great wits to madness near allied. They represented him +as a mere puppy, a silly and irreverent upstart whose impudence supplied +the lack of policy and character. Churchill had grave and even gross +faults, a certain coarseness, a certain hard boyish assertiveness, a +certain lack of magnanimity, a certain peculiar patrician vulgarity. But +he was a much larger man than satire depicted him, and therefore the +satire could not and did not overwhelm him. And here we have the cause +of the failure of contemporary satire, that it has no magnanimity, that +is to say, no patience. It cannot endure to be told that its opponent +has his strong points, just as Mr. Chamberlain could not endure to be +told that the Boers had a regular army. It can be content with nothing +except persuading itself that its opponent is utterly bad or utterly +stupid--that is, that he is what he is not and what nobody else is. If +we take any prominent politician of the day--such, for example, as Sir +William Harcourt--we shall find that this is the point in which all +party invective fails. The Tory satire at the expense of Sir William +Harcourt is always desperately endeavouring to represent that he is +inept, that he makes a fool of himself, that he is disagreeable and +disgraceful and untrustworthy. The defect of all that is that we all +know that it is untrue. Everyone knows that Sir William Harcourt is not +inept, but is almost the ablest Parliamentarian now alive. Everyone +knows that he is not disagreeable or disgraceful, but a gentleman of the +old school who is on excellent social terms with his antagonists. +Everyone knows that he is not untrustworthy, but a man of unimpeachable +honour who is much trusted. Above all, he knows it himself, and is +therefore affected by the satire exactly as any one of us would be if +we were accused of being black or of keeping a shop for the receiving of +stolen goods. We might be angry at the libel, but not at the satire: for +a man is angry at a libel because it is false, but at a satire because +it is true. + +Mr. Henley and his young men are very fond of invective and satire; if +they wish to know the reason of their failure in these things, they need +only turn to the opening of Pope's superb attack upon Addison. The +Henleyite's idea of satirising a man is to express a violent contempt +for him, and by the heat of this to persuade others and himself that the +man is contemptible. I remember reading a satiric attack on Mr. +Gladstone by one of the young anarchic Tories, which began by asserting +that Mr. Gladstone was a bad public speaker. If these people would, as I +have said, go quietly and read Pope's "Atticus," they would see how a +great satirist approaches a great enemy: + + "Peace to all such! But were there one whose fires + True genius kindles, and fair fame inspires, + Blest with each talent, and each art to please, + And born to write, converse, and live with ease. + Should such a man--" + +And then follows the torrent of that terrible criticism. Pope was not +such a fool as to try to make out that Addison was a fool. He knew that +Addison was not a fool, and he knew that Addison knew it. But hatred, in +Pope's case, had become so great and, I was almost going to say, so +pure, that it illuminated all things, as love illuminates all things. He +said what was really wrong with Addison; and in calm and clear and +everlasting colours he painted the picture of the evil of the literary +temperament: + + "Bear, like the Turk, no brother near the throne, + View him with scornful, yet with jealous eyes, + And hate for arts that caused himself to rise. + + * * * * * + + Like Cato give his little Senate laws, + And sit attentive to his own applause. + While wits and templars every sentence raise, + And wonder with a foolish face of praise." + +This is the kind of thing which really goes to the mark at which it +aims. It is penetrated with sorrow and a kind of reverence, and it is +addressed directly to a man. This is no mock-tournament to gain the +applause of the crowd. It is a deadly duel by the lonely seashore. + +In current political materialism there is everywhere the assumption +that, without understanding anything of his case or his merits, we can +benefit a man practically. Without understanding his case and his +merits, we cannot even hurt him. + + + + +FRANCIS + + +Asceticism is a thing which, in its very nature, we tend in these days +to misunderstand. Asceticism, in the religious sense, is the repudiation +of the great mass of human joys because of the supreme joyfulness of the +one joy, the religious joy. But asceticism is not in the least confined +to religious asceticism: there is scientific asceticism which asserts +that truth is alone satisfying: there is aesthetic asceticism which +asserts that art is alone satisfying: there is amatory asceticism which +asserts that love is alone satisfying. There is even epicurean +asceticism, which asserts that beer and skittles are alone satisfying. +Wherever the manner of praising anything involves the statement that the +speaker could live with that thing alone, there lies the germ and +essence of asceticism. When William Morris, for example, says that "love +is enough," it is obvious that he asserts in those words that art, +science, politics, ambition, money, houses, carriages, concerts, +gloves, walking-sticks, door-knockers, railway-stations, cathedrals, and +any other things one may choose to tabulate are unnecessary. When Omar +Khayyam says: + + "A book of verses underneath the bough, + A loaf of bread, a jug of wine, and thou + Beside me singing in the wilderness-- + O wilderness were Paradise enow." + +It is clear that he speaks fully as much ascetically as he does +aesthetically. He makes a list of things and says that he wants no more. +The same thing was done by a mediaeval monk. Examples might, of course, +be multiplied a hundred-fold. One of the most genuinely poetical of our +younger poets says, as the one thing certain, that + + "From quiet home and first beginning + Out to the undiscovered ends-- + There's nothing worth the wear of winning + But laughter and the love of friends." + +Here we have a perfect example of the main important fact, that all true +joy expresses itself in terms of asceticism. + +But if, in any case, it should happen that a class or a generation lose +the sense of the peculiar kind of joy which is being celebrated, they +immediately begin to call the enjoyers of that joy gloomy and +self-destroying. The most formidable liberal philosophers have called +the monks melancholy because they denied themselves the pleasures of +liberty and marriage. They might as well call the trippers on a Bank +Holiday melancholy because they deny themselves, as a rule, the +pleasures of silence and meditation. A simpler and stronger example is, +however, to hand. If ever it should happen that the system of English +athletics should vanish from the public schools and the universities, if +science should supply some new and non-competitive manner of perfecting +the physique, if public ethics swung round to an attitude of absolute +contempt and indifference towards the feeling called sport, then it is +easy to see what would happen. Future historians would simply state that +in the dark days of Queen Victoria young men at Oxford and Cambridge +were subjected to a horrible sort of religious torture. They were +forbidden, by fantastic monastic rules, to indulge in wine or tobacco +during certain arbitrarily fixed periods of time, before certain brutal +fights and festivals. Bigots insisted on their rising at unearthly hours +and running violently around fields for no object. Many men ruined their +health in these dens of superstition, many died there. All this is +perfectly true and irrefutable. Athleticism in England is an asceticism, +as much as the monastic rules. Men have overstrained themselves and +killed themselves through English athleticism. There is one difference +and one only: we do feel the love of sport; we do not feel the love of +religious offices. We see only the price in the one case and only the +purchase in the other. + +The only question that remains is what was the joy of the old Christian +ascetics of which their asceticism was merely the purchasing price? The +mere possibility of the query is an extraordinary example of the way in +which we miss the main points of human history. We are looking at +humanity too close, and see only the details and not the vast and +dominant features. We look at the rise of Christianity, and conceive it +as a rise of self-abnegation and almost of pessimism. It does not occur +to us that the mere assertion that this raging and confounding universe +is governed by justice and mercy is a piece of staggering optimism fit +to set all men capering. The detail over which these monks went mad with +joy was the universe itself; the only thing really worthy of enjoyment. +The white daylight shone over all the world, the endless forests stood +up in their order. The lightning awoke and the tree fell and the sea +gathered into mountains and the ship went down, and all these +disconnected and meaningless and terrible objects were all part of one +dark and fearful conspiracy of goodness, one merciless scheme of mercy. +That this scheme of Nature was not accurate or well founded is perfectly +tenable, but surely it is not tenable that it was not optimistic. We +insist, however, upon treating this matter tail foremost. We insist that +the ascetics were pessimists because they gave up threescore years and +ten for an eternity of happiness. We forget that the bare proposition of +an eternity of happiness is by its very nature ten thousand times more +optimistic than ten thousand pagan saturnalias. + +Mr. Adderley's life of Francis of Assisi does not, of course, bring this +out; nor does it fully bring out the character of Francis. It has rather +the tone of a devotional book. A devotional book is an excellent thing, +but we do not look in it for the portrait of a man, for the same reason +that we do not look in a love-sonnet for the portrait of a woman, +because men in such conditions of mind not only apply all virtues to +their idol, but all virtues in equal quantities. There is no outline, +because the artist cannot bear to put in a black line. This blaze of +benediction, this conflict between lights, has its place in poetry, not +in biography. The successful examples of it may be found, for instance, +in the more idealistic odes of Spenser. The design is sometimes almost +indecipherable, for the poet draws in silver upon white. + +It is natural, of course, that Mr. Adderley should see Francis primarily +as the founder of the Franciscan Order. We suspect this was only one, +perhaps a minor one, of the things that he was; we suspect that one of +the minor things that Christ did was to found Christianity. But the vast +practical work of Francis is assuredly not to be ignored, for this +amazingly unworldly and almost maddeningly simple-minded infant was one +of the most consistently successful men that ever fought with this +bitter world. It is the custom to say that the secret of such men is +their profound belief in themselves, and this is true, but not all the +truth. Workhouses and lunatic asylums are thronged with men who believe +in themselves. Of Francis it is far truer to say that the secret of his +success was his profound belief in other people, and it is the lack of +this that has commonly been the curse of these obscure Napoleons. +Francis always assumed that everyone must be just as anxious about their +common relative, the water-rat, as he was. He planned a visit to the +Emperor to draw his attention to the needs of "his little sisters the +larks." He used to talk to any thieves and robbers he met about their +misfortune in being unable to give rein to their desire for holiness. It +was an innocent habit, and doubtless the robbers often "got round him," +as the phrase goes. Quite as often, however, they discovered that he had +"got round" them, and discovered the other side, the side of secret +nobility. + +Conceiving of St. Francis as primarily the founder of the Franciscan +Order, Mr. Adderley opens his narrative with an admirable sketch of the +history of Monasticism in Europe, which is certainly the best thing in +the book. He distinguishes clearly and fairly between the Manichaean +ideal that underlies so much of Eastern Monasticism and the ideal of +self-discipline which never wholly vanished from the Christian form. But +he does not throw any light on what must be for the outsider the +absorbing problem of this Catholic asceticism, for the excellent reason +that, not being an outsider, he does not find it a problem at all. + +To most people, however, there is a fascinating inconsistency in the +position of St. Francis. He expressed in loftier and bolder language +than any earthly thinker the conception that laughter is as divine as +tears. He called his monks the mountebanks of God. He never forgot to +take pleasure in a bird as it flashed past him, or a drop of water, as +it fell from his finger: he was, perhaps, the happiest of the sons of +men. Yet this man undoubtedly founded his whole polity on the negation +of what we think the most imperious necessities; in his three vows of +poverty, chastity, and obedience, he denied to himself and those he +loved most, property, love, and liberty. Why was it that the most +large-hearted and poetic spirits in that age found their most congenial +atmosphere in these awful renunciations? Why did he who loved where all +men were blind, seek to blind himself where all men loved? Why was he a +monk, and not a troubadour? These questions are far too large to be +answered fully here, but in any life of Francis they ought at least to +have been asked; we have a suspicion that if they were answered, we +should suddenly find that much of the enigma of this sullen time of ours +was answered also. So it was with the monks. The two great parties in +human affairs are only the party which sees life black against white, +and the party which sees it white against black, the party which +macerates and blackens itself with sacrifice because the background is +full of the blaze of an universal mercy, and the party which crowns +itself with flowers and lights itself with bridal torches because it +stands against a black curtain of incalculable night. The revellers are +old, and the monks are young. It was the monks who were the spendthrifts +of happiness, and we who are its misers. + +Doubtless, as is apparent from Mr. Adderley's book, the clear and +tranquil life of the Three Vows had a fine and delicate effect on the +genius of Francis. He was primarily a poet. The perfection of his +literary instinct is shown in his naming the fire "brother," and the +water "sister," in the quaint demagogic dexterity of the appeal in the +sermon to the fishes "that they alone were saved in the Flood." In the +amazingly minute and graphic dramatisation of the life, disappointments, +and excuses of any shrub or beast that he happened to be addressing, his +genius has a curious resemblance to that of Burns. But if he avoided the +weakness of Burns' verses to animals, the occasional morbidity, bombast, +and moralisation on himself, the credit is surely due to a cleaner and +more transparent life. + +The general attitude of St. Francis, like that of his Master, embodied a +kind of terrible common sense. The famous remark of the Caterpillar in +"Alice in Wonderland"--"Why not?" impresses us as his general motto. He +could not see why he should not be on good terms with all things. The +pomp of war and ambition, the great empire of the Middle Ages, and all +its fellows begin to look tawdry and top-heavy, under the rationality of +that innocent stare. His questions were blasting and devastating, like +the questions of a child. He would not have been afraid even of the +nightmares of cosmogony, for he had no fear in him. To him the world +was small, not because he had any views as to its size, but for the +reason that gossiping ladies find it small, because so many relatives +were to be found in it. If you had taken him to the loneliest star that +the madness of an astronomer can conceive, he would have only beheld in +it the features of a new friend. + + + + +ROSTAND + + +When "Cyrano de Bergerac" was published, it bore the subordinate title +of a heroic comedy. We have no tradition in English literature which +would justify us in calling a comedy heroic, though there was once a +poet who called a comedy divine. By the current modern conception, the +hero has his place in a tragedy, and the one kind of strength which is +systematically denied to him is the strength to succeed. That the power +of a man's spirit might possibly go to the length of turning a tragedy +into a comedy is not admitted; nevertheless, almost all the primitive +legends of the world are comedies, not only in the sense that they have +a happy ending, but in the sense that they are based upon a certain +optimistic assumption that the hero is destined to be the destroyer of +the monster. Singularly enough, this modern idea of the essential +disastrous character of life, when seriously considered, connects itself +with a hyper-aesthetic view of tragedy and comedy which is largely due +to the influence of modern France, from which the great heroic comedies +of Monsieur Rostand have come. The French genius has an instinct for +remedying its own evil work, and France gives always the best cure for +"Frenchiness." The idea of comedy which is held in England by the school +which pays most attention to the technical niceties of art is a view +which renders such an idea as that of heroic comedy quite impossible. +The fundamental conception in the minds of the majority of our younger +writers is that comedy is, _par excellence_, a fragile thing. It is +conceived to be a conventional world of the most absolutely delicate and +gimcrack description. Such stories as Mr. Max Beerbohm's "Happy +Hypocrite" are conceptions which would vanish or fall into utter +nonsense if viewed by one single degree too seriously. But great comedy, +the comedy of Shakespeare or Sterne, not only can be, but must be, taken +seriously. There is nothing to which a man must give himself up with +more faith and self-abandonment than to genuine laughter. In such +comedies one laughs with the heroes, and not at them. The humour which +steeps the stories of Falstaff and Uncle Toby is a cosmic and +philosophic humour, a geniality which goes down to the depths. It is not +superficial reading, it is not even, strictly speaking, light reading. +Our sympathies are as much committed to the characters as if they were +the predestined victims in a Greek tragedy. The modern writer of +comedies may be said to boast of the brittleness of his characters. He +seems always on the eve of knocking his puppets to pieces. When John +Oliver Hobbes wrote for the first time a comedy of serious emotions, she +named it, with a thinly-disguised contempt for her own work, "A +Sentimental Comedy." The ground of this conception of the artificiality +of comedy is a profound pessimism. Life in the eyes of these mournful +buffoons is itself an utterly tragic thing; comedy must be as hollow as +a grinning mask. It is a refuge from the world, and not even, properly +speaking, a part of it. Their wit is a thin sheet of shining ice over +the eternal waters of bitterness. + +"Cyrano de Bergerac" came to us as the new decoration of an old truth, +that merriment was one of the world's natural flowers, and not one of +its exotics. The gigantesque levity, the flamboyant eloquence, the +Rabelaisian puns and digressions were seen to be once more what they had +been in Rabelais, the mere outbursts of a human sympathy and bravado as +old and solid as the stars. The human spirit demanded wit as headlong +and haughty as its will. All was expressed in the words of Cyrano at his +highest moment of happiness, _Il me faut des geants_. An essential +aspect of this question of heroic comedy is the question of drama in +rhyme. There is nothing that affords so easy a point of attack for the +dramatic realist as the conduct of a play in verse. According to his +canons, it is indeed absurd to represent a number of characters facing +some terrible crisis in their lives by capping rhymes like a party +playing _bouts rimes_. In his eyes it must appear somewhat ridiculous +that two enemies taunting each other with insupportable insults should +obligingly provide each other with metrical spacing and neat and +convenient rhymes. But the whole of this view rests finally upon the +fact that few persons, if any, to-day understand what is meant by a +poetical play. It is a singular thing that those poetical plays which +are now written in England by the most advanced students of the drama +follow exclusively the lines of Maeterlinck, and use verse and rhyme for +the adornment of a profoundly tragic theme. But rhyme has a supreme +appropriateness for the treatment of the higher comedy. The land of +heroic comedy is, as it were, a paradise of lovers, in which it is not +difficult to imagine that men could talk poetry all day long. It is far +more conceivable that men's speech should flower naturally into these +harmonious forms, when they are filled with the essential spirit of +youth, than when they are sitting gloomily in the presence of immemorial +destiny. The great error consists in supposing that poetry is an +unnatural form of language. We should all like to speak poetry at the +moment when we truly live, and if we do not speak, it is because we have +an impediment in our speech. It is not song that is the narrow or +artificial thing, it is conversation that is a broken and stammering +attempt at song. When we see men in a spiritual extravaganza, like +"Cyrano de Bergerac," speaking in rhyme, it is not our language +disguised or distorted, but our language rounded and made whole. Rhymes +answer each other as the sexes in flowers and in humanity answer each +other. Men do not speak so, it is true. Even when they are inspired or +in love they talk inanities. But the poetic comedy does not misrepresent +the speech one half so much as the speech misrepresents the soul. +Monsieur Rostand showed even more than his usual insight when he called +"Cyrano de Bergerac" a comedy, despite the fact that, strictly speaking, +it ends with disappointment and death. The essence of tragedy is a +spiritual breakdown or decline, and in the great French play the +spiritual sentiment mounts unceasingly until the last line. It is not +the facts themselves, but our feeling about them, that makes tragedy and +comedy, and death is more joyful in Rostand than life in Maeterlinck. +The same apparent contradiction holds good in the case of the drama of +"L'Aiglon," now being performed with so much success. Although the hero +is a weakling, the subject a fiasco, the end a premature death and a +personal disillusionment, yet, in spite of this theme, which might have +been chosen for its depressing qualities, the unconquerable paean of the +praise of things, the ungovernable gaiety of the poet's song swells so +high that at the end it seems to drown all the weak voices of the +characters in one crashing chorus of great things and great men. A +multitude of mottoes might be taken from the play to indicate and +illustrate, not only its own spirit, but much of the spirit of modern +life. When in the vision of the field of Wagram the horrible voices of +the wounded cry out, _Les corbeaux, les corbeaux_, the Duke, overwhelmed +with a nightmare of hideous trivialities, cries out, _Ou, ou, sont les +aigles?_ That antithesis might stand alone as an invocation at the +beginning of the twentieth century to the spirit of heroic comedy. When +an ex-General of Napoleon is asked his reason for having betrayed the +Emperor, he replies, _La fatigue_, and at that a veteran private of the +Great Army rushes forward, and crying passionately, _Et nous?_ pours out +a terrible description of the life lived by the commoner soldier. +To-day, when pessimism is almost as much a symbol of wealth and fashion +as jewels or cigars, when the pampered heirs of the ages can sum up life +in few other words but _la fatigue_, there might surely come a cry from +the vast mass of common humanity from the beginning--_et nous?_ It is +this potentiality for enthusiasm among the mass of men that makes the +function of comedy at once common and sublime. Shakespeare's "Much Ado +About Nothing" is a great comedy, because behind it is the whole +pressure of that love of love which is the youth of the world, which is +common to all the young, especially to those who swear they will die +bachelors and old maids. "Love's Labour's Lost" is filled with the same +energy, and there it falls even more definitely into the scope of our +subject, since it is a comedy in rhyme in which all men speak lyrically +as naturally as the birds sing in pairing time. What the love of love +is to the Shakespearean comedies, that other and more mysterious human +passion, the love of death, is to "L'Aiglon." Whether we shall ever have +in England a new tradition of poetic comedy it is difficult at present +to say, but we shall assuredly never have it until we realise that +comedy is built upon everlasting foundations in the nature of things, +that it is not a thing too light to capture, but too deep to plumb. +Monsieur Rostand, in his description of the Battle of Wagram, does not +shrink from bringing about the Duke's ears the frightful voices of +actual battle, of men torn by crows, and suffocated with blood, but when +the Duke, terrified at these dreadful appeals, asks them for their final +word, they all cry together _Vive l'Empereur!_ Monsieur Rostand, +perhaps, did not know that he was writing an allegory. To me that field +of Wagram is the field of the modern war of literature. We hear nothing +but the voices of pain; the whole is one phonograph of horror. It is +right that we should hear these things, it is right that not one of +them should be silenced; but these cries of distress are not in life, as +they are in modern art, the only voices; they are the voices of men, but +not the voice of man. When questioned finally and seriously as to their +conception of their destiny, men have from the beginning of time +answered in a thousand philosophies and religions with a single voice +and in a sense most sacred and tremendous, _Vive l'Empereur_. + + + + +CHARLES II + + +There are a great many bonds which still connect us with Charles II., +one of the idlest men of one of the idlest epochs. Among other things +Charles II. represented one thing which is very rare and very +satisfying; he was a real and consistent sceptic. Scepticism, both in +its advantages and disadvantages, is greatly misunderstood in our time. +There is a curious idea abroad that scepticism has some connection with +such theories as materialism and atheism and secularism. This is of +course a mistake; the true sceptic has nothing to do with these theories +simply because they are theories. The true sceptic is as much a +spiritualist as he is a materialist. He thinks that the savage dancing +round an African idol stands quite as good a chance of being right as +Darwin. He thinks that mysticism is every bit as rational as +rationalism. He has indeed the most profound doubts as to whether St. +Matthew wrote his own gospel. But he has quite equally profound doubts +as to whether the tree he is looking at is a tree and not a rhinoceros. + +This is the real meaning of that mystery which appears so prominently in +the lives of great sceptics, which appears with especial prominence in +the life of Charles II. I mean their constant oscillation between +atheism and Roman Catholicism. Roman Catholicism is indeed a great and +fixed and formidable system, but so is atheism. Atheism is indeed the +most daring of all dogmas, more daring than the vision of a palpable day +of judgment. For it is the assertion of a universal negative; for a man +to say that there is no God in the universe is like saying that there +are no insects in any of the stars. + +Thus it was with that wholesome and systematic sceptic, Charles II. When +he took the Sacrament according to the forms of the Roman Church in his +last hour he was acting consistently as a philosopher. The wafer might +not be God; similarly it might not be a wafer. To the genuine and +poetical sceptic the whole world is incredible, with its bulbous +mountains and its fantastic trees. The whole order of things is as +outrageous as any miracle which could presume to violate it. +Transubstantiation might be a dream, but if it was, it was assuredly a +dream within a dream. Charles II. sought to guard himself against hell +fire because he could not think hell itself more fantastic than the +world as it was revealed by science. The priest crept up the staircase, +the doors were closed, the few of the faithful who were present hushed +themselves respectfully, and so, with every circumstance of secrecy and +sanctity, with the cross uplifted and the prayers poured out, was +consummated the last great act of logical unbelief. + +The problem of Charles II. consists in this, that he has scarcely a +moral virtue to his name, and yet he attracts us morally. We feel that +some of the virtues have been dropped out in the lists made by all the +saints and sages, and that Charles II. was pre-eminently successful in +these wild and unmentionable virtues. The real truth of this matter and +the real relation of Charles II. to the moral ideal is worth somewhat +more exhaustive study. + +It is a commonplace that the Restoration movement can only be understood +when considered as a reaction against Puritanism. But it is +insufficiently realised that the tyranny which half frustrated all the +good work of Puritanism was of a very peculiar kind. It was not the fire +of Puritanism, the exultation in sobriety, the frenzy of a restraint, +which passed away; that still burns in the heart of England, only to be +quenched by the final overwhelming sea. But it is seldom remembered that +the Puritans were in their day emphatically intellectual bullies, that +they relied swaggeringly on the logical necessity of Calvinism, that +they bound omnipotence itself in the chains of syllogism. The Puritans +fell, through the damning fact that they had a complete theory of life, +through the eternal paradox that a satisfactory explanation can never +satisfy. Like Brutus and the logical Romans, like the logical French +Jacobins, like the logical English utilitarians, they taught the lesson +that men's wants have always been right and their arguments always +wrong. Reason is always a kind of brute force; those who appeal to the +head rather than the heart, however pallid and polite, are necessarily +men of violence. We speak of "touching" a man's heart, but we can do +nothing to his head but hit it. The tyranny of the Puritans over the +bodies of men was comparatively a trifle; pikes, bullets, and +conflagrations are comparatively a trifle. Their real tyranny was the +tyranny of aggressive reason over the cowed and demoralised human +spirit. Their brooding and raving can be forgiven, can in truth be loved +and reverenced, for it is humanity on fire; hatred can be genial, +madness can be homely. The Puritans fell, not because they were +fanatics, but because they were rationalists. + +When we consider these things, when we remember that Puritanism, which +means in our day a moral and almost temperamental attitude, meant in +that day a singularly arrogant logical attitude, we shall comprehend a +little more the grain of good that lay in the vulgarity and triviality +of the Restoration. The Restoration, of which Charles II. was a +pre-eminent type, was in part a revolt of all the chaotic and unclassed +parts of human nature, the parts that are left over, and will always be +left over, by every rationalistic system of life. This does not merely +account for the revolt of the vices and of that empty recklessness and +horseplay which is sometimes more irritating than any vice. It accounts +also for the return of the virtue of politeness, for that also is a +nameless thing ignored by logical codes. Politeness has indeed about it +something mystical; like religion, it is everywhere understood and +nowhere defined. Charles is not entirely to be despised because, as the +type of this movement, he let himself float upon this new tide of +politeness. There was some moral and social value in his perfection in +little things. He could not keep the Ten Commandments, but he kept the +ten thousand commandments. His name is unconnected with any great acts +of duty or sacrifice, but it is connected with a great many of those +acts of magnanimous politeness, of a kind of dramatic delicacy, which +lie on the dim borderland between morality and art. "Charles II.," said +Thackeray, with unerring brevity, "was a rascal, but not a snob." Unlike +George IV. he was a gentleman, and a gentleman is a man who obeys +strange statutes, not to be found in any moral text-book, and practises +strange virtues nameless from the beginning of the world. + +So much may be said and should be said for the Restoration, that it was +the revolt of something human, if only the debris of human nature. But +more cannot be said. It was emphatically a fall and not an ascent, a +recoil and not an advance, a sudden weakness and not a sudden strength. +That the bow of human nature was by Puritanism bent immeasurably too +far, that it overstrained the soul by stretching it to the height of an +almost horrible idealism, makes the collapse of the Restoration +infinitely more excusable, but it does not make it any the less a +collapse. Nothing can efface the essential distinction that Puritanism +was one of the world's great efforts after the discovery of the true +order, whereas it was the essence of the Restoration that it involved no +effort at all. It is true that the Restoration was not, as has been +widely assumed, the most immoral epoch of our history. Its vices cannot +compare for a moment in this respect with the monstrous tragedies and +almost suffocating secrecies and villainies of the Court of James I. But +the dram-drinking and nose-slitting of the saturnalia of Charles II. +seem at once more human and more detestable than the passions and +poisons of the Renaissance, much in the same way that a monkey appears +inevitably more human and more detestable than a tiger. Compared with +the Renaissance, there is something Cockney about the Restoration. Not +only was it too indolent for great morality, it was too indolent even +for great art. It lacked that seriousness which is needed even for the +pursuit of pleasure, that discipline which is essential even to a game +of lawn tennis. It would have appeared to Charles II.'s poets quite as +arduous to write "Paradise Lost" as to regain Paradise. + +All old and vigorous languages abound in images and metaphors, which, +though lightly and casually used, are in truth poems in themselves, and +poems of a high and striking order. Perhaps no phrase is so terribly +significant as the phrase "killing time." It is a tremendous and +poetical image, the image of a kind of cosmic parricide. There are on +the earth a race of revellers who do, under all their exuberance, +fundamentally regard time as an enemy. Of these were Charles II. and the +men of the Restoration. Whatever may have been their merits, and as we +have said we think that they had merits, they can never have a place +among the great representatives of the joy of life, for they belonged to +those lower epicureans who kill time, as opposed to those higher +epicureans who make time live. + +Of a people in this temper Charles II. was the natural and rightful +head. He may have been a pantomime King, but he was a King, and with all +his geniality he let nobody forget it. He was not, indeed, the aimless +flaneur that he has been represented. He was a patient and cunning +politician, who disguised his wisdom under so perfect a mask of folly +that he not only deceived his allies and opponents, but has deceived +almost all the historians that have come after him. But if Charles was, +as he emphatically was, the only Stuart who really achieved despotism, +it was greatly due to the temper of the nation and the age. Despotism is +the easiest of all governments, at any rate for the governed. + +It is indeed a form of slavery, and it is the despot who is the slave. +Men in a state of decadence employ professionals to fight for them, +professionals to dance for them, and a professional to rule them. + +Almost all the faces in the portraits of that time look, as it were, +like masks put on artificially with the perruque. A strange unreality +broods over the period. Distracted as we are with civic mysteries and +problems we can afford to rejoice. Our tears are less desolate than +their laughter, our restraints are larger than their liberty. + + + + +STEVENSON[1] + + +A recent incident has finally convinced us that Stevenson was, as we +suspected, a great man. We knew from recent books that we have noticed, +from the scorn of "Ephemera Critica" and Mr. George Moore, that +Stevenson had the first essential qualification of a great man: that of +being misunderstood by his opponents. But from the book which Messrs. +Chatto & Windus have issued, in the same binding as Stevenson's works, +"Robert Louis Stevenson," by Mr. H. Bellyse Baildon, we learn that he +has the other essential qualification, that of being misunderstood by +his admirers. Mr. Baildon has many interesting things to tell us about +Stevenson himself, whom he knew at college. Nor are his criticisms by +any means valueless. That upon the plays, especially "Beau Austin," is +remarkably thoughtful and true. But it is a very singular fact, and goes +far, as we say, to prove that Stevenson had that unfathomable quality +which belongs to the great, that this admiring student of Stevenson can +number and marshal all the master's work and distribute praise and blame +with decision and even severity, without ever thinking for a moment of +the principles of art and ethics which would have struck us as the very +things that Stevenson nearly killed himself to express. + +Mr. Baildon, for example, is perpetually lecturing Stevenson for his +"pessimism"; surely a strange charge against a man who has done more +than any modern artist to make men ashamed of their shame of life. But +he complains that, in "The Master of Ballantrae" and "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. +Hyde," Stevenson gives evil a final victory over good. Now if there was +one point that Stevenson more constantly and passionately emphasised +than any other it was that we must worship good for its own value and +beauty, without any reference whatever to victory or failure in space +and time. "Whatever we are intended to do," he said, "we are not +intended to succeed." That the stars in their courses fight against +virtue, that humanity is in its nature a forlorn hope, this was the very +spirit that through the whole of Stevenson's work sounded a trumpet to +all the brave. The story of Henry Durie is dark enough, but could anyone +stand beside the grave of that sodden monomaniac and not respect him? It +is strange that men should see sublime inspiration in the ruins of an +old church and see none in the ruins of a man. + +The author has most extraordinary ideas about Stevenson's tales of blood +and spoil; he appears to think that they prove Stevenson to have had (we +use Mr. Baildon's own phrase) a kind of "homicidal mania." "He +[Stevenson] arrives pretty much at the paradox that one can hardly be +better employed than in taking life." Mr. Baildon might as well say that +Dr. Conan Doyle delights in committing inexplicable crimes, that Mr. +Clark Russell is a notorious pirate, and that Mr. Wilkie Collins thought +that one could hardly be better employed than in stealing moonstones +and falsifying marriage registers. But Mr. Baildon is scarcely alone in +this error: few people have understood properly the goriness of +Stevenson. Stevenson was essentially the robust schoolboy who draws +skeletons and gibbets in his Latin grammar. It was not that he took +pleasure in death, but that he took pleasure in life, in every muscular +and emphatic action of life, even if it were an action that took the +life of another. + +Let us suppose that one gentleman throws a knife at another gentleman +and pins him to the wall. It is scarcely necessary to remark that there +are in this transaction two somewhat varying personal points of view. +The point of view of the man pinned is the tragic and moral point of +view, and this Stevenson showed clearly that he understood in such +stories as "The Master of Ballantrae" and "Weir of Hermiston." But there +is another view of the matter--that in which the whole act is an abrupt +and brilliant explosion of bodily vitality, like breaking a rock with a +blow of a hammer, or just clearing a five-barred gate. This is the +standpoint of romance, and it is the soul of "Treasure Island" and "The +Wrecker." It was not, indeed, that Stevenson loved men less, but that he +loved clubs and pistols more. He had, in truth, in the devouring +universalism of his soul, a positive love for inanimate objects such as +has not been known since St. Francis called the sun brother and the well +sister. We feel that he was actually in love with the wooden crutch that +Silver sent hurtling in the sunlight, with the box that Billy Bones left +at the "Admiral Benbow," with the knife that Wicks drove through his own +hand and the table. There is always in his work a certain clean-cut +angularity which makes us remember that he was fond of cutting wood with +an axe. + +Stevenson's new biographer, however, cannot make any allowance for this +deep-rooted poetry of mere sight and touch. He is always imputing +something to Stevenson as a crime which Stevenson really professed as an +object. He says of that glorious riot of horror, "The Destroying Angel," +in "The Dynamiter," that it is "highly fantastic and putting a strain +on our credulity." This is rather like describing the travels of Baron +Munchausen as "unconvincing." The whole story of "The Dynamiter" is a +kind of humorous nightmare, and even in that story "The Destroying +Angel" is supposed to be an extravagant lie made up on the spur of the +moment. It is a dream within a dream, and to accuse it of improbability +is like accusing the sky of being blue. But Mr. Baildon, whether from +hasty reading or natural difference of taste, cannot in the least +comprehend that rich and romantic irony of Stevenson's London stories. +He actually says of that portentous monument of humour, Prince Florizel +of Bohemia, that, "though evidently admired by his creator, he is to me +on the whole rather an irritating presence." From this we are almost +driven to believe (though desperately and against our will) that Mr. +Baildon thinks that Prince Florizel is to be taken seriously, as if he +were a man in real life. For ourselves. Prince Florizel is almost our +favourite character in fiction; but we willingly add the proviso that +if we met him in real life we should kill him. + +The fact is, that the whole mass of Stevenson's spiritual and +intellectual virtues have been partly frustrated by one additional +virtue--that of artistic dexterity. If he had chalked up his great +message on a wall, like Walt Whitman, in large and straggling letters, +it would have startled men like a blasphemy. But he wrote his +light-headed paradoxes in so flowing a copy-book hand that everyone +supposed they must be copy-book sentiments. He suffered from his +versatility, not, as is loosely said, by not doing every department well +enough, but by doing every department too well. As child, cockney, +pirate, or Puritan, his disguises were so good that most people could +not see the same man under all. It is an unjust fact that if a man can +play the fiddle, give legal opinions, and black boots just tolerably, he +is called an Admirable Crichton, but if he does all three thoroughly +well, he is apt to be regarded, in the several departments, as a common +fiddler, a common lawyer, and a common boot-black. This is what has +happened in the case of Stevenson. If "Dr. Jekyll," "The Master of +Ballantrae," "The Child's Garden of Verses," and "Across the Plains" had +been each of them one shade less perfectly done than they were, everyone +would have seen that they were all parts of the same message; but by +succeeding in the proverbial miracle of being in five places at once, he +has naturally convinced others that he was five different people. But +the real message of Stevenson was as simple as that of Mohamet, as moral +as that of Dante, as confident as that of Whitman, and as practical as +that of James Watt. The conception which unites the whole varied work of +Stevenson was that romance, or the vision of the possibilities of +things, was far more important than mere occurrences: that one was the +soul of our life, the other the body, and that the soul was the precious +thing. The germ of all his stories lies in the idea that every landscape +or scrap of scenery has a soul: and that soul is a story. Standing +before a stunted orchard with a broken stone wall, we may know as a +mere fact that no one has been through it but an elderly female cook. +But everything exists in the human soul: that orchard grows in our own +brain, and there it is the shrine and theatre of some strange chance +between a girl and a ragged poet and a mad farmer. Stevenson stands for +the conception that ideas are the real incidents: that our fancies are +our adventures. To think of a cow with wings is essentially to have met +one. And this is the reason for his wide diversities of narrative: he +had to make one story as rich as a ruby sunset, another as grey as a +hoary monolith: for the story was the soul, or rather the meaning, of +the bodily vision. It is quite inappropriate to judge "The Teller of +Tales" (as the Samoans called him) by the particular novels he wrote, as +one would judge Mr. George Moore by "Esther Waters." These novels were +only the two or three of his soul's adventures that he happened to tell. +But he died with a thousand stories in his heart. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[1] "Robert Louis Stevenson: A Life Study in Criticism." By H. Bellyse +Baildon. Chatto & Windus. + + + + +THOMAS CARLYLE + + +There are two main moral necessities for the work of a great man: the +first is that he should believe in the truth of his message; the second +is that he should believe in the acceptability of his message. It was +the whole tragedy of Carlyle that he had the first and not the second. + +The ordinary capital, however, which is made out of Carlyle's alleged +gloom is a very paltry matter. Carlyle had his faults, both as a man and +as a writer, but the attempt to explain his gospel in terms of his +"liver" is merely pitiful. If indigestion invariably resulted in a +"Sartor Resartus," it would be a vastly more tolerable thing than it is. +Diseases do not turn into poems; even the decadent really writes with +the healthy part of his organism. If Carlyle's private faults and +literary virtues ran somewhat in the same line, he is only in the +situation of every man; for every one of us it is surely very difficult +to say precisely where our honest opinions end and our personal +predilections begin. But to attempt to denounce Carlyle as a mere savage +egotist cannot arise from anything but a pure inability to grasp +Carlyle's gospel. "Ruskin," says a critic, "did, all the same, verily +believe in God; Carlyle believed only in himself." This is certainly a +distinction between the author he has understood and the author he has +not understood. Carlyle believed in himself, but he could not have +believed in himself more than Ruskin did; they both believed in God, +because they felt that if everything else fell into wrack and ruin, +themselves were permanent witnesses to God. Where they both failed was +not in belief in God or in belief in themselves; they failed in belief +in other people. It is not enough for a prophet to believe in his +message; he must believe in its acceptability. Christ, St. Francis, +Bunyan, Wesley, Mr. Gladstone, Walt Whitman, men of indescribable +variety, were all alike in a certain faculty of treating the average man +as their equal, of trusting to his reason and good feeling without fear +and without condescension. It was this simplicity of confidence, not +only in God, but in the image of God, that was lacking in Carlyle. + +But the attempts to discredit Carlyle's religious sentiment must +absolutely fall to the ground. The profound security of Carlyle's sense +of the unity of the Cosmos is like that of a Hebrew prophet; and it has +the same expression that it had in the Hebrew prophets--humour. A man +must be very full of faith to jest about his divinity. No Neo-Pagan +delicately suggesting a revival of Dionysus, no vague, half-converted +Theosophist groping towards a recognition of Buddha, would ever think of +cracking jokes on the matter. But to the Hebrew prophets their religion +was so solid a thing, like a mountain or a mammoth, that the irony of +its contact with trivial and fleeting matters struck them like a blow. +So it was with Carlyle. His supreme contribution, both to philosophy and +literature, was his sense of the sarcasm of eternity. Other writers had +seen the hope or the terror of the heavens, he alone saw the humour of +them. Other writers had seen that there could be something elemental and +eternal in a song or statute, he alone saw that there could be something +elemental and eternal in a joke. No one who ever read it will forget the +passage, full of dark and agnostic gratification, in which he narrates +that some Court chronicler described Louis XV. as "falling asleep in the +Lord." "Enough for us that he did fall asleep; that, curtained in thick +night, under what keeping we ask not, he at least will never, through +unending ages, insult the face of the sun any more ... and we go on, if +not to better forms of beastliness, at least to fresher ones." + +The supreme value of Carlyle to English literature was that he was the +founder of modern irrationalism; a movement fully as important as modern +rationalism. A great deal is said in these days about the value or +valuelessness of logic. In the main, indeed, logic is not a productive +tool so much as a weapon of defence. A man building up an intellectual +system has to build like Nehemiah, with the sword in one hand and the +trowel in the other. The imagination, the constructive quality, is the +trowel, and argument is the sword. A wide experience of actual +intellectual affairs will lead most people to the conclusion that logic +is mainly valuable as a weapon wherewith to exterminate logicians. + +But though this may be true enough in practice, it scarcely clears up +the position of logic in human affairs. Logic is a machine of the mind, +and if it is used honestly it ought to bring out an honest conclusion. +When people say that you can prove anything by logic, they are not using +words in a fair sense. What they mean is that you can prove anything by +bad logic. Deep in the mystic ingratitude of the soul of man there is an +extraordinary tendency to use the name for an organ, when what is meant +is the abuse or decay of that organ. Thus we speak of a man suffering +from "nerves," which is about as sensible as talking about a man +suffering from ten fingers. We speak of "liver" and "digestion" when we +mean the failure of liver and the absence of digestion. And in the same +manner we speak of the dangers of logic, when what we really mean is the +danger of fallacy. + +But the real point about the limitation of logic and the partial +overthrow of logic by writers like Carlyle is deeper and somewhat +different. The fault of the great mass of logicians is not that they +bring out a false result, or, in other words, are not logicians at all. +Their fault is that by an inevitable psychological habit they tend to +forget that there are two parts of a logical process, the first the +choosing of an assumption, and the second the arguing upon it, and +humanity, if it devotes itself too persistently to the study of sound +reasoning, has a certain tendency to lose the faculty of sound +assumption. It is astonishing how constantly one may hear from rational +and even rationalistic persons such a phrase as "He did not prove the +very thing with which he started," or, "The whole of his case rested +upon a pure assumption," two peculiarities which may be found by the +curious in the works of Euclid. It is astonishing, again, how +constantly one hears rationalists arguing upon some deep topic, +apparently without troubling about the deep assumptions involved, having +lost their sense, as it were, of the real colour and character of a +man's assumption. For instance, two men will argue about whether +patriotism is a good thing and never discover until the end, if at all, +that the cosmopolitan is basing his whole case upon the idea that man +should, if he can, become as God, with equal sympathies and no +prejudices, while the nationalist denies any such duty at the very +start, and regards man as an animal who has preferences, as a bird has +feathers. + + * * * * * + +Thus it was with Carlyle: he startled men by attacking not arguments, +but assumptions. He simply brushed aside all the matters which the men +of the nineteenth century held to be incontrovertible, and appealed +directly to the very different class of matters which they knew to be +true. He induced men to study less the truth of their reasoning, and +more the truth of the assumptions upon which they reasoned. Even where +his view was not the highest truth, it was always a refreshing and +beneficent heresy. He denied every one of the postulates upon which the +age of reason based itself. He denied the theory of progress which +assumed that we must be better off than the people of the twelfth +century. Whether we were better than the people of the twelfth century, +according to him, depended entirely upon whether we chose or deserved to +be. + +He denied every type and species of prop or association or support which +threw the responsibility upon civilisation or society, or anything but +the individual conscience. He has often been called a prophet. The real +ground of the truth of this phrase is often neglected. Since the last +era of purely religious literature, the era of English Puritanism, there +has been no writer in whose eyes the soul stood so much alone. + +Carlyle was, as we have suggested, a mystic, and mysticism was with him, +as with all its genuine professors, only a transcendent form of common +sense. Mysticism and common sense alike consist in a sense of the +dominance of certain truths and tendencies which cannot be formally +demonstrated or even formally named. Mysticism and common sense are +alike appeals to realities that we all know to be real, but which have +no place in argument except as postulates. Carlyle's work did consist in +breaking through formulae, old and new, to these old and silent and +ironical sanities. Philosophers might abolish kings a hundred times +over, he maintained, they could not alter the fact that every man and +woman does choose a king and repudiate all the pride of citizenship for +the exultation of humility. If inequality of this kind was a weakness, +it was a weakness bound up with the very strength of the universe. About +hero worship, indeed, few critics have done the smallest justice to +Carlyle. Misled by those hasty and choleric passages in which he +sometimes expressed a preference for mere violence, passages which were +a great deal more connected with his temperament than with his +philosophy, they have finally imbibed the notion that Carlyle's theory +of hero worship was a theory of terrified submission to stern and +arrogant men. As a matter of fact, Carlyle is really inhumane about some +questions, but he is never inhumane about hero worship. His view is not +that human nature is so vulgar and silly a thing that it must be guided +and driven; it is, on the contrary, that human nature is so chivalrous +and fundamentally magnanimous a thing that even the meanest have it in +them to love a leader more than themselves, and to prefer loyalty to +rebellion. When he speaks of this trait in human nature Carlyle's tone +invariably softens. We feel that for the moment he is kindled with +admiration of mankind, and almost reaches the verge of Christianity. +Whatever else was acid and captious about Carlyle's utterances, his hero +worship was not only humane, it was almost optimistic. He admired great +men primarily, and perhaps correctly, because he thought that they were +more human than other men. The evil side of the influence of Carlyle and +his religion of hero worship did not consist in the emotional worship +of valour and success; that was a part of him, as, indeed, it is a part +of all healthy children. Where Carlyle really did harm was in the fact +that he, more than any modern man, is responsible for the increase of +that modern habit of what is vulgarly called "Going the whole hog." +Often in matters of passion and conquest it is a singularly hoggish hog. +This remarkable modern craze for making one's philosophy, religion, +politics, and temper all of a piece, of seeking in all incidents for +opportunities to assert and reassert some favourite mental attitude, is +a thing which existed comparatively little in other centuries. Solomon +and Horace, Petrarch and Shakespeare were pessimists when they were +melancholy, and optimists when they were happy. But the optimist of +to-day seems obliged to prove that gout and unrequited love make him +dance with joy, and the pessimist of to-day to prove that sunshine and a +good supper convulse him with inconsolable anguish. Carlyle was strongly +possessed with this mania for spiritual consistency. He wished to take +the same view of the wars of the angels and of the paltriest riot at +Donnybrook Fair. It was this species of insane logic which led him into +his chief errors, never his natural enthusiasms. Let us take an example. +Carlyle's defence of slavery is a thoroughly ridiculous thing, weak +alike in argument and in moral instinct. The truth is, that he only took +it up from the passion for applying everywhere his paradoxical defence +of aristocracy. He blundered, of course, because he did not see that +slavery has nothing in the world to do with aristocracy, that it is, +indeed, almost its opposite. The defence which Carlyle and all its +thoughtful defenders have made for aristocracy was that a few persons +could more rapidly and firmly decide public affairs in the interests of +the people. But slavery is not even supposed to be a government for the +good of the governed. It is a possession of the governed avowedly for +the good of the governors. Aristocracy uses the strong for the service +of the weak; slavery uses the weak for the service of the strong. It is +no derogation to man as a spiritual being, as Carlyle firmly believed +he was, that he should be ruled and guided for his own good like a +child--for a child who is always ruled and guided we regard as the very +type of spiritual existence. But it is a derogation and an absolute +contradiction to that human spirituality in which Carlyle believed that +a man should be owned like a tool for someone else's good, as if he had +no personal destiny in the Cosmos. We draw attention to this particular +error of Carlyle's because we think that it is a curious example of the +waste and unclean places into which that remarkable animal, "the whole +hog," more than once led him. + +In this respect Carlyle has had unquestionably long and an +unquestionably bad influence. The whole of that recent political ethic +which conceives that if we only go far enough we may finish a thing for +once and all, that being strong consists chiefly in being deliberately +deaf and blind, owes a great deal of its complete sway to his example. +Out of him flows most of the philosophy of Nietzsche, who is in modern +times the supreme maniac of this moonstruck consistency. Though +Nietzsche and Carlyle were in reality profoundly different, Carlyle +being a stiff-necked peasant and Nietzsche a very fragile aristocrat, +they were alike in this one quality of which we speak, the strange and +pitiful audacity with which they applied their single ethical test to +everything in heaven and earth. The disciple of Nietzsche, indeed, +embraces immorality like an austere and difficult faith. He urges +himself to lust and cruelty with the same tremulous enthusiasm with +which a Christian urges himself to purity and patience; he struggles as +a monk struggles with bestial visions and temptations with the ancient +necessities of honour and justice and compassion. To this madhouse, it +can hardly be denied, has Carlyle's intellectual courage brought many at +last. + + + + +TOLSTOY AND THE CULT OF SIMPLICITY + + +The whole world is certainly heading for a great simplicity, not +deliberately, but rather inevitably. It is not a mere fashion of false +innocence, like that of the French aristocrats before the Revolution, +who built an altar to Pan, and who taxed the peasantry for the enormous +expenditure which is needed in order to live the simple life of +peasants. The simplicity towards which the world is driving is the +necessary outcome of all our systems and speculations and of our deep +and continuous contemplation of things. For the universe is like +everything in it; we have to look at it repeatedly and habitually before +we see it. It is only when we have seen it for the hundredth time that +we see it for the first time. The more consistently things are +contemplated, the more they tend to unify themselves and therefore to +simplify themselves. The simplification of anything is always +sensational. Thus monotheism is the most sensational of things: it is as +if we gazed long at a design full of disconnected objects, and, +suddenly, with a stunning thrill, they came together into a huge and +staring face. + +Few people will dispute that all the typical movements of our time are +upon this road towards simplification. Each system seeks to be more +fundamental than the other; each seeks, in the literal sense, to +undermine the other. In art, for example, the old conception of man, +classic as the Apollo Belvedere, has first been attacked by the realist, +who asserts that man, as a fact of natural history, is a creature with +colourless hair and a freckled face. Then comes the Impressionist, going +yet deeper, who asserts that to his physical eye, which alone is +certain, man is a creature with purple hair and a grey face. Then comes +the Symbolist, and says that to his soul, which alone is certain, man is +a creature with green hair and a blue face. And all the great writers of +our time represent in one form or another this attempt to reestablish +communication with the elemental, or, as it is sometimes more roughly +and fallaciously expressed, to return to nature. Some think that the +return to nature consists in drinking no wine; some think that it +consists in drinking a great deal more than is good for them. Some think +that the return to nature is achieved by beating swords into +ploughshares; some think it is achieved by turning ploughshares into +very ineffectual British War Office bayonets. It is natural, according +to the Jingo, for a man to kill other people with gunpowder and himself +with gin. It is natural, according to the humanitarian revolutionist, to +kill other people with dynamite and himself with vegetarianism. It would +be too obviously Philistine a sentiment, perhaps, to suggest that the +claim of either of these persons to be obeying the voice of nature is +interesting when we consider that they require huge volumes of +paradoxical argument to persuade themselves or anyone else of the truth +of their conclusions. But the giants of our time are undoubtedly alike +in that they approach by very different roads this conception of the +return to simplicity. Ibsen returns to nature by the angular exterior of +fact, Maeterlinck by the eternal tendencies of fable. Whitman returns to +nature by seeing how much he can accept, Tolstoy by seeing how much he +can reject. + +Now, this heroic desire to return to nature, is, of course, in some +respects, rather like the heroic desire of a kitten to return to its own +tail. A tail is a simple and beautiful object, rhythmic in curve and +soothing in texture; but it is certainly one of the minor but +characteristic qualities of a tail that it should hang behind. It is +impossible to deny that it would in some degree lose its character if +attached to any other part of the anatomy. Now, nature is like a tail in +the sense that it vitally important, if it is to discharge its real +duty, that it should be always behind. To imagine that we can see +nature, especially our own nature, face to face, is a folly; it is even +a blasphemy. It is like the conduct of a cat in some mad fairy-tale, who +should set out on his travels with the firm conviction that he would +find his tail growing like a tree in the meadows at the end of the +world. And the actual effect of the travels of the philosopher in search +of nature, when seen from the outside, looks very like the gyrations of +the tail-pursuing kitten, exhibiting much enthusiasm but little dignity, +much cry and very little tail. The grandeur of nature is that she is +omnipotent and unseen, that she is perhaps ruling us most when we think +that she is heeding us least. "Thou art a God that hidest Thyself," said +the Hebrew poet. It may be said with all reverence that it is behind a +man's back that the spirit of nature hides. + +It is this consideration that lends a certain air of futility even to +all the inspired simplicities and thunderous veracities of Tolstoy. We +feel that a man cannot make himself simple merely by warring on +complexity; we feel, indeed, in our saner moments, that a man cannot +make himself simple at all. A self-conscious simplicity may well be far +more intrinsically ornate than luxury itself. Indeed, a great deal of +the pomp and sumptuousness of the world's history was simple in the +truest sense. It was born of an almost babyish receptiveness; it was the +work of men who had eyes to wonder and men who had ears to hear. + + "King Solomon brought merchant men + Because of his desire + With peacocks, apes, and ivory, + From Tarshish unto Tyre." + +But this proceeding was not a part of the wisdom of Solomon; it was a +part of his folly--I had almost said of his innocence. Tolstoy, we feel, +would not be content with hurling satire and denunciation at "Solomon in +all his glory." With fierce and unimpeachable logic he would go a step +further. He would spend days and nights in the meadows stripping the +shameless crimson coronals off the lilies of the field. + +The new collection of "Tales from Tolstoy," translated and edited by Mr. +R. Nisbet Bain, is calculated to draw particular attention to this +ethical and ascetic side of Tolstoy's work. In one sense, and that the +deepest sense, the work of Tolstoy is, of course, a genuine and noble +appeal to simplicity. The narrow notion that an artist may not teach is +pretty well exploded by now. But the truth of the matter is, that an +artist teaches far more by his mere background and properties, his +landscape, his costume, his idiom and technique--all the part of his +work, in short, of which he is probably entirely unconscious, than by +the elaborate and pompous moral dicta which he fondly imagines to be his +opinions. The real distinction between the ethics of high art and the +ethics of manufactured and didactic art lies in the simple fact that the +bad fable has a moral, while the good fable is a moral. And the real +moral of Tolstoy comes out constantly in these stories, the great moral +which lies at the heart of all his work, of which he is probably +unconscious, and of which it is quite likely that he would vehemently +disapprove. The curious cold white light of morning that shines over all +the tales, the folklore simplicity with which "a man or a woman" are +spoken of without further identification, the love--one might almost say +the lust--for the qualities of brute materials, the hardness of wood, +and the softness of mud, the ingrained belief in a certain ancient +kindliness sitting beside the very cradle of the race of man--these +influences are truly moral. When we put beside them the trumpeting and +tearing nonsense of the didactic Tolstoy, screaming for an obscene +purity, shouting for an inhuman peace, hacking up human life into small +sins with a chopper, sneering at men, women, and children out of respect +to humanity, combining in one chaos of contradictions an unmanly Puritan +and an uncivilised prig, then, indeed, we scarcely know whither Tolstoy +has vanished. We know not what to do with this small and noisy moralist +who is inhabiting one corner of a great and good man. + +It is difficult in every case to reconcile Tolstoy the great artist with +Tolstoy the almost venomous reformer. It is difficult to believe that a +man who draws in such noble outlines the dignity of the daily life of +humanity regards as evil that divine act of procreation by which that +dignity is renewed from age to age. It is difficult to believe that a +man who has painted with so frightful an honesty the heartrending +emptiness of the life of the poor can really grudge them every one of +their pitiful pleasures, from courtship to tobacco. It is difficult to +believe that a poet in prose who has so powerfully exhibited the +earth-born air of man, the essential kinship of a human being, with the +landscape in which he lives, can deny so elemental a virtue as that +which attaches a man to his own ancestors and his own land. It is +difficult to believe that the man who feels so poignantly the detestable +insolence of oppression would not actually, if he had the chance, lay +the oppressor flat with his fist. All, however, arises from the search +after a false simplicity, the aim of being, if I may so express it, more +natural than it is natural to be. It would not only be more human, it +would be more humble of us to be content to be complex. The truest +kinship with humanity would lie in doing as humanity has always done, +accepting with a sportsmanlike relish the estate to which we are called, +the star of our happiness, and the fortunes of the land of our birth. + +The work of Tolstoy has another and more special significance. It +represents the re-assertion of a certain awful common sense which +characterised the most extreme utterances of Christ. It is true that we +cannot turn the cheek to the smiter; it is true that we cannot give our +cloak to the robber; civilisation is too complicated, too vain-glorious, +too emotional. The robber would brag, and we should blush; in other +words, the robber and we are alike sentimentalists. The command of +Christ is impossible, but it is not insane; it is rather sanity preached +to a planet of lunatics. If the whole world was suddenly stricken with a +sense of humour it would find itself mechanically fulfilling the Sermon +on the Mount. It is not the plain facts of the world which stand in the +way of that consummation, but its passions of vanity and +self-advertisement and morbid sensibility. It is true that we cannot +turn the cheek to the smiter, and the sole and sufficient reason is that +we have not the pluck. Tolstoy and his followers have shown that they +have the pluck, and even if we think they are mistaken, by this sign +they conquer. Their theory has the strength of an utterly consistent +thing. It represents that doctrine of mildness and non-resistance which +is the last and most audacious of all the forms of resistance to every +existing authority. It is the great strike of the Quakers which is more +formidable than many sanguinary revolutions. If human beings could only +succeed in achieving a real passive resistance they would be strong with +the appalling strength of inanimate things, they would be calm with the +maddening calm of oak or iron, which conquer without vengeance and are +conquered without humiliation. The theory of Christian duty enunciated +by them is that we should never conquer by force, but always, if we can, +conquer by persuasion. In their mythology St. George did not conquer the +dragon: he tied a pink ribbon round its neck and gave it a saucer of +milk. According to them, a course of consistent kindness to Nero would +have turned him into something only faintly represented by Alfred the +Great. In fact, the policy recommended by this school for dealing with +the bovine stupidity and bovine fury of this world is accurately summed +up in the celebrated verse of Mr. Edward Lear: + + "There was an old man who said, 'How + Shall I flee from this terrible cow? + I will sit on a stile and continue to smile + Till I soften the heart of this cow.'" + +Their confidence in human nature is really honourable and magnificent; +it takes the form of refusing to believe the overwhelming majority of +mankind, even when they set out to explain their own motives. But +although most of us would in all probability tend at first sight to +consider this new sect of Christians as little less outrageous than some +brawling and absurd sect in the Reformation, yet we should fall into a +singular error in doing so. The Christianity of Tolstoy is, when we come +to consider it, one of the most thrilling and dramatic incidents in our +modern civilisation. It represents a tribute to the Christian religion +more sensational than the breaking of seals or the falling of stars. + +From the point of view of a rationalist, the whole world is rendered +almost irrational by the single phenomenon of Christian Socialism. It +turns the scientific universe topsy-turvy, and makes it essentially +possible that the key of all social evolution may be found in the dusty +casket of some discredited creed. It cannot be amiss to consider this +phenomenon as it realty is. + +The religion of Christ has, like many true things, been disproved an +extraordinary number of times. It was disproved by the Neo-Platonist +philosophers at the very moment when it was first starting forth upon +its startling and universal career. It was disproved again by many of +the sceptics of the Renaissance only a few years before its second and +supremely striking embodiment, the religion of Puritanism, was about to +triumph over many kings and civilise many continents. We all agree that +these schools of negation were only interludes in its history; but we +all believe naturally and inevitably that the negation of our own day +is really a breaking up of the theological cosmos, an Armageddon, a +Ragnorak, a twilight of the gods. The man of the nineteenth century, +like a schoolboy of sixteen, believes that his doubt and depression are +symbols of the end of the world. In our day the great irreligionists who +did nothing but dethrone God and drive angels before them have been +outstripped, distanced, and made to look orthodox and humdrum. A newer +race of sceptics has found something infinitely more exciting to do than +nailing down the lids upon a million coffins, and the body upon a single +cross. They have disputed not only the elementary creeds, but the +elementary laws of mankind, property, patriotism, civil obedience. They +have arraigned civilisation as openly as the materialists have arraigned +theology; they have damned all the philosophers even lower than they +have damned the saints. Thousands of modern men move quietly and +conventionally among their fellows while holding views of national +limitation or landed property that would have made Voltaire shudder like +a nun listening to blasphemies. And the last and wildest phase of this +saturnalia of scepticism, the school that goes furthest among thousands +who go so far, the school that denies the moral validity of those ideals +of courage or obedience which are recognised even among pirates, this +school bases itself upon the literal words of Christ, like Dr. Watts or +Messrs. Moody and Sankey. Never in the whole history of the world was +such a tremendous tribute paid to the vitality of an ancient creed. +Compared with this, it would be a small thing if the Red Sea were cloven +asunder, or the sun did stand still at midday. We are faced with the +phenomenon that a set of revolutionists whose contempt for all the +ideals of family and nation would evoke horror in a thieves' kitchen, +who can rid themselves of those elementary instincts of the man and the +gentleman which cling to the very bones of our civilisation, cannot rid +themselves of the influence of two or three remote Oriental anecdotes +written in corrupt Greek. The fact, when realised, has about it +something stunning and hypnotic. The most convinced rationalist is in +its presence suddenly stricken with a strange and ancient vision, sees +the immense sceptical cosmogonies of this age as dreams going the way of +a thousand forgotten heresies, and believes for a moment that the dark +sayings handed down through eighteen centuries may, indeed, contain in +themselves the revolutions of which we have only begun to dream. + +This value which we have above suggested unquestionably belongs to the +Tolstoians, who may roughly be described as the new Quakers. With their +strange optimism, and their almost appalling logical courage, they offer +a tribute to Christianity which no orthodoxies could offer. It cannot +but be remarkable to watch a revolution in which both the rulers and the +rebels march under the same symbol. But the actual theory of +non-resistance itself, with all its kindred theories, is not, I think, +characterised by that intellectual obviousness and necessity which its +supporters claim for it. A pamphlet before us shows us an extraordinary +number of statements about the new Testament, of which the accuracy is +by no means so striking as the confidence. To begin with, we must +protest against a habit of quoting and paraphrasing at the same time. +When a man is discussing what Jesus meant, let him state first of all +what He said, not what the man thinks He would have said if he had +expressed Himself more clearly. Here is an instance of question and +answer: + +Q. "How did our Master Himself sum up the law in a few words?" + +A. "Be ye merciful, be ye perfect even as your Father; your Father in +the spirit world is merciful, is perfect." + +There is nothing in this, perhaps, which Christ might not have said +except the abominable metaphysical modernism of "the spirit world"; but +to say that it is recorded that He did say it, is like saying it is +recorded that He preferred palm trees to sycamores. It is a simple and +unadulterated untruth. The author should know that these words have +meant a thousand things to a thousand people, and that if more ancient +sects had paraphrased them as cheerfully as he, he would never have had +the text upon which he founds his theory. In a pamphlet in which plain +printed words cannot be left alone, it is not surprising if there are +mis-statements upon larger matters. Here is a statement clearly and +philosophically laid down which we can only content ourselves with +flatly denying: "The fifth rule of our Lord is that we should take +special pains to cultivate the same kind of regard for people of foreign +countries, and for those generally who do not belong to us, or even have +an antipathy to us, which we already entertain towards our own people, +and those who are in sympathy with us." I should very much like to know +where in the whole of the New Testament the author finds this violent, +unnatural, and immoral proposition. Christ did not have the same kind of +regard for one person as for another. We are specifically told that +there were certain persons whom He specially loved. It is most +improbable that He thought of other nations as He thought of His own. +The sight of His national city moved Him to tears, and the highest +compliment He paid was, "Behold an Israelite indeed." The author has +simply confused two entirely distinct things. Christ commanded us to +have love for all men, but even if we had equal love for all men, to +speak of having the same love for all men is merely bewildering +nonsense. If we love a man at all, the impression he produces on us must +be vitally different to the impression produced by another man whom we +love. To speak of having the same kind of regard for both is about as +sensible as asking a man whether he prefers chrysanthemums or billiards. +Christ did not love humanity; He never said He loved humanity; He loved +men. Neither He nor anyone else can love humanity; it is like loving a +gigantic centipede. And the reason that the Tolstoians can even endure +to think of an equally distributed affection is that their love of +humanity is a logical love, a love into which they are coerced by their +own theories, a love which would be an insult to a tom-cat. + +But the greatest error of all lies in the mere act of cutting up the +teaching of the New Testament into five rules. It precisely and +ingeniously misses the most dominant characteristic of the teaching--its +absolute spontaneity. The abyss between Christ and all His modern +interpreters is that we have no record that He ever wrote a word, except +with His finger in the sand. The whole is the history of one continuous +and sublime conversation. Thousands of rules have been deduced from it +before these Tolstoian rules were made, and thousands will be deduced +afterwards. It was not for any pompous proclamation, it was not for any +elaborate output of printed volumes; it was for a few splendid and idle +words that the cross was set up on Calvary, and the earth gaped, and the +sun was darkened at noonday. + + + + +SAVONAROLA + + +Savonarola is a man whom we shall probably never understand until we +know what horror may lie at the heart of civilisation. This we shall not +know until we are civilised. It may be hoped, in one sense, that we may +never understand Savonarola. + +The great deliverers of men have, for the most part, saved them from +calamities which we all recognise as evil, from calamities which are the +ancient enemies of humanity. The great law-givers saved us from anarchy: +the great physicians saved us from pestilence: the great reformers saved +us from starvation. But there is a huge and bottomless evil compared +with which all these are fleabites, the most desolating curse that can +fall upon men or nations, and it has no name except we call it +satisfaction. Savonarola did not save men from anarchy, but from order; +not from pestilence, but from paralysis; not from starvation, but from +luxury. Men like Savonarola are the witnesses to the tremendous +psychological fact at the back of all our brains, but for which no name +has ever been found, that ease is the worst enemy of happiness, and +civilisation potentially the end of man. + +For I fancy that Savonarola's thrilling challenge to the luxury of his +day went far deeper than the mere question of sin. The modern +rationalistic admirers of Savonarola, from George Eliot downwards, +dwell, truly enough, upon the sound ethical justification of +Savonarola's anger, upon the hideous and extravagant character of the +crimes which polluted the palaces of the Renaissance. But they need not +be so anxious to show that Savonarola was no ascetic, that he merely +picked out the black specks of wickedness with the priggish +enlightenment of a member of an Ethical Society. Probably he did hate +the civilisation of his time, and not merely its sins; and that is +precisely where he was infinitely more profound than a modern moralist. +He saw, that the actual crimes were not the only evils: that stolen +jewels and poisoned wine and obscene pictures were merely the symptoms; +that the disease was the complete dependence upon jewels and wine and +pictures. This is a thing constantly forgotten in judging of ascetics +and Puritans in old times. A denunciation of harmless sports did not +always mean an ignorant hatred of what no one but a narrow moralist +would call harmful. Sometimes it meant an exceedingly enlightened hatred +of what no one but a narrow moralist would call harmless. Ascetics are +sometimes more advanced than the average man, as well as less. + +Such, at least, was the hatred in the heart of Savonarola. He was making +war against no trivial human sins, but against godless and thankless +quiescence, against getting used to happiness, the mystic sin by which +all creation fell. He was preaching that severity which is the +sign-manual of youth and hope. He was preaching that alertness, that +clean agility and vigilance, which is as necessary to gain pleasure as +to gain holiness, as indispensable in a lover as in a monk. A critic has +truly pointed out that Savonarola could not have been fundamentally +anti-aesthetic, since he had such friends as Michael Angelo, Botticelli, +and Luca della Robbia. The fact is that this purification and austerity +are even more necessary for the appreciation of life and laughter than +for anything else. To let no bird fly past unnoticed, to spell patiently +the stones and weeds, to have the mind a storehouse of sunset, requires +a discipline in pleasure, and an education in gratitude. + +The civilisation which surrounded Savonarola on every side was a +civilisation which had already taken the wrong turn, the turn that leads +to endless inventions and no discoveries, in which new things grow old +with confounding rapidity, but in which no old things ever grow new. The +monstrosity of the crimes of the Renaissance was not a mark of +imagination; it was a mark, as all monstrosity is, of the loss of +imagination. It is only when a man has really ceased to see a horse as +it is, that he invents a centaur, only when he can no longer be +surprised at an ox, that he worships the devil. Diablerie is the +stimulant of the jaded fancy; it is the dram-drinking of the artist. +Savonarola addressed himself to the hardest of all earthly tasks, that +of making men turn back and wonder at the simplicities they had learnt +to ignore. It is strange that the most unpopular of all doctrines is the +doctrine which declares the common life divine. Democracy, of which +Savonarola was so fiery an exponent, is the hardest of gospels; there is +nothing that so terrifies men as the decree that they are all kings. +Christianity, in Savonarola's mind, identical with democracy, is the +hardest of gospels; there is nothing that so strikes men with fear as +the saying that they are all the sons of God. + +Savonarola and his republic fell. The drug of despotism was administered +to the people, and they forgot what they had been. There are some at the +present day who have so strange a respect for art and letters, and for +mere men of genius, that they conceive the reign of the Medici to be an +improvement on that of the great Florentine republican. It is such men +as these and their civilisation that we have at the present day to +fear. We are surrounded on many sides by the same symptoms as those +which awoke the unquenchable wrath of Savonarola--a hedonism that is +more sick of happiness than an invalid is sick of pain, an art sense +that seeks the assistance of crime since it has exhausted nature. In +many modern works we find veiled and horrible hints of a truly +Renaissance sense of the beauty of blood, the poetry of murder. The +bankrupt and depraved imagination does not see that a living man is far +more dramatic than a dead one. Along with this, as in the time of the +Medici, goes the falling back into the arms of despotism, the hunger for +the strong man which is unknown among strong men. The masterful hero is +worshipped as he is worshipped by the readers of the "Bow Bells +Novelettes," and for the same reason--a profound sense of personal +weakness. That tendency to devolve our duties descends on us, which is +the soul of slavery, alike whether for its menial tasks it employs serfs +or emperors. Against all this the great clerical republican stands in +everlasting protest, preferring his failure to his rival's success. The +issue is still between him and Lorenzo, between the responsibilities of +liberty and the license of slavery, between the perils of truth and the +security of silence, between the pleasure of toil and the toil of +pleasure. The supporters of Lorenzo the Magnificent are assuredly among +us, men for whom even nations and empires only exist to satisfy the +moment, men to whom the last hot hour of summer is better than a sharp +and wintry spring. They have an art, a literature, a political +philosophy, which are all alike valued for their immediate effect upon +the taste, not for what they promise of the destiny of the spirit. Their +statuettes and sonnets are rounded and perfect, while "Macbeth" is in +comparison a fragment, and the Moses of Michael Angelo a hint. Their +campaigns and battles are always called triumphant, while Caesar and +Cromwell wept for many humiliations. And the end of it all is the hell +of no resistance, the hell of an unfathomable softness, until the whole +nature recoils into madness and the chamber of civilisation is no longer +merely a cushioned apartment, but a padded cell. + +This last and worst of human miseries Savonarola saw afar off, and bent +his whole gigantic energies to turning the chariot into another course. +Few men understood his object; some called him a madman, some a +charlatan, some an enemy of human joy. They would not even have +understood if he had told them, if he had said that he was saving them +from a calamity of contentment which should be the end of joys and +sorrows alike. But there are those to-day who feel the same silent +danger, and who bend themselves to the same silent resistance. They also +are supposed to be contending for some trivial political scruple. + +Mr. M'Hardy says, in defending Savonarola, that the number of fine works +of art destroyed in the Burning of the Vanities has been much +exaggerated. I confess that I hope the pile contained stacks of +incomparable masterpieces if the sacrifice made that one real moment +more real. Of one thing I am sure, that Savonarola's friend Michael +Angelo would have piled all his own statues one on top of the other, +and burnt them to ashes, if only he had been certain that the glow +transfiguring the sky was the dawn of a younger and wiser world. + + + + +THE POSITION OF SIR WALTER SCOTT + + +Walter Scott is a writer who should just now be re-emerging into his own +high place in letters, for unquestionably the recent, though now +dwindling, schools of severely technical and aesthetic criticism have +been unfavourable to him. He was a chaotic and unequal writer, and if +there is one thing in which artists have improved since his time, it is +in consistency and equality. It would perhaps be unkind to inquire +whether the level of the modern man of letters, as compared with Scott, +is due to the absence of valleys or the absence of mountains. But in any +case, we have learnt in our day to arrange our literary effects +carefully, and the only point in which we fall short of Scott is in the +incidental misfortune that we have nothing particular to arrange. + +It is said that Scott is neglected by modern readers; if so, the matter +could be more appropriately described by saying that modern readers are +neglected by Providence. The ground of this neglect, in so far as it +exists, must be found, I suppose, in the general sentiment that, like +the beard of Polonius, he is too long. Yet it is surely a peculiar thing +that in literature alone a house should be despised because it is too +large, or a host impugned because he is too generous. If romance be +really a pleasure, it is difficult to understand the modern reader's +consuming desire to get it over, and if it be not a pleasure, it is +difficult to understand his desire to have it at all. Mere size, it +seems to me, cannot be a fault. The fault must lie in some +disproportion. If some of Scott's stories are dull and dilatory, it is +not because they are giants, but because they are hunchbacks or +cripples. Scott was very far indeed from being a perfect writer, but I +do not think that it can be shown that the large and elaborate plan on +which his stories are built was by any means an imperfection. He +arranged his endless prefaces and his colossal introductions just as an +architect plans great gates and long approaches to a really large +house. He did not share the latter-day desire to get quickly through a +story. He enjoyed narrative as a sensation; he did not wish to swallow a +story like a pill, that it should do him good afterwards. He desired to +taste it like a glass of port, that it might do him good at the time. +The reader sits late at his banquets. His characters have that air of +immortality which belongs to those of Dumas and Dickens. We should not +be surprised to meet them in any number of sequels. Scott, in his heart +of hearts, probably would have liked to write an endless story without +either beginning or close. + +Walter Scott is a great, and, therefore, mysterious man. He will never +be understood until Romance is understood, and that will be only when +Time, Man, and Eternity are understood. To say that Scott had more than +any other man that ever lived a sense of the romantic seems, in these +days, a slight and superficial tribute. The whole modern theory arises +from one fundamental mistake--the idea that romance is in some way a +plaything with life, a figment, a conventionality, a thing upon the +outside. No genuine criticism of romance will ever arise until we have +grasped the fact that romance lies not upon the outside of life, but +absolutely in the centre of it. The centre of every man's existence is a +dream. Death, disease, insanity, are merely material accidents, like +toothache or a twisted ankle. That these brutal forces always besiege +and often capture the citadel does not prove that they are the citadel. +The boast of the realist (applying what the reviewers call his scalpel) +is that he cuts into the heart of life; but he makes a very shallow +incision, if he only reaches as deep as habits and calamities and sins. +Deeper than all these lies a man's vision of himself, as swaggering and +sentimental as a penny novelette. The literature of can-dour unearths +innumerable weaknesses and elements of lawlessness which is called +romance. It perceives superficial habits like murder and dipsomania, but +it does not perceive the deepest of sins--the sin of vanity--vanity +which is the mother of all day-dreams and adventures, the one sin that +is not shared with any boon companion, or whispered to any priest. + +In estimating, therefore, the ground of Scott's pre-eminence in romance +we must absolutely rid ourselves of the notion that romance or adventure +are merely materialistic things involved in the tangle of a plot or the +multiplicity of drawn swords. We must remember that it is, like tragedy +or farce, a state of the soul, and that, for some dark and elemental +reason which we can never understand, this state of the soul is evoked +in us by the sight of certain places or the contemplation of certain +human crises, by a stream rushing under a heavy and covered wooden +bridge, or by a man plunging a knife or sword into tough timber. In the +selection of these situations which catch the spirit of romance as in a +net, Scott has never been equalled or even approached. His finest scenes +affect us like fragments of a hilarious dream. They have the same +quality which is often possessed by those nocturnal comedies--that of +seeming more human than our waking life--even while they are less +possible. Sir Arthur Wardour, with his daughter and the old beggar +crouching in a cranny of the cliff as night falls and the tide closes +around them, are actually in the coldest and bitterest of practical +situations. Yet the whole incident has a quality that can only be called +boyish. It is warmed with all the colours of an incredible sunset. Rob +Roy trapped in the Tolbooth, and confronted with Bailie Nicol Jarvie, +draws no sword, leaps from no window, affects none of the dazzling +external acts upon which contemporary romance depends, yet that plain +and humourous dialogue is full of the essential philosophy of romance +which is an almost equal betting upon man and destiny. Perhaps the most +profoundly thrilling of all Scott's situations is that in which the +family of Colonel Mannering are waiting for the carriage which may or +may not arrive by night to bring an unknown man into a princely +possession. Yet almost the whole of that thrilling scene consists of a +ridiculous conversation about food, and flirtation between a frivolous +old lawyer and a fashionable girl. We can say nothing about what makes +these scenes, except that the wind bloweth where it listeth, and that +here the wind blows strong. + +It is in this quality of what may be called spiritual adventurousness +that Scott stands at so different an elevation to the whole of the +contemporary crop of romancers who have followed the leadership of +Dumas. There has, indeed, been a great and inspiriting revival of +romance in our time, but it is partly frustrated in almost every case by +this rooted conception that romance consists in the vast multiplication +of incidents and the violent acceleration of narrative. The heroes of +Mr. Stanley Weyman scarcely ever have their swords out of their hands; +the deeper presence of romance is far better felt when the sword is at +the hip ready for innumerable adventures too terrible to be pictured. +The Stanley Weyman hero has scarcely time to eat his supper except in +the act of leaping from a window or whilst his other hand is employed in +lunging with a rapier. In Scott's heroes, on the other hand, there is no +characteristic so typical or so worthy of humour as their disposition to +linger over their meals. The conviviality of the Clerk of Copmanhurst +or of Mr. Pleydell, and the thoroughly solid things they are described +as eating, is one of the most perfect of Scott's poetic touches. In +short, Mr. Stanley Weyman is filled with the conviction that the sole +essence of romance is to move with insatiable rapidity from incident to +incident. In the truer romance of Scott there is more of the sentiment +of "Oh! still delay, thou art so fair"! more of a certain patriarchal +enjoyment of things as they are--of the sword by the side and the +wine-cup in the hand. Romance, indeed, does not consist by any means so +much in experiencing adventures as in being ready for them. How little +the actual boy cares for incidents in comparison to tools and weapons +may be tested by the fact that the most popular story of adventure is +concerned with a man who lived for years on a desert island with two +guns and a sword, which he never had to use on an enemy. + +Closely connected with this is one of the charges most commonly brought +against Scott, particularly in his own day--the charge of a fanciful +and monotonous insistence upon the details of armour and costume. The +critic in the _Edinburgh Review_ said indignantly that he could tolerate +a somewhat detailed description of the apparel of Marmion, but when it +came to an equally detailed account of the apparel of his pages and +yeomen the mind could bear it no longer. The only thing to be said about +that critic is that he had never been a little boy. He foolishly +imagined that Scott valued the plume and dagger of Marmion for Marmion's +sake. Not being himself romantic, he could not understand that Scott +valued the plume because it was a plume, and the dagger because it was a +dagger. Like a child, he loved weapons with a manual materialistic love, +as one loves the softness of fur or the coolness of marble. One of the +profound philosophical truths which are almost confined to infants is +this love of things, not for their use or origin, but for their own +inherent characteristics, the child's love of the toughness of wood, the +wetness of water, the magnificent soapiness of soap. So it was with +Scott, who had so much of the child in him. Human beings were perhaps +the principal characters in his stories, but they were certainly not the +only characters. A battle-axe was a person of importance, a castle had a +character and ways of its own. A church bell had a word to say in the +matter. Like a true child, he almost ignored the distinction between the +animate and inanimate. A two-handed sword might be carried only by a +menial in a procession, but it was something important and immeasurably +fascinating--it was a two-handed sword. + +There is one quality which is supreme and continuous in Scott which is +little appreciated at present. One of the values we have really lost in +recent fiction is the value of eloquence. The modern literary artist is +compounded of almost every man except the orator. Yet Shakespeare and +Scott are certainly alike in this, that they could both, if literature +had failed, have earned a living as professional demagogues. The feudal +heroes in the "Waverley Novels" retort upon each other with a passionate +dignity, haughty and yet singularly human, which can hardly be +paralleled in political eloquence except in "Julius Caesar." With a +certain fiery impartiality which stirs the blood, Scott distributes his +noble orations equally among saints and villains. He may deny a villain +every virtue or triumph, but he cannot endure to deny him a telling +word; he will ruin a man, but he will not silence him. In truth, one of +Scott's most splendid traits is his difficulty, or rather incapacity, +for despising any of his characters. He did not scorn the most revolting +miscreant as the realist of to-day commonly scorns his own hero. Though +his soul may be in rags, every man of Scott can speak like a king. + +This quality, as I have said, is sadly to seek in the fiction of the +passing hour. The realist would, of course, repudiate the bare idea of +putting a bold and brilliant tongue in every man's head, but even where +the moment of the story naturally demands eloquence the eloquence seems +frozen in the tap. Take any contemporary work of fiction and turn to the +scene where the young Socialist denounces the millionaire, and then +compare the stilted sociological lecture given by that self-sacrificing +bore with the surging joy of words in Rob Roy's declaration of himself, +or Athelstane's defiance of De Bracy. That ancient sea of human passion +upon which high words and great phrases are the resplendent foam is just +now at a low ebb. We have even gone the length of congratulating +ourselves because we can see the mud and the monsters at the bottom. + +In politics there is not a single man whose position is due to eloquence +in the first degree; its place is taken by repartees and rejoinders +purely intellectual, like those of an omnibus conductor. In discussing +questions like the farm-burning in South Africa no critic of the war +uses his material as Burke or Grattan (perhaps exaggeratively) would +have used it--the speaker is content with facts and expositions of +facts. In another age he might have risen and hurled that great song in +prose, perfect as prose and yet rising into a chant, which Meg Merrilies +hurled at Ellangowan, at the rulers of Britain: "Ride your ways. Laird +of Ellangowan; ride your ways, Godfrey Bertram--this day have ye +quenched seven smoking hearths. See if the fire in your ain parlour +burns the blyther for that. Ye have riven the thack of seven cottar +houses. Look if your ain roof-tree stands the faster for that. Ye may +stable your stirks in the sheilings of Dern-cleugh. See that the hare +does not couch on the hearthstane of Ellangowan. Ride your ways, Godfrey +Bertram." + +The reason is, of course, that these men are afraid of bombast and Scott +was not. A man will not reach eloquence if he is afraid of bombast, just +as a man will not jump a hedge if he is afraid of a ditch. As the object +of all eloquence is to find the least common denominator of men's souls, +to fall just within the natural comprehension, it cannot obviously have +any chance with a literary ambition which aims at falling just outside +it. It is quite right to invent subtle analyses and detached criticisms, +but it is unreasonable to expect them to be punctuated with roars of +popular applause. It is possible to conceive of a mob shouting any +central and simple sentiment, good or bad, but it is impossible to think +of a mob shouting a distinction in terms. In the matter of eloquence, +the whole question is one of the immediate effect of greatness, such as +is produced even by fine bombast. It is absurd to call it merely +superficial; here there is no question of superficiality; we might as +well call a stone that strikes us between the eyes merely superficial. +The very word "superficial" is founded on a fundamental mistake about +life, the idea that second thoughts are best. The superficial impression +of the world is by far the deepest. What we really feel, naturally and +casually, about the look of skies and trees and the face of friends, +that and that alone will almost certainly remain our vital philosophy to +our dying day. + +Scott's bombast, therefore, will always be stirring to anyone who +approaches it, as he should approach all literature, as a little child. +We could easily excuse the contemporary critic for not admiring +melodramas and adventure stories, and Punch and Judy, if he would admit +that it was a slight deficiency in his artistic sensibilities. Beyond +all question, it marks a lack of literary instinct to be unable to +simplify one's mind at the first signal of the advance of romance. "You +do me wrong," said Brian de Bois-Guilbert to Rebecca. "Many a law, many +a commandment have I broken, but my word, never." "Die," cries Balfour +of Burley to the villain in "Old Mortality." "Die, hoping nothing, +believing nothing--" "And fearing nothing," replies the other. This is +the old and honourable fine art of bragging, as it was practised by the +great worthies of antiquity. The man who cannot appreciate it goes along +with the man who cannot appreciate beef or claret or a game with +children or a brass band. They are afraid of making fools of themselves, +and are unaware that that transformation has already been triumphantly +effected. + +Scott is separated, then, from much of the later conception of fiction +by this quality of eloquence. The whole of the best and finest work of +the modern novelist (such as the work of Mr. Henry James) is primarily +concerned with that delicate and fascinating speech which burrows deeper +and deeper like a mole; but we have wholly forgotten that speech which +mounts higher and higher like a wave and falls in a crashing peroration. +Perhaps the most thoroughly brilliant and typical man of this decade is +Mr. Bernard Shaw. In his admirable play of "Candida" it is clearly a +part of the character of the Socialist clergyman that he should be +eloquent, but he is not eloquent because the whole "G.B.S." condition of +mind renders impossible that poetic simplicity which eloquence requires. +Scott takes his heroes and villains seriously, which is, after all, the +way that heroes and villains take themselves--especially villains. It is +the custom to call these old romantic poses artificial; but the word +artificial is the last and silliest evasion of criticism. There was +never anything in the world that was really artificial. It had some +motive or ideal behind it, and generally a much better one than we +think. + +Of the faults of Scott as an artist it is not very necessary to speak, +for faults are generally and easily pointed out, while there is yet no +adequate valuation of the varieties and contrasts of virtue. We have +compiled a complete botanical classification of the weeds in the +poetical garden, but the flowers still flourish, neglected and nameless. +It is true, for example, that Scott had an incomparably stiff and +pedantic way of dealing with his heroines: he made a lively girl of +eighteen refuse an offer in the language of Dr. Johnson. To him, as to +most men of his time, woman was not an individual, but an institution--a +toast that was drunk some time after that of Church and King. But it is +far better to consider the difference rather as a special merit, in that +he stood for all those clean and bracing shocks of incident which are +untouched by passion or weakness, for a certain breezy bachelorhood, +which is almost essential to the literature of adventure. With all his +faults, and all his triumphs, he stands for the great mass of natural +manliness which must be absorbed into art unless art is to be a mere +luxury and freak. An appreciation of Scott might be made almost a test +of decadence. If ever we lose touch with this one most reckless and +defective writer, it will be a proof to us that we have erected round +ourselves a false cosmos, a world of lying and horrible perfection, +leaving outside of it Walter Scott and that strange old world which is +as confused and as indefensible and as inspiring and as healthy as he. + + + + +BRET HARTE + + +There are more than nine hundred and ninety-nine excellent reasons +which we could all have for admiring the work of Bret Harte. But one +supreme reason stands not in a certain general superiority to them +all--a reason which may be stated in three propositions united in a +common conclusion: first, that he was a genuine American; second, that +he was a genuine humourist; and, third, that he was not an American +humourist. Bret Harte had his own peculiar humour, but it had nothing in +particular to do with American humour. American humour has its own +peculiar excellence, but it has nothing in particular to do with Bret +Harte. American humour is purely exaggerative; Bret Harte's humour was +sympathetic and analytical. + +In order fully to understand this, it is necessary to realise, genuinely +and thoroughly, that there is such a thing as an international +difference in humour. If we take the crudest joke in the world--the +joke, let us say, of a man sitting down on his hat--we shall yet find +that all the nations would differ in their way of treating it +humourously, and that if American humour treated it at all, it would be +in a purely American manner. For example, there was a case of an orator +in the House of Commons, who, after denouncing all the public abuses he +could think of, did sit down on his hat. An Irishman immediately rose, +full of the whole wealth of Irish humour, and said, "Should I be in +order, Sir, in congratulating the honourable gentleman on the fact that +when he sat down on his hat his head was not in it?" Here is a glorious +example of Irish humour--the bull not unconscious, not entirely +conscious, but rather an idea so absurd that even the utterer of it can +hardly realise how abysmally absurd it is. But every other nation would +have treated the idea in a manner slightly different. The Frenchman's +humour would have been logical: he would have said, "The orator +denounces modern abuses and destroys to himself the top-hat: behold a +good example!" What the Scotchman's humour would have said I am not so +certain, but it would probably have dealt with the serious advisability +of making such speeches on top of someone else's hat. But American +humour on such a general theme would be the humour of exaggeration. The +American humourist would say that the English politicians so often sat +down on their hats that the noise of the House of Commons was one +crackle of silk. He would say that when an important orator rose to +speak in the House of Commons, long rows of hatters waited outside the +House with note-books to take down orders from the participants in the +debate. He would say that the whole hat trade of London was disorganised +by the news that a clever remark had been made by a young M. P. on the +subject of the imports of Jamaica. In short, American humour, neither +unfathomably absurd like the Irish, nor transfiguringly lucid and +appropriate like the French, nor sharp and sensible and full of +realities of life like the Scotch, is simply the humour of imagination. +It consists in piling towers on towers and mountains on mountains; of +heaping a joke up to the stars and extending it to the end of the world. + +With this distinctively American humour Bret Harte had little or nothing +in common. The wild, sky-breaking humour of America has its fine +qualities, but it must in the nature of things be deficient in two +qualities, not only of supreme importance to life and letters, but of +supreme importance to humour--reverence and sympathy. And these two +qualities were knit into the closest texture of Bret Harte's humour. +Everyone who has read and enjoyed Mark Twain as he ought to be read and +enjoyed will remember a very funny and irreverent story about an +organist who was asked to play appropriate music to an address upon the +parable of the Prodigal Son, and who proceeded to play with great +spirit, "We'll all get blind drunk, when Johnny comes marching home." +The best way of distinguishing Bret Harte from the rest of American +humour is to say that if Bret Harte had described that scene, it would +in some subtle way have combined a sense of the absurdity of the +incident with some sense of the sublimity and pathos of the theme. You +would have felt that the organist's tune was funny, but not that the +Prodigal Son was funny. But America is under a kind of despotism of +humour. Everyone is afraid of humour: the meanest of human nightmares. +Bret Harte had, to express the matter briefly but more or less +essentially, the power of laughing not only at things, but also with +them. America has laughed at things magnificently, with Gargantuan +reverberations of laughter. But she has not even begun to learn the +richer lesson of laughing with them. + +The supreme proof of the fact that Bret Harte had the instinct of +reverence may be found in the fact that he was a really great parodist. +This may have the appearance of being a paradox, but, as in the case of +many other paradoxes, it is not so important whether it is a paradox as +whether it is not obviously true. Mere derision, mere contempt, never +produced or could produce parody. A man who simply despises Paderewski +for having long hair is not necessarily fitted to give an admirable +imitation of his particular touch on the piano. If a man wishes to +parody Paderewski's style of execution, he must emphatically go through +one process first: he must admire it, and even reverence it. Bret Harte +had a real power of imitating great authors, as in his parodies on +Dumas, on Victor Hugo, on Charlotte Bronte. This means, and can only +mean, that he had perceived the real beauty, the real ambition of Dumas +and Victor Hugo and Charlotte Bronte. To take an example, Bret Harte has +in his imitation of Hugo a passage like this: + +"M. Madeline was, if possible, better than M. Myriel. M. Myriel was an +angel. M. Madeline was a good man." I do not know whether Victor Hugo +ever used this antithesis; but I am certain that he would have used it +and thanked his stars if he had thought of it. This is real parody, +inseparable from admiration. It is the same in the parody of Dumas, +which is arranged on the system of "Aramis killed three of them. Porthos +three. Athos three." You cannot write that kind of thing unless you +have first exulted in the arithmetical ingenuity of the plots of Dumas. +It is the same in the parody of Charlotte Bronte, which opens with a +dream of a storm-beaten cliff, containing jewels and pelicans. Bret +Harte could not have written it unless he had really understood the +triumph of the Brontes, the triumph of asserting that great mysteries +lie under the surface of the most sullen life, and that the most real +part of a man is in his dreams. + +This kind of parody is for ever removed from the purview of ordinary +American humour. Can anyone imagine Mark Twain, that admirable author, +writing even a tolerable imitation of authors so intellectually +individual as Hugo or Charlotte Bronte? Mark Twain would yield to the +spirit of contempt which destroys parody. All those who hate authors +fail to satirise them, for they always accuse them of the wrong faults. +The enemies of Thackeray call him a worldling, instead of what he was, a +man too ready to believe in the goodness of the unworldly. The enemies +of Meredith call his gospel too subtle, instead of what it is, a +gospel, if anything, too robust. And it is this vulgar misunderstanding +which we find in most parody--which we find in all American parody--but +which we never find in the parodies of Bret Harte. + + "The skies they were ashen and sober, + The streets they were dirty and drear, + It was the dark month of October, + In that most immemorial year. + Like the skies, I was perfectly sober, + But my thoughts they were palsied and sear, + Yes, my thoughts were decidedly queer." + +This could only be written by a genuine admirer of Edgar Allan Poe, who +permitted himself for a moment to see the fun of the thing. Parody might +indeed be defined as the worshipper's half-holiday. + +The same general characteristic of sympathy amounting to reverence marks +Bret Harte's humour in his better-known class of works, the short +stories. He does not make his characters absurd in order to make them +contemptible: it might almost be said that he makes them absurd in order +to make them dignified. For example, the greatest creation of Bret +Harte, greater even than Colonel Starbottle (and how terrible it is to +speak of anyone greater than Colonel Starbottle!) is that unutterable +being who goes by the name of Yuba Bill. He is, of course, the +coach-driver in the Bret Harte district. Some ingenious person, whose +remarks I read the other day, had compared him on this ground with old +Mr. Weller. It would be difficult to find a comparison indicating a more +completely futile instinct for literature. Tony Weller and Yuba Bill +were both coach-drivers, and this fact establishes a resemblance just +about as much as the fact that Jobson in "Rob Roy" and George Warrington +in "Pendennis" were both lawyers; or that Antonio and Mr. Pickwick were +both merchants; or that Sir Galahad and Sir Willoughby Patten were both +knights. Tony Weller is a magnificent grotesque. He is a gargoyle, and +his mouth, like the mouths of so many gargoyles, is always open. He is +garrulous, exuberant, flowery, preposterously sociable. He holds that +great creed of the convivial, the creed which is at the back of so much +that is greatest in Dickens, the creed that eternity begins at ten +o'clock at night, and that nights last forever. But Yuba Bill is a +figure of a widely different character. He is not convivial; it might +almost be said that he is too great ever to be sociable. A circle of +quiescence and solitude such as that which might ring a saint or a +hermit rings this majestic and profound humourist. His jokes do not flow +upon him like those of Mr. Weller, sparkling, continual, and deliberate, +like the play of a fountain in a pleasure garden; they fall suddenly and +capriciously, like a crash of avalanches from a great mountain. Tony +Weller has the noisy humour of London, Yuba Bill has the silent humour +of the earth. + +One of the worst of the disadvantages of the rich and random fertility +of Bret Harte is the fact that it is very difficult to trace or recover +all the stories that he has written. I have not within reach at the +moment the story in which the character of Yuba Bill is exhibited in its +most solemn grandeur, but I remember that it concerned a ride on the +San Francisco stage coach, a difficulty arising from storm and darkness, +and an intelligent young man who suggested to Yuba Bill that a certain +manner of driving the coach in a certain direction might minimise the +dangers of the journey. A profound silence followed the intelligent +young man's suggestion, and then (I quote from memory) Yuba Bill +observed at last: + +"Air you settin' any value on that remark?" + +The young man professed not fully to comprehend him, and Yuba Bill +continued reflectively: + +"'Cos there's a comic paper in 'Frisco pays for them things, and I've +seen worse in it." + +To be rebuked thus is like being rebuked by the Pyramids or by the +starry heavens. There is about Yuba Bill this air of a pugnacious calm, +a stepping back to get his distance for a shattering blow, which is like +that of Dr. Johnson at his best. And the effect is inexpressively +increased by the background and the whole picture which Bret Harte +paints so powerfully; the stormy skies, the sombre gorge, the rocking +and spinning coach, and high above the feverish passengers the huge +dark form of Yuba Bill, a silent mountain of humour. + +Another unrecovered and possibly irrecoverable fragment about Yuba Bill, +I recall in a story about his visiting a lad who had once been his +protege in the Wild West, and who had since become a distinguished +literary man in Boston. Yuba Bill visits him, and on finding him in +evening dress lifts up his voice in a superb lamentation over the +tragedy of finding his old friend at last "a 'otel waiter." Then, +vindictively pursuing the satire, he calls fiercely to his young friend, +"Hi, Alphonse! bring me a patty de foy gras, damme." These are the +things that make us love the eminent Bill. He is one of those who +achieve the noblest and most difficult of all the triumphs of a +fictitious character--the triumph of giving us the impression of having +a great deal more in him than appears between the two boards of the +story. Smaller characters give us the impression that the author has +told the whole truth about them, greater characters give the impression +that the author has given of them, not the truth, but merely a few hints +and samples. In some mysterious way we seem to feel that even if +Shakespeare was wrong about Falstaff, Falstaff existed and was real; +that even if Dickens was wrong about Micawber, Micawber existed and was +real. So we feel that there is in the great salt-sea of Yuba Bill's +humour as good fish as ever came out of it. The fleeting jests which +Yuba Bill throws to the coach passengers only give us the opportunity of +fancying and deducing the vast mass of jests which Yuba Bill shares with +his creator. + +Bret Harte had to deal with countries and communities of an almost +unexampled laxity, a laxity passing the laxity of savages, the laxity of +civilised men grown savage. He dealt with a life which we in a venerable +and historic society may find it somewhat difficult to realise. It was +the life of an entirely new people, a people who, having no certain +past, could have no certain future. The strangest of all the sardonic +jests that history has ever played may be found in this fact: that +there is a city which is of all cities the most typical of innovation +and dissipation, and a certain almost splendid vulgarity, and that this +city bears the name in a quaint old European language of the most +perfect exponent of the simplicity and holiness of the Christian +tradition; the city is called San Francisco. San Francisco, the capital +of the Bret Harte country, is a city typifying novelty in a manner in +which it is typified by few modern localities. San Francisco has in all +probability its cathedrals, but it may well be that its cathedrals are +less old and less traditional than many of our hotels. If its +inhabitants built a temple to the most primal and forgotten god of whose +worship we can find a trace, that temple would still be a modern thing +compared with many taverns in Suffolk round which there lingers a faint +tradition of Mr. Pickwick. And everything in that new gold country was +new, even to the individual inhabitants. Good, bad, and indifferent, +heroes and dastards, they were all men from nowhere. + +Most of us have come across the practical problem of London landladies, +the problem of the doubtful foreign gentleman in a street of respectable +English people. Those who have done so can form some idea of what it +would be to live in a street full of doubtful foreign gentlemen, in a +parish, in a city, in a nation composed entirely of doubtful foreign +gentlemen. Old California, at the time of the first rush after gold, was +actually this paradox of the nation of foreigners. It was a republic of +incognitos: no one knew who anyone else was, and only the more +ill-mannered and uneasy even desired to know. In such a country as this, +gentlemen took more trouble to conceal their gentility than thieves +living in South Kensington would take to conceal their blackguardism. In +such a country everyone is an equal, because everyone is a stranger. In +such a country it is not strange if men in moral matters feel something +of the irresponsibility of a dream. To plan plans which are continually +miscarrying against men who are continually disappearing by the +assistance of you know not whom, to crush you know not whom, this must +be a demoralising life for any man; it must be beyond description +demoralising for those who have been trained in no lofty or orderly +scheme of right. Small blame to them indeed if they become callous and +supercilious and cynical. And the great glory and achievement of Bret +Harte consists in this, that he realised that they do not become +callous, supercilious, and cynical, but that they do become sentimental +and romantic, and profoundly affectionate. He discovered the intense +sensibility of the primitive man. To him we owe the realisation of the +fact that while modern barbarians of genius like Mr. Henley, and in his +weaker moments Mr. Rudyard Kipling, delight in describing the coarseness +and crude cynicism and fierce humour of the unlettered classes, the +unlettered classes are in reality highly sentimental and religious, and +not in the least like the creations of Mr. Henley and Mr. Kipling. Bret +Harte tells the truth about the wildest, the grossest, the most +rapacious of all the districts of the earth--the truth that, while it is +very rare indeed in the world to find a thoroughly good man, it is +rarer still, rare to the point of monstrosity, to find a man who does +not either desire to be one, or imagine that he is one already. + + + + +ALFRED THE GREAT + + +The celebrations in connection with the millenary of King Alfred struck +a note of sympathy in the midst of much that was unsympathetic, because, +altogether apart from any peculiar historical opinions, all men feel the +sanctifying character of that which is at once strong and remote; the +ancient thing is always the most homely, and the distant thing the most +near. The only possible peacemaker is a dead man, ever since by the +sublime religious story a dead man only could reconcile heaven and +earth. In a certain sense we always feel the past ages as human, and our +own age as strangely and even weirdly dehumanised. In our own time the +details overpower us; men's badges and buttons seem to grow larger and +larger as in a horrible dream. To study humanity in the present is like +studying a mountain with a magnifying glass; to study it in the past is +like studying it through a telescope. + +For this reason England, like every other great and historic nation, has +sought its typical hero in remote and ill-recorded times. The personal +and moral greatness of Alfred is, indeed, beyond question. It does not +depend any more than the greatness of any other human hero upon the +accuracy of any or all of the stories that are told about him. Alfred +may not have done one of the things which are reported of him, but it is +immeasurably easier to do every one of those things than to be the man +of whom such things are reported falsely. Fable is, generally speaking, +far more accurate than fact, for fable describes a man as he was to his +own age, fact describes him as he is to a handful of inconsiderable +antiquarians many centuries after. Whether Alfred watched the cakes for +the neat-herd's wife, whether he sang songs in the Danish camp, is of no +interest to anyone except those who set out to prove under considerable +disadvantages that they are genealogically descended from him. But the +man is better pictured in these stories than in any number of modern +realistic trivialities about his favourite breakfast and his favourite +musical composer. Fable is more historical than fact, because fact tells +us about one man and fable tells us about a million men. If we read of a +man who could make green grass red and turn the sun into the moon, we +may not believe these particular details about him, but we learn +something infinitely more important than such trivialities, the fact +that men could look into his face and believe it possible. The glory and +greatness of Alfred, therefore, is like that of all the heroes of the +morning of the world, set far beyond the chance of that strange and +sudden dethronement which may arise from the unsealing of a manuscript +or the turning over of a stone. Men may have told lies when they said +that he first entrapped the Danes with his song and then overcame them +with his armies, but we know very well that it is not of us that such +lies are told. There may be myths clustering about each of our +personalities; local saga-men and chroniclers have very likely +circulated the story that we are addicted to drink, or that we +ferociously ill-use our wives. But they do not commonly lie to the +effect that we have shed our blood to save all the inhabitants of the +street. A story grows easily, but a heroic story is not a very easy +thing to evoke. Wherever that exists we may be pretty certain that we +are in the presence of a dark but powerful historic personality. We are +in the presence of a thousand lies all pointing with their fantastic +fingers to one undiscovered truth. + +Upon this ground alone every encouragement is due to the cult of Alfred. +Every nation requires to have behind it some historic personality, the +validity of which is proved, as the validity of a gun is proved, by its +long range. It is wonderful and splendid that we treasure, not the +truth, but the very gossip about a man who died a thousand years ago. We +may say to him, as M. Rostand says to the Austrian Prince: + + "Dors, ce n'est pas toujours la Legende qui ment: + Une reve est parfois moins trompeur qu'un document." + +To have a man so simple and so honourable to represent us in the +darkness of primeval history, binds all the intervening centuries +together, and mollifies all their monstrosities. It makes all history +more comforting and intelligible; it makes the desolate temple of the +ages as human as an inn parlour. + +But whether it come through reliable facts or through more reliable +falsehoods the personality of Alfred has its own unmistakable colour and +stature. Lord Rosebery uttered a profound truth when he said that that +personality was peculiarly English. The great magnificence of the +English character is expressed in the word "service." There is, perhaps, +no nation so vitally theocratical as the English; no nation in which the +strong men have so consistently preferred the instrumental to the +despotic attitude, the pleasures of the loyal to the pleasures of the +royal position. We have had tyrants like Edward I. and Queen Elizabeth, +but even our tyrants have had the worried and responsible air of +stewards of a great estate. Our typical hero is such a man as the Duke +of Wellington, who had every kind of traditional and external arrogance, +but at the back of all that the strange humility which made it +physically possible for him without a gleam of humour or discomfort to +go on his knees to a preposterous bounder like George IV. Across the +infinite wastes of time and through all the mists of legend we still +feel the presence in Alfred of this strange and unconscious +self-effacement. After the fullest estimate of our misdeeds we can still +say that our very despots have been less self-assertive than many +popular patriots. As we consider these things we grow more and more +impatient of any modern tendencies towards the enthronement of a more +self-conscious and theatrical ideal. Lord Rosebery called up before our +imaginations the picture of what Alfred would have thought of the vast +modern developments of his nation, its immense fleet, its widespread +Empire, its enormous contribution to the mechanical civilisation of the +world. It cannot be anything but profitable to conceive Alfred as full +of astonishment and admiration at these things; it cannot be anything +but good for us that we should realise that to the childlike eyes of a +great man of old time our inventions and appliances have not the +vulgarity and ugliness that we see in them. To Alfred a steamboat would +be a new and sensational sea-dragon, and the penny postage a miracle +achieved by the despotism of a demi-god. + +But when we have realised all this there is something more to be said in +connection with Lord Rosebery's vision. What would King Alfred have said +if he had been asked to expend the money which he devoted to the health +and education of his people upon a struggle with some race of Visigoths +or Parthians inhabiting a small section of a distant continent? What +would he have said if he had known that that science of letters which he +taught to England would eventually be used not to spread truth, but to +drug the people with political assurances as imbecile in themselves as +the assurance that fire does not burn and water does not drown? What +would he have said if the same people who, in obedience to that ideal of +service and sanity of which he was the example, had borne every +privation in order to defeat Napoleon, should come at last to find no +better compliment to one of their heroes than to call him the Napoleon +of South Africa? What would he have said if that nation for which he had +inaugurated a long line of incomparable men of principle should forget +all its traditions and coquette with the immoral mysticism of the man of +destiny? + +Let us follow these things by all means if we find them good, and can +see nothing better. But to pretend that Alfred would have admired them +is like pretending that St. Dominic would have seen eye to eye with Mr. +Bradlaugh, or that Fra Angelico would have revelled in the posters of +Mr. Aubrey Beardsley. Let us follow them if we will, but let us take +honestly all the disadvantages of our change; in the wildest moment of +triumph let us feel the shadow upon our glories of the shame of the +great king. + + + + +MAETERLINCK + + +The selection of "Thoughts from Maeterlinck" is a very creditable and +also a very useful compilation. Many modern critics object to the +hacking and hewing of a consistent writer which is necessary for this +kind of work, but upon more serious consideration, the view is not +altogether adequate. Maeterlinck is a very great man; and in the long +run this process of mutilation has happened to all great men. It was the +mark of a great patriot to be drawn and quartered and his head set on +one spike in one city and his left leg on another spike in another city. +It was the mark of a saint that even these fragments began to work +miracles. So it has been with all the very great men of the world. +However careless, however botchy, may be the version of Maeterlinck or +of anyone else given in such a selection as this, it is assuredly far +less careless and far less botchy than the version, the parody, the +wild misrepresentation of Maeterlinck which future ages will hear and +distant critics be called upon to consider. + +No one can feel any reasonable doubt that we have heard about Christ and +Socrates and Buddha and St. Francis a mere chaos of excerpts, a mere +book of quotations. But from those fragmentary epigrams we can deduce +greatness as clearly as we can deduce Venus from the torso of Venus or +Hercules _ex pede Herculem_. If we knew nothing else about the Founder +of Christianity, for example, beyond the fact that a religious teacher +lived in a remote country, and in the course of his peregrinations and +proclamations consistently called Himself "the Son of Man," we should +know by that alone that he was a man of almost immeasurable greatness. +If future ages happened to record nothing else about Socrates except +that he owned his title to be the wisest of men because he knew that he +knew nothing, they would be able to deduce from that the height and +energy of his civilisation, the glory that was Greece. The credit of +such random compilations as that which "E.S.S." and Mr. George Allen +have just effected is quite secure. It is the pure, pedantic, literal +editions, the complete works of this author or that author which are +forgotten. It is such books as this that have revolutionised the destiny +of the world. Great things like Christianity or Platonism have never +been founded upon consistent editions; all of them have been founded +upon scrap-books. + +The position of Maeterlinck in modern life is a thing too obvious to be +easily determined in words. It is, perhaps, best expressed by saying +that it is the great glorification of the inside of things at the +expense of the outside. There is one great evil in modern life for which +nobody has found even approximately a tolerable description: I can only +invent a word and call it "remotism." It is the tendency to think first +of things which, as a matter of fact, lie far away from the actual +centre of human experience. Thus people say, "All our knowledge of life +begins with the amoeba." It is false; our knowledge of life begins with +ourselves. Thus they say that the British Empire is glorious, and at the +very word Empire they think at once of Australia and New Zealand, and +Canada, and Polar bears, and parrots and kangaroos, and it never occurs +to any one of them to think of the Surrey Hills. The one real struggle +in modern life is the struggle between the man like Maeterlinck, who +sees the inside as the truth, and the man like Zola, who sees the +outside as the truth. A hundred cases might be given. We may take, for +the sake of argument, the case of what is called falling in love. The +sincere realist, the man who believes in a certain finality in physical +science, says, "You may, if you like, describe this thing as a divine +and sacred and incredible vision; that is your sentimental theory about +it. But what it is, is an animal and sexual instinct designed for +certain natural purposes." The man on the other side, the idealist, +replies, with quite equal confidence, that this is the very reverse of +the truth. I put it as it has always struck me; he replies, "Not at all. +You may, if you like, describe this thing as an animal and sexual +instinct, designed for certain natural purposes; that is your +philosophical or zooelogical theory about it. What it is, beyond all +doubt of any kind, is a divine and sacred and incredible vision." The +fact that it is an animal necessity only comes to the naturalistic +philosopher after looking abroad, studying its origins and results, +constructing an explanation of its existence, more or less natural and +conclusive. The fact that it is a spiritual triumph comes to the first +errand boy who happens to feel it. If a lad of seventeen falls in love +and is struck dead by a hansom cab an hour afterwards, he has known the +thing as it is, a spiritual ecstasy; he has never come to trouble about +the thing as it may be, a physical destiny. If anyone says that falling +in love is an animal thing, the answer is very simple. The only way of +testing the matter is to ask those who are experiencing it, and none of +those would admit for a moment that it was an animal thing. + +Maeterlinck's appearance in Europe means primarily this subjective +intensity; by this the materialism is not overthrown: materialism is +undermined. He brings, not something which is more poetic than realism, +not something which is more spiritual than realism, not something which +is more right than realism, but something which is more real than +realism. He discovers the one indestructible thing. This material world +on which such vast systems have been superimposed--this may mean +anything. It may be a dream, it may be a joke, it may be a trap or +temptation, it may be a charade, it may be the beatific vision: the only +thing of which we are certain is this human soul. This human soul finds +itself alone in a terrible world, afraid of the grass. It has brought +forth poetry and religion in order to explain matters; it will bring +them forth again. It matters not one atom how often the lulls of +materialism and scepticism occur; they are always broken by the +reappearance of a fanatic. They have come in our time: they have been +broken by Maeterlinck. + + + + +RUSKIN[2] + + +I do not think anyone could find any fault with the way in which Mr. +Collingwood has discharged his task, except, of course, Mr. Ruskin +himself, who would certainly have scored through all the eulogies in +passionate red ink and declared that his dear friend had selected for +admiration the very parts of his work which were vile, brainless, and +revolting. That, however, was merely Ruskin's humour, and one of the +deepest disappointments with Mr. Collingwood is that he, like everyone +else, fails to appreciate Ruskin as a humourist. Yet he was a great +humourist: half the explosions which are solemnly scolded as "one-sided" +were simply meant to be one-sided, were mere laughing experiments in +language. Like a woman, he saw the humour of his own prejudices, did not +sophisticate them by logic, but deliberately exaggerated them by +rhetoric. One tenth of his paradoxes would have made the fortune of a +modern young man with gloves of an art yellow. He was as fond of +nonsense as Mr. Max Beerbohm. Only ... he was fond of other things too. +He did not ask humanity to dine on pickles. + +But while his kaleidoscope of fancy and epigram gives him some kinship +with the present day, he was essentially of an earlier type: he was the +last of the prophets. With him vanishes the secret of that early +Victorian simplicity which gave a man the courage to mount a pulpit +above the head of his fellows. Many elements, good and bad, have +destroyed it; humility as well as fear, camaraderie as well as +scepticism, have bred in us a desire to give our advice lightly and +persuasively, to mask our morality, to whisper a word and glide away. +The contrast was in some degree typified in the House of Commons under +the last leadership of Mr. Gladstone: the old order with its fist on the +box, and the new order with its feet on the table. Doubtless the wine of +that prophecy was too strong even for the strong heads that carried it. +It made Ruskin capricious and despotic, Tennyson lonely and whimsical, +Carlyle harsh to the point of hatred, and Kingsley often rabid to the +ruin of logic and charity. One alone of that race of giants, the +greatest and most neglected, was sober after the cup. No mission, no +frustration could touch with hysteria the humanity of Robert Browning. + +But though Ruskin seems to close the roll of the militant prophets, we +feel how needful are such figures when we consider with what pathetic +eagerness men pay prophetic honours even to those who disclaim the +prophetic character. Ibsen declares that he only depicts life, that as +far as he is concerned there is nothing to be done, and still armies of +"Ibsenites" rally to the flag and enthusiastically do nothing. I have +found traces of a school which avowedly follows Mr. Henry James: an idea +full of humour. I like to think of a crowd with pikes and torches +shouting passages from "The Awkward Age." It is right and proper for a +multitude to declare its readiness to follow a prophet to the end of the +world, but if he himself explains, with pathetic gesticulations, that +he is only going for a walk in the park, there is not much for the +multitude to do. But the disciple of Ruskin had plenty to do. He made +roads; in his spare moments he studied the whole of geology and botany. +He lifted up paving stones and got down into early Florentine cellars, +where, by hanging upside down, he could catch a glimpse of a Cimabue +unpraisable but by divine silence. He rushed from one end of a city to +the other comparing ceilings. His limbs were weary, his clothes were +torn, and in his eyes was that unfathomable joy of life which man will +never know again until once more he takes himself seriously. + +Mr. Collingwood's excellent chapters on the art criticism of Ruskin +would be better, in my opinion, if they showed more consciousness of the +after revolutions that have reversed, at least in detail, much of +Ruskin's teaching. We no longer think that art became valueless when it +was first corrupted with anatomical accuracy. But if we return to that +Raphaelism to which he was so unjust, let us not fall into the old +error of intelligent reactionaries, that of ignoring our own debt to +revolutions. Ruskin could not destroy the market of Raphaelism, but he +could and did destroy its monopoly. We may go back to the Renaissance, +but let us remember that we go back free. We can picnic now in the ruins +of our dungeon and deride our deliverer. + +But neither in Mr. Collingwood's book nor in Ruskin's own delightful +"Praeterita" shall we ever get to the heart of the matter. The work of +Ruskin and his peers remains incomprehensible by the very completeness +of their victory. Fallen forever is that vast brick temple of +Utilitarianism, of which we may find the fragments but never renew the +spell. Liberal Unionists howl in its high places, and in its ruins Mr. +Lecky builds his nest. Its records read with something of the mysterious +arrogance of Chinese: hardly a generation away from us, we read of a +race who believed in the present with the same sort of servile optimism +with which the Oriental believes in the past. It may be that banging his +head against that roof for twenty years did not improve the temper of +the prophet. But he made what he praised in the old Italian +pictures--"an opening into eternity." + +FOOTNOTES: + +[2] "The Life of John Ruskin." By W.G. Collingwood. London: Methuen. + + + + +QUEEN VICTORIA + + +Anyone who possesses spiritual or political courage has made up his mind +to a prospect of immutable mutability; but even in a "transformation" +there is something catastrophic in the removal of the back scene. It is +a truism to say of the wise and noble lady who is gone from us that we +shall always remember her; but there is a subtler and higher compliment +still in confessing that we often forgot her. We forgot her as we forget +the sunshine, as we forget the postulates of an argument, as we commonly +forget our own existence. Mr. Gladstone is the only figure whose loss +prepared us for such earthquakes altering the landscape. But Mr. +Gladstone seemed a fixed and stationary object in our age for the same +reason that one railway train looks stationary from another; because he +and the age of progress were both travelling at the same impetuous rate +of speed. In the end, indeed, it was probably the age that dropped +behind. For a symbol of the Queen's position we must rather recur to the +image of a stretch of scenery, in which she was as a mountain so huge +and familiar that its disappearance would make the landscape round our +own door seem like a land of strangers. She had an inspired genius for +the familiarising virtues; her sympathy and sanity made us feel at home +even in an age of revolutions. That indestructible sense of security +which for good and evil is so typical of our nation, that almost +scornful optimism which, in the matter of ourselves, cannot take peril +or even decadence seriously, reached by far its highest and healthiest +form in the sense that we were watched over by one so thoroughly English +in her silence and self-control, in her shrewd trustfulness and her +brilliant inaction. Over and above those sublime laws of labour and pity +by which she ordered her life, there are a very large number of minor +intellectual matters in which we might learn a lesson from the Queen. +There is one especially which is increasingly needed in an age when +moral claims become complicated and hysterical. That Queen Victoria was +a model of political unselfishness is well known; it is less often +remarked that few modern people have an unselfishness so completely free +from morbidity, so fully capable of deciding a moral question without +exaggerating its importance. No eminent person of our time has been so +utterly devoid of that disease of self-assertion which is often rampant +among the unselfish. She had one most rare and valuable faculty, the +faculty of letting things pass--Acts of Parliament and other things. Her +predecessors, whether honest men or knaves, were attacked every now and +then with a nightmare of despotic responsibility; they suddenly +conceived that it rested with them to save the world and the Protestant +Constitution. Queen Victoria had far too much faith in the world to try +to save it. She knew that Acts of Parliament, even bad Acts of +Parliament, do not destroy nations. But she knew that ignorance, +ill-temper, tyranny, and officiousness do destroy nations, and not upon +any provocation would she set an example in these things. We fancy that +this sense of proportion, this largeness and coolness of intellectual +magnanimity is the one of the thousand virtues of Queen Victoria of +which the near future will stand most in need. We are gaining many new +mental powers, and with them new mental responsibilities. In psychology, +in sociology, above all in education, we are learning to do a great many +clever things. Unless we are much mistaken the next great task will be +to learn not to do them. If that time comes, assuredly we cannot do +better than turn once more to the memory of the great Queen who for +seventy years followed through every possible tangle and distraction the +fairy thread of common sense. + +We are suffering just now from an outbreak of the imagination which +exhibits itself in politics and the most unlikely places. The German +Emperor, for example, is neither a tyrant nor a lunatic, as used to be +absurdly represented; he is simply a minor poet; and he feels just as +any minor poet would feel if he found himself on the throne of +Barbarossa. The revival of militarism and ecclesiasticism is an invasion +of politics by the artistic sense; it is heraldry rather than chivalry +that is lusted after. Amid all this waving of wands and flaunting of +uniforms, all this hedonistic desire to make the most of everything, +there is something altogether quiet and splendid about the sober disdain +with which this simple and courteous lady in a black dress left idle +beside her the sceptre of a hundred tyrants. The heart of the whole +nation warmed as it had never warmed for centuries at the thought of +having in their midst a woman who cared nothing for her rights, and +nothing for those fantastic duties which are more egotistical than +rights themselves. + +The work of the Queen for progressive politics has surely been greatly +underrated. She invented democratic monarchy as much as James Watt +invented the steam engine. William IV., from whom we think of her as +inheriting her Constitutional position, held in fact a position entirely +different to that which she now hands on to Edward VII. William IV. was +a limited monarch; that is to say, he had a definite, open, and +admitted power in politics, but it was a limited power. Queen Victoria +was not a limited monarch; in the only way in which she cared to be a +monarch at all she was as unlimited as Haroun Alraschid. She had +unlimited willing obedience, and unlimited social supremacy. To her +belongs the credit of inventing a new kind of monarchy; in which the +Crown, by relinquishing the whole of that political and legal department +of life which is concerned with coercion, regimentation, and punishment, +was enabled to rise above it and become the symbol of the sweeter and +purer relations of humanity, the social intercourse which leads and does +not drive. Too much cannot be said for the wise audacity and confident +completeness with which the Queen cut away all those cords of political +supremacy to which her predecessors had clung madly as the only stays of +the monarchy. She had her reward. For while William IV.'s supremacy may +be called a survival, it is not too much to say that the Queen's +supremacy might be called a prophecy. By lifting a figure purely human +over the heads of judges and warriors, we uttered in some symbolic +fashion the abiding, if unreasoning, hope which dwells in all human +hearts, that some day we may find a simpler solution of the woes of +nations than the summons and the treadmill, that we may find in some +such influence as the social influence of a woman, what was called in +the noble old language of mediaeval monarchy, "a fountain of mercy and a +fountain of honour." + +In the universal reverence paid to the Queen there was hardly anywhere a +touch of snobbishness. Snobbishness, in so far as it went out towards +former sovereigns, went out to them as aristocrats rather than as kings, +as heads of that higher order of men, who were almost angels or demons +in their admitted superiority to common lines of conduct. This kind of +reverence was always a curse: nothing can be conceived as worse for the +mass of the people than that they should think the morality for which +they have to struggle an inferior morality, a thing unfitted for a +haughtier class. But of this patrician element there was hardly a trace +in the dignity of the Queen. Indeed, the degree to which the middle and +lower classes took her troubles and problems to their hearts was almost +grotesque in its familiarity. No one thought of the Queen as an +aristocrat like the Duke of Devonshire, or even as a member of the +governing classes like Mr. Chamberlain. Men thought of her as something +nearer to them even in being further off; as one who was a good queen, +and who would have been, had her fate demanded, with equal cheerfulness, +a good washerwoman. Herein lay her unexampled triumph, the greatest and +perhaps the last triumph of monarchy. Monarchy in its healthiest days +had the same basis as democracy: the belief in human nature when +entrusted with power. A king was only the first citizen who received the +franchise. + +Both royalty and religion have been accused of despising humanity, and +in practice it has been too often true; but after all both the +conception of the prophet and that of the king were formed by paying +humanity the supreme compliment of selecting from it almost at random. +This daring idea that a healthy human being, when thrilled by all the +trumpets of a great trust, would rise to the situation, has often been +tested, but never with such complete success as in the case of our dead +Queen. On her was piled the crushing load of a vast and mystical +tradition, and she stood up straight under it. Heralds proclaimed her as +the anointed of God, and it did not seem presumptuous. Brave men died in +thousands shouting her name, and it did not seem unnatural. No mere +intellect, no mere worldly success could, in this age of bold inquiry, +have sustained that tremendous claim; long ago we should have stricken +Caesar and dethroned Napoleon. But these glories and these sacrifices did +not seem too much to celebrate a hardworking human nature; they were +possible because at the heart of our Empire was nothing but a defiant +humility. If the Queen had stood for any novel or fantastic imperial +claims, the whole would have seemed a nightmare; the whole was +successful because she stood, and no one could deny that she stood, for +the humblest, the shortest and the most indestructible of human gospels, +that when all troubles and troublemongers have had their say, our work +can be done till sunset, our life can be lived till death. + + + + +THE GERMAN EMPEROR + + +The list of the really serious, the really convinced, the really +important and comprehensible people now alive includes, as most +Englishmen would now be prepared to admit, the German Emperor. He is a +practical man and a poet. I do not know whether there are still people +in existence who think there is some kind of faint antithesis between +these two characters; but I incline to think there must be, because of +the surprise which the career of the German Emperor has generally +evoked. When he came to the throne it became at once apparent that he +was poetical; people assumed in consequence that he was unpractical; +that he would plunge Europe into war, that he would try to annex France, +that he would say he was the Emperor of Russia, that he would stand on +his head in the Reichstag, that he would become a pirate on the Spanish +Main. Years upon years have passed; he has gone on making speeches, he +has gone on talking about God and his sword, he has poured out an ever +increased rhetoric and aestheticism. And yet all the time people have +slowly and surely realised that he knows what he is about, that he is +one of the best friends of peace, that his influence on Europe is not +only successful, but in many ways good, that he knows what world he is +living in better than a score of materialists. + +The explanation never comes to them--he is a poet; therefore, a +practical man. The affinity of the two words, merely as words, is much +nearer than many people suppose, for the matter of that. There is one +Greek word for "I do" from which we get the word practical, and another +Greek word for "I do" from which we get the word poet. I was doubtless +once informed of a profound difference between the two, but I have +forgotten it. The two words practical and poetical may mean two subtly +different things in that old and subtle language, but they mean the same +in English and the same in the long run. It is ridiculous to suppose +that the man who can understand the inmost intricacies of a human being +who has never existed at all cannot make a guess at the conduct of man +who lives next door. It is idle to say that a man who has himself felt +the mad longing under the mad moon for a vagabond life cannot know why +his son runs away to sea. It is idle to say that a man who has himself +felt the hunger for any kind of exhilaration, from angel or devil, +cannot know why his butler takes to drink. It is idle to say that a man +who has been fascinated with the wild fastidiousness of destiny does not +know why stockbrokers gamble, to say that a man who has been knocked +into the middle of eternal life by a face in a crowd does not know why +the poor marry young; that a man who found his path to all things kindly +and pleasant blackened and barred suddenly by the body of a man does not +know what it is to desire murder. It is idle, in short, for a man who +has created men to say that he does not understand them. A man who is a +poet may, of course, easily make mistakes in these personal and +practical relations; such mistakes and similar ones have been made by +poets; such mistakes and greater ones have been made by soldiers and +statesmen and men of business. But in so far as a poet is in these +things less of a practical man he is also less of a poet. + +If Shakespeare really married a bad wife when he had conceived the +character of Beatrice he ought to have been ashamed of himself: he had +failed not only in his life, he had failed in his art. If Balzac got +into rows with his publishers he ought to be rebuked and not +commiserated, having evolved so many consistent business men from his +own inside. The German Emperor is a poet, and therefore he succeeds, +because poetry is so much nearer to reality than all the other human +occupations. He is a poet, and succeeds because the majority of men are +poets. It is true, if that matter is at all important, that the German +Emperor is not a good poet. The majority of men are poets, only they +happen to be bad poets. The German Emperor fails ridiculously, if that +is all that is in question, in almost every one of the artistic +occupations to which he addresses himself: he is neither a first-rate +critic, nor a first-rate musician, nor a first-rate painter, nor a +first-rate poet. He is a twelfth-rate poet, but because he is a poet at +all he knocks to pieces all the first-rate politicians in the war of +politics. + +Having made clear my position so far, I discover with a certain amount +of interest that I have not yet got to the subject of these remarks. The +German Emperor is a poet, and although, as far as I know, every line he +ever wrote may be nonsense, he is a poet in this real sense, that he has +realised the meaning of every function he has performed. Why should we +jeer at him because he has a great many uniforms, for instance? The very +essence of the really imaginative man is that he realises the various +types or capacities in which he can appear. Every one of us, or almost +every one of us, does in reality fulfil almost as many offices as +Pooh-Bah. Almost every one of us is a ratepayer, an immortal soul, an +Englishman, a baptised person, a mammal, a minor poet, a juryman, a +married man, a bicyclist, a Christian, a purchaser of newspapers, and a +critic of Mr. Alfred Austin. We ought to have uniforms for all these +things. How beautiful it would be if we appeared to-morrow in the +uniform of a ratepayer, in brown and green, with buttons made in the +shape of coins, and a blue income-tax paper tastefully arranged as a +favour; or, again, if we appeared dressed as immortal souls, in a blue +uniform with stars. It would be very exciting to dress up as Englishmen, +or to go to a fancy dress ball as Christians. + +Some of the costumes I have suggested might appear a little more +difficult to carry out. The dress of a person who purchases newspapers +(though it mostly consists of coloured evening editions arranged in a +stiff skirt, like that of a saltatrice, round the waist of the wearer) +has many mysterious points. The attire of a person prepared to criticise +the Poet Laureate is something so awful and striking that I dare not +even begin to describe it; the one fact which I am willing to reveal, +and to state seriously and responsibly, is that it buttons up behind. + +But most assuredly we ought not to abuse the Kaiser because he is fond +of putting on all his uniforms; he does so because he has a large number +of established and involuntary incarnations. He tries to do his duty in +that state of life to which it shall please God to call him; and it so +happens that he has been called to as many different estates as there +are regiments in the German Army. He is a huntsman and proud of being a +huntsman, an engineer and proud of being an engineer, an infantry +soldier and proud of being so, a light horseman and proud of being so. +There is nothing wrong in all this; the only wrong thing is that it +should be confined to the merely destructive arts of war. The sight of +the German Kaiser in the most magnificent of the uniforms in which he +had led armies to victory is not in itself so splendid or delightful as +that of many other sights which might come before us without a whisper +of the alarms of war. It is not so splendid or delightful as the sight +of an ordinary householder showing himself in that magnificent uniform +of purple and silver which should signalise the father of three +children. It is not so splendid or delightful as the appearance of a +young clerk in an insurance office decorated with those three long +crimson plumes which are the well-known insignia of a gentleman who is +just engaged to be married. Nor can it compare with the look of a man +wearing the magnificent green and silver armour by which we know one who +has induced an acquaintance to give up getting drunk, or the blue and +gold which is only accorded to persons who have prevented fights in the +street. We belong to quite as many regiments as the German Kaiser. Our +regiments are regiments that are embattled everywhere; they fight an +unending fight against all that is hopeless and rapacious and of evil +report. The only difference is that we have the regiments, but not the +uniforms. + +Only one obvious point occurs to me to add. If the Kaiser has more than +any other man the sense of the poetry of the ancient things, the sword, +the crown, the ship, the nation, he has the sense of the poetry of +modern things also. He has one sense, and it is even a joke against +him. He feels the poetry of one thing that is more poetic than sword or +crown or ship or nation, the poetry of the telegram. No one ever sent a +telegram who did not feel like a god. He is a god, for he is a minor +poet; a minor poet, but a poet still. + + + + +TENNYSON + + +Mr. Morton Luce has written a short study of Tennyson which has +considerable cultivation and suggestiveness, which will be sufficient to +serve as a notebook for Tennyson's admirers, but scarcely sufficient, +perhaps, to serve as a pamphlet against his opponents. If a critic has, +as he ought to have, any of the functions anciently attributed to a +prophet, it ought not to be difficult for him to prophesy that Tennyson +will pass through a period of facile condemnation and neglect before we +arrive at the true appreciation of his work. The same thing has happened +to the most vigorous of essayists, Macaulay, and the most vigorous of +romancers, Dickens, because we live in a time when mere vigour is +considered a vulgar thing. The same idle and frigid reaction will almost +certainly discredit the stateliness and care of Tennyson, as it has +discredited the recklessness and inventiveness of Dickens. It is only +necessary to remember that no action can be discredited by a reaction. + +The attempts which have been made to discredit the poetical position of +Tennyson are in the main dictated by an entire misunderstanding of the +nature of poetry. When critics like Matthew Arnold, for example, suggest +that his poetry is deficient in elaborate thought, they only prove, as +Matthew Arnold proved, that they themselves could never be great poets. +It is no valid accusation against a poet that the sentiment he expresses +is commonplace. Poetry is always commonplace; it is vulgar in the +noblest sense of that noble word. Unless a man can make the same kind of +ringing appeal to absolute and admitted sentiments that is made by a +popular orator, he has lost touch with emotional literature. Unless he +is to some extent a demagogue, he cannot be a poet. A man who expresses +in poetry new and strange and undiscovered emotions is not a poet; he is +a brain specialist. Tennyson can never be discredited before any serious +tribunal of criticism because the sentiments and thoughts to which he +dedicates himself are those sentiments and thoughts which occur to +anyone. These are the peculiar province of poetry; poetry, like +religion, is always a democratic thing, even if it pretends the +contrary. The faults of Tennyson, so far as they existed, were not half +so much in the common character of his sentiments as in the arrogant +perfection of his workmanship. He was not by any means so wrong in his +faults as he was in his perfections. + +Men are very much too ready to speak of men's work being ordinary, when +we consider that, properly considered, every man is extraordinary. The +average man is a tribal fable, like the Man-Wolf or the Wise Man of the +Stoics. In every man's heart there is a revolution; how much more in +every poet's? The supreme business of criticism is to discover that part +of a man's work which is his and to ignore that part which belongs to +others. Why should any critic of poetry spend time and attention on that +part of a man's work which is unpoetical? Why should any man be +interested in aspects which are uninteresting? The business of a critic +is to discover the importance of men and not their crimes. It is true +that the Greek word critic carries with it the meaning of a judge, and +up to this point of history judges have had to do with the valuation of +men's sins, and not with the valuation of their virtues. + +Tennyson's work, disencumbered of all that uninteresting accretion which +he had inherited or copied, resolves itself, like that of any other man +of genius, into those things which he really inaugurated. Underneath all +his exterior of polished and polite rectitude there was in him a genuine +fire of novelty; only that, like all the able men of his period, he +disguised revolution under the name of evolution. He is only a very +shallow critic who cannot see an eternal rebel in the heart of the +Conservative. + +Tennyson had certain absolutely personal ideas, as much his own as the +ideas of Browning or Meredith, though they were fewer in number. One of +these, for example, was the fact that he was the first of all poets (and +perhaps the last) to attempt to treat poetically that vast and monstrous +vision of fact which science had recently revealed to mankind. +Scientific discoveries seem commonly fables as fantastic in the ears of +poets as poems in the ears of men of science. The poet is always a +Ptolemaist; for him the sun still rises and the earth stands still. +Tennyson really worked the essence of modern science into his poetical +constitution, so that its appalling birds and frightful flowers were +really part of his literary imagery. To him blind and brutal monsters, +the products of the wild babyhood of the Universe, were as the daisies +and the nightingales were to Keats; he absolutely realised the great +literary paradox mentioned in the Book of Job: "He saw Behemoth, and he +played with him as with a bird." + +Instances of this would not be difficult to find. But the tests of +poetry are those instances in which this outrageous scientific +phraseology becomes natural and unconscious. Tennyson wrote one of his +own exquisite lyrics describing the exultation of a lover on the evening +before his bridal day. This would be an occasion, if ever there was one, +for falling back on those ancient and assured falsehoods of the domed +heaven and the flat earth in which generations of poets have made us +feel at home. We can imagine the poet in such a lyric saluting the +setting sun and prophesying the sun's resurrection. There is something +extraordinarily typical of Tennyson's scientific faith in the fact that +this, one of the most sentimental and elemental of his poems, opens with +the two lines: + + "Move eastward, happy earth, and leave + Yon orange sunset waning slow." + +Rivers had often been commanded to flow by poets, and flowers to blossom +in their season, and both were doubtless grateful for the permission. +But the terrestrial globe of science has only twice, so far as we know, +been encouraged in poetry to continue its course, one instance being +that of this poem, and the other the incomparable "Address to the +Terrestrial Globe" in the "Bab Ballads." + +There was, again, another poetic element entirely peculiar to Tennyson, +which his critics have, in many cases, ridiculously confused with a +fault. This was the fact that Tennyson stood alone among modern poets +in the attempt to give a poetic character to the conception of Liberal +Conservatism, of splendid compromise. The carping critics who have +abused Tennyson for this do not see that it was far more daring and +original for a poet to defend conventionality than to defend a cart-load +of revolutions. His really sound and essential conception of Liberty, + + "Turning to scorn with lips divine + The falsehood of extremes," + +is as good a definition of Liberalism as has been uttered in poetry in +the Liberal century. Moderation is _not_ a compromise; moderation is a +passion; the passion of great judges. That Tennyson felt that lyrical +enthusiasm could be devoted to established customs, to indefensible and +ineradicable national constitutions, to the dignity of time and the +empire of unutterable common sense, all this did not make him a tamer +poet, but an infinitely more original one. Any poetaster can describe a +thunderstorm; it requires a poet to describe the ancient and quiet sky. + + +I cannot, indeed, fall in with Mr. Morton Luce in his somewhat frigid +and patrician theory of poetry. "Dialect," he says, "mostly falls below +the dignity of art." I cannot feel myself that art has any dignity +higher than the indwelling and divine dignity of human nature. Great +poets like Burns were far more undignified when they clothed their +thoughts in what Mr. Morton Luce calls "the seemly raiment of cultured +speech" than when they clothed them in the headlong and flexible patois +in which they thought and prayed and quarrelled and made love. If +Tennyson failed (which I do not admit) in such poems as "The Northern +Farmer," it was not because he used too much of the spirit of the +dialect, but because he used too little. + +Tennyson belonged undoubtedly to a period from which we are divided; the +period in which men had queer ideas of the antagonism of science and +religion; the period in which the Missing Link was really missing. But +his hold upon the old realities of existence never wavered; he was the +apostle of the sanctity of laws, of the sanctity of customs; above all, +like every poet, he was the apostle of the sanctity of words. + + + + +ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING + + +The delightful new edition of Mrs. Browning's "Casa Guidi Windows" which +Mr. John Lane has just issued ought certainly to serve as an opportunity +for the serious criticism and inevitable admiration to which a great +poet is entitled. For Mrs. Browning was a great poet, and not, as is +idly and vulgarly supposed, only a great poetess. The word poetess is +bad English, and it conveys a particularly bad compliment. Nothing is +more remarkable about Mrs. Browning's work than the absence of that +trite and namby-pamby elegance which the last two centuries demanded +from lady writers. Wherever her verse is bad it is bad from some +extravagance of imagery, some violence of comparison, some kind of +debauch of cleverness. Her nonsense never arises from weakness, but from +a confusion of powers. If the phrase explain itself, she is far more a +great poet than she is a good one. + +Mrs. Browning often appears more luscious and sentimental than many +other literary women, but this was because she was stronger. It requires +a certain amount of internal force to break down. A complete +self-humiliation requires enormous strength, more strength than most of +us possess. When she was writing the poetry of self-abandonment she +really abandoned herself with the valour and decision of an anchorite +abandoning the world. Such a couplet as: + + "Our Euripides, the human, + With his dropping of warm tears," + +gives to most of us a sickly and nauseous sensation. Nothing can be well +conceived more ridiculous than Euripides going about dropping tears with +a loud splash, and Mrs. Browning coming after him with a thermometer. +But the one emphatic point about this idiotic couplet is that Mrs. +Hemans would never have written it. She would have written something +perfectly dignified, perfectly harmless, perfectly inconsiderable. Mrs. +Browning was in a great and serious difficulty. She really meant +something. She aimed at a vivid and curious image, and she missed it. +She had that catastrophic and public failure which is, as much as a +medal or a testimonial, the badge of the brave. + +In spite of the tiresome half-truth that art is unmoral, the arts +require a certain considerable number of moral qualities, and more +especially all the arts require courage. The art of drawing, for +example, requires even a kind of physical courage. Anyone who has tried +to draw a straight line and failed knows that he fails chiefly in nerve, +as he might fail to jump off a cliff. And similarly all great literary +art involves the element of risk, and the greatest literary artists have +commonly been those who have run the greatest risk of talking nonsense. +Almost all great poets rant, from Shakespeare downwards. Mrs. Browning +was Elizabethan in her luxuriance and her audacity, and the gigantic +scale of her wit. We often feel with her as we feel with Shakespeare, +that she would have done better with half as much talent. The great +curse of the Elizabethans is upon her, that she cannot leave anything +alone, she cannot write a single line without a conceit: + + "And the eyes of the peacock fans + Winked at the alien glory," + +she said of the Papal fans in the presence of the Italian tricolour: + + "And a royal blood sends glances up her princely eye to trouble, + And the shadow of a monarch's crown is softened in her hair," + +is her description of a beautiful and aristocratic lady. The notion of +peacock feathers winking like so many London urchins is perhaps one of +her rather aggressive and outrageous figures of speech. The image of a +woman's hair as the softened shadow of a crown is a singularly vivid and +perfect one. But both have the same quality of intellectual fancy and +intellectual concentration. They are both instances of a sort of +ethereal epigram. This is the great and dominant characteristic of Mrs. +Browning, that she was significant alike in failure and success. Just as +every marriage in the world, good or bad, is a marriage, dramatic, +irrevocable, and big with coming events, so every one of her wild +weddings between alien ideas is an accomplished fact which produces a +certain effect on the imagination, which has for good or evil become +part and parcel of our mental vision forever. She gives the reader the +impression that she never declined a fancy, just as some gentlemen of +the eighteenth century never declined a duel. When she fell it was +always because she missed the foothold, never because she funked the +leap. + +"Casa Guidi Windows" is, in one aspect, a poem very typical of its +author. Mrs. Browning may fairly be called the peculiar poet of +Liberalism, of that great movement of the first half of the nineteenth +century towards the emancipation of men from ancient institutions which +had gradually changed their nature, from the houses of refuge which had +turned into dungeons, and the mystic jewels which remained only as +fetters. It was not what we ordinarily understand by revolt. It had no +hatred in its heart for ancient and essentially human institutions. It +had that deeply conservative belief in the most ancient of institutions, +the average man, which goes by the name of democracy. It had none of +the spirit of modern Imperialism which is kicking a man because he is +down. But, on the other hand, it had none of the spirit of modern +Anarchism and scepticism which is kicking a man merely because he is up. +It was based fundamentally on a belief in the destiny of humanity, +whether that belief took an irreligious form, as in Swinburne, or a +religious form, as in Mrs. Browning. It had that rooted and natural +conviction that the Millennium was coming to-morrow which has been the +conviction of all iconoclasts and reformers, and for which some +rationalists have been absurd enough to blame the early Christians. But +they had none of that disposition to pin their whole faith to some +black-and-white scientific system which afterwards became the curse of +philosophical Radicalism. They were not like the sociologists who lay +down a final rectification of things, amounting to nothing except an end +of the world, a great deal more depressing than would be the case if it +were knocked to pieces by a comet. Their ideal, like the ideal of all +sensible people, was a chaotic and confused notion of goodness made up +of English primroses and Greek statues, birds singing in April, and +regiments being cut to pieces for a flag. They were neither Radicals nor +Socialists, but Liberals, and a Liberal is a noble and indispensable +lunatic who tries to make a cosmos of his own head. + +Mrs. Browning and her husband were more liberal than most Liberals. +Theirs was the hospitality of the intellect and the hospitality of the +heart, which is the best definition of the term. They never fell into +the habit of the idle revolutionists of supposing that the past was bad +because the future was good, which amounted to asserting that because +humanity had never made anything but mistakes it was now quite certain +to be right. Browning possessed in a greater degree than any other man +the power of realising that all conventions were only victorious +revolutions. He could follow the mediaeval logicians in all their sowing +of the wind and reaping of the whirlwind with all that generous ardour +which is due to abstract ideas. He could study the ancients with the +young eyes of the Renaissance and read a Greek grammar like a book of +love lyrics. This immense and almost confounding Liberalism of Browning +doubtless had some effect upon his wife. In her vision of New Italy she +went back to the image of Ancient Italy like an honest and true +revolutionist; for does not the very word "revolution" mean a rolling +backward. All true revolutions are reversions to the natural and the +normal. A revolutionist who breaks with the past is a notion fit for an +idiot. For how could a man even wish for something which he had never +heard of? Mrs. Browning's inexhaustible sympathy with all the ancient +and essential passions of humanity was nowhere more in evidence than in +her conception of patriotism. For some dark reason, which it is +difficult indeed to fathom, belief in patriotism in our day is held to +mean principally a belief in every other nation abandoning its patriotic +feelings. In the case of no other passion does this weird contradiction +exist. Men whose lives are mainly based upon friendship sympathise with +the friendships of others. The interest of engaged couples in each other +is a proverb, and like many other proverbs sometimes a nuisance. In +patriotism alone it is considered correct just now to assume that the +sentiment does not exist in other people. It was not so with the great +Liberals of Mrs. Browning's time. The Brownings had, so to speak, a +disembodied talent for patriotism. They loved England and they loved +Italy; yet they were the very reverse of cosmopolitans. They loved the +two countries as countries, not as arbitrary divisions of the globe. +They had hold of the root and essence of patriotism. They knew how +certain flowers and birds and rivers pass into the mills of the brain +and come out as wars and discoveries, and how some triumphant adventure +or some staggering crime wrought in a remote continent may bear about it +the colour of an Italian city or the soul of a silent village of Surrey. + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Varied Types, by G. K. 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