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diff --git a/41934-0.txt b/41934-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..ddcf509 --- /dev/null +++ b/41934-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,8554 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 41934 *** + +IDLING IN ITALY + + + + +IDLING IN ITALY + +STUDIES OF +LITERATURE AND OF LIFE + + +BY +JOSEPH COLLINS + +AUTHOR OF "MY ITALIAN YEAR" + + +_I loaf and invite my soul_ + + +NEW YORK +CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS +1920 + + + + +Copyright, 1920, by + +CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS + + +Published September, 1920 + +[Illustration] + + + + + TO M. K. C. + + ... Io vengo di lontana parte, + Dov'era lo tuo cuor. + + + + +PREFACE + + +Nothing obstacled my pleasure so much when I first went to Italy as +unfamiliarity with its literature. Every one who would add to his +spiritual stature and his emotional equanimity by tarry in Italy should +have some intimacy with the Bible, with mythology, and with Italian +writers, especially the poets. I sought books about books but was not +very successful in finding them. Interpretative articles on men and +books which are so common in British and American literature are +exceptional in Italy. One who is ambitious to get even a bowing +acquaintance with them must make the introduction himself. In 1918 an +enterprising Italian, Signor A. T. Formiggini, attempted to supply such +introduction by the publication of a literary review called _L'Italia +Che Scrive_, a monthly supplement to all the periodicals. He has had +gratifying success. + +My purpose in publishing the essays on fictional literature in this +volume is in the hope of awakening a larger interest in America in +Italian letters and to aid in creating a demand for their translation +into English. I shall be glad if they serve to orient any one who is +bewildered by his first glance into the maze of Italian modern, +improvisional literature. + +Americans go to Italy by the thousands, but very few of them take the +trouble to acquaint themselves with her history or with her ideals and +accomplishments. This is to be regretted, for proportionately as they +did that their pleasure would be enhanced and their profit increased. +Moreover, it would contribute to better mutual understanding of +Americans and Italians. + +The remaining chapters are the outgrowth of experiences and emotions in +Italy during and after the war. + +Some of these essays originally appeared in _The Bookman_, _Scribner's +Magazine_, and _The North American Review_, and I thank the editors of +those journals for permission to make use of them. + + + + +CONTENTS + + +CHAPTER PAGE + +I. LITERARY ITALY 1 + +II. LITERARY ITALY (CONTINUED) 25 + +III. GABRIELE D'ANNUNZIO--POET, PILOT, AND PIRATE 44 + +IV. THE FUTURIST SCHOOL OF ITALIAN WRITERS 70 + +V. GIOVANNI PAPINI AND THE FUTURISTIC LITERARY MOVEMENT IN ITALY 88 + +VI. TWO NOISY ITALIAN SCHOOLMASTERS 107 + +VII. IMPROVISIONAL ITALIAN LITERATURE OF TO-DAY AND YESTERDAY 121 + +VIII. FICTIONAL BIOGRAPHY AND AUTOBIOGRAPHY 148 + +IX. THE LITERARY MAUSOLEUM OF SAMUEL BUTLER 159 + +X. SAINTS AND SINNERS 173 + +XI. WOMAN'S CAUSE IS MAN'S: THEY RISE OR SINK TOGETHER 185 + +XII. POSTBELLUM VAGARIES 198 + +XIII. WORLD CONVALESCENCE 214 + +XIV. BANQUETS AND PERSONALITIES 236 + +XV. SENTIMENTALITY AND THE MALE 251 + +XVI. THE PLAY INSTINCT IN CHILDREN 263 + +XVII. "IF A MAN WALKETH IN THE NIGHT, HE STUMBLETH; BUT IF HE + WALKETH IN THE DAY HE SEETH THE LIGHT OF THIS WORLD" 277 + +XVIII. THE AMERICAN EAGLE CHANGES HIS PERCH 293 + + + + + +IDLING IN ITALY + + + + +IDLING IN ITALY + + + + +CHAPTER I + +LITERARY ITALY + + +There is something about the word Italy that causes an emotional glow in +the hearts of most Americans. For them Italy is the cradle of modern +civilization and of the Christian religion; the land where modern +literature and science took their faltering first steps; the garden +where the flowers of art first bloomed, then reached a magnificence that +has never been equalled; the land that after having so long agonized +under the tyrant finally rose in its might and delivered her children, +carrying the principles of personal liberty to a new and noble +elevation. + +We have an admiration and affection for her that one has for a beautiful +mother whose charm and redolency of accomplishment has increased with +time. + +In recent days there have been countless numbers on this western +continent who feel that Italy has not had recognition from the world of +her decision, her valor, and her accomplishment in shaping the World War +to a successful end. Their interest in her has been quickened and their +pride enhanced. They look forward with confidence to the time when she +will again have a measure of that supremacy in the field of art and +literature which once made her the cynosure of all eyes, the loadstone +of all hearts. They hope to see her on a pedestal of political, social, +and religious liberty worthy of the dreams of Mazzini, which shall be +exposed to the admiring gaze of the whole world. + +Already there are indications that she is making great strides in +literature and a generation of young writers is forging ahead, heralding +the coming of a new order. + +It can scarcely be expected that Italy will achieve the position she had +in the sixteenth century when Ariosto and Tasso, Machiavelli and +Guicciardini, Bandello and Aretino, Cellini and Castiglione gave to +literature an unrivalled supremacy. But it may be legitimately hoped +that Italy will give up the servile admiration and imitation of foreign +literature, and particularly of the French, which has been so evident +during the past one hundred years, and at the same time while taking +pride in her cinquecento accomplishments, even in the glories of her +romantic period, realize that the vista which appeals to the children of +men to-day is that obtained from looking forward and not backward. + +I shall take a cursory glance over the literature of the nineteenth +century preparatory to a survey of that of the twentieth, and note some +trends and their significance: the dislocation of habitual ways of +looking at things, of modes of thought, and of peeps into the future +caused by the French Revolution; the outlook for the Italian people +which seemed to be conditioned by the Napoleonic occupation; the +imminence of a change in the way in which the world was likely to be +ordered and administered suggested by the fall of thrones and +governments. Such events could not fail to be reflected in the +literature, particularly in imaginative literature as parallel +conditions to-day are being reflected in literature, practically all of +which is burdened with one topic: destruction of privilege and +liberation from archaic convention that freedom and liberty shall have a +larger significance--in brief, making a new estimate of human rights. +With the powerful political and religious reaction that was manifest in +all Europe after the French Revolution there developed a kind of +contempt, indeed abhorrence, of antique art and literature because it +was pagan and republican. The deeds of men, their longings, their +aspirations, their loves, their hatreds, their melancholies; the +beauties of nature, their potencies to influence the emotional state of +man and particularly to contribute to his happiness; the liberation of +mankind from galling tyranny and the universal happiness that would flow +from further liberation were the themes of writers. These coupled with +neglect and disdain of the heroes of antiquity, mythological and actual, +caused a romantic literature which moved over Europe like an avalanche. + +Italy contested every inch of the threatened encroachment upon its soil, +and one of her poets, Vittorio Alfieri (1749-1803), who was most potent +in resisting it, stood out to the end for the classic ideal. The period +of his greatest mental activity and creativeness antedated the French +Revolution, and although he was in Paris when it was at its height, its +significance in so far as it is reflected in his writings was lost upon +him. The same is true of Giuseppe Parini (1729-1799), who, during the +last fifty years of the eighteenth century, had great vogue in Italy +because of a poem called "Il Giorno" ("The Day"), in which "The +Morning," "The Noon," "The Evening," and "The Night" of a Lombard +gentleman was depicted to life and satirized. + +The writings of Ugo Foscolo (1776-1827), which were given far higher +rating by contemporaries than by posterity, foreshadowed the yielding of +the classic traditions. But it was not until Cesarotti published a +translation of MacPherson's "Ossian" that the floodgates of romance were +opened for Italian literature. It was published at Padua (1763-1770). +From that date imaginative and lyric literature of Italy began to devote +itself to celebrating Italy's glorious past, to anticipating its future +glories, to recounting and satirizing contemporaries, to pillorying the +crimes of the tyrants who had fastened themselves upon Italy, and to +exposing the corruptions of its governments. + +Its promoters were obsessed with the idea that they must get away from +the classic traditions. They sought to avoid the stern realities of +life, its sufferings and its tragedies, and instead to depict beauty, +pleasure, and happiness. They exalted the comedy and suppressed the +tragedy of daily life. + +It has often been said that Italian romantic literature had its origin +in the Società del Caffè founded in Milan in 1746. But like many other +dogmatic statements, it should not be accepted literally. "Il Caffè," +published by the Accademia dei Pugni, was not romantic. Its iconoclastic +attitude alone toward literary tradition may entitle it to a certain +influence as a remote precursor of the romantic movement. The +publication which fought the battle for Romanticism was the +_Conciliatore_ (1818-1819). Around it was constituted the Romantic +school which produced Grossi and the others. Most of its followers in +the beginning were Lombardians, therefore under the espionage of the +Austrian Government. They were particularly Tommaso Grossi, the author +of a romance of the fourteenth century entitled "Marco Visconti," of +"Ildegonda," and "I Lombardi" (the best seller of its day), and Giovanni +Berchet, who, though of French descent, was the most Italian of +Italians, and spent a large part of his life in exile in Switzerland and +England. + +Soon the Romanticists were given a political complexion--they were +resigned to their fate of being slaves to Austria--at least they were +accused of this by the classicists. In truth they were digging the +trenches in which were later implanted the bombs whose explosion put the +Austrians to flight. + +The predominant figure of the romantic period was Alessandro Manzoni +(1785-1873). It is no exaggeration to say that he carried fame of +Italian letters to greater numbers of people the world over than any +writer save Dante. In 1827 he published a novel, "I Promessi Sposi" +("The Betrothed Ones"), which Walter Scott said was the best ever +written, and this opinion was seconded by Goethe. He had shown his +emancipation from classicism in two earlier plays, "Carmagnola" and +"Adelchi," but it was not until the romance above mentioned and which +earned his immortality that the romantic triumph can be said to have +occurred in Italy. The men who carried the movement forward were +Pellico, Niccolini, Grossi, D'Azeglio, Giordani, Leopardi, Giusti, and +many others. + +Among these the two who have been most favored by posterity are Silvio +Pellico (1789-1854), principally because of the book in which he +described his experiences in Austrian dungeons, "Le mie Prigioni" ("My +Prisons"), and Leopardi, the intellectual giant of an arid epoch. The +immortality of the former is founded in sentiment, of the latter in +merit. + +The poet who had greatest popularity in Italy at this time was Giuseppe +Giusti (1809-1850), a satirist who chose verse as his medium. Although +posterity has not given him a very high rating, his "Versi" are still +widely read in Italy. His most appealing possession was ability to +express in scannable, rememberable, singable verse what may be called +every-day sentiment, to depict simple characters whose virtues every one +would like to have, and to interlace political satires with the most +panoplied, pathetic, patriotic sentiments. There is no safer way to +sense to-day the sentiment of the first half of the nineteenth century +of Italy than to read Giusti's poems. His "All'Amica Lontana" ("To the +Friend Far Away"), "Gli Umanitari" ("The Humanitarians"), and his poems +of spleen and of dream have a sprightliness and freshness as if they +were of yesterday. Dario Niccodemi has recently borrowed the title +"Prete Pero" from one of Giusti's poems for a comedy in which is +depicted the conduct of a simple, honest, pious priest confronted with +the conflict of ecclesiastical instructions and war problems. Giusti's +brief life was a strange mixture of potential joy and actual suffering. +In the vigor of his manhood he was seized by a painful disease, and to +his sufferings was added the mental agony caused by fear of hydrophobia. + +Giuseppina Guacci Nobile (1808-1848), of Naples, a contemporary of +Giusti, had great popularity as a poetess of sentiment. She sang of love +of country, of art, of husband, of children, of heaven, and when the +sadness of the times was so profound that she needs must sing of hate +she died. + +Three poets of northern Italy must also be mentioned. Francesco +Dall'Ongaro, who, though born in the Friuli, went to Venice when he was +ten years old and lived for the rest of his life in the northern +provinces, had a tremendous popularity in the revolutionary period of +1848 because of a little collection of lyrics called "Stornelli"; +Giovanni Prati, of Dasindo, Trent, whose permanent reputation as a poet +depends upon his ballads, became widely known through his poem +"Edmenegarda"; and Aleardo Aleardi, born at Verona in the early years of +the nineteenth century, whose best-known book, "Le Prime Storie," was +extensively read. + +The pillars of the romantic movement were soon erected in Central Italy +by the writings of Leopardi, Niccolini, and Giusti. + +Giacomo Leopardi (1798-1837) had a personality that has fastened itself +upon Italy, even unto the present day, in a most extraordinary--one +might even say, inexplicable--way. He was laconic, silent, morose, +introspective, solitary, celibate. His filial love was readily +overdrawn; he loathed his ancestral home and environment; he contended +with ill health from infancy; he was denied the understanding friend, +save one, whose behavior toward Leopardi has been criticised severely. +He wandered solitarily about central Italy wrapped in the mantle of +introspection and veiled in melancholy until 1833, when he settled at +Naples, and there he remained four years, until he had attained his +thirty-ninth year, when he died under most distressing circumstances. +Ranieri, in his "Sette Anni di Sodalizio con Giacomo Leopardi," gives +this description of Leopardi's appearance: he was of moderate height, +bent and thin, with a fair complexion that inclined to pallor, a large +head, a square, broad forehead, languid blue eyes, a short nose, and +very delicate features; his voice was modest and rather weak; his smile +ineffable and almost unearthly. + +It is not easy for a foreigner to understand the exalted estimation in +which the poetry of Leopardi is held in Italy to-day. To do so one must +needs sense the spirit of the times when he lived. The "whatever is is +right" day of Pope had been succeeded by a day of tragedy the like of +which the world had perhaps never known, and things would never be again +as they were. Leopardi sung this change. He was the poet of pain and of +despair, the versifier of Schopenhauer's philosophy. He sang of +melancholy, but he was never reconciled to supine resignation. Though +classical in form, his poems are steeped with the romantic spirit. +Although a supporter of the romantic school, he scarcely can be called +an exponent or upholder of it. A familiarity with his writings is an +integral part of the education of all cultured Italians, and nearly +every schoolboy can recite parts of the poems "To Italy" or "The Quiet +after the Storm." + +Leopardi considered it was harder to write good prose than good verse. +Greek thoughts were clearer and more vivid to him than Latin or Italian. +It is a pitiable picture that Ranieri draws of him in Naples, suffering +from consumption and from dropsy, unable to read, turning night into +day, having dinner at midnight to the discomfiture of the household, +having to be nursed and entertained, disliking the country, and living +in abject terror of the cholera which then raged in Naples. + +De Musset praised his work. Sainte-Beuve did homage to him, and at an +early date made his name familiar to French readers. The judgment of +posterity is the one that counts and not the judgment of individuals, +and Leopardi is Italy's greatest modern poet. De Sanctis said of him: +"His songs are the most profound and occult verses of that laborious +transition called the nineteenth century." His death marked the close of +the first romantic period in Italy. + +Gian Battista Niccolini (1785-1861) wrote tragedies, historical +romances, and poetry, the best known of which is "Arnaldo da Brescia." +The Florentines have erected a noble monument to his memory in their +Westminster Abbey--the church of Santa Croce. + +Massimo D'Azeglio (1798-1866), diplomat, statesman, and man of letters, +played a very conspicuous part in the political and social life of his +day, and left an extraordinarily interesting account of it and of his +period in "I miei Ricordi" ("My Recollections"), which no one desirous +of acquainting himself with the social life of the risorgimento period +fails to read. + +A literary production of this period which must be mentioned, not +because of its merits but because it is a sign of the times, was that of +Cesare Cantù (1804-1895), a universal history in thirty-five volumes, +which went through forty editions. It displays lucidity of statement, +sequential narrative, and finished literary technic. It was highly +partisan and not based on critical study of documentary evidence. He saw +in all Italian writers, beginning with Dante, enemies of the church and +of God. All had something false in their art which it pleased him to +reveal. Italian writers were all anti-Catholic, and classic literature +was all pagan; he excepted Manzoni, however, and himself. + +Two noteworthy historic writers were V. Gioberti (1801-1852) and +Pasquale Galluppi (1770-1846), though the latter confined himself +chiefly to philosophy. No review of the literature of this period should +fail to mention Francesco de Sanctis (1817-1883), one of the most +versatile and soundest literary critics, who was assiduous in calling +the attention of his countrymen to the writings of foreigners and in +keenly analyzing and evaluating home productions, and Pasquale Villari, +the historian of Savonarola and Macchiavelli. + +There were two great literary figures in the romantic triumph of Italy +of the nineteenth century, Manzoni and Leopardi, and after their death +no figure of any importance came upon the stage for upward of a +generation. + +During this period--from 1830 to 1860, let us say--the rocks from which +were to gush forth the waters of liberalism were being drilled. The +times were too tense to facilitate imaginative literature, and mere +record of events was more startling and absorbing than fiction. + +It was not until Giosuè Carducci (1836-1907) entered the arena and dealt +romanticism a blow, and at the same time restored classicism, that +Leopardi had a worthy successor. + +To-day there is a Carducci cult in Italy. There are individuals and +groups who have the same kind of reverence for him that they or others +have for Leonardo. There is no praise for him that is too fulsome, no +adulation too great. Admirers like Panzini, Panzacchi, and Papini +ransack dictionaries and archives to find words that will convey their +devotion to him. He was a man who incited the admiration and affection +of those who came personally in contact with him. His was a sturdy +personality, which inspired confidence, generated respect, and mediated +an easy belief in his inspiration. The son of a country doctor, he was +born in a little village in Tuscany in 1836. Thus his childhood and +early youth coincided with those years in which king, pope, and emperor +seemed to vie with one another in crushing independent thought in Italy; +those years in which men dared not write, fearing their words might be +misconstrued, or, writing, were obliged to publish clandestinely. During +these years Carducci's thirst for liberty and freedom, political, +social, and religious, developed, and for a third of a century after he +had reached the age of man he externalized it in moving, majestic, +musical verse, which made known Italy's rights and aspirations, and +encouraged her loyal sons to continue their struggles. + +After teaching a few years in the high schools of San Miniato and +Pistoia, during which time he published a selection of religious, moral, +and patriotic juvenile poems entitled "Juvenilia," he went to Bologna. +In 1860 he was called to the chair of Italian literature in the +University of Bologna and soon published "Giambi ed Epodi" ("Iambs and +Epodes"). In this he preached republican doctrines so openly that he +gave offense to the crown and was suspended from his position, which, +however, he soon regained. + +Soon after this he published, under the pseudonym of "Enotrio Romano," +an irreligious or materialistic poem entitled "Inno a Satana" ("A Hymn +to Satan"), which gave him great popularity. It is an invective against +the church, which through its mysticism and asceticism seeks to suppress +natural impulses and which through its intellectual censorship aims to +stifle scientific investigation. It breathed a spirit of revolt against +tyranny and privilege, especially clerical privilege, which had made +such profound growth in Italy. It inveighed against the efforts of +suppression of human rights and bespoke the culture of human reason. It +is quite impossible to read understandingly the "Hymn to Satan" without +a knowledge of mythology and Greek history. Indeed, one of the most +characteristic features of his poem is the wealth of classic allusion. +Agramiania, Adonis, Astarte, Venus, Anadyomene, Cyprus, Heloise, Maro, +Flaccus, Lycoris, Glycera are some of the names that are encountered. It +was not until the publication of his "Odi barbare" ("Barbaric Odes") +that his stride as an original poet began to be recognized. They called +forth the most vicious criticism and at first sight it would seem that +they must sink beneath the avalanche of disapproval, but in reality +Italy was ready to listen to a message couched in new form. Conventional +rhymes, easily read, easily remembered, were now to give way to rough, +sonorous lines in which rhythm took the place of rhyme and +straight-from-the-shoulder blows took the place of feints and passes. + +Carducci met his critics with the "Ça ira." It is the apology of the +French Revolution and especially of the _Convention_. The title of the +sonnets comes from the famous revolutionary song of the reign of terror. +Within a brief time, namely, from 1883 to 1887, when his books entitled +"New Barbaric Odes" and "New Rhymes" were published, there were few +competent to express an opinion who did not realize that he was Italy's +most learned poet, potent in the art of appreciation, felicitous in +conveying noble sentiments and inspiring thoughts, human in his +sympathies with the simple and the oppressed, a tower of strength, a +pillar of fire. From that period until to-day Carducci's fame as a poet +has steadily gained ground in Italy, so that it is no exaggeration to +say that many accord him the crown worn by Petrarch and Tasso. Those who +fulsomely praise his memory see in him not only a poet but a learned man +who was able to strain classic erudition through his understanding mind +to such effect that the average individual could avail himself of it to +satisfaction and to advantage. They also see in him the noblest work of +God, an honest man. + +His students idolized him. When they left the university and returned to +their various spheres of activity they carried his image in their hearts +and sounded his praises with tongue or pen. They made propaganda con +amore. No one is ever approved of universally in any country, probably +least of any in Italy. When Carducci published his "Alla Regina +d'Italia" ("Ode to the Queen of Italy"), one of his best--simple, +musical, redolent of reverence and affection--he aroused the fury of the +republicans, who called him traitor, and the scorn of the envious, who +called him snob. + +In 1891, when he accepted a senatorship of the realm, the students of +the University of Bologna howled and jeered at him, and many of the +former students plucked or tore his image from their hearts. They had +apotheosized the Great Commoner, and they saw in this truckling to +royalty and honors weakness and vanity which they could not believe that +he possessed. Yet in 1896, when he completed thirty-five years of +service at the university, the event was celebrated for three successive +days, and the outpouring of expressions of admiration and gratitude from +colleagues and students, and from heads crowned with laurel and gold, +has scarcely ever been paralleled. + +In an autobiographical sketch in the volume of "Poesie," of 1871, he +relates with great detail the way in which he broke from his early +parental teachings and acquired his new literary, political, and +religious feelings. Following his Hellenic instincts, the religious +trend in him was toward the paganism of the ancient Latin forefathers +rather than toward the spirituality that had come in with the infusion +of foreign blood. He rebelled against the passive dependence on the fame +of her great writers, in which Italy had lived in the apathy of a +long-abandoned hope of political independence and achievement. The +livery of the slave and the mask of the courtesan disgusted him. His was +the hope and joy of a nation waking to a new life. He was the poet of +the national mood. + +Carducci is little known as a poet in this country. There are many +reasons why his fame has not made headway in Anglo-Saxon countries. In +the first place, he has not been extensively translated, and in the +second place, although the subject of his song was so often liberty, his +lines are so replete with erudite classic illusions that even though he +could be translated he would be found to be hard reading. But more than +all there is probably no poet whose matter loses so much of its music +and its fire by translation as Carducci. Such exquisite verses as the +"Idylls of the Lowlands," "The Ox," "The Hymn to the Seasons," "To the +Fountains of Clitumnus" are translatable. It would require a Longfellow +to do it so that they should not be emasculated. + +In 1906 he was awarded the Nobel prize for literature and the entire +literary world approved of the reward. Two years previously he had +resigned his professorship, and parliament voted him a pension of twelve +thousand lire a year for life, but it was of short duration, for he died +in 1907. + +Mario Rapisardi, to whom a monument has been erected in his native town +of Catania, and who is known best for his tragedy "Manfredi" and his +philosophic poem, "La Palingenesi," and "Poesie religiose," was a +ferocious critic of Carducci. In his poem entitled "Lucifer" there are +many disparaging allusions to him. Rapisardi was a teacher and a poet, +but a spiritual chameleon: a devout believer, he became a radicalist; a +monarchist, he became a socialist; a romanticist, he became a +classicist. He is one of the best specimens of the old order of poets. +His "Falling Stars" and "The Impenitent" have a genuine lyric quality, +and such poems as "To a Fire-fly" have movement, rhythm, and luminosity +that are impressive. + +The only poet that approximated Carducci's stature was Giovanni Pascoli +(1855-1912). Though he was a few years younger, the period of his +literary activity was contemporaneous. When Carducci died, Pascoli +succeeded him for a few years in the University of Bologna. His personal +story appealed tremendously to Italians, and he was of the masses in +appearance and sentiment. After the assassination of his father by an +unknown hand the family suffered great poverty, and as a boy the support +of two younger sisters fell upon him, and like so many of the talented +young men of Italy he accomplished it by teaching school. He was +teaching in the high school of Leghorn in 1892 when he published +"Myricae," upon which to-day his fame rests most securely. His verses +gave him an immediate celebrity, and he was soon made professor of Latin +and Greek in the University of Messina. From there he went to Pisa and +soon afterward to Bologna. + +Pascoli has been called the greatest Latin poet after Virgil. Some of +the titles of his volumes are "Poemetti" ("Little Poems"), "Poemi +Conviviali" ("Convivial Poems"), "Odi e Inni" ("Odes and Hymns"), "Canti +di Castelvecchio" ("Songs of Castelvecchio"), "Nuovi Poemetti" ("New +Little Poems"), "Poemetti Italici" ("Little Poems of Italy"), "Le +Canzoni di Re Enzio" ("The Songs of King Enzio"), and an interpretative +volume of Dante entitled "Sotto il Velame" ("Beneath the Veil"). + +Despite the fact that he was an advanced political thinker, he taught +his students to respect the law. He was the poetical evangelist of the +humble, of the unfortunate, and of the physically venturesome. He sang +of the cravings of the soul, of the problems of existence, of Christian +acceptation, of the glory of Italy and the accomplishments of her sons. + +Posterity, however, is whispering that the name most worthy to be +bracketed with Carducci is Gabriele D'Annunzio. I shall consider him in +another chapter. + +There is a name in the literary annals of this period that is steadily +gaining claim to immortality. It is Giovanni Verga, the chief exponent +of the Veristic school, who was born at Catania in 1840 and is still +living. Although it is the opinion of those who are competent to judge +that his fame as a novelist is greater than that of Fogazzaro, it may +truthfully be said that he is scarcely known beyond the confines of +Italy, and even there his romances have not had the reception that they +deserve. A few years ago when I asked for a copy of "Mastro-don +Gesualdo" in the leading bookshop of Palermo and was not successful in +obtaining it, the young man with whom I talked assured me that Zuccoli +would prove to be a satisfactory substitute for Verga. If he is known at +all in this country, it is as the author of the play entitled +"Cavalleria Rusticana," upon which was composed the popular opera. He +has not been a very prolific writer--eight romances, half a dozen +volumes of short stories, and a few plays. He got the material for many +of his short stories in central and northern Italy, but most of his +romances are of his native Sicily, and the pictures of life in the +little villages and towns in the houses of the passionate peasants, in +the huts of the poverty-stricken shepherds, in the hovels of the +adventurous fishermen, and the crumbling palaces of the decayed nobles +are so realistic, so true to life, so almost photographically depicted, +that the reader feels that they are mediated by his own senses. Verga +has the supreme faculty of creating men and women that the reader has +met or would like to meet. + +If realism consists in depicting people as they are and particularly +people who are battling with the stern realities of life--poverty, +illness, passions--then Verga is a great realist. The best of his +romances, though not the most popular, are "I Malavoglia" and +"Mastro-don Gesualdo." "Tigre Reale" had the greatest popularity, and +the "Storia di una Capinera" ("The Story of a Black-hood Novice"), the +most ardently romantic of all romantic stories, and "Il Marito di Elena" +("The Husband of Helen") were widely read. + +"I Malavoglia" and "Mastro-don Gesualdo" were to have been succeeded by +a third volume which would complete the story of the characters unfolded +in them, but it never appeared. When we recall that only eight thousand +copies of the former have been sold in forty years, we readily +understand the artist's discouragement. Posterity is likely to link +Verga's name with Leopardi and Manzoni. + +The great romance-writer of Italy during the days of her resurrection +was Manzoni. During the first and second generations of Italy's unity +the mantle of his greatness was worn gracefully and becomingly by +Antonio Fogazzaro (1842-1911). Born at Vicenza, he had the bringing-up +and education of a gentleman. His best-known books are "Daniele Cortis," +"Piccolo Moderno Mondo" ("The Little Modern World"), "Piccolo Mondo +Antico" ("The Little Antique World"), and "Il Santo" ("The Saint"). +"Daniele Cortis" is generally believed to reveal Fogazzaro's moral, +religious, and political convictions. It is a series of interesting +pictures of intimate life in the upper circles and reveals the mental +development of a man of high principles, the skeleton in whose closet is +a mother who, having side-stepped the paths of morality in her youth, +and who was lost to her son for several years, thrusts herself upon him +the very day when he has his feet securely set on the ladder whose apex +is a brilliant political career. His struggles between duty to his +mother and obligations to his country, his desire not to offend +convention or outrage morality, his love for his cousin Eleana, tame for +him but consuming to her, unhappily married to a Sicilian roué brute and +baron, are narrated in a way that seduces even the casual reader. Indeed +it is wonderfully done, and attention is sustained to the end, virtue +being finally rewarded. + +"The Saint" is a psychological study of abnormal religious development. +It presented forcibly the necessity for reform of the Vatican and +ecclesiastical customs and beliefs. When it was put on the Index it +caused its illustrious author, a fervent believer and an exemplary +communicant, much pain and remorse. "Leila" continued the history of the +leading character of "The Saint." It is said that the author hoped it +would make amends for the offense that the latter had given, but it was +also put on the Index. + +He wrote a volume of poetry, and many of his verses are redolent of +music and charm, such as "Ultima Rosa" ("The Last Rose") and "Amorum." +He has been more widely read in this country than any Italian writer of +fiction save D'Annunzio. He raised one slab to his memory which will +resist more than granite--"Piccolo Mondo Antico." It will be preserved +by time, and cherished for the same reason that one keeps and lauds a +marvellous picture of wife or mother, brother or sweetheart, because it +is a bit of perfection and because the owner loves it. + +An extraordinary figure in Italian literature of yesterday and of the +period under discussion, was Olindo Guerrini (1845-1916), for many years +director of the University Library at Bologna. In 1878 he published a +volume entitled "Postuma" which purported to be the work of one Lorenzo +Stecchetti which caused prudish Italy to shiver, prurient Italy to +shake, and literary Italy to be enormously diverted. The "Postuma" went +through thirty-two editions in forty years, but one should not inquire +too closely the reason for this. When critics discovered that the author +was alive they assailed his immodest verses, and his responses "Nova +Polemica" added to his literary reputation. But it was not until he +published his prose writings that he displayed his real literary +stature. + +"Postuma" is still read, that the reader may find something recent to +compare with the conduct of Messalina rather than for its literary +qualities. "Rime," which has no panoplied display of the author's libido +but many charming idyls, reminiscences, and vignettes is much read +to-day. Such poems as "Il Guado" ("The Ford") and "Nell' Aria" are as +redolent of sentiment and ingenuous experiences that lead to thrills as +a rose is redolent of perfume. Every schoolgirl can quote the last two +lines of the latter: + + "Ed io che intesi quel che non dicevi + M'innamorai di te perchè tacevi." + +Other poems such as "Congedo" ("Leave-taking") and "Wienerblut," after +the waltz of Johann Strauss, had great popularity at the time and were +praised by his contemporaries, but to-day it is difficult to find great +merit in them. Were one called upon to make specific comment upon his +poetry, he would have to point out the very obvious influence of Byron, +De Musset, and Heine, and to say that Guerrini in no way is comparable +with any of them. Much has been written about him as the index of the +revolt against the corrupt romanticism of the third romantic period in +Italy. He was the uncompromising foe of cant and hypocrisy in literature +and the stanch defender of realism. + +Giuseppe Lipparini, an eminently fair critic, gives him a higher rating +as a writer of prose than of poetry. These include "Vita di Giulio +Cesare Croce" ("Life of Julius Cæsar Croce"), a monograph on Francesco +Patuzio, and "Bibliografia per ridere" ("The Laugher's Library"). + +Although there were countless poets of this period, two or three should +be mentioned, more because of the effect they had upon the public taste, +perhaps one might say public education, than for the intrinsic merit of +their writings; and of these may be mentioned Vittorio Betteloni +(1840-1910), the son of a romantic poet. His writings may be said to +have popularized the public protest against the romanticism of the third +romantic period. He also made known to many of his countrymen the poetry +of Byron and of Goethe in faithful poetic translations. + +Brief mention is here made of two literary men of affairs in Italy, the +purpose being more to call attention to a type of individual who is more +often found in Italy than in any other country--the versatile, +many-sided, cultivated man of affairs who has also distinctive literary +talent. + +Enrico Panzacchi (1841-1904) published a volume of lyrics, fluid, +harmonious, transparent, treating of homely, every-day subjects which +appealed very much to the public. He first became known as a writer of +seductive romances, then as an accomplished musician, afterward as a +lyric poet, then as a critic of literature, æsthetics, and philosophy. +He taught the philosophy and history of art; he was the secretary of the +Academy of Belle Arti at Bologna, for many years a deputy in Parliament, +and at one time undersecretary of state and an orator of great renown. +His reputation as a poet depends largely upon "Cor Sincerum," published +in 1902. In his versatility he reminds of Remy de Gourmont, although his +literary productions were incomparably less numerous, but in temper of +mind, literary equipment, æsthetic appetite, and general virtuosity they +are brothers. + +The other is Ferdinando Martini, a governor of one of Italy's colonies, +a minister of public instruction, a deputy of long service, a poet, an +essayist, a biographer, and a traveller, the Italian Admirable Crichton. +He was born in Monsummano in 1841, and for forty-five years was without +interruption in the Chamber of Deputies. He went under in the last +election. He has published many books and articles, amongst which may be +mentioned "Nell' Africa Italiana" ("In African Italy"), but the casual +reader will get most pleasurable contact with him from "Pagine +Raccolte." He is an excellent example of the cultured man in public life +in Italy. His prose integrates the aroma of the classics, while at the +same time his sympathies and interests bring his subjects up to the +minute. His writings have a pragmatic as well as an æsthetic quality. +None of them has the air of preachings. He knows how to be profound +without being heavy and learned without being pedantic. For him +literature has not been an æsthetic exercise or a statement of human +rights and human needs. Prospective admirers should not study too +closely his political career. + +Death has claimed nearly all of the conspicuous figures of literature in +the period of the risorgimento. One who had a strange tenacity of life, +which he but recently yielded, was Salvatore Farina, whose first +romances, "Un Segreto" ("A Secret") and "Due Amori" ("Two Loves"), were +published more than fifty years ago. He was, perhaps, the truly +representative writer of the Piccolo Borghese in the generation that +followed Italy's unity. In the fifty or more volumes that he published +(the last of which appeared in 1912 and was called the "Second Book of +the Lovers") he portrayed a variety of romanticism which was the +outgrowth of the struggle between the drab and commonplace realities of +life and the fantastic dreams of simple-minded persons who thought that +life would be ideal if it could be fashioned after their own plans. He +was the novelist of sickly sentiment, the most slavish disciple that +Samuel Richardson ever had. Students of Italian literature will read his +two reminiscent volumes called "La mia Giornata," the first published in +1910, the second in 1913, to get a picture of the literary doings of one +of the grayest and most uncertain periods of modern Italian literature. +He is mentioned here merely to note the tremendous popularity which his +writings had, and to call attention to the fact that they left no +impression upon the times and that the type of novel which they +represent has practically now disappeared the world over. + + + + +CHAPTER II + +LITERARY ITALY + +(CONTINUED) + + +Among the interesting literary figures of the old school still living is +Renato Fucini, whose pen-name is Neri Tanfucio. He is now nearly eighty +years old, and for some years has been living in a small town not far +from Florence, writing his recollections. In college he studied civil +engineering, but he soon forsook it and secured employment in the office +of the Municipal Art Direction in Florence. Later he taught Italian in +the technical school at Pistoia and after that was several years an +inspector of rural schools. It was during these years of wandering +through Tuscany that he got the intimate knowledge of its simple, +industrial, pleasure-loving people, peasant and poacher, landlord and +inspector, teacher and pupil, that he has embodied in his stories and in +his burlesque, tragic, and sentimental verses. + +His fame rests on his dialect poetry ("Poesie"), chiefly in sonnet form, +in which he depicts the virtues and vices, the licenses and inhibitions, +the hopes and the despairs, of his fellow Tuscans, at the same time +embodying delightful descriptions of their charming, romantic land; and +a few small volumes of prose, all little masterpieces--"Napoli a occhio +nudo" ("Naples to the Naked Eye," letters written to a friend about that +enchanting city two generations ago when it was still plunged in the +misery of its protracted predatory misrule and the majority of its +inhabitants were reduced to a deplorable state); "All' Aria Aperta" ("In +the Open Air"), scenes and incidents of life among the common people of +Tuscany; and "Le Veglie di Neri" ("Fireside Evenings of Neri"), which +showed him a man of heart and of mind supremely capable of transforming +the messages of the former by the latter in such a way as to make great +appeal to his fellow beings. His books can be read to-day with the same +pleasure that they were read half a century ago, and the pictures which +are painted, particularly in the former, are as vivid as the day they +were first put on the canvas. + +Fucini is a type that is indigenous to central Italy, by nature a lover +of the fields, the forest, the brooks, he was compelled from earliest +infancy to earn his living, and he seemed to be content with a bare +sustenance, getting pleasure from his wanderings and from books. He did +on foot and more intimately what Signore Panzini has done on a bicycle +or on way trains. As an inspector of country schools he was obliged to +visit countless villages and hamlets, and there he found in the habits, +customs, and conduct of their inhabitants material for comment and +reflections such as most people find in new countries and large cities. +His descriptions of them found sympathetic response in the hearts of +many who see in the lives of these simple yet sophisticated people the +romance of bygone days. + +Fucini has not cut a great figure in Italian letters, but any one who +would get a familiarity with the literature of the early days of Italian +unity, or who is in search of diversion and delight should not neglect +him. He is a sympathetic figure, whether wandering through Tuscany, +bending over a table in the Riccardi Library, or awaiting his cue at +Empoli. + +A writer of this period to whom posterity is likely to give a high +rating is Alfredo Oriani, who died in 1907. His fame will finally rest +on his fiction rather than on his historical contributions. Though "La +lotta politica in Italia" ("The Political Struggle in Italy"), from 486 +to 1877 in three volumes, is a creditable performance, it is not based +on personal research. Malignant-minded critics have occupied themselves +with proving him a pilferer, but the work is done with such consummate +literary skill that he has put the reading world under obligations to +him. + +His first books, "Memorie inutili" ("Useless Memories"), "Sullo Scoglio" +("On the Reefs"), and "Al di la, no" ("The Next World, No"), revealed +such unbridled license of morbid tendencies that even Italians could not +stomach them. He appeared to them a romanticist after the manner of +Guerrazzi, addicted to the Macabre, subject to satanic inspiration, +bombastic, and rhetorical. + +When Oriani took up a second phase of his writing in the period from +1880 to 1890 the reading public still continued to mistrust him. +Although he brought his spirit to a more stable equilibrium, he carried +upon himself the stigma that clung to him in consequence of his previous +books, and such productions as "Il Nemico" ("The Enemy"), "Incenso e +Mirra" ("Incense and Myrrh"), "Fino a Dogali" ("Up to Dogal"), +"Matrimonio e divorzio" ("Marriage and Divorce"), did not absolve him +from previous sins. + +His turgid style was more objected to than his taints and his themes, +and his aggressiveness and political arrogances found greater opposition +than his early decadent manner and his late negations in religious +matters. He was accused of being a plagiarist. His greatest work "Lotta +Politica" was characterized by a critic, L. Ambrosina, to be wholly +devoid of originality. His "Momo" was called an imitation of +Turgénieff's "A Neighbor's Bread." His "L'Invincibile" was derived from +"Andrea Cornelis" of Paul Bourget, and the "Ultimi Barbari" ("The Last +Barbarians") from Verga's "Pagliacci" and the "Cavalleria Rusticana." + +Thus beset, Oriani, despairing of recognition, gathered his strength for +a final flight and strove to reach heights never reached before, and he +wrote "The Political Struggle," "Holocaust," and "Ideal Revolts." + +"The Holocaust" is a study of mother and daughter. The mother has, from +leading a wayward life, been able to keep body and soul together until +middle age has effaced her charms. Reduced to hunger and rags, she +decides to sacrifice her fifteen-year-old daughter and offers her to the +first stranger whom she encounters walking beside the Arno one evening; +she takes him to her contemptible rooms where the emaciated and ragged +child awaits, in ignorance of her mission, the mother. + +The young man of the self-made and aggressive type primed with animal +spirits hesitates to be the instrument of the mother's monstrous +designs, and hurls himself from the house when he realizes the +situation, leaving the contents of his purse with the crushed little +flower. The inhuman mother and a friend even more saturated in iniquity +spend the money in an improvised banquet and plan how they shall take +the child to the home of a well-known procuress. Their object is +realized when this is accomplished and the mother receives a small sum +of money, but the child, not having been cut out for the life, soon +escapes. A narrative of her experiences, a picture of her suffering, the +conflict between filial love and justifiable resentment, is set forth in +page after page of psychological analysis. From the violence of the +encounter flow simultaneously mortal disease and pregnancy. The former +gives the author an opportunity to depict the child mind in rebellion +against both bodily and spiritual salvation. The ministrations of the +church are done with great finesse, kindliness, and skill, and give much +satisfaction to believers. This may be the author's votive offering to +the church, or it may reflect a new illumination of his soul. When the +heroine dies the mother realizes her sin in having borne the child and +in having betrayed her. + +It would be difficult to imagine anything more disagreeable than the +story. The only thing that can be said is that it is well told, but what +does it advantage one to read it? As Henry James said, no one is +compelled to admire any particular sort of writing, but surely there +must be compulsion to make one write them. And as Flaubert, whom Oriani +probably called master, wrote: "Such books are false; nature is not like +that." + +Oriani lived a singularly isolated life, having little contact with his +fellow workers and little recognition. But he was a thinker and +idealist, and it is unfortunate that he did not choose more attractive +media to present his thought and project his aspirations. Only after his +death did he begin to get any measure of appreciation. The four wars +against Austria, the final charge against the Alps, foreseen and invoked +by Oriani, were the conditions of his recognition by the Italian people. + +The most widely read of all Italian writers of this period was Edmondo +de Amicis (1846-1908). His books, "Bozzetti Militari" ("Military Life"), +which appeared shortly after his period of service in the army, and the +book for boys entitled "Cuore" ("Heart"), had a tremendous sale and +still have. They were also widely read outside of Italy. He wrote many +books of travel, some poetry, literary portraits, and short stories. +However, he made no particular impression upon the literary period of +his time. + +Guido Mazzoni, born in 1859, was, and perhaps still is, professor at the +University of Florence. He has been for many years secretary of the +Crusca and senator of the realm. His critical work is "L'Ottocento." His +poetry is of the familiar variety. "Sewing-machine" is one of them. He +is an excellent example of the culture of the Italians, but he has made +no lasting impression upon Italian letters. He is best known in this +country from Papini's gibes at him and at the Crusca. His recent +contributions, "The Lament of Achilles" and "Con Gli Alpini" ("With the +Alpini"), are of the eminently respectable, commendable, poet-laureate +variety, called forth by valorous deeds of Italy's soldier sons. + +Nothing shows the flight from romanticism to realism that took place at +the end of the nineteenth century so clearly as its stage literature. +The dominating figure of that period was Giuseppe Giacosa. He was not +alone the most prolific contributor to the literature of the theatre, +but a man who early excited and kept the admiration and affection of +fellow artists. He can truthfully be called the literary mirror of that +period in Italy. + +The lamp of enthusiasm was flickering when he first put secure steps +upon the literary road, but it lighted him to a great success in "Una +Partita a Scacchi" ("A Game of Chess"). Then the car of realism came +along with a rush, as if it would carry everything in its wake, and he +threw a great bouquet into the tonneau in the shape of "Surrender at +Discretion." But his ear was always to the ground, and, when he sensed +the advent of a new literary period and learned of the existence of +readers that did not know just what they wanted but thought they would +like to have the truth, the naked truth of life as depicted in fiction, +he wrote "Sad Loves." But the Veristic period did not last long, and +Giacosa took leave of it without a tear. Pascoli and D'Annunzio had not +only entered idealistic realism in the literary race, but they were +shouting in the most vociferous way for the latter especially to win. +When Giacosa became fully cognizant of the favorite colors he was quick +to make his entry with "As the Leaves" and "Il Più Forte" ("The +Stronger"). + +The play to which he owed his first success, "A Game of Chess," had a +remarkable career in Italy, and it still makes leading appeal to +extravagant youth and romantic maturity, who see, in the lovely Iolande +or in the dashing Fernando, prototypes who solve perplexing problems of +life with an ease and readiness that is soul-satisfying. They also see +in their experiences the smouldering or dying embers of their own +passions, whose articulate breathings cause them to glow consumingly and +pleasantly. + +Its success turned the author from law, which he despised, to +literature, which he adored. + +His next play, "Il Trionfe d'Amore" ("The Triumph of Love"), was along +the same lines: life without sorrow or strife save such as make +pleasure--which bulks large in life--sweeter. Within a few years Giacosa +began to depict life as it really was, is, or should be, and the first +indication of it was "Il Conte rosso" ("The Red Count"), and for a +decade he gave himself to the production of historical plays none of +which can be used to-day as a wreath on the monument to his memory. It +was not until he wrote "Resa a Discrezione" ("Surrender at Discretion"), +that he came into the field which he finally tilled so profitably, +holding up to the contemptuous, scornful gaze of the people the useless, +iniquitous, pernicious existences of a certain class, the noble. In this +he did the same thing that he had done in his masterpiece, "As the +Leaves." But here he portrayed flesh and blood confronted with problems +conditioned by life, called chance. Instead of desperation and whetted +appetite for sensuous appeasement, we see latent character budding and +flowering under the stimulus of adversity; virtue which does not lose +its aroma from enforced tarry in putrid milieu; the deadly sins, rooted +in ancestral emotions and nurtured by environment displayed in the +conduct of human beings of our acquaintance and our intimacy; we see the +exaltation and the deprecation of viciousness just as we see it and +accomplish it in real life. The literary features of the lines, the +crispness and naturalness of the dialogue, the fidelity with which he +reflected the handling of problems likely to confront any one show the +finished artist. + +Giacosa was a conspicuous literary figure of yesterday's Italy, friend +of poets and philosopher, journalist, essayist, lecturer, man of the +world, mirror of one side of its mental and emotional activity. + +Next to Verga the Verists found their chief exponent in Luigi Capuana, a +Sicilian born in 1839 and still living. He wrote romances, short +stories, plays, and criticisms, none of which save the latter had great +vogue, though one of his plays, "Malia" ("Enchantment"), gave such +offense to Mrs. Grundy that it had great popularity. Like Verga he knows +his countrymen and women, particularly their emotional reactions and the +conduct conditioned by it, by their inheritancy, and by their +environment. Many of his short stories are gems of construction and of +narrative. For instance, "Passa l'Amore," in "Il buon Pastore" ("The +Good Pastor"), is a masterly delineation of the struggle between what is +usually called good and evil in the person of a saintly old priest. Love +had been an abstract conception for the good pastor until he essayed to +reclaim a lamb who had been driven from the fold by the efforts of a +cruel father intensively to prepare her for sacrifice at the hands of +Cavalier Ferro. Perhaps if Capuana had not been content with merely +interesting and diverting the public, as he counselled Bracco to be, and +had tried to teach them and lead them he would have greater renown. As +it is he is one of the best short-story writers of Italy, a discerning, +trustworthy critic, who has written an interesting volume of studies in +contemporary literature, and several plays, the last of which, "Il +Paraninfo" ("The Best-man"), has recently been published. Nevertheless +he must be considered a writer whose potentialities were but partially +realized. + +Two realistic writers of the end of the nineteenth century must be +mentioned, though their work scarcely merits discussion and to do so may +be unjust to others. They are Gerolamo Rovetta and Marco Praga. Although +the former wrote criticisms, interpretations, and romances, some of +which had much success, the contributions by which he is best known are +his plays. Rovetta studied contemporary life and depicted it for the +stage. His first success, the one upon which his reputation as a man of +letters most solidly rests, "La Trilogia di Dorina" ("Dorina's +Trilogy"), presents the public pie, upper and lower crust and middle, +quite as Zola might have made it. His favorite theme was that man is but +a reaction to his environment, expounded particularly in "I Disonesti" +("Dishonest Men"), though his greatest popular success was +"Romanticismo" ("Romanticism"), which was a contribution to "idealistic +reaction" which would turn us from ugly verities of life. It has been +said by competent authorities to be a faithful presentation of public +and private sentiment existing in northern Italy previous to her +deliverance from tyrannical Austria. + +Marco Praga is the son of Emilio Praga, who was the best-known Bohemian +poet of Italy in his day (1839-1875), but who abandoned writing to teach +dramatic literature in the Conservatory of Music in Milan. He professes +to be the dramatic mirror held up to life and to tell the truth as he +sees it, that he cannot be persuaded to camouflage it, and that when it +is depicted on the stage it shall amuse rather than distress. That is +what makes his most successful plays, such as "Le Vergini" ("The +Virgins") and "La Moglie Ideale" ("The Ideal Wife"), depressing reading. +Such conduct as they depict and such exchange of thought and sentiment +as they report undoubtedly exist, but the less one knows of it and comes +in contact with it the happier he or she is likely to be. If adultery +could only be made a virtue for a few years, it would lose its +attractiveness and many writers would have to earn their living. + +At the end of the nineteenth century Italy had three women poets of much +distinction, one of whom, Ada Negri, had and still has great popularity. +Her last book of poems, "Il libro Di Mara" ("The Book of Mara"), has +shown that she still has the capacity to put into verse dramatically and +lyrically the most delicate and the most dominant notes of love as she +or as those she has loved has experienced it. She was born in a little +village of Lombardy in 1870. Her mother worked in a factory, and she +herself was for some years a teacher in the elementary schools; so she +had first-hand knowledge of the shut-in life of those whose repressions +and aspirations she sung and published in _L'Illustrazione Popolare_ of +Milan. In these she set forth with great sincerity and with stirring +lyric quality the sordid sufferings and sorrows of the toiling masses. +These poems and others were published under the titles of "Fatality" and +"The Tempest" in 1892 and 1894. Two years later a radical change in her +social and spiritual environment was brought about by her marriage to +Signor Garlanda, and soon she sang of it in a volume called "Maternity," +which does for that state what her previous volumes had done for human +pain and human poverty. "Dal Profondo" ("From the Depths") was but a +continuation of these sentiments, tinctured with philosophical and +socialistic knowledge that had been displayed for other purpose in "The +Tempest." After this came a volume entitled "Esilio" ("Exile"), which +reflected the same thoughts and sentiments in Swiss light. She has +written two prose works, a series of short stories entitled "Le +Solitarie" and "Orazioni" ("Orisons"). She glorifies purity, idealizes +it, and sings its adoration. + +In the closing years of the century there was published in Milan a +volume of lyrics by one Annie Vivanti, which was praised intemperately +by Carducci and by the _Nuova Antologia_. She had some fiction to her +credit which dealt chiefly with the life of the stage, but her advent +into the world of letters was like a shooting star; nothing was known of +her origin save that she was said to have been born in London, and there +was some mystery about her career. In her poetry there was a true lyric +wail, especially in "Destino" ("Destiny"), "Non Sarà mai" ("It Can Never +Be"), that appealed tremendously to the public mind. Had she been +productive she might have been compared to Ella Wheeler Wilcox. After +her marriage to Mr. Chartres, a London journalist, she became better +known as the mother of a child-wonder violinist. Amongst her romances +the one which had greatest popularity was entitled "I Divoratori" ("The +Devourers"). It is obviously the story of her life and of her daughter's +career, the record of filial shortcomings steeped in wormwood. + +The third of these interesting writers, half Armenian, half Italian, was +Vittoria Aganoor, who was born in Padua in 1855. In 1900 she published a +volume called "Leggenda Eterna" ("Eternal Legend"), which showed her to +be a sincere, impassioned artist with a pronounced leaning toward the +sentimental. She died in London in the spring of 1910, after a surgical +operation, and a few hours later her husband, Guido Pompili, killed +himself. Her best-known poems are "Il Canto dell' Ironia" ("The Song of +Irony"), "La vecchia Anima sogna ... " ("The Old Soul Dreams"), "Mamà, +sei tu?" ("Mother, Is It Thou?"). A complete volume of her poetry was +published in 1912. + +Italians are astonished when women make a great stir in the world. They +have had no Jeanne d'Arc or Florence Nightingale. Their historic women +have been mostly mystics who would punish the flesh that they might +become spiritually pure, but the generation that is now passing has had +five women, four at least of whom will have to be discussed by any +historian of the intellectual movement in the latter half of the +nineteenth century. They are Matilde Serao, Grazia Deledda, Maria +Montessori, Eusapia Palladino, and Eleanora Duse, and most space will be +given to Duse. + +Matilde Serao is the Marie Corelli of Italy with one important +qualification. She has not been obliged to subscribe to the rigors of +convention. She has spoken with great frankness about whole sides of +life which Miss Corelli knows, but about which she has been compelled to +be silent. Not that the romances of Matilde Serao are in any sense +pornographic, but she has painted her subjects so vividly and registered +her sensations and impressions so sumptuously that they are considered +very improper by Mrs. Grundy. She was in turn school-teacher, +telegraphist, journalist, publisher, author, but throughout her writings +she has kept the note of the journalist who has made a careful study of +Zola and of Flaubert. Her thought is spontaneous, her expression facile, +as she depicts the emotions and "feelings" of her Neapolitan characters, +clad in rags or royal raiment, living in hovel or in palace. + +Her most successful books were "La Storia di un Monaco," "Il Ventre di +Napoli" ("The Belly of Naples"), "Il Paese della Cuccagna" ("The Land of +the Cockaigne"), and "Terno secco" in which the social, economic, and +political world of Naples is revealed. With the third of those +enumerated she tried to do for lottery-gambling in Naples what Charles +Dickens did for the private schools of England. Regrettably her efforts +did not have a similar result. + +In her Neapolitan stories the local color is not a mere background, but +the very marrow of their being, with the result that it is almost +impossible to reproduce it adequately in translation. Her later books +were always pictures of the professional lover in different +environments. He loves with fury and usually for a short time only. His +amatory conduct has no ancillæ of Anglo-Saxon love-making. It is taurine +and satyric. He does not always kill after the embrace, but one gathers +from his conduct that he would like to do so. Time has tempered Matilde +Serao's erotic literary coefficient and her last books are cool, more +serene, and less interesting. One of her last books, "Ella non rispose," +has recently been translated into English under the title of "Souls +Divided." + +Grazia Deledda has done for her native island of Sardinia that which +Signora Serao did for Naples, but to a great extent she kept lubricity +out of her writings. In her "Il Vecchio della Montagna" ("The Old Man of +the Mountain"), "La Via del Male" ("Road to Evil"), "Cenere" ("Ashes"), +"Nostalgia," "L'Incendio nell' Uliveto" ("The Burning in the Olive +Grove"), and many others, she depicted with wondrous accuracy the life, +feelings, struggles, ambitions, infirmities of the Sardinians, and +painted their sordid surroundings and glorious scenery. She did for that +wonderful island, so strangely neglected by the mother country, what +Mary Wilkins did for New England. Her imagination was never so vivid nor +was her eye so penetrating as that of her Neapolitan sister, nor has she +known the voluptuous side of life, seamy or embroidered, but she has +known how to put down in a way that engrosses the reader's attention the +pitiable and pathetic plights that circumstance and passion force upon +the people with whom she lives. The display of their passions and +sorrows are apparently as familiar to her as the landscapes. +Unfortunately, however, she does for them that which she does for the +latter. She idealizes them or, better said, she strains them through her +imagination. In other words, instead of recording them as they are she +records them as they should be. Her novels give the impression of being +photographic until you read Verga. Not that the breath of insincerity +which Croce said was the curse of Italy's modern writers comes from her. +She is most sincere, but her characters are sandman manikins into whose +nostrils she has breathed the breath of life. She makes her characters +do what she might do if she were one of them. + +Whether she is tugging at the end of her intellectual tether or not +remains to be seen, but her recent work has not the spontaneity and +imaginativeness of her earlier books and she is almost obsessed with +describing landscapes, the advent and departure of the sun, and +stage-settings generally. Her last story, "The Burning in the Olive +Grove," is a conflict between the present and the past, and turns upon a +marriage of convention. It gives the author the opportunity to depict +the imperious eighty-three-year-old grandmother, her useless brother, +the farm lassie whose worldly success in marrying into a family above +her station she owes to her beauty, and a pillar of feminine virtue who +would live her own life in her own way despite the schemings of the +grandmother of feudalistic behavior. The scene is filled with character +studies which she likes so well: the old soldier of Garibaldi's legion, +his lame son whom the heroine loves, and virtuous heroic peasantry. + +Several of Grazia Deledda's novels have been translated into English, +but they have not had great success. She is one of the last of the +realistic idealizers. The most her admirers can hope that the future +will do for her is that it will suggest to those in search of Sardinian +color that they should consult her writings. Neither the psychologist +nor the literary craftsman will disturb her literary remains. + +The most promising successor of these women novelists is Clarice +Tartufari, whose "Rete d'Acciaio" ("Nets of Steel") is a powerful though +painful study of the Sicilian brand of jealousy. + +Arturo Graf (1848-1918), for many years a professor in the University of +Turin, was a materialistic poet whose productions during his lifetime +were received with some favor and are now being given high rating. +Fifteen years ago a very flattering review of his dramatic poems, +especially "Medusa," appeared in the _Nuova Antologia_, and recently +Signor Vittorio Gian has published in _Gazetta di Torino_ an analysis of +his mental processes and an estimate of the merit and significance of +his poetical productions which, should they find general acceptance, may +give Graf the most important position in the poetic field since Pascoli. +Neither his intellectual reactions nor his point of view, however, is +Italian. They show both his Teutonic origin and inclinations. His last +verses, "Nuove Rime della Selva" ("New Rhymes of the Forest"), are full +of delightful imagery, delicate fantasy, and gentle sentiment and they +do not display the materialism, pessimism, or the figurative symbolism +of his early works. In 1900 he published a psychological romance +entitled "Riscatto" ("Redemption"), admittedly a spiritual autobiography +which heralded and prepared his after-faith, which was thus also a +battle for a faith against materialistic pessimism, against arid +positivism which had seduced him and against which he reacted. "He who +seeks God laboriously may become more religious than he who coddles Him +in the firm belief of having found Him." His book of poems published in +1895 is the poet's voicings of his struggle to this end. His fame is +greater as a dramatist and litterateur than as a poet. Nevertheless some +of his poetical writings show a rare imagery, a facile capacity for +description and versification, though a pessimistic psychology. His +best-known poems are entitled "Venezie" ("Venices"), "Le Rose sono +sfiorite" ("Faded Roses"), "Silenzio" ("Silence"), "Anelito" +("Longings"). Gian says of him: "He did not attain in his career as +teacher, writer, and poet that outward recognition that fame and fortune +usually bestow on their favorites," but as a recompense "he was honored +with such hatreds as are never the lot of mediocrities and which for +this very reason are the sanction and almost the guaranty of true +worth." + +Much of the interesting literature of the past generation has appeared +in dialect, especially the poetic literature. + +Salvatore di Giacomo must be put at the head of all dialectical poets of +Italy. He is very little known to English readers, because he has been +so little translated, save into German. He is the librarian of the +National Library of the Naples Museum. The subjects of his poems are +drawn from Naples and its people, its beauty and their ardency; the +realism of his verse is sober, its sentiments are healthy and true to +human nature but to the human nature of a voluptuous, passionate people. +He writes of love in all its aspects, and of death, physical, emotional, +and mental. He knows the hopes, aspirations, sympathies, longings, +customs of his fellow Neapolitans; he knows them when they are ill, when +they are happy, and when they are depressed, when they are fortunate and +when they are seeped in misfortune, and he puts them into lyrics that +they understand and that poetasters praise. + +His lyrics have been collected into one volume called "Poesie." He has +been called the Robert Burns of Italy, and it is likely that he deserves +it. It is to be regretted that no one has attempted to render him in +English. + +An Italian poet neglected and almost unknown during his lifetime +(1872-1919), whose literary output was very small, is slowly coming to +his estate and it is not unlikely that the coming generation will hail +Ceccardo Roccatagliata-Ceccardi as one of Italy's greatest modern poets. +"Sonetti e Poemi" contains practically all of his verse save a small +collection published when he was twenty. + + + + +CHAPTER III + +GABRIELE D'ANNUNZIO--POET, PILOT, AND PIRATE + + +The most conspicuous name in the annals of Italian literature of the +generation now passing is that assumed by a child or a youth when the +voice first whispered to him that he had been chosen to announce the +coming of a new era, to blaze the way for a new social and national +life: Gabriele D'Annunzio. He was born at Pescara in the Regno, March +13, 1863, the son of Francescopaolo D'Annunzio and of his wife, Luisa de +Benedictis of Ortona. A studied effort has been made to envelop his +birth and parentage in a mantle of mystery, but it has been thwarted. + +One day of his infancy, in Ferravilla-on-the-Sea, suddenly there came a +sound from heaven as of a rushing mighty wind. From that moment the +little Annunciator was filled with the gift of verbal expression. He +enhanced the endowment by diligent study in the high school at Prato, in +Tuscany, where he spent his boyhood. Thus did he acquire an unparalleled +mastery of the Italian language. The gods of mythology, the Hellenic +heroes and philosophers, the emperors and courtesans of Pagan Rome were +the loves of his infancy. After Carducci's "Odi Barbari" exploded his +poetic magazine he looked about to find a god and a Greek upon whom to +model his conduct. He recalled Dionysus going through the world with +Priapus ostentatiously displaying the Phallus, and the die was cast. + +But he must have a philosophy as well. He who taught that eternal flux +and change is the only actuality; that all phenomena are in a state of +continuous transition from non-existence to existence and vice versa; +that everything is and is not; all things are and nothing remains; that +all things must be reduced by way of quasi-condensation to the primary +matter from which they originated, in brief--Heraclitus, whose name +signified "he who rails at the people," was the one that he selected. +The process of quasi-reduction was to be preceded by purification +through pleasure, and pleasure was to be obtained by stimulation of the +senses. The more they were stimulated the greater became their potency +for purification. When he looked about the world he found others had +been seduced by Heraclitus. Nietzsche, whose activity preceded +D'Annunzio's by a few years, was the most conspicuous exponent of the +Eternal Recurrence. He too taught a master morality, a morality which +says yea to life and nay to morals, rules, and conventions. Christianity +is the moral code of slaves. Instinct is the true wisdom. The genesic +instinct is the basis of all other instincts. Therefore cultivate it, +for in that way one becomes a superman and begets a race of supermen. If +we must have a statue of Apollo, as Socrates and Christ taught, let us +make it a feminine figure and place it beside Dionysus, first erected by +animal men, and around them let us dance a frenzied tarantella while we +intoxicate ourselves with foaming wine, the product of sensuous +fermentation. + +No attempt will be made here to put an estimate upon D'Annunzio's +conduct or his accomplishments of the past five years, save to say that +they have been in keeping with his previous life. + +Literary criticism is concerned with the genius of the writer and the +way in which he makes that genius manifest. It is not concerned with the +morals or immorality of his writing, and yet it has to take some +cognizance of them, especially if they are at variance with that which +is considered moral or approximately moral. No one who is a public +figure or whose activities are concerned with the welfare of the public, +whether it be with their diversion, instruction, or protection, can +comport himself in a way that is flagrantly offensive to the public +without showing the effect of it in his writings. For instance, a writer +produces a masterpiece of literature, one that has qualities of +conception and construction that evoke universal admiration. It has been +written for one of three reasons, or all of them. First, because the +artist has it in him and he must externalize it, a creative craving that +must be satisfied; second, he has a purpose in doing it--he wants to +amuse, amaze, or instruct people; third, he wants to gain fame or money. + +If he is utterly oblivious to the two last, his writings may be as +immoral or unrighteous as he wishes to make them. If the public does not +wish to read them it need not, and if it considers them injurious to +others whose mental capacity does not enable them to judge whether they +are proper or injurious they can be suppressed. If, however, the writer +is animated to production by either of the latter two motives, he must +be reconciled to having an estimate made of his work not only from the +point of view of literary criticism, but also from the point of view of +the fitness of his works for literary consumption. That is, he must be +reconciled to attempts at estimating whether or not the world would not +have been better off without his writings. + +There are few writers to whom these remarks apply with greater force +than Gabriele D'Annunzio. It is generally admitted that he is the most +consummate master of Italian verse now living. Though his prose writings +show that he is not a literary craftsman of the first order, he has +understood that art rises out of our primal nature and that it is +instinctive. He has sung the praises of sensualism as they never have +been sung in modern times, and he has panoplied the preliminaries to +love's embrace with garlands made of flowers of forced blooming, +artificially perfumed and colored so that the average human being does +not recognize them as products of nature. He has preached and practised +a moral code the antithesis of Christianity, and yet no one has sought +seriously to save his soul. + +In truth, D'Annunzio had tired the world of him. The people of it were +tired of him as they might have been of a radiantly beautiful woman who +had become a gorgeously decorated strumpet constantly walking up and +down in the world seeking praise and admiration. When he went to Paris +the world seemed to be satisfied that he should disappear in that +maelstrom, as it was willing that a contemporary sensuous egocentrist +should disappear when he left Reading Gaol, but D'Annunzio must enter +upon the final stage of his mission from the gods, and the Great War +gave him the opportunity. + +Although so long a conspicuous figure in the public eye, he has managed +to wrap certain layers of the mantle of mystery about him so closely +that little is known of his origin or of the forces that contributed to +the making and development of his extraordinary career. It is +confidently stated by those who pretend to know him that he is a Jew, +but he is not claimed by Hebrew writers, who are proud of enrolling +Bergson and Brandes, Spinoza and Strauss in their list. Vainly offering +his life for Italy, he is not somatically, mentally, or emotionally an +Italian. Knowing her history, her traditions, and her reactions as few +of her sons have known them, until the war he had not sung her virtues +or mirrored her wondrous accomplishments of nation-building. His face +has steadily been turned not toward the east, where the sun of her glory +is arising, but toward the west, where he has revelled in the +resurrected glows of sunsets of pagan and Renaissance days. He has +treated his friends disdainfully when it suited his whim; he has meted +out contumely to his adulators when it pleased his fancy; he has +disdained those who have accused him; he has passed unnoticed those who +have sought to belittle him; and he has gone among his superiors as if +he were their king. He has been called everything save Philistine and +fool. He has been called the greatest literary figure of modern Italy +and it is likely that he merits it. + +He is a poet, novelist, dramatist, journalist, politician, critic, +propagandist, prophet, aviator, hero, dictator, and self-constituted +arbiter of Italy's destinies. + +Neither his peer nor his superior has ever denied him a rare +imagination, an artistic intelligence of extraordinary range, depth and +exquisiteness, a stupendous versatility and productiveness, a tireless +energy, a fearless daring and a supreme contempt for the feelings, +beliefs, and accomplishments of others. + +There are two ways of approaching an estimate of D'Annunzio. One is to +analyze him--to set him up as a god or a monster and to dissect him and +study the elements of his complex mechanism, then put them together +patiently and laboriously as one puts together a jigsaw picture-puzzle. +It is the tempting way, but it risks injuring the sensibilities of his +admirers and the judicially minded who are so constituted that they +cannot pass judgment unless they are in possession of all the facts +concerning him and his career: what he did and the circumstances +attending the doing of them, that is, the environment in which they were +done--both that which he created and that which was thrust upon him. +Finally they want to view him in rest and in action. Then they are ready +to render a verdict in much the same way as a jury renders a verdict +with or without the analysis and summing up of the testimony and +evidence by proponent or opponent advocate. The way of synthesis would +be the way to approach an interpretation of D'Annunzio if the man were +under discussion, but here only an estimate of his literary career is +attempted. + +There is no dearth of evidence to show that he was a precocious child +and a youth of prodigious intellectual acumen and prehensility, of +boundless self-confidence and fathomless egocentrism. His first +collection of verse, "Primo Vere" ("First Beginnings"), was published +when he was fifteen years old, and two years later he published a second +edition "corrected with pen and fire and augmented." From the beginning +it was pointed out by critic and commentator that he plagiarized line +and verse from poets of Italy, such as Giambattista Marino, Niccolo +Tommaseo, and Giosuè Carducci, and of other countries; but if the +accusations made any impression upon him it was not evident in his +future conduct, for later he took from Verga and Capuana, from Nietzsche +and Tolstoy, from Maeterlinck and Flaubert, from Ibsen and Dostoievsky, +and from countless others that which it pleased him to take. + +His fame in Italy as a poet was heralded by the poet Giuseppe Chiarini, +who published an article which did for him what Octave Mirabeau's +article in the _Figaro_ of August 24, 1890, did for Maeterlinck. Before +he had reached his maturity he was hailed as the coming poet, whose +originality was admirable, whose sensuality was shocking but acceptable, +whose versatility was marvellous. There is nothing morbid, decadent, or +blatant in his early poems. In the "Canto Novo," published in 1882, he +displayed the torridity of his temperament, the splendor of his +imagination, the ardency of his loves, and the implacability of his +hatreds. It swept like a fire over Italy. It was a lyric of the joy of +life, "the immense joy of living, of being strong, of being young, of +biting with eager teeth the fruits of the earth, of looking with flaming +eyes upon the divine face of the world, as a lover looks upon his +mistress." It was followed in quick succession by "Terra Vergine," +"Intermezzo di Rime," and "Il libro delle Vergini" ("The Book of the +Virgins"), which enhanced his reputation and caused the Italians to hail +him intemperately. + +He then went to Rome and began work as a journalist, but this did not +interfere with his output of poetry, and by 1892, when he began +publishing romances, he had established, by the publication of "Isaotta +Guttadauro," the "Elegie romane" and the "Odi navali," a reputation with +the reading public of being the most appealing, most satisfying poet in +Italy, and the critics were not at all sure he would not surpass +Carducci, who was then considered Italy's greatest poet and whose fame +has steadily increased. + +His fame as a poet being established to his own satisfaction he turned +to the field of romance, and in the next five years (1893-1898) there +flowed from the printing-presses a series of romances that veritably +flooded literary Italy: "L'Innocente," "Il Piacere," "Giovanni +Episcopo," "Trionfo della Morte," "Le Vergini delle Rocce," "Forse che +si forse che no," and the "Novelle della Pescara." They had a quality +that is not easily characterized by word or brief description. They were +"sensuous," "decadent," "daring," "shocking," "brilliant." They were +modelled on Flaubert, Prevost, Huysmans; they were saturated with the +philosophy of Nietzsche, the psychology of Ibsen, the mysticism of +Maeterlinck, the morality of Petronius; they reek of the bestialities of +Wilde and Verlaine; they are the glorification of pagan ethics; they are +the apotheosis of lust. But they were read, discussed, admired, praised, +not only in Italy but the world over. I doubt that praise was ever given +so lavishly, so widely, and so unjustifiably as was given to this series +of romances, which to-day, a generation after their publication, are as +constant a reminder of a wayward step which Italian literature took at +the end of the nineteenth century as the linea alba on the torso of a +woman whose reputation for virtue is established and admitted reminds +her of a faux pas of her youth. + +In these volumes the author showed that he had a marvellous capacity to +depict states of exalted sensibility; that he had an extraordinary, +almost superhuman sensitiveness to beauty as it is revealed in nature +and in art; that he had a clairvoyant knowledge of the activity of the +unconscious mind of human beings and how it conditions their behavior +under circumstances and environments fortuitous or chosen--in other +words, until it is revealed to them behavioristically; that he had a +comprehensive familiarity with plastic and pictorial art; an intimacy +with ancient history and modern literature that was stupendous, and +withal a capacity to externalize his visions, his emotional elaboration, +and his mental content in words so linked together that the very +juxtaposition of them is a pleasure to the eye and a satisfaction to the +soul. + +But that which he knew best of all was the history of eroticism. Not +only was he familiar with its ancestry to the remotest time, but he had +guarded its infant days with such solicitude that he knew every +impression that worldly contact made upon its plastic consciousness, and +when it got its growth he set to work to ornament it so that contact +with it would be the apogee of all beauty, intimacy with it the purpose +of all ambition, union with it the object of all strife. + +There are features of his romances that cannot be adequately praised; +there are features that cannot be sufficiently condemned. A poem that +contains no particular thought may excite our profoundest admiration, +just as does a _papier-mâché_ triumphal arch or monument; but a romance +or novel depicts some phase or aspect of life, reveals man's aspirations +or accomplishments, his behaviors and reactions under certain +conditions, reflects his nobilities, depicts his frailties, and extols +his ambitions and what he would like to do, experience, or accomplish. +In a general way, it is expected that it shall be tuned to an ethical +pitch that will not give offense to the man of average Christian or +pagan morality, or outrage universally accepted and acceptable +convention. The most successful horticulturist in the world would find +no market for his roses, even though they were more exquisite than those +of all other florists, should he impregnate them with a scent obtained +from the Mustelidæ. This is what D'Annunzio did. + +It would be very difficult to find a religion, a form of government, a +code of ethics, a type of beauty, a map of life, a canon of morals, a +custom, habit, or a convention that something could not be said in +praise of it. Bolshevism has its attractive facet, even though the +present-day proponents of it have got it so deeply submerged in the mire +of ambition and power, and so defaced with lust for revenge that it +cannot be recognized. There is scarcely any form of those various +indulgences and commissions which are labelled "vice" that have not some +commendable and praiseworthy feature, but there is one aberration of +human conduct that has never had a champion in the open. It is incest, +and Gabriele D'Annunzio is its champion. Concealed or openly, it goes +through his writings with the same constancy that streams flow through +plains that go out from glacier mountains. In the English translations +of his romances elaborate descriptions of other forms of perversion of +the genesic instinct have been largely expurgated, but it is impossible +to purge them entirely of the incest theme, for in many of his writings +it is beyond the verbal description. It is the atmosphere of the book. +Take, for instance, the novel "L'Innocente." On the face of it, it is +the narration of the conduct of a man who, having wedded a superior +woman of great intellectual charm and bodily attractions, yields to the +temptations of the life of dissipation in which he had distinguished +himself previous to an ideal matrimony and a contented paternity. He +realizes that his digressions are scandalous, and that their frequent +deliberate repetitions justify his wife in living apart from him, though +her love, being beyond control, still continues. They agree to live with +each other as brother and sister. The moment he succeeds in placing her +in his soul as his sister an irresistible impulse seizes him to have +carnal possession of her, and the burden of the book is a description of +his seduction of his own wife, who in the new covenant is his sister. +Meanwhile with consummate art he has described in the first chapter as +the only true love that which exists between brother and sister, his +apostrophe of it having been called forth by recalling the sister whom +death had fortunately removed. + +Before he has accomplished the seduction of his wife-sister he has +precipitated her into a vulgar adventure with his own brother, a pattern +of all the virtues. It is a part of his consummate art to create +circumstantial evidence that will tend to put the paternity of her child +upon a fellow author who in other days had been civil and courteous to +his wife, and had sent her a copy of his latest book with an enigmatical +inscription on the fly-leaf, but in reality he succeeds in creating an +atmosphere from which one senses with readiness that the real father is +his brother. The book, in so far as it is concerned with the nobility of +Giuliana, the sweetness of life in the country, the lovability of her +mother and her children, the way in which Giuliana's emotions and +thought after the advent of the child are shaped that she may grow to +hate it as he hates it, as well as the mental elaborations that justify +him in seeking to destroy it, and the accomplishment of it, are done in +a way that shows the author to be not only intimately familiar with the +workings of the normal human mind but with the depraved human mind. + +From the beginning of his literary career D'Annunzio was at no pains to +conceal that he was the model from which he painted his heroes. The +reader who identifies him with Tullio Hermil is the perspicacious +reader, in the eyes of the author; the reader who considers the conduct +of Tullio, infracting as it does the canons of law, of morality, and of +decency, as the conduct of a superman, is, in the judgment of the +author, the sapient reader. He who sees in Tullio and his conduct a +beast abnormally freighted with lubricity, lacking in inhibitory +qualities of a man unguided and uninfluenced by any obligation to God or +man, and knowing no other obligation than the pursuit of his own +pleasures and desires, is a fool, a weakling, an inanimate mass of +protoplasm moulded in the form of a human being unworthy of +consideration. D'Annunzio conceived himself a superman long before he +began to write romances, and I am not one of those who believe that he +got his conception from Nietzsche. He got it from the same indescribable +source that that unbalanced monster of materialism got his. Its roots if +they could be traced back to the days of the Hebrew prophets would be +found to have their germinal sprouts in some descendant of Samuel or +David. + +D'Annunzio's romances are a mixture of materialism, sensualism, and +pessimism reduced in a pagan mortar to a homogeneous consistency, and +then skilfully admixed with honey so that it is acceptable to the +Christian palate, but, once it has got beyond the taste-buds of the +tongue, once it is taken into the system, its poisonous, corroding, and +destructive qualities become operative. I doubt if D'Annunzio ever wrote +a word or line in his plays or romances that any one was the better for +having read or heard, and by better I mean that he added to his +spiritual possessions, to his inherent nobility, or to his aspirations +for a moral perfection, one iota. I doubt if any normal human being, +normal physically, mentally, and spiritually, can read "Il Piacere" +without feeling ill and humiliated, not because of the picture that the +author draws of himself in the guise of Andrea Sperelli, this finished +expert in the employments of love, nor of Donna Maria, nor of the woman +more infernally expert in those matters, nor the score of other +characters which he paints with a master-hand, but because of the way in +which he draws his bow across the overtaut strings of sensuousness until +they scream and wail in frenzied fashion and then finally burst asunder. +The way in which he makes an appeal to his perverted sensuality through +vicarious overstimulation of the senses with which he was endowed for +self-conservation and self-preservation, the senses of smell and sight +and touch and hearing, is in itself a perversion. He stimulates them +until they shriek for mercy or for immersion in some benumbing balm. The +true pervert is he who puts out of proportion and out of perspective the +sources of æsthetic emanation, and who concentrates them upon the +percipient apparatus of one or other of the senses so that it may be +excited to a frenzied activity. The description of Andrea's room, in +which he awaits Donna Maria, with its perfumes, lights, and colors, and +the description of his toilet articles and his bedroom is one of the +most nauseating things in all literature. Like Nietzsche, D'Annunzio +looks upon women as creatures of an inferior race, instruments of +pleasure and procreation who were created to serve. When they no longer +are amusing, useful, or serviceable they are to be brushed aside and +with the same _sang froid_ as one would put aside an automobile that had +broken down, worn out, or because it's "corpo non è più giovane," as he +kept saying of Foscarina in "Il Fuoco," who belonged to him, "like the +thing one holds in his fist, like the ring on one's finger, like a +glove, like a garment, like a word that may be spoken or not, like a +draft that may be drunk or poured on the ground." + +In "Vergini delle Rocce" he expounds the theory that inequality is the +essence of the state, and in this book as well as in "Il Trionfo della +Morte" we find all the passion of language and of sentiment that one +finds in Nietzsche. It is no longer to be doubted that he had kept his +word "noi tendiamo l'orecchio alla voce del magnanimo Zarathustra e +prepariamo nell' arte con sicura fede l'avvento del Uebermensch del +superuomo"--we listen to the voicing of the magnanimous Zarathustra and +we prepare with unfaltering faith for the coming of the superman to the +arts. + +In his life of Cola di Rienzo D'Annunzio again took occasion to lampoon +and traduce the common people, describing them as the great beast which +must be crushed and annihilated. "Il Trionfo della Morte" is the very +essence of Heraclitan philosophy and Dionysan ethics. The hero, who is a +paragon of knowledge which he displays for the reader's edification, +meets the young and pretty wife of a business man who bores her. He is +successful finally in permitting her to pass a few weeks with him in his +villa by the sea. During these weeks they run the gamut of every +conceivable sensation and the reader gets a description of them and of +the gradual hatred that develops in him for his subjection of her. +"Every human soul carries in it for love a definite quality of sensitive +force. This quality is used up with time and when it is used up no +effort can prevent love from ceasing." But, unlike the animal when his +concupiscence is satiated and he is still urged to greater display, the +hero is not content with driving her from him; he must needs mete out +the same fate to her that he did to the infant in "Il Piacere," so he +lures her to the edge of a sea cliff and hurls her into space. "She +would in death become for me matter of thought, pure ideality; from a +precarious and imperfect existence she would enter into an existence +complete and definite, forsaking forever the infirmities of her weak, +luxurious flesh. Destroy to possess. There is no other way for him who +seeks the absolute in love." + +The reader yields to the enchantment of his style, to the seductiveness +of his lyrism, to the intoxications of his descriptions of beauty; and +the critic and fellow writer to his mastery of technic and consummate +mastery of behavioristic psychology. From the critics' point of view +"The Triumph of Death" and "The Fire" are the high-water marks of +D'Annunzio as a stylist, and they mark his completest moral dissolution. + +In "Il Fuoco" we get the same ethics, philosophy, æsthetics, and +glorification of sensuousness that we get in all his other books. Here +the two leading characters are exact replicas of himself and of the +world's greatest actress of her day portrayed in an environment, Venice, +that is redolent of beauty in decay, like a cracked Grecian vase +overfilled with withered rose leaves which fall from it at every puff of +wind. This environment makes an ideal palette upon which he blends the +colors whose pigments he has been selecting and experimenting with for a +quarter of a century. The publication of it promoted his voluntary exile +from Italy. His fellow countrymen could not condone the monstrous +offense of depicting therein as the pliant mediator of his perverted +sensuousness their beloved actress. And they have not yet forgiven him, +nor are they likely to forgive him. + +After D'Annunzio had established a reputation as a neoromanticist with a +classical tendency he turned to drama, and the year 1897 marked his +advent into that field. His first efforts, three one-act parables--"The +Foolish Virgins and the Wise Virgins," "The Rich Man and Poor Lazarus," +and "The Prodigal Son"--were published in the _Mattino_ of Naples, a +newspaper controlled by the husband of his friend and fellow writer, +Matilde Serao. They are noteworthy merely to show the way in which a +sensuous pagan can transform simple characters into decadent, perverted +proselyters of pleasure. It was not until he wrote "The Dream of a +Spring Morning" and "The Dream of an Autumn Sunset" that he displayed +the same measure of lascivious imagery and capacity for description of +the perverse manifestations of eroticism that he revealed in his +romances. These were revealed in lines that truly may be said to be +masterpieces of lyric beauty, and when the Mad Woman of the first and +the Messalina of the second were interpreted by Eleanora Duse the +musical sound of the words and the emotional force of the sentiment +gained a quality of importance and grandeur which enhanced their +inherent qualities. + +In "La Città Morta," his most successful drama, he returned to his +favorite topic, incest. Though his purpose in writing it, the most +successful of all his dramas, was to revive in form, structure, and +unity the Greek drama, it gave him an opportunity to display his +knowledge of the classics and archæology. The philosophy and mysticism +of the play he got from Maeterlinck. Its theme is lust and crime. Lust +is portrayed in almost every conceivable form of perversion, in poetic +thoughts and graceful diction, especially in the delineation of +Leonardo, the explorer, who lusts for his sister. The dreamy, meditative +languor of the dramatis personæ, their insensitiveness to every form of +ethical conformation, their perversion of every form of moral +relationship, constitute an atmosphere that the northerner does not +breath pleasurably. It was thoroughly purged before it was put on the +boards in this country. + +His next play, "La Gioconda," is an exposition of the exemption which +D'Annunzio thinks the artist of his own superman caliber should have +from conforming to the laws of estate or custom. The contention is a +simple one. He should do anything that he pleases--which means give +himself over to the pleasure of the senses and the appetites until the +indulgence is followed by satiety and thus his progress toward +perfection through gratification of desires will be accomplished. After +satiety comes disgust, and then a period of dementia, but this is merely +the prelude to another fling of erotic fury in his conformation to the +doctrine of purification through pleasure. + +The hero is a psychopathic individual, sensitive, aboulic, distractible, +impressionable, impulsive, vacillating, and suicidal. He is married to a +woman who apparently has every beauty of soul and body that a woman can +have. But, alas, she is virtuous! She has not the key to the +jewel-casket of his genius. That is possessed by his model Gioconda +Dianti, the source of all his inspirations. One quiver of her eyelid +causes his soul to dissolve like sugar in water, while two make him feel +that he is lord of the universe. + +The tragedy of the play is the permanent mutilation of the wife's hands, +the only somatic feature that has "appealed" to the artist. She attempts +to save his masterpiece which the model pushes over in temper on being +told falsely that she is to be banished. Her mutilated hands serve to +remind her the rest of her life that virtue is its own reward. + +The two dramas of D'Annunzio which are best known to the +English-speaking public are "La Figlia d'Jorio" and "Francesca di +Rimini." "The Daughter of Jorio" is a tragedy laid in the mountains of +Abruzzi. D'Annunzio knows the customs, habits, and traditions of the +shepherds and mountaineers, their superstitions and emotions, as he +knows art, archæology, and eroticism. The first act is a description of +the betrothal of the son of a brutal shepherd to a simple girl with whom +he is not particularly in love. At the ceremony of betrothal the +daughter of Jorio, who is suspected to have evil powers, claims +protection from certain shepherds who had designs upon her. The first +impulse of the joyous party was to cast her out, but when the betrothed +young man was about to do so he saw behind her his lustful desire +presented to his eyes in the guise of an angel, which made him hesitate, +and the daughter of Jorio was allowed to remain. In the next act he is +seen as her lover. He quarrels about her with his father and kills him. +The parricide's punishment is to be sewed into a sack with a dog, a +cock, a viper, and a monkey and cast into the sea. The daughter of Jorio +comes to the rescue and convinces the people that she is the real +criminal. Eros is unconquerable. + +In "Francesca di Rimini," a historical play filled with erudite +archæological details, he displays a knowledge of the thirteenth century +and of the customs of the time which has never been excelled save by +historical writers. It is a picture of war and bloodshed, of treachery +and accusation. The central theme is the love of Francesca and Paolo. +They may be taken as the typical human beings of the thirteenth-century +Italy, fond of luxury and beautiful things but savage in their +reactions. Perhaps Francesca is one of the best feminine figures that +D'Annunzio has ever drawn. + +In 1904 there appeared two volumes entitled "Praises of the Sky, the +Sea, the Earth and of Heroes." After that period his tragedies, "The +Light under the Bushel," "The Ship," "Fedra," and "The Mystery of San +Sebastian" appeared in French, and soon he adopted France as his home, +having previously published a spiritual autobiography of eight thousand +four hundred lines entitled "Laus Vitæ," in which he summarizes the +motives of his past and lays the basis of his new inspiration. + +D'Annunzio's war poems have all been inspired with the belief that +Italy's future lies on the sea. It is much to be regretted that they +have not yet been collected into a single volume. When it is done he +will not unlikely be recognized as the most legitimate of Pindar's +descendants. Undoubtedly he will want them to be the conspicuous, +permanent wreath on his tomb. The Libyan War inspired him to the +production of his noblest war poetry, "Canzoni della Gesta d'Oltremare" +("Songs of Achievements across the Sea"). + +In the "Canzoni di Mario Bianco" he foresaw the beginning of a new era +for Italy, and he forecast the aspirations and promises of the third +Italy. His "Canzone del Quarnaro" describes the raid of the three +Italian torpedo-boats on the Buccari, a few miles to the southeast of +Fiume. It is short and forceful. The introductory "beffa" describes the +raid in detail. D'Annunzio is inordinately fond of using Christian +imagery, and he reverts to it here in the distribution of his little +tricolor flags, which has a mystic import. "It is a true eucharistic +sacrament, the closest and most complete communion of the spirit with +beautiful Italy. There is no need of consecrating words; the tricolor +wafer was converted through our faith into the living beauty of our +country. We are purified, we are sundered from the shore and from our +daily habits, separated from the land and all vulgar cares, from our +homes and from all useless idleness, from profane love and all base +desires; we are immune from the thought of return." + +The "Cantico per l'ottava della Vittoria" is a wish fulfilment for him. +As the boat enters the Quarnaro and runs up the coast of Istria it is, +for D'Annunzio, the guarantor of the treaty of London, and he sees all +the cities and islands of this coast restored to Italy, and these cities +and all the places hallowed by the war join in the pæan of triumph. + +In "Songs of Achievements across the Sea" D'Annunzio established an +incontestable claim to be the great inspiring poet, even the prophet, of +his generation in Italy, and he produced work which has not been +surpassed, but he was still the poet only, singer of the deeds of +others, in which he had no share himself. The contrast between his +pretensions and his achievements made the affectations of his early +years appear ridiculous to many people, and tended to obscure the true +value of his work. He was still seeking and the years that followed in +Paris showed that he had discovered no new world to explore, but when +Italy joined the Allies he suddenly found himself. All the brooding +sense of incomplete achievement of other days vanished in a moment. The +speeches and addresses that he delivered between May 4 and 25, 1915, +showed that he had been preparing for what he knew would be "The Day" +for him. + +It was widely believed in Italy in 1917 and 1918 that on the evening of +May 4, 1915, when D'Annunzio addressed a meeting at Quarto to +commemorate an anniversary of Garibaldi's departure with his faithful +thousand to deliver Sicily and Naples from the Bourbon yoke, and a few +days later when he addressed them in the Costanzi Theatre in Rome and +then went with the enormous crowd to ring the bell of the Campidoglio, +the signal was given for the declaration of war against Austria and +Germany. + +The last books of D'Annunzio, illustrating his new attitude toward life, +are "La Leda senza-cigno" ("Leda without the Swan"), "Per la più grande +Italia" ("For Greater Italy"), "La Beffa di Buccari" ("Buccari's Joke"), +"La Riscossa" ("The Rescue"), "Bestetti e Tuminelli" ("Italy and +Death"), "Contro Uno e contro Tutti" ("Against One and against All"), +and a series of volumes under the title of "The Archives of Icarius," +which are all concerned with incidents in the Great War. + +It is too soon to attempt to guess the pedestal that posterity will +allot Gabriele D'Annunzio in the gallery of fame. The committee that +will do it will estimate his qualifications of lyric poet and Hellenic +dramatist--perhaps as warrior. + +D'Annunzio is a poet who abounds in lyrical ecstacies. His style is the +most remarkable thing about him. He describes armor, architecture, +archæology like an expert. He knows the dynamic point of view. He knows +how to depict dramatic situations. His personages are all living +personages. He is concerned with the neurotic, decadent, hectic, +temperamental type of human beings. All his characters have a love of +beauty. He is the true decadent of the nineteenth-century literature, to +whom the decadent French symbolists cannot hold a candle. + +After he had sucked the luscious orange of Italy dry and eaten of its +pomegranates to satiety; after he had exhausted sensation in the search +for sensation and he could no longer hope for stimulation from vision, +from image, from sound, from color; when the nets of Eros were so +lacerated and worn from having been dragged upon the rocks and crags of +life; when Italian food, though appetizingly spiced and washed down with +rare vintage of the Castelli Romani, would no longer nourish him, he +abandoned his native land and went to France. His writings while in +France were like those of a man who is dominated by a dementia following +a protracted delirium, and as he emerged from this dementia he published +a pietistic piece called "The Contemplation of Death." It seems to have +been suggested to him by the death of the poet Pascoli, for whom he +professed an admiration, but more particularly by Adolfo Bermond, whom +he had met after he went to France and who apparently had been able to +depict the beauties of humility so that they were recognizable to +D'Annunzio. In his fatigued, emotional, and enfeebled mental state he +asked himself whether humility was not more desirable than pride, love +not stronger than hate, spiritual aristocracy more ennobling than +aristocracy of blood, of money, of brain, of privilege. In this state of +mock humility he wrote: "I always feel above me the presence of the +sacrifice of Christ. I see now that the glory of my life is not in the +beauty of my possessions. I have never felt so miserable and at the same +time so powerful. Never since I lived have I had within me an instinct, +a need so deep and so storming. I am aware that a part of my being, +maybe the best part, is deeply asleep within me." But soon this +spiritual awakening was throttled by the influence of Nietzsche. "What +will become of me if I surrender wholly to the Saviour? Surely I want +the world to know if in my life, filled with base instincts, there comes +the moment of changing. Even if my glory be destroyed I will not be a +prisoner to the worse that speaks within me." It was from that hour that +he decided to be the Garibaldi of the third Italy. He would then be +another Gabriel standing in the presence of God and sent to speak to +them and show them glad tidings. + +It was a strange awakement that D'Annunzio had when he went to Rome in +the early '90's. Perhaps it was before that time that he encountered +"L'Ornement des Noces Spirituelles de Ruysbroeck l'Admirable," and later +"La Sagesse et la Destinée," and he absorbed some of its æsthetic +mysticism. He realized that it was another variety of search for wisdom +because it is happiness, and he began to portray it in his poetry and +tragedies. From the day he began to write he accustomed himself to take +as it pleased him from others' writings, and not only lines and +paragraphs but subjects, movements, cadences, thoughts, and images which +determined the character and decided the nature of the production. +Italian critics have taken the trouble to return to the original +creators the borrowed constituents of some of his productions, +"L'Asiatico," for instance; and that which then remained was the +caressing modulation of the verses. When his romances appeared in French +many of the passages taken bodily from Dostoievsky, Tolstoy, de +Maupassant, Pêladan, de Goncourt, Huysmans, and many others were +prudently suppressed. But no one can fail to recognize that he read +these authors with a keen eye, a note-book by his side. But he has known +how to use what he borrowed. The day came when the conduct of a corrupt +people in a decadent fictitious world no longer sufficed to divert him; +having drunk from the poisoned springs of lust not only to satiety but +to disgust, he, like his prototype of Huysmans's creation, "Des +Esseintes," the Thebaide raffinée of "A Rebours," must hide himself away +far from the world, in some retreat where he might deaden the discordant +sounds of the rumblings of inflexible life, as one deadens the street +with straw where an important or beloved one is sick. This retreat was +Paris and there we must leave him making scenic plays and erudite verse +for a Russian ballerina, and working out his destiny in contemplation of +death and in planning the selection of warriors for Valhalla. + +We are not concerned with his conduct or with his morals. We are +concerned with his activities to divert and instruct us, and the +influence that his efforts had upon the people of his time. He wrote +artistically perfect novels; his poetry is the highest form of lyric +expression; he made his dramas the revivification of the elements of +Greek tragedy; and he strove to prove that Eros was unconquerable by +priest, sage, or warrior. Now, with the world in ferment, they are the +only earnest for our acceptation of his assurance that he can shape the +fate of Italy more acceptably than its statesmen. + +Before the Great War he had practically passed from the stage of +letters. That epochal occurrence resurrected him. We can wait to hear +what posterity will say of him. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +THE FUTURIST SCHOOL OF ITALIAN WRITERS + + +The Italians are a people of great emotional complexity, displaying a +strange mixture of idealism and realism. They are at present engaged in +constructing an edifice which shall be the admiration of the world for +all time, to wit, a third Italy. Naturally the designers, the +architects, the builders and the prospective inhabitants hope that it +will be more ideal, more commodious, more adapted to its purposes than +its predecessors. To the sympathetic observer, however, they appear to +limit themselves narrowly to old building material. + +There is nothing which mirrors the individual and composite mind of a +country so illuminatingly as its literature. The man craving for power +prefers the allegiance of a country's song-writers to that of its +lawgivers. That a tremendous change has taken place to-day, not only in +the songs of Italy but in all her literature, must be admitted. This +change has been in process for a generation and is going on with +increasing rapidity. + +Italian literature is now going through a phase quite as distinct as +that which characterized the romanticism initiated by Manzoni and which +ended with the advent of Carducci. It would be difficult to find a word +which would adequately express the spirit of it--perhaps the most +descriptive one is _protest_. The new writers protest against the +social, political, and religious acceptances of the past fifty years. +They object to the acceptance of alleged facts substantiated only by +tradition; they refuse adherence to teachings, doctrines, modes of +thought and expression merely because they are old; they reject dogma +originating in self-constituted authority, no matter how long or by whom +it has been sanctioned and privileged, no matter how securely rooted. +They will have none of the conventionalism which is out of harmony with +the present conditions of life and with the present yearning for +liberty. They stand against the teaching that the flesh must be punished +in order that the soul may be purified, as they do against all slavish +stereotypy, moss-covered convention, and archaic laws. + +They claim instead that the best of life is to be found in purposeful +action; that life should be speeded up, and that every one should be +encouraged to live fully for the advantage that may come to himself, to +those to whom he is beholden, and to the world. They advocate the +strenuous life and invite the new and unforeseen, while urging +exploration of untrodden fields and especially determination of things +called inaccessible and unrealizable. They advocate equal life for men +and women, and seek to give to such words as "patriotism" and "idealism" +a fuller significance, so that the former shall not mean the heroic +idealization of commercial, industrial, and artistic solidarity of a +people but a love of liberty and a knowledge, recognition, and +appreciation of what other people and other countries are attempting and +accomplishing; and that the latter may be applied to the affairs of life +and not to the affairs of the imagination. + +This movement, in Italy, was begun by a group of men who called +themselves Futurists and, if that name can be dissociated from the +connotation that is given to it when applied to art, I see no objection +to it. It has been influenced by the French Symbolists of the preceding +generation, Baudelaire, de Goncourt, Villiers de l'Isle-Adam, Mallarmé, +Verlaine, Huysmans, Rimbaud, whose work so profoundly influenced the +course of French literature. Like this school the self-styled futuristic +writers of Italy revolt against rhetoric and against tradition. +Therefore they reject equally the ardent classicism of Carducci and +D'Annunzio's decadent blend of idealism and realism, the crass, slavish +Gallicism of Brocchi, the Scandinavian genuflections of Bracco and the +Shavian imitations of Pirandello. In protest against all these they seek +the full liberty of the written word, as the evangel of socialism seeks +the liberty of the individual. Not from other writers but from reality +itself, or from the depths of their own imaginations, they have received +a vision and this vision they demand the right to evoke in others, by +what words or what images they will. The art of expression should be +speeded up, abbreviated, and epitomized, while the love of profound +essentials is cultivated. To borrow from England's singer of +materialistic grandeur and promise, they + + " ... want the world much more the world; + Men to men and women to women--all + Adventure, courage, instinct, passion, power." + +And in addition, as true Futurists, they want us to have constantly in +mind what happened to Lot's wife when she looked back to see how high +the flames rose over Sodom and Gomorrah. + +The leaders of the Futuristic movement in Italy were Guillaume +Apollinaire, then editor of _Les Soirées de Paris_, and F. T. Marinetti +of Milan. + +One thing can be said of Signor Marinetti, the pope of Futurism, which +no one, I fancy, will deny. He is the most amusing writer in Italy. His +idea of beauty is a massive building of concrete in course of +construction with the scaffoldings lovingly embracing it. His idea of +ugliness is a curve of any kind--save in the feminine body. "Parole in +libertà," words free from syntactical shackles are the words with which +we shall fight the battle of the future. They are the dynamite which +will blow asunder literary Monte Testaccio, in which are buried the +useless literary labors of his forebears but which shall also prepare +the soil for a fertility that it has never possessed. Dynamism is the +master-key. No artificer of the past or wizard of the future can +construct a lock that it will not readily open, and as for political +manacles they are as fragile as rubber bands when confronted with the +doctrines of his new book, "Democrazia Futurista." + +Signor Marinetti has no delusions of grandeur; he only pretends that he +has. Nor is he the victim of a mental disorder which is characterized by +loss of insight and megalomania. It is gratifying to be able to make +this diagnosis of one of Italy's literary leaders. It offsets the +diagnosis of general paresis made of Woodrow Wilson by one of Mr. +Marinetti's fellow citizens and published with such elaborate attempts +of substantiation in the _Giornale di Italia_. He merely overestimates +his intellectual and emotional possessions, but he says many clever +things and makes some prophecies that are likely to come through. The +last European ruler who talked and acted as Signor Marinetti does got a +bad spill, as is now fairly widely known. In reality, Marinetti is a +Bolshevik who amuses himself behind a mask, but not all the principles +of Bolshevism are bad by any means, nor even are they new. The most +telling way of making a statement is to overstate it. The most +successful way of getting a bad smell out of a house is to burn the +house; then, if you have a good plan and plenty of time, money, and +building material, you can construct yourself a house free from bad +odors. However, there are other ways of making it a very livable and +beautiful house, but why one should object to Mr. Marinetti's building +his own house his own way is difficult to understand, unless in so doing +it he makes himself such a nuisance to his neighbors that they cannot +tolerate him. So far he has not done that, but when he joins force with +Signor Bruno Corra, as he has in "L'Isola dei Baci" ("The Island of +Kisses"), he comes perilously near it. + +Apollinaire, a Pole whose real name was Kostrowitski, was born in Rome +and lived in Italy until late childhood, when he went to France, where +he remained until his death in 1919. He had a tremendous influence upon +many of the young symbolist writers of Italy, comparable to that +exercised by Stéphane Mallarmé on the young writers in the '80's and +'90's. One of them wrote at the time of his death: "Hero of thought and +of art, idealist, philosopher, genuine poet, prophetic theorist and +critic, sublime soul, comrade, joyous, generous, he was also in the last +years of his life a hero of humanity." + +The most important figure of the school has been Giovanni Papini, who +has gathered about him in Florence a coterie which includes Ardengo +Soffici, the painter, critic, and novelist; Aldo Palazzeschi, poet; +Alberto Savinio, wanderer, musician, and litterateur; and a long list of +names more or less ancillary to Marinetti, some of which I shall mention +later. + +Papini, who is considered at length in another chapter, does not admit +that he is a Futurist. As he puts it, he did not marry Futurism; it was +for him one of many intellectual adventures, a mistress that left an +indelible impression on him. He simply passed through Futurism's +influence and at the same time gave momentum to the best of that school, +to Palazzeschi, Govoni, Boccioni, Folgore. Then he proceeded alone, +after having become persuaded that it had become too popular and +consequently less refined and select, and after the hazardous and +aristocratic little group had become a species of low, bigoted democracy +into which any one could enter who dangled a rosary of incomprehensible +words. He left it in company with Soffici and Palazzeschi and soon Carrà +and others followed his example. Thus, on the death of Boccioni, the +first generation of Futuristic writers reformed or disappeared. + +Then there are many young men carrying the banner of literature in Italy +to-day who do not call themselves Futurist, and whose writings contain +less of the grotesque, which has been made familiar to Italian readers +by Marinetti's "Zang Tumb Tumb." They are men of the stamp of Antonio +Beltramelli, Mario Mariani, Luigi Morselli, Gino Rocca, Salvator Gotta, +Lorenzo Montano, Vincenzo Cardarelli, Raffale Calzini, Enrico +Cavacchioli, Alfredo Grilli, and a score of others who not alone have +ideas but who keenly sense the composite world-thought, who believe that +the era of Big Business will reach its apogee when it weds Big Justice, +and who know how to express their ideas with explosive rhythmic +eloquence and with distinction of form. + +It would be presumptuous on my part to attempt to select the winners +entered in the great sweepstakes of literary fame in Italy, with no +qualification for prophecy or judgment than a love of literature and a +lifelong ardent consumption of it. I shall, therefore, content myself +with brief discussion of the work of some of these younger writers with +the particular end in view of suggesting to others the pleasure and +profit that may result from more intimate acquaintance with them. + +About ten years ago there began to appear in the Florentine publication, +_La Voce_, a series of articles critical and interpretative of French +art. It is difficult now to believe that Cézanne, Courbet, Renoir, +Picasso, Henri Rousseau, Gauguin, Van Gogh, and the school of +impressionists and neo-impressionists was so little known in Italy as +they were at the time of the appearance of these articles from the pen +of Ardengo Soffici, a painter by training and profession enrolled in the +Futuristic movement. He was, in reality, the first to speak in Italy +with appreciation and intelligence of the tendencies in French art shown +in the last half-century which have to-day had such a stamp of profound +approval put upon them. These criticisms attracted much attention from +the first, and they have since been republished under the title of +"Scoperte e Massacri" ("Discoveries and Massacres"), and to-day they +constitute a trustworthy guide to the schools mentioned both in +presentation and in description. + +They were quite unlike previous criticisms, more particularly in a note +of challenge, of insolence, and of prophecy. His judgments were stated +with a firmness and tranquillity that savored of the dogmatic, and, +although time has shown him to have been mistaken in his estimate of +some of the artists discussed--Gauguin, for instance--it has +corroborated most of them with remarkable accuracy. In a small way he +did for Italian readers what Mr. MacColl did for English readers in his +"Nineteenth Century Art," for, like that writer, he is an artist with a +fastidious temperament who knows how to write. + +Since that time Signor Soffici has published nearly a score of +books--romances, criticisms, fragments which show him to be a clear +thinker with a pungent style, writing what he thinks and not what he +cribs from others, and not continually advertising himself as the last +cry of intelligence or the most perfect type of superman. His first book +was called "Ignoto Toscano" ("An Unknown Tuscan"), and appeared in 1909, +but it was not until the publication of "Lemmonio Boreo" two years later +that it was realized that there had appeared a writer with a definite +message: a protest against the utter triviality and purposelessness of +Italian middle-class life. + +The hero, an artist, who would reform many customs of the land, went +about the countryside accompanied by two aids, one chosen for physical +strength, the other for his "promoter" type of mind. Their encounters +with the predatory innkeeper, with the peculating clerk, with the +industrious stone-breaker of the roads, with the pilferer of the farm or +the barn, and with the pulchritudinous peasant sitting picturesquely in +her cart or gossiping in the village constitute the substance of the +book. It was planned to have it run into several volumes, but it stopped +after the first one, without accomplishing any of the reforms that the +hero had essayed. + +Then the writer reverted to art again and published a book on Cubism and +one on Cubism and Futurism. Soon he published Giornale di Bordo, a diary +of sentiment and philosophy--thoughts engendered by various +environments, by reading, and by reflection. In the most casual way the +author reveals his impressionable and poetic nature. They are not +profound or epoch-making thoughts. They are merely the thoughts of a +sane, healthy, artistic mind bathing and refreshing itself in the +beauties of nature and contrasting them with the ugliness of most of +man's handiwork. + +Then came two books about the outgrowth of the military life. "Kubilek" +is named after a hill on the Bainsizza Tableland where the author fought +and was wounded. It gives a picture of the Italian as a soul which will +be recognized as true to life by every one who has had to do with him. +No one can read it without feeling an admiration and an affection for +that extraordinarily loyal being the Italian soldier who tolerates +hardship with equanimity and without complaint and who is so +appreciative of anything done for his comfort or welfare. "La Ritirata +del Friuli" ("The Retreat from Friuli") is not up to the author's +standard. + +The next book, a very small one, "La Giostra dei Sensi" ("The Joust of +the Senses"), is a portrayal of the capacity shown by a "lost soul" for +radiating unselfish love upon an individual who comes to her for +meretricious contact but who stays to add to his spiritual stature. The +scene is laid in Naples and the author utilizes the sheer beauty of the +place and picturesqueness of the people to give an artistic setting for +the description of the jousts. It could not possibly be published in +England unless the publisher aspired to "languish" in prison. + +Of the many questions I have asked in Italy none has been so +unsatisfactorily answered as "Do you let your young folk read that book +and what effect does it have?" No one could think of calling Soffici a +pornographic writer. Indeed, it is no exaggeration to say that he is one +of the most respected and admired of all the young school of Italian +writers, and yet there are passages in the book now under discussion +coarser and more vulgar than any in the "Satyricon." Despite this it is +not a circumstance to the recent book of a seventeen-year-old girl of +Rome, Margherita Emplosi Gherardi, entitled "Il Nudo nelle Anime." It is +dedicated to all those who deny that the youthful mind has not the +capacity, discernment, liberty, and daring to envisage and interpret the +painful mysteries of the human soul. There are few things more +disgusting in literature, "Gamiana" excluded, than the sketch entitled +"The Impure Hour," for women only. + +His remaining books, "Statue e Fantocci" ("Statues and Dolls"), are made +up chiefly of critical reviews, many of which have appeared in journals. +They show that the writer has a mastery of literary technic and an +understanding of modern art and literature creditable to himself and to +his country. He can be satirical, caustic, sarcastic, but he is never +brutal. He can be an ardent admirer, a valorous champion, a sympathetic +interpreter, a critical friend, and a prejudiced judge, but he is never +an implacable, insensate enemy, nor a literary fiend. Moreover, one does +not gather from his writings that he is what is called the "whole thing" +from the literary standpoint. + +Signor Soffici has got some bad habits from Papini. Among these are: +saying old things as if they never had been said before; taking on an +air of complacency after the delivery of a sentiment or a conviction in +no wise epoch-making; believing that all his geese are swans and the +geese of others decoys; that his every thought is a jewel which people +are frenzied to possess unless they are too stupid; and saying trivial +things with the subtly conveyed insinuation that the reader should, if +he is perspicacious and cultured, find a deep significance in them. + +He is yet a long way from his full stature, but he is growing. + +Aldo Palazzeschi (1885-) is one of the youngest of the Futuristic group +who has gained enduring fame as a poet. His first volume of verses, +"Cavalli Bianchi" ("White Horses"), which was published when he was +twenty years old, showed him to be a youth of sensibility and +originality, with capacity for tuneful verse and for dainty sentiment +daintily expressed. The publication of a second volume, entitled +"Lanterna" ("The Lantern"), two years later, fully justified the +expectations of those who were attracted by the little gems of his early +verse. But it was not until 1909, on the publication of a volume +entitled "The Poems of Aldo Palazzeschi," that it was realized that +there had come upon the scene a poet who might quite easily get a fame +equal to that of Carducci or Pascoli. + +His poems not only showed the influence of Apollinaire and Marinetti, +but also of Whitman, of Mallarmé, of Rimbaud, of Laforgue, and of other +French writers. The dyed-in-the-wool critics saw in much of his work +clownishness and infantilism, especially in such productions as "E +lasciatemi divertire." They thought it should be construed: "And let me +divert myself with insane-asylum poetry." They were quite right from +their standpoint, but a fellow poet whose emotional mechanism is not so +equilibrated as that of the sort of man called normal, would be likely +to see in it something of beauty and of merit which the latter could not +see, and ask: "Why should not the poet divert himself?" It is to him +what exercise is to the average man, and he speaks of it, in fact is +proud of it, just as the average man is proud of his golf score when he +gets it in that Elysian field, "under ninety." + +Those who do not see in Palazzeschi's poetry an adhesion to a certain +school of philosophy, an advocacy of certain ethical systems, a +restatement of others' thoughts and teachings, miss the very essence of +his contribution. This is his capacity to present the world around us in +colors which, if not new, at least have been recognized only since the +advent of the impressionistic painter. So illuminated, it presents +facets of beauty that make appeal to that which within us mediates and +interprets pleasure. + +In addition to this, he has an extraordinary sense of the fantastic, the +grotesque, the panoplied. His eye is microscopic and his mind is +telescopic, and his soul waves tend to a rhythm which is akin to that of +genius when he reveals them and describes them to others, as he does, +for instance, in the "Villa Celeste" ("The Celestial House"); the +average man (who is attuned to interpret some poetic waves) realizes +that the soul of this young man is the generating station of genuine +poetical energy. He puts a reflector before his soul and it reflects the +waves in our direction. + + "Io metto una lente + dinanzi al mio cuore, + per farlo vedere alla gente." + +Among the youngest of the Italian litterateurs who are giving great +promise is Alberto Savinio, who is not only an interesting writer but an +accomplished musician, composer, and performer. Of Sicilian origin, he +was born in Tuscany and has lived in various parts of central Europe. He +first came to conspicuous notice through his articles in _Les Soirées de +Paris_. To the average reader he is known as a traveller and a narrator +of his observations and experiences in the form of comments and short +stories. Latterly, however, he has published a queer book entitled +"Hermaphrodito," which is difficult briefly to characterize without +doing it injustice. It is a book that a clever man might write in the +early stages of delirium tremens, providing he returned to it after +recovery and added the chapters "Isabella Hasson" and "La Partenza dell' +Argonauti." In the latter especially he shows himself capable of writing +temperate, vivacious, robust prose, of making inviting descriptions of +places, and of revealing man's conduct and his motives. + +When the war broke out he returned to Italy and his contributions soon +began to appear in different journals, more particularly in the _Voce_ +of Florence and the _Brigati_ of Bologna. Since then he has received +even greater praise than was meted out to him in Paris, and he gives +promise, should his development continue, of getting a place amongst the +modern writers. + +Another young writer of the same kidney, though by no means of such +promise, is Mario Venditti. He is a type of juvenile writer in Italy who +excites a curiosity to know how he succeeds in getting some of his +writings published. He appears to have a writing formula: take of +substantives whose meaning is known to few save dictionary experts, +archaic or uncommon adjectives, adverbs, or adverbial phrases taken from +other languages, excerpts from scientific writings, especially +philosophy and medicine, and string them together so that when they are +read aloud there will be a certain sonorous, musical effect, and at the +same time suggest a color accompaniment. He reminds of a properly +brought-up and well-educated boy who, when he reaches the age of +puberty, insists upon wearing what are called "outlandish" clothes, a +combination of the apparel of the clown and that of the fashion-plate, +to which he attaches ornate trimmings and incongruous decoration. In +such costume he struts about with a nonchalance and swagger of +self-appreciation which is more irritating even than his sartorial +affectations. Many modern literary youths seem to have to go through a +period of this kind, just as the children of "First Families," +unfortunately, must have mumps and measles. Like the victims of those +diseases the majority of them go through unscathed, but every now and +then one of them is intellectually enfeebled and genetically sterilized. + +Signor Venditti has not assured us by the publication of "Il Burattino e +la Pialla" that he is not a victim. + +When is a Futurist not a Futurist? A very difficult question that, for +readers answer it one way and writers another. Some writers are +Futuristic on alternate days, or every seventh day. One of these is +Enrico Cavacchioli, a Sicilian living in Milan, the dramatic critic of +the _Secolo_ and the director of _Il Mondo_ and of the publishing-house +of Vitagliano. His reputation as a man of letters stands in no relation +to his futurist poems. It does, however, to his compositions for the +theatre, and especially to his great success, "Uccello del Paradiso" +("Bird of Paradise"). His last contribution, "Quella che t'assomiglia" +("That Which Resembles You"), which he calls a vision in three acts, is +a satire on the present-day interest in the occult and supernatural. + +When the promising and brilliant young writer of the Florentine group, +Renato Serra, was killed in the war, Italy lost one of its most gifted +critics since De Sanctis. Despite his youth he had, when he was called +to the colors, already won a conspicuous position as a man of letters. +Alfredo Panzini dedicated his "Madonna di Mamà" to him, and made +touching allusions to his qualities of soul and potential greatness. In +1914 he published a survey of contemporary Italian literature ("Le +Lettere"), and the five years which have elapsed since then have shown +that his estimates and judgments were unusually sound. His was neither +the academic idealistic criticism of the old school nor the historic +philosophic criticism of Croce. He attempted to interpret writers, +plans, and performances and to contrast them with ideals he had himself +conceived or worked out from study of the masters. His last work, +"Scritti Critici" ("Critical Writings"), was published in 1919. They +show a subtle and profound analysis, an original point of view, and +equilibrium in expression and in form. His style is simple, his +statements clear, his presentations convincing. + +Another young writer of this group, a man of great promise, was Scipio +Slattaper. He gave his life for his country in the early days of the +war. + +Corrado Govoni has, for the past decade, been considered by some to be +Italy's most promising poet. There is definite infantilism in his work, +a distractibility, a discursiveness, that has stood in the way of +meriting such estimate. Although still a young man (thirty-five), he has +eight volumes of poetry that bear his name. Papini was his impresario +but he no longer treats him as one of his favored family. His first +volume was called "Le fiale" ("The Honeycomb"), the next "Armonia in +Grigio ed in Silenzio" ("Harmony in Gray and in Silence"). They were +truly juvenile. The third volume, "Fuochi d'Artifizio" ("Fireworks"), +showed the influence of Rodenbach, of James, and of the modern French +school. + +In 1907 he published "Aborti," which showed his mental growth and which +is one of his best even to the present time. + +In 1911 he issued a volume entitled "Electric Poetry" ("Poesie +elettriche"), whose futurist cover was the only futuristic feature it +had. There is no humming, puffing, whirring to convey that +steam-and-gasoline-engine modernity which it should have in order to +justify the name. Its lines are too refined, too pussy-foot, too +pathetic, too tender-minded for that. Were it not for the perfect +equality of the sexes to-day we would be tempted to say they had a +feminine quality. Daintiness does not express it; neither does unvirile. + +There is none of this quality in his next production--the "Hymn on the +Death of Sergio." "Neve" ("The Snow") appeared in 1914; "Rarefazione" +("Rarefactions") in 1915. The latter is a weird collection of childish +figures designed by the poet and commented upon by him to such effect as +to demonstrate a state of latent infantilism. In the same year he +published a volume entitled "The Inauguration of the Spring" +("L'Inaugurazione della Primavera"), which contains most of Govoni's +best work in poems. His last book, a series of short stories, "La Santa +Verde" ("The Ardent Saint"), adds nothing to his fame. Most of them are +insignificant, colorless, reliefless, purposeless. + +An attempt has been made by champions of Corrado Govoni to show that +"Base rivals, who true wit and merit hate" are forming a cabal to +prevent his getting his deserts. Fiumi, his last champion, does not +materially advance his claim. + +Such, in all their diversity, are the Futurists. There is no common +formula which describes them. They have a programme which, like that of +the Socialists, must from its very nature lack specificity. They are not +very definitely organized and many who enrolled under their banner in +the enthusiasm of youth soon deserted the cause. But meanwhile they got +sufficient inspiration and impetus to throw off the shackles of +tradition and to taste the pleasure of exploration. More often they get +purged of a kind of literary preciosity which makes for their well-being +and usefulness. The programme of the Futurist is of little importance in +itself, but it is of great importance as a symptom of tendencies now +agitating the minds of the younger generation in Italy. It may be that +their efforts will constitute the small end of the wedge by which +Romanticism and Verism shall be burst asunder like the Dragon of Bel's +Temple. + + + + +CHAPTER V + +GIOVANNI PAPINI AND THE FUTURISTIC LITERARY MOVEMENT IN ITALY + + +In one of his "Appreciations"--depreciations would be the more fitting +word--Signor Papini says he seems to have read or to have said that in +every man there are at least four men: the real man, the man he would +like to be, the man he thinks he is, and the man others think he is. He +is sure to have read it, for he has read widely. Undoubtedly he has also +said it, for he has made a specialty of saying things that have been +said before--even that he has said before. + +As for the man he thinks he is, he has written a long autobiography with +plentiful data, from which it may be deduced that he is a man with great +possibilities and a great mission, to wit, to precipitate in Italy a +spiritual revolution, to bring to his countrymen the gospel that it is +time to be up and doing and that intoxication with past successes will +not condone present inertness. He has been chosen to teach men that the +best of life is to be found in purposeful action regardless of +inconsistencies, contradictions, and imperfections; that the ego should +be guided peripherally not centrically; that introspection is the +stepping-stone to mental involution. In reality, he is but one of many +who are proclaiming those tidings in Italy. + +The distinction between what he would like to be and what he thinks he +is, is not so marked as in more timid and less articulate souls. +Substantially, it is this same calling of prophecy which is his aim. As +for the man he is, time and his own accomplishments alone will show. +Now, at the zenith of his creative power, he is still a man of promise, +a carrier-pigeon freighted with an important message who, instead of +delivering it, exhausts himself beating his wings in a luminous void. + +In Giovanni Papini these four aspects stand out very distinctly. Let us +take them up in inverse order, since what others think of a man is soon +stated and what he really is is a vague goal, to be approached only +distantly, even at the end of this paper. Mr. Reginald Turner says: +"Papini is by far the most interesting and most important living writer +of Italy. 'L'Uomo Finito' has become a classic in Italy; it is written +in the most distinguished Italian; it can be read again and again with +increasing profit and interest ... its Italian is impeccable and clear. +Mr. J. S. Barnes calls him the most notable personality on the stage of +Italian letters to-day," and Signor G. Prezzolini writes: "His mind is +so vast, so human, that it will win its way into the intellectual +patrimony of Europe." I cannot go all the way with these adherents of +Signor Papini. I have talked with scores of cultured Italians about his +writings and I have heard it said, "He has acquired an enviable mastery +of the Italian language," but I have never once heard praise of his +"impeccable and clear Italian"; nor do I hold with Mr. Barnes that he is +unquestionably the most notable personality save D'Annunzio on the stage +of Italian letters to-day. We would scarcely call Mr. Shaw the most +notable personality on the stage of English letters to-day. Surely it +would be an injustice to Mr. Kipling, Mr. Wells, and Mr. Conrad. It +might be unjust to Mr. Swinnerton. + +Signor Papini is an interesting literary figure, particularly as a sign +of the times. During the past generation there has been in Italy a +profound revolt against what may be called satisfaction with and +reverence for past performances and against slavish subscription to +French, German, and Russian realism. It is to a group of writers who +call themselves Futurists and who see in the designation praise rather +than opprobrium that this salutary, beneficial, and praiseworthy +movement is due. + +Signor Papini has publicly read himself out of the party, but apostasy +of one kind or another is almost as necessary to him as food, and most +people still regard him as a Futurist, though he refuses to subscribe to +the clause in the constitution of the literary Futurists of Italy +bearing on love, published by their monarch Signor Marinetti in that +classic of Futuristic literature "Zang Tumb Tumb" and in "Democrazia +Futurista." + +It is now twenty years since there appeared unheralded in Florence a +literary journal called the _Leonardo_, whose purpose in the main seemed +to be to overthrow certain philosophic and socialistic doctrines, +Positivism and Tolstoian ethics. The particularly noteworthy articles +were signed Gian Falco. It soon became known that the writer was one +Giovanni Papini, a contentious, self-confident youth of peculiarly +inquisitive turn of mind, and of sensitiveness bordering on the +pathological, an omnivorous reader, an aggressive debater. He was hailed +by a group of youthful literary enthusiastics as a man of promise. + +In the twenty years that have elapsed since then he has written more +than a score of books, short stories, essays, criticisms, poetry, +polemics, some of which, such as "L'Uomo Finito" ("The Played-Out Man"), +"Venti Quattro Cervelli" ("Twenty-four Minds"), and "Cento Pagine di +Poesia" ("One Hundred Pages of Poetry"), have been widely read in Italy +and have known several editions. Save for a few short stories, he has +not appeared in English, though there seems to be propaganda in his +behalf directed by himself and by his friends of his publishing-house in +Florence to make him known to foreigners. Like other Italian propaganda +it has not been very successful and this is to be regretted. It is due +in part to the fact his advocates have claimed too much for him. + +Signor Papini is like Mr. Arnold Bennett in that they both know the +reading public are personally interested in authors. From the beginning +he and his friends have capitalized his poverty of pulchritude and his +pulchritudinous poverty. Signor Giuseppe Prezzolini, in a book entitled +"Discorso su Giovanni Papini" has devoted several pages to his person, +which, he writes, "is like those pears, coarse to the touch but sweet to +the palate," yet I am moved to say that the eye long habituated to +resting lovingly upon somatic beauty does not blink nor is it pained +when it rests upon Giovanni Papini. + +In one of his latest books--it is never safe to say which is really his +last, unless you stand outside the door of the bindery of _La Voce_--in +one of his latest books, entitled "Testimonials," the third series of +"Twenty-four Brains," he reverts to this, and says that his person is +"so repugnant that Mirabeau, world-famed for his ugliness, was compared +with him an Apollo." + +He does not get the same exquisite pleasure from deriding his qualities +of soul, but, as the face is the mirror of the soul, no one is +astonished to learn that "this same Papini is the gangster of +literature, the tough of journalism, the Barabbas of art, the dwarf of +philosophy, the straddler of politics, and the Apache of culture and +learning." Nevertheless, no prudent, sensitive man should permit himself +to say this or anything approximating it in Papini's hearing, for not +only has he a card index of substantives that convey derogation, but he +has perhaps the fullest arsenal of adjectives in Italy, and has +habituated himself to the use of them, both with and without +provocation. + +I have been told by his schoolmates and by those whom he later essayed +to teach that as a youth he was inquisitive about the nature of things +and objects susceptible to physical and chemical explanation. His +writings indicate that his real seduction was conditioned by philosophic +questions. Early in life he displayed a symptom which is common to many +psychopaths--an uncontrollable desire to read philosophical writers +beyond their comprehension. In the twenty years that he has been +publishing books he has constantly returned to this practice, as shown +by his "Twilight of the Philosophers," "The Other Half," and +"Pragmatism." + +His first articles in the _Leonardo_, which now make up the volume known +as "Il Tragico Quotidiano e il Pilota Cieco" ("The Tragedy of Every Day +and the Blind Pilot"), are sketches and fantasies of a personal kind, +some of them fanciful and charming, some with a touch of inspired +extravagance that recall Baudelaire and Poe, and faintly echo Oscar +Wilde's "Bells and Pomegranates," Dostoievsky's "Poor People," and +Leonida Andreieff's "Little Angel." Some of the stories have a weird +touch. Others are founded in obsession that form the ancillæ of +psychopathy. Take, for instance, the man with a feeling of unreality who +did not really exist in flesh and blood but was only a figure in the +dream of some one else, and who felt that he would be vivified if only +he could find the sleeper and arouse him. This idea is not of infrequent +occurrence in that strange disorder, dementia precox; take again the man +who found his life dull and who covenanted with a novelist to do his +bidding in exchange for being made an interesting character; and the two +men who changed souls; and the talks with the devil interpreting +scripture. All these awaken an echo in the reader's mind of either +having been heard before or they bring the hope that they never will be +heard again. + +Although his early writings had an arresting quality, it was not until +he undertook to edit some Italian classics published under the title of +"I Nostri Scrittori" ("Our Writers") that they began to take on the +features that have since become characteristic and which have been +described by his admirers as "rugged, vigorous, virile, rich, +neologistic," and everything else the antithesis of pussy-foot. This +feature, if feature it can be called, showed itself first in "L'Uomo +Finito," a book which is admitted to be an autobiography. It introduces +us to an ugly, sensitive, introspective, mentally prehensile child of +shut-in personality who is not only egocentric at seven but who loves +and exalts himself and despises and disparages others. + +This unlovable child with an insatiate appetite for information found +his way to a public library and determined to write an encyclopædia of +all knowledge. His juvenile frenzy came its first cropper when he +reached the letter "B," and he was submerged with the Bible and with +God. The task was too big, he had to admit, but his ambition to +accomplish some great and thorough piece of work was undaunted. He began +a compendium of religions, then of literature, and last of the Romance +languages. + +These successive attempts at completeness are typical of Papini's +far-reaching ambitions. "The Played-Out Man" is a record of his plunge +into one absorption after another. He discovered evil, and planned not +only individual suicide but suicide of the people _en masse_. Next came +the desire for love. His instincts were of a sort not to be satisfied by +the conventional sweetness of "I Promessi Sposi," but from Poe, Walt +Whitman, Baudelaire, Flaubert, Dostoievsky, and Anatole France he got a +vicarious appeasement of the sentiment he craved. Then he encountered +"dear Julian." "We never kissed each other and we never cried together," +but he could not forgive Julian for allowing his friend to learn of his +matrimony only through the _Corriere della Sera_. + +The brief emotional episode past, Papini's life interest swung back to +philosophy. He discovered Monism, and believed it like a religion. Then +Kant became his ideal, then Berkeley, Mill, Plato, Locke, culminating in +the glorified egotism of Max Stirner. After Stirner philosophy has no +more to say. Down with it all! It is necessary to liberate the world +from the yoke of these mumblers, just as Papini has liberated himself. +But how to do it! Ah, yes! Found a journal that will purge the world of +its sins, as the Great Revolution purged France of royalty. + +Thus Papini's literary work had its beginning. It takes several +tempestuous chapters of the autobiography to describe the launching of +the _Leonardo_ by himself and a few congenial souls. Nine numbers marked +the limit of its really vigorous life, but it ran, with Papini as its +chief source of material, for five years. Ultimately, with the +dissipation of the author's youthful energy, this child of his bosom had +to be interred. But Papini still goes to its grave. + +The tumultuous, introspective life of the author continued. He went +through a period of self-pity and neurasthenia, then one of intense +hero-worship directed toward all radicals, including William James, whom +he had once seen washing his neck. Then came an immense desire for +action, hindered, however, by the fact that the author could not decide +whether to found a school of philosophy, become the prophet of a +religion, or go into politics. His only inherent conviction concerns the +stupidity of the world and his own calling to rise above it. This long, +internal history ends with a period of sweeping depression, out of which +the author at last emerges with the intense conviction that he is not, +after all, played out, that there is still matter in him to give the +world. He feels welling up within him a stream of arrogance and +self-confidence that is not to be dammed. He has not yet delivered his +message; people have not yet understood him. + + "They cannot grasp it, cannot bear to listen. + The thing I have to tell, unthought before, + Demands another language." + +So he goes back to the market-place of Florence, shouting: "I have not +finished. I am not played out. You shall see." And it is at this stage +that Signor Papini's work now stands. We wait to see. + +The "L'Uomo Finito" is Signor Papini's G. P. No. 2. It is not fiction in +the ordinary use of the term; any more than "Undying Fire" of Mr. Wells +is. In a measure it is fiction like "The Way with All Flesh" of Samuel +Butler. But in point of interest and workmanship it is far inferior to +the former and in purposefulness, character delineation, orientation, +resurrection, and reform it is not to be compared with the latter. + +Although it is the book by which Signor Papini is best known, it is not +his love-child. "The Twilight of the Philosophers" is. He is proud to +call it his intellectual biography, but it would be much truer to call +it an index of his emotional equation. "This is not a book of good +faith. It is a book of passion, therefore of injustice, an unequal book, +partisan, without scruples, violent, contradictory, unsolid, like all +books of those who love and hate and are not ashamed of their love or +their hatred." This is the introductory paragraph of the original +preface. + +In reality it is a cross between a philosophic treatise and a popular +polemic, with the technical abstruseness of the one and the passion of +the other, and its purpose is to show that all philosophy is vain and +should make way for action. Although it indicates wide and attentive +reading and a certain erudition, the only indication of constructive +thought that it reveals is a rudimentary attempt to adjust the +philosophic system of each man to the temperamental bias of the author. +Others, Santayana for instance, have done this so much better that there +is scarcely justification for his pride. He could have carried his point +quite as successfully by stating it as by laboring it through a whole +volume devoted largely to railing both at philosophers and at their +philosophy. + +From the point of view of the philosopher this book is "popular." From +the standpoint of the people it is "philosophical." It is really a +testimonial to the author's breathless state of emotional unrest. He is +like a bird in a cage and he feels that he must beat down the barriers +in order to accomplish freedom, but when they are fractured and he is +apparently free there is no sense of liberation. He is in a far more +secure prison than he was before, and to make matters worse he cannot +now distinguish the barriers that obstacle his freedom. The wonder is +not that a man of the temperament and intellectual endowment of Signor +Papini has this feeling, but that he can convince himself that any one +else should be interested in his discovery. + +He that hath knowledge spareth his words, and the mistake is to consider +words linked up as subject, predicate, and object, especially if the +substantives are qualified by lurid adjectives, the equivalent of +knowledge. He knows the "ars scrivendi" as Aspasia knew the "ars +amandi"; Papini knows the value of symbolic, eye-arresting, suggestive +titles. He realizes the importance of overstatement and of exaggerated +emphasis; he is cognizant of the insatiateness of the average human +being for gossip and particularly gossip about the great; he recognizes +that there is no more successful way of flattering the mediocre than by +pointing out to him the shortcomings of the gods, for thus does he +identify their possessions with his own and convince himself that he +also is a god. Papini's sensitive soul whispers to him that the majority +of people will think him brave, courageous, valorous, resolute, +virtuous, and firm if he will adopt a certain pose, a certain manner, a +certain swagger that will convey his grim determination to carry his +mission to the world though it takes his last breath, the last glow of +his mortal soul. + +"They wished me to be a poet; here, therefore, is a little poetry," is +the opening line of his book called "Cento Pagine di Poesia," and this, +though not in verse, is characterized by such imaginative beauty, more +in language, however, than in thought, that it is worthy to be called a +poem. More than any other of his books it reveals the real Papini. Here +he is less truculent, less Nietzschian, less self-conscious of +understudying and attempting to act the parts of Jove. He is more like +the Papini that he is by nature, and therefore more human, more kind and +gentle--would I could add modest--more potent and convincing, than in +any of his other books. It is especially in the third part, under the +general title of "Precipitations," that the author gives the freest rein +to his fantasy and is not always endeavoring to explain or tell the +reason why, but abandons himself to the production of words which will +present rhythmically the emotions that are springing up within him. It +is difficult to believe that the same hand penned these poems and the +open letter to Anatole France beginning: "In these days Anatole France +is in Rome, and perhaps returning he will stop in Florence, but I beg +him fervently not to seek me out. I could not receive him." That quality +of delusion of grandeur I have seen heretofore only in victims of a +terrible disease. + +Signor Papini is never so transparent as he is in his "Stroncatura" and +in his excursions into the realm of philosophy. His attack on Nietzsche +is most illuminating. In fact, Giovanni Papini is Frederick Nietzsche +viewed through an inverted telescope. "Nietzsche's volubility +(indication of easy fatigue) makes him prefer the fragmentary and +aphoristic style of expression; his incapacity to select from all that +which he has thought and written leads him to publish a quantity of +useless and repeated thought; his reluctance to synthetize, to +construct, to organize, which gives to his books an air of oriental +stuff, a mixture of old rags and of precious drapery, jumbled up without +order, are the best arguments for imputing to him a deficiency of +imperial mentality, a reflex of the general weakness of philosophy. But +the most unexpected proof of this weakness consists in his incapacity to +be truly and authentically original. The highest and most difficult +forms of originality are certainly these two: to find new interpretation +and solution of old problems, to pose new problems and to open streets +absolutely unknown." + +No one can examine closely the writings of Signor Papini without +recognizing that he has shown himself incapable of selecting from that +which he has written and thought and of setting it forth as a statement +of his philosophy or as an Apologia pro Sua Vita. Constant republication +of the same statements and the same ideas dressed up with different +synonyms is a charge that can be brought with justice. It can be +substantiated not only by his books but by _La Vraie Italie_, an organ +of intellectual liaison between Italy and other countries directed by +Signor Papini, which had a brief existence in 1919, a considerable +portion of which was taken up with republication of the old writings of +the director. + +Even the most intemperate of his admirers would scarcely contend that he +merits being called original, judged by his own standards. At one time +in his life Nietzsche was undoubtedly his idol, and I can think of the +juvenile Papini No. 3 suggesting that he model himself after the +Teutonic descendant of Pasiphae and the bull of Poseidon. Thus did he +appease his morbid sensitiveness and soothe his pathological erethism by +enveloping himself in an armor made up of rude and uncouth words, of +sentiment and of disparagement; of raillery against piety, reverence, +and faith; of contempt for tradition. In fact, he seemed equipped with a +special apparatus for pulling roots founded in the tender emotions. He +would pretend that he is superior to the ordinary mortal to whom love in +its various display, sentiment in its manifold presentations, dependence +upon others in its countless aspects are as essential to happiness as +the breath of the nostrils is essential to life. In secret, however, he +is not only dependent upon it, he is beholden to it. + +When he assumes his most callous and indifferent air, when he is least +cognizant of the sensitiveness of others, when in brief he is speaking +of his fellow countrymen, Signore D'Annunzio, Mazzoni, Bertacchi, Croce, +and up until recently when he speaks of God or religion, he reminds me +of that extraordinary and inexplicable type of individual whom we have +had "in our midst" since time immemorial, but who had greater vogue in +the time of Petronius than he has to-day. + +Although the majority of these persons are _au fond_ proud of their +endowment, the world at large scoffs at them; and in primitive countries +such as our own it kicks at them; therefore they are quick to see the +advantage of assuming an air of crass indifference and, with the swagger +of the social corsair, to express a brutal insensitiveness to the +æsthetic and the hedonistic to which in reality they vibrate. They never +deceive themselves, and Signor Papini does not deceive himself. He knows +his limitations, and the greatest of them are that he is timid, lacking +in imagination, in sense of humor, and in originality. He is as +dependent upon love as a baby is upon its bottle. + +When writing about himself he hopes the reader will identify him only +with the characters whose thoughts and actions are flattering, but the +real man is to be identified with some of the characters whom he desires +his public to think fictitious. In one of his short stories he narrates +a visit to a world-famed literary man. He describes his trip to the +remote city that he may lay the modest wreath plated from the pride of +his mind and his heart at the feet of his idol. He finds him a +commonplace, almost undifferentiated lump of clay with a more +commonplace, slatternly wife and even more hopelessly commonplace +children. His repute is dependent wholly upon the skill with which he +manipulates a card index and pigeon-holes. Papini fled to escape +contemplation of himself and the fragments of the sacred vessel. + +Signor Papini has been an omnivorous reader along certain lines; he has +been a tireless writer, and he is notorious for his neologistic +logorrhea, but the possession which stands in closest relation to his +literary reputation is his indexed collection of words, phrases, and +sentences. This, plus knowing by heart the poetry of Carducci, and his +envy of Benedetto Croce for having obtained the repute of being one of +the most fertile philosophic minds of his age, and his advocacy of the +gospel of strenuousness, is the framework upon which he has ensheathed +his house of letters. + +No study of the man or of his work can neglect one aspect of his +career--his constant change of position. He knocks with breathless +anxiety at the door of some new world, and no sooner does he secure +entrance and see the pleasant valley of Hinnom than he feels the lure of +black Gehenna and is seized with an uncontrollable desire to explore it. +When he returns he hastens to the public forum and announces his +discoveries, preferring to tell of the gewgaws which he discovered than +to expatiate on the few jewels which he gathered. + +His last production augurs well for him, because it indicates that +finally he will bathe in the pool of the five porches at Jerusalem, the +World War having troubled its water instead of an angel. November 30, +1919, he published in the most widely circulated and influential +newspaper of Central Italy, the _Resto del Carlino_, an article entitled +"Amore e Morte" ("Love and Death"), which sets forth that he has had +that experience which the Christian calls "seeing a great light, knowing +a spiritual reincarnation," and which those whom Papini has been +supposed to represent call a pitiable defalcation, a spiritual +bankruptcy. + +On February 21, 1913, he proclaimed in the Costanzi Theatre of Rome that +"in order to reach his power man must throw off religious faith, not +only Christianity or Catholicism, but all mystic, spiritualistic, +theosophic faiths and beliefs." Now he has discovered Jesus. In his +literary ruminations he has come upon the gospels of Matthew, Mark, +Luke, and John, which set forth the purpose and teachings of our Lord +and which have convinced countless living and dead of His divinity. We +must forswear egocentrism; we must stop making obeisance to materialism; +we must cease striving for success, comfort, or power. Such efforts led +to the massacre of yesterday, to the agony of to-day, and are +conditioning our eternal perdition. Salvation is within ourselves, the +Kingdom of Heaven is within our hearts, he who seeks it without is a +blind man led by a blind guide. The road over which we must travel is +bordered on either side by seductive pastures from which gush +life-giving springs, topped with luxurious trees of soul-satisfying +color that protect from the blazing sun or the congealing wind, and on +either side are pathways so softly cushioned that even the most tender +feet may tread them without fear of wound or blister. The sign-posts to +this road are the four little volumes written two thousand years ago. + +No one unfamiliar with that strange disorder of the mind called the +manic depressive psychosis can fully understand Signor Papini. There is +no one more sane and businesslike than the former Futurist, yet the +reactions of his supersensitive nature have some similarity with this +mental condition present, in embryo, in many people. In that mysterious +malady there is a period of emotional, physical, and intellectual +activity that surmounts every obstacle, brushes aside every barrier, +leaps over every hurdle. During its dominancy the victim respects +neither law not convention; the goal is his only object. He doesn't +always know where he is going and he isn't concerned with it; he is +concerned only with going. When the spectator sees the road over which +he has travelled on his winged horse he finds it littered with the +débris that Pegasus has trampled upon and crushed. + +This period of hyperactivity is invariably followed by a time of +depression, of inadequacy, of emotional barrenness, of intellectual +sterility, of physical impotency, of spiritual frigidity. The sun from +which the body and the soul have had their warmth and their glow falls +below the horizon of the unfortunate's existence and he senses the +terrors of the dark and the rigidity of beginning congelation. Then, +when hope and warmth have all but gone and only life, mere life without +color or emotion remains, and the necessity of living forever in a world +perpetually enshrouded in darkness with no differentiation in the débris +remaining after the tornado, then the sun gradually peeps up, +illuminates, warms, revives, fructifies the earth, and the sufferer +becomes normal--normal save in the moments or hours of fear when he +contemplates having again to brave the hurricane or to breast the +deluge. But once the wind begins to blow with a velocity that bespeaks +the readvent of the tornado, he throws off inhibition and goes out in +the open, holds up the torch that shall light the whole world, and with +his megaphone from the top of Helicon shouts: "This way to the +revolution." + +In a relative sense, this is the mode of Signor Papini. He is fascinated +by the beauty and perfections of an individual or of a school and he +will enroll himself a member, but before he gets thoroughly initiated he +gets word of another individual or another school which must be +investigated. In the intoxication he defames and often slays his +previous mistress. Thus his whole life has been given to the task of +discovering a new philosophy, a new poetry, a new romance, a new +prophecy, and their makers. In the ecstasy of discovery he cannot resist +smashing the idol of yesterday that his pedestal may be free for the +more worthy one of to-day, and he cannot inhibit the impulse to rush off +to the composing-rooms of _La Voce_ to register his emotions in print. + +In his desire to be famous he reminds one of those individuals who would +be liked by every one, and who will do anything save cease making the +effort. Pretending that he loves to have people hate him, he does not, +but he would rather have hate and disparagement than indifference or +neglect. He desires power, that unattainable he will be satisfied with +notoriety. He does not agree with a fellow poet that + + "On stepping stones we reach to higher dreams, + And ever high and higher must we climb, + Casting aside our burdens as we go, + Till we have reached the mountain-tops sublime, + Where purged from care and dross the free winds flow." + +Were he a genius and at the same time had the industry that he has +displayed, he would be the equal of H. G. Wells, possibly the peer of +Bernard Shaw, but he is neither. He is simply a clever, industrious, +versatile, sensitive, emotional man of forty, whose mental juvenility +tends to cling to him. He has so long habituated himself to +overestimation and his admiring friends have been so injudicious in +praising his productions for qualities which they do not possess and +neglecting praiseworthy qualities which they do possess, that he is like +an object under a magnifying-glass out of focus. + +But, as Papini himself says, he has not finished. He is still +comparatively a young man and the world awaits his accomplishment. If +the function he has chosen is that of agitation rather than +construction, of preparation rather than of building, he cannot be +totally condemned for that. His environment is in a condition where much +destruction is necessary before anything real can be evolved. And as the +apostle of this destruction Papini must be accepted. He stands as a +prophet, "the voice of one crying in the wilderness, 'Prepare ye the +way--'"; and the generations will show whether it is indeed a highway he +has opened. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +TWO NOISY ITALIAN SCHOOLMASTERS + + +The most diverting and conspicuous figures in the literary world of +Italy to-day are two old school-teachers, Alfredo Panzini, humanist, and +Luigi Pirandello, satirist. Both of them have earned a permanent fame +and their fecundity seems to be increasing with age. + +Alfredo Panzini, a pedagogue by profession, is a writer by dint of long +training. Born in Senigaglia, a small town in the Province of Ancona, in +1863, he called Carducci master. After serving a long literary +apprenticeship compiling grammars, readers, dictionaries, anthologies, +his name began to appear in journals and magazines, and gradually he has +forged his way to the front rank as an episodist, an interpreter of the +feelings and sentiments of the average man and woman and their +spokesman, and as a master of prose. + +In appearance he is a typical lower middle-class Italian, short, stout, +and ruddy, a kindly, benevolent face, with contented eyes that look at +you uninquiringly from behind gold-rimmed spectacles. One might gather +from looking at him that he had asked but little from the world and got +more than he asked. + +His writings display an intimate familiarity with a few classic writers, +especially of Greece and Italy, which he reveals by frequent and +appropriate quotations and references, contrasting the sayings and +doings of the venerated ancients with those of the not always deprecated +modern. He knows the emotional desires and reactions of the average man; +he senses his aspirations and his appeasements; he has keen +understanding of his virtues and his infirmities. He knows his potential +and actual pleasures, and he reveals this understanding of his fellows +to us in a diverting and instructive way and at the same time shows us +idealistic vistas of life and conduct that are most refreshing. It is to +be regretted that he is not equally enlightened about women. If he knows +their aspirations he denies the legitimacy of them; if he discerns their +future he refuses to forecast it; if he knows feminine psychology his +writings do not reveal it. He is the traveller ascending from the plains +whose pleasure is in looking backward to survey the paths over which he +has travelled, to describe the beauty of the country and its +associations, and to moralize about them. Elevations in front of him +from which one may legitimately anticipate more comprehensive vistas he +refuses to consider, or, if constrained to do so, denies that what shall +be seen from them will compare with what he sees and has seen. + +His two most successful and commendable books are "La Lanterna di +Diogene" ("Diogenes' Lantern") and "Xantippe." The first is a narrative +of sentimental wandering in which he describes the commonplace world and +the homely conflict of those whom he encounters, and in which he +displays not only tolerance, but love of his fellow men. He is sometimes +playful, more often ironical, but never disparaging or vituperative, and +his prose is clear, limpid--sometimes, indeed, sparkling. + +His "Xantippe" does not deal particularly with the virtues or +infirmities of that renowned shrew. It recounts many incidents in the +life, trial, and incarceration of Socrates which, while still redounding +to his fame, are made to show by contrasting them with man's conduct and +customs to-day the weaknesses, inconsistencies, and fallacies of many +conventions of the twentieth century. + +"Il Viaggio di un Povero Letterato" ("The Wanderings of a Poor Writer") +shows the same simple-minded, charming vagabondage as "Diogenes' +Lantern." It was published in 1912, when many readers did not share his +distrust of Germany or hold with him in his forecasts. Many of his +statements are to-day prophecies fulfilled. + +It is not an imaginary man of letters who starts on a trip in obedience +to a doctor's orders. It is Alfredo Panzini, exhausted from many labors. +He goes wherever his fancy takes him, to Vicenza, Bologna, Pisa, Venice, +and it is with the literary memories of these places that he is chiefly +concerned. At Pisa it is Leopardi, Shelley, and Byron; at Vicenza, +Fogazzaro; but at Bologna the memories become more personal. Here he sat +at the feet of Carducci and learned to love and respect him; here his +budding fancies first showed indications of blooming; here he first +essayed amatory flights. He chances upon an old flame of his student +days leading the old life in the old home, except that she had taken to +writing poems and insists on having his opinion of them. His account of +how he succeeded in meeting her wishes and still maintained his +self-respect is a masterpiece of ingenuousness. The least thing suffices +to start a train of thought and reflection or to decide his next +tarrying-place. The volume ends with an interesting account of a visit +to the birthplace of Pascoli, the socialist and idealist poet of the +Romagna. + +In his "Piccole Storie del Mondo Grande" he describes a pilgrimage to +the country of Leopardi, and to Umbria. It is filled with little +anecdotes of literary immortals who wandered there, and of references +that are more significant to Italians than to foreigners, and through it +all there is a strange, melancholy humor which is quite characteristic +of Panzini. + +The two novels which he has written show that he has the art of the +story-teller in narration, sequence, and constructiveness, but they lack +what the dramatists call action. "Io Cerco Moglie" ("I Seek a Wife") is +his best work. Ginetto Sconer, who oozes prosperity and +self-satisfaction, proceeds in a businesslike way to select a wife. He +consults a pastry-cook and a doctor, to the great glee of the reader. He +sees women in three categories: those who presume to disturb the dreams +of anchorites and are still men's pleasure and despair; the aristocratic +blue-stocking; and the domestic paragon. He had not contemplated +marrying a blue-stocking or even aspiring to blue blood, but when he +meets Countess Ghiselda he realizes that ambition expands with amatory +awakement. Her freedom is handicapped by the attentions of a Futuristic +poet whose intellectual productions and antics are amusing to every one +save Cavaliere Sconer. He has peeps into spiritual and emotional vistas, +but he yields finally to the flesh-box and woos the daughter of the +woman who places a caramel in the mouth of her husband every morning +before he goes to his office. + +Signor Panzini knows the present-day Borghese, their thoughts, their +virtues, their absurdities, and their charm, and he has depicted them in +this book in the most interesting way. + +Signor Panzini is not what is called a feminist fan, and he utilizes +Ginetto Sconer, who is seeking the ideal mate, as a mouthpiece for his +own convictions and sentiments concerning women. Italy is likely to be +one of the last countries that will yield woman the freedom for +emotional and intellectual development to which she is entitled, and +when it comes, as it is bound to do, it will be despite the kindly and +sentimental protests and ironies of such oppositionists as Signor +Panzini. + +"La Madonna di Mamà" ("The Madonna of Mamma") is, in addition to a +splendid character study, a revelation of the disturbance caused in a +gentle and meditative soul, his own, by the war. For, in reality, like +so many Italian writers, Panzini is autobiographical in everything that +he writes. In this book he has shown more insight of feminine psychology +than in any of his other writings, though he is more successful with +Donna Barberina, who represents modern Italian emotional repressions, +than with the English governess, Miss Edith, who forecasts in a timid +way what her countrywomen have obtained. Nevertheless, the strength of +the story is the evolution of the moral and intellectual nature of +Aquilino, to whom the reader is partial from the first page, and Count +Hypolyte, who is "too good to be true." Aquilino is what Alfredo Panzini +would have been had he encountered Conte Ippolito in his early youth. +The reader who makes his acquaintance identifies him with the future +glory of Italy, the type of youth who has no facilitation to success +save ideals and integrity. + +Many of his short stories--such as "Novelle d'Ambo i Sessi" ("Stories of +Both Sexes"), "Le Chicche di Noretta" ("The Gewgaws of Little +Nora")--have elicited great praise. To-day Panzini has the reputation of +being one of the most gifted writers of Italy. He has come to his +patrimony very slowly. Without being in the smallest way like George +Meredith or Henry James, his writings have experienced a reception +similar to theirs in so far as it has been said of them that they are +hard to understand. It is difficult for a foreigner to give weight to +this accusation. The reader who once gets a familiarity with them +becomes an enthusiast. To him Panzini is one of the most readable of all +Italian writers. To be sure, if one reads "Xantippe" it is to be +expected that more or less will be said about Socrates and about the +customs and habits of Athens of that day. The same is true of Diogenes +and his lantern. It is also likely that when a man of literary training +and taste wanders about the country, writing of his encounters, he will +be likely to write of people and things, which, when others read them, +will presuppose a certain culture, but the reader who has the misfortune +to lack it need not hesitate to read the books of Signor Panzini. He +will have a certain degree of it after he has read them and he will get +possessed of it without effort. It is not at all unlikely that Signor +Panzini writes his stories and novels in much the same way as he writes +his dictionaries, namely, laboriously. His later writings have some +indication of having been thrown off in a white heat of creative passion +without preparation or conscious premeditation, but most of his books +bear the hallmarks of careful planning, methodical execution, +painstaking revision, and careful survey after completion that the +writer may be sure that his creation exposed to the gaze and criticism +of his fellow beings shall be as perfect as he can make it both from his +own knowledge and from the knowledge of others assimilated and +integrated by him. + +The position which Panzini holds in the Italian world of letters to-day +is the index of the protest against the writings of D'Annunzio. Panzini +is sane, normal, human, gentle, kindly. He sees the facts of life as +they are; he fears the ascendancy of materialism; his hopes are that +man's evolutionary progress shall be spiritual, and he does not +anticipate the advent of a few supermen who shall administer the affairs +of the planet. + +Alfredo Panzini may finally get a place in Italian letters comparable to +that of Pascoli, and should his call to permanent happiness be delayed +until he has achieved the days allotted by the psalmist he is likely to +have the position in Italian letters which Joseph Conrad has in English +letters to-day. This statement is not tantamount to an admission that it +is to writers like Panzini that we are to look for new developments in +imaginative literature. They will be found rather amongst a group of +writers who are the very antithesis of him--the Futurists. + +The successor to the literary fame of Giacosa is Luigi Pirandello, +another schoolmaster. His earlier writings were cast as romances, but +latterly he has confined himself largely to stage-pieces which reflect +our moralities, satirize our conventions, and lampoon our hypocrisies. +His diction is idiomatic and telling. It reminds of de Maupassant and of +Bernard Shaw. Either he inherited an unusual capacity for verbal +expression or he has cultivated it assiduously. + +He is Panzini's junior by three years, having been born in Girgenti, +June 28, 1867. His father was an exporter of sulphur, and his early life +was spent amongst the simple, passionate, emotional, tradition-loving +people of southern Sicily. Unlike his fellow Sicilians, Verga and +Capuana, he has not utilized them to any considerable degree as the +mouthpiece of his satiric comments and reflections on social life. He +has taken the more sophisticated if less appealing people of northern +and central Italy, and puts them in situations from which they extricate +themselves or get themselves more hopelessly entangled for the reader's +amusement or edification. In his last comedy, "L'uomo, la Bestia, e la +Virtu" ("Man, Beast, and Virtue"), the scene is laid "in a city on the +sea, it doesn't matter where," yet the characters are typically +Sicilian. + +After graduating from the University of Rome, Pirandello studied at Bonn +and made some translations of Goethe's "Roman Elegies." Soon after he +returned to Rome he published a book of verse and a book of short +stories which made no particular stir. It was not until he published "Il +fu Mattia Pascal" ("The Late Mattias Pascal") that he obtained any real +success. Critics consider it still his best effort in the field of +romance. From the standpoint of construction it deserves the +commendation that it has received, but both the luck and the plans of +the hero are too successful to be veristic, and the eventuations of his +daily existence so far transcend ordinary experience that the reader +feels the profound improbability of it all and loses interest. One +pursues a novel that he may see the revelations of his own experiences +or what he might wish his experiences to be under certain circumstances. +When these circumstances get out of hand or when the events that +transpire are so improbable, or so antipathic, that the reader cannot +from his experience or imagination consider them likely or probable, +then the novel does not interest him. Moreover, the Anglo-Saxon reader, +unless he has lived in Italy, finds the flavor of many passages "too +high"--certain experiences are related in unnecessary detail. Like a +Cubist picture the charm and the beauty disappear in proportion with the +nearness with which it is viewed and the closeness with which it is +examined. + +In reality, Pirandello did not get his stride until he began to concern +himself with social and domestic problems, such as those depicted under +the title of "Maschere Nude" ("Naked Masks"). In the play "Il Piacere +dell' Onestà" ("The Pleasure of Honesty"), he pictures a new type of +ménage à trois: the "unhappy" husband in love with the mature daughter +of an aristocratic Philistine mother, who, when she must needs have a +husband for conventional satisfaction, appeals to a facile male cousin +who finds in a ne'er-do-well disciple of Descartes one who is willing to +act the part vicariously, the apparent quid pro quo being the payment of +his gambling debts. The hypocritical, bombastic lover; the sentimental +mother with a "family complex"; the anguishing, passionate daughter; the +suave, aristocratic male procurer, and finally he who was to be the +victim of the machinations of these experienced persons, but who proves +to be the victor because he plays the game in a way new to them--that +is, straight--each in turn delivers herself or himself of sentiments and +convictions that reveal the social hypocrisies and conventional lies +which form the scaffolding and supports of what is called "every-day +life," and give Pirandello an opportunity to display his irony, his +sarcasm, and his humor. The art of Pirandello is a subtle play of +paradoxes and analyses of motives which are second nature to persons +called complex, the result of inherited and acquired artificialities. To +get the full effect of these paradoxes and analyses the closest +attention of the reader and of the auditor is required, and as a matter +of fact Pirandello's comedies read much better than they play. Those who +know maintain that he has little capacity for stage technic, that he +knows nothing of the art of the stage. Hence his comedies have not had +the success of Giacosa and of Bracco. + +As human documents they depend upon their humor and veiled irony more +than upon any other qualities. The humor, which seems to be obtained by +simple means, is nearly always the result of an analysis so fine, so +subtle, that sometimes one loses track of the premises on which it is +founded. He compels the attention of his reader and he makes him think. +Without such attention and thought the subtleties of Pirandello often +escape the reader. Sometimes he labors a point almost to a tiresome +degree, for instance, in the play "Così è se vi pare" ("It's so if You +Think It's so"). The central point is the identity of a woman, which +would seem, to the average individual, could be established readily +beyond peradventure, but the point is--is there anything that can be +established beyond peradventure? Is there any such thing as literal +truth? Is not truth in reality synonymous with belief, individual or +collective, or both? Discussion of questions of this sort may become +very tiresome, but Pirandello has the art of mixing them up with human +weaknesses and human virtues which makes the mixture not only palatable +but appetizing. In his last comedies--"Il Giuoco delle Parti" ("Each One +Plays His Own Rôle") and "Ma non è una Cosa Seria" ("But It isn't a +Serious Matter")--he reverts to matrimonial tangles and attempts at +disentanglement, depicting in the former the "temperamental" woman who +gets what she wants, but who finds when she gets it she does not want +it, and the long-suffering husband who is discerning enough to know how +to handle her by conceding what she demands that he may get what he +should have. + +The man who usurps the conjugal privileges of the husband must also +discharge his obligations. So it transpires when his temperamental wife +has been insulted by some intoxicated gilded youths who by their conduct +in her house provoke a scandal in the neighborhood, it is necessary for +the _de facto_ husband to challenge the most aggressive of them to a +duel. During the excitement of the preparation the happy thought comes +to him to have the vicarious husband fight the duel. He does so and is +killed. The cause of all the trouble, the lady, is quite ignorant of +this arrangement and thinks the _de facto_ husband is battling with the +most invincible sword of the city and that he will get killed, which is +her desire. On returning to her house she finds her husband lunching as +if nothing unusual had happened. The dramatic climax soon comes when she +scornfully taunts him with having some one fight a duel for him and he +replies: "Not for me but for you." + +The play gives Pirandello the opportunity to display his knowledge of +the sentiments and passions of the modern "high life" individual. +Although they talk and act and express familiar sentiment in a way that +makes one think they are real people, in reality they are unreal. They +are taken from the author's imagination rather than from real life. + +The second comedy in this volume is much more meritorious than the +first. The author portrays characters who well might have existed in the +flesh. Gasparina, who has put twenty-seven years of continency behind +her and had achieved the direction of a second-class boarding-house, is +derided and maltreated by her "guests." The most swagger of her +boarders, who has been miraculously saved in a duel which followed a +broken engagement, has an original idea. He will make a mock marriage +with her and thus establish freedom from further love, annoyance, and +duels. She sees in the proposal escape from the boarding-house. In the +little villa of the country to which he sends her, under promise that +she is not to make herself evident and where he is not to visit her, she +blooms like a flower. In due course of time he falls in love again, and +in order that he may accomplish matrimony he must free himself from +Gasparina. This could be accomplished, as it never was consummated, but +the messenger, an old aspirant to her favor, is on the point of having +his aspirations realized when the husband in name only sees in Gasparina +the woman he really loves. The curtain falls at an opportune moment +before any hearts are broken or any blood is shed. + +It is one of the plays of Pirandello that has had considerable success +on the stage. + +He is in reality a finished workman, an accomplished stylist, a happy +colorist, and fecund withal. His most important of the stories are "Erma +bifronte" ("Deceitful Hermes"), "La Vita Nuda" ("Naked Life"), "La +Trappola" ("The Snare"), "E Domani ... lunedi" ("And +To-morrow--Monday"), "Un Cavallo Nella Luna" ("A Horse in the Moon"), +"Quand ero matto" ("When I was Crazy"), "Bianche e Nere" ("Blacks and +Whites"); his romances, in addition to the ones already mentioned, are +"I Vecchi e I Giovani" ("The Old and the Young"), and "Si Gira" ("One +Turns"), the most recent and poorest of them. + +It would be a mistake to convey the impression that Pirandello is +universally admired in Italy. His stories and romances have an +adventuresome quality that transcend ordinary experience, and his plays +attempt to dispense with theatricalness and to substitute for it a +subtle analysis of life with corrosive comment, both of which are very +much resented. + +It is strange that the Freudians have never explained the popularity of +plays and novels concerned wholly or largely with sexual relations that +infract convention and law as dominancy of the unconscious mind, a "wish +fulfilment" of the waking state. It may be assumed that three-fourths of +those who see and read them never have, and never contemplate (with +their conscious minds) having, similar experiences. They would be +scandalized were any one to assume that they approved such conduct. +Perhaps the explanation of the hold such literature has upon the public +is the same as the interest we have in the accounts of criminals seeking +to evade apprehension. It is not that we sympathize in any way with the +malefactor. We are lawmaking, law-abiding, law-upholding citizens, and +we know he ought not to escape, and, naturally, we hope he will be +caught. However, we cannot help thinking what we would do confronted +with his predicament. We feel that in his place we could circumvent the +sleuths and overcome what would be to the ordinary person insuperable +obstacles. Thus we divert ourselves imagining what we would do if we +were adulterous husbands, lecherous wives, lubricitous wooers, vicarious +spouses, while assuring ourselves we are not and could never be, and +plume ourselves that we could conduct ourselves even in nefariousness in +such a way as to escape detection or, if detected, to disarm criticism. +Meanwhile we enjoy being virtue-rewarded and vice-punished, for it is +only upon the stage or in books that it happens, save in exceptional +instances. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +IMPROVISIONAL ITALIAN LITERATURE OF TO-DAY AND YESTERDAY + + +I never fully appreciated how hazardous it is to speak of the literature +of a foreign country until I read an article in the _Tribuna_ of Rome, +signed Mario Vinciguerra, on Michaud's "Mystiques et Realistes +Anglo-Saxons," which seeks to disparage the originality of some of our +Transcendentalists, particularly Emerson, and to trace tendencies in our +literature. I hope that I may be more successful in reviewing some of +Italy's recent literature and in making an estimate of the merit of +those who are responsible for it than Signor Vinciguerra, who says the +two most potent romancers of living American writers are Jack London and +Upton Sinclair. At least I shall not say that Guido da Verona and +Salvator Gotta are the most potent romancers of Italy, and even I shall +not go so far as to say that Luciano Zuccoli is. Any writer who would +maintain that "Before the breaking out of the war the books that made +the greatest stir in the United States were Upton Sinclair's 'A Captain +of Industry,' 'The Jungle,' 'The Metropolis,' and Jack London's 'The +Iron Heel,'" would not write himself so hopelessly ignorant of American +literature as he would were he to claim that Harold Bell Wright and Rex +Beach were our leading novelists. Such contention would show either +unfamiliarity with our literature or dearth of understanding. + +Previous to the war there was no such pouring out of literature in Italy +as there was in England, and there were few writers of fiction whose +output or content could be compared with that of Mr. H. G. Wells, Mr. +Arnold Bennett, Mr. Hugh Walpole, Mr. Gilbert Cannan, Mr. Compton +Mackenzie, Mr. D. H. Lawrence, and others. D'Annunzio had long since +ceased to write romances. Matilda Serao was in the twilight of her years +and literary career. Grazia Deledda was displaying stereotypy and +Zuccoli reploughed the familiar acre. French fiction was the favorite +pabulum of the Italian who would kill time, dispel ennui, and combat +dearth. Since then, however, there has been a great change and there is +every indication that Italians will provide literature for their +countrymen which will at least obviate the necessity of importation. + +That it has not yet been accomplished, however, must be admitted in the +beginning. The young writers are like birds trying their wings, aerial +pilots striving for altitude tests. From their performances one is +justified in hoping, indeed believing, that they will go far and soar +high, but up to date Verga dominates the field of Italian fiction just +as Hardy dominates the field of English fiction. + +No reference to the literature of to-day should fail to take note of the +fact that much of the most important and suggestive fiction does not +appear in book form, or at least not for a long time, but in periodicals +such as the monthlies and quarterlies, and also in such publications as +_Novella_ and _Comoedia_. No one can gain a familiarity with the hundred +or more active writers of fiction in Italy who does not see and read +such publications. They lend themselves readily to brevity and to that +speeding up which the Futurists urge, and they tend to do away with the +long-drawn-out descriptions which are the despair of the average reader. + +Another feature of the newer literature which augurs well for it is that +its theme is not wholly portrayal of the genesic instinct and the +multiform perversions to which it has been subject by culture and which +Christianity has been unable materially to influence. We realize how +large the subject has bulked in the literature of every nation, but it +is probably not beyond the truth to say that it has bulked larger in the +modern literature of Italy even than of France. + +It is natural that recent literature has begun to occupy itself with the +conditions of the people and to display awareness of the new +significance that they are giving to the words liberty and equality, and +an attempt is being made to reconcile preaching and practising in their +bearings on life here and hereafter. + +The acceptable fiction of to-day will reflect in some measure the world +thought, or it will soothe man's cravings for assurance of future life +and strengthen his belief in it. It is idle to deny that the pitch of +man's thought to-day is materialistic, though his unconscious mind is +steeped in the mystic. Could we but teach future generations the +pleasure-potency of the imagination, we should give them an asset that +would enhance the usefulness and efficiency of their lives comparable to +health. But for some years at least there has been a mistaken notion +that the chief sources of pleasure are responding to the call of the +instincts, the fortuitous offerings of chance, and awaiting the day when +the vital sap will return from the branches of that universal tree upon +which we are the leaves to the trunk, that the spirit may be restored to +the Infinite. "Poor vaunt of life, indeed, were man but formed to feed +on joy, to solely seek and find and feast." + +Pedagogy has never concerned itself with our imaginative life. That is +left to endowment and to chance, which sometimes shows itself in the +shape of a literary critic. Fortunate, indeed, is the people or nation +that breeds competent critics, it matters not what field of activity +they cultivate, letters, science, or theology. Italy has had many such, +but there is a greater dearth of them now than ever before. With the +exception of Benedetto Croce there is perhaps no one of more than +national reputation. + +It is, perhaps, unwise to select from the considerable number of +present-day literary critics the names of a few, but I hazard it. Emilio +Cecchi, of the Rome _Tribuna_, is a versatile, scholarly writer, a +thoughtful, judicious estimator of his fellow writers' works, and a +critic who is not obsessed with the impulse that is supposed to dominate +a certain type of Irishman, namely, to hit a head whenever he sees it. +Giuseppe Prezzolini, who has been very intimate with the Florentine +group headed by Papini and who has written a critical estimate of his +writings and made a glowing statement of his personal charms, has a +sympathy and admiration for the writers of what may be called the new +school. That does not prevent him from being a keen observer, a logical +thinker with a judicious capacity to weigh the evidence presented by his +fellow writers in their claim for popularity and fame. He is a type of +literary man new to Italy, a keen critic, a clear thinker, a master of +literary expression who devotes much of his energy to his +publishing-house and to _La Voce_. His writings are chiefly political +and critical, "Il Sarto Spirituale" ("The Spiritual Tailor"), "L'Arte di +Persuadere" ("The Art of Persuading"), "Cos' è il Modernismo?" ("What is +Modernism?"). He has done more to introduce and bring forward the potent +group of young writers than any one in Italy. + +Lionello Fiumi, a young poet and critic, has published contributions +that are noteworthy, but he has given no real capacity to analyze +evidence, to sum it up, or to interpret it judiciously. His last effort +to prove that Corrado Giovi is the poetic sun of Italy to-day was anæmic +and feeble. The antithesis of him is Gherardo Marone, who thinks that +Futurism and anarchism are synonymous, but the agnostic in religion sees +no choice between Catholicism and Presbyterianism. He also maintains the +extraordinary position that a great poet must needs be a great thinker. +He is a very young man and his "Difesa di Dulcinea" ("Defense of +Dulcinea") gives promise that when he gets in his stride he will go near +the winning post. + +Vincenzo Cardarelli is a literary critic whose writings are +characterized by erudition, sympathy, understanding, and a sense of +responsibility. He has published a volume of poems entitled "Prologhi" +in line with the symbolist school of France, and especially Stephane +Mallarmé. + +Another critic who senses the trend of Italian literature and puts +correct interpretation upon it is G. A. Borghese. + +Two of the popular writers of fiction of to-day, Alfredo Panzini and +Luigi Pirandello, I have discussed in a separate chapter. + +Luciano Zuccoli is the most conspicuous and successful exponent in Italy +of the type of fiction which was thrown upon the world for the first +time now nearly two hundred years ago by Samuel Richardson, father of +the novel of sentimental analysis. Though Zuccoli has a score of novels +and romances to his credit, he would seem to be now at the height of his +fecundity. The literary school in Italy which is the outgrowth of the +Futuristic movement points the contemptuous finger at him and scoffs at +his productions, but he has, nevertheless, a large following and is a +writer of much skill. His success depends largely upon taking characters +of the Borghesia and exposing them to the ordinary incidents of life, +such as love, matrimony, war, politics, and then depicting what comes +"naturally" to some of the victims: disillusionment tugging at the leash +until it snaps the illicit splicing of it to another snapped leash (for +there is no divorce in Italy); conflict between patriotism and pacifism, +and between sentiment and idealism from a political, social, and +personal point of view. He has got far away from the simpler +delineations of his earlier books, such as "La Freccia nel Fianco" ("The +Arrow in the Flank"), in which the love of a sentimental girl of +eighteen for a boy of eight, the son of a most dissolute noble who tends +to follow in his father's footsteps, is featured, and the meticulous +discussion of the daily life of male and female sybarites, who have +chosen the smooth and easy road to destruction as it travels through +Italy's wickedest city, Milan, as in "Fortunato in Amore" and have come +to keep what might be called better company, the company of those whose +infraction of convention is conditioned more by environment than by +determination. + +"L'Amore non c'è più" ("There Is No More Love") and "Il Maleficio +occulto" ("Witchcraft") are other popular romances. + +Virgilio Brocchi is a similar writer, though his writings have never had +similar popularity. His most meritorious books have been "Mite" and "Le +Aquile." His later books, such as "Isola Sonante," show the author's +progress in literary craftsmanship. His last book, "Secondo il Cuor mio" +("According to My Heart"), shows that he has had his ear to the ground +and has noticed that the chariot labelled "Public Taste in Letters" is +being driven on a new road. There is a note of idealism in the conduct +of Gigi Leoni, the artist passionately devoted to his art, in love with +Merine Dialli, proud and rich; he refuses to accept her suggestion that +he relinquish his art and do something that will lead to material +success. After she has made a failure in matrimony with an army officer +and returns to the artist, Zuccoli succeeds in drawing with masterly +strokes the portrait of a real hero, who, when he perishes later on the +field of battle, excites unreservedly the admiration of his readers. In +reality it is a book in which passion, of life or of the senses, as it +sways an attractive man full of nobility and of dreams, is depicted in +the traditional idealistic manner. + +The Harold Bell Wright of Italian fiction is Guido Da Verona, and this +does Mr. Wright an injustice, for he has never written pornographically +and Signor Da Verona has rarely written otherwise. But he is Italy's +best-seller. It is depressing to think that really great romances, like +the "I Malavoglia" of Verga, stories such as Capuana's "Passa L'Amore," +or Renato Fucini's, or even Panzini's "La Madonna di Mamà," should have +a sale of only a few thousand copies, while books of the character of +"Mimi Bluette," the flower of Signor Da Verona's garden, should go up +toward the hundred-thousand mark. It is an index of the salaciousness of +the average person, whoever he may be. Any review of Italy's recent +literature must mention "The Woman Who Invented Love," "Life Begins +To-morrow," if for no other purpose than to show that there is a kind of +literature in every country which has a great popularity. In Belgium its +clientele is found in the prurient of other countries; in France the +"best people" do not read it or say they do not; in England the public +censor prohibits it; and we have Mr. Comstock and his successors. +"Madeline," which has recently cost its guiltless publisher a fine, is +"soft stuff" compared with "Mimi Bluette," and I doubt if Mr. George +Moore could revoke any memories of his dead life that could hold a +candle to some of Signor Da Verona's actual life. + +There is little to be said in favor of his books that could not be said +for narcotic-taking, gambling-hells, and underworld tango palaces. They +have a glamour about them and an aroma that appeals to the +feeble-minded, the inherently decadent, and the ennuyed idle. It is a +realism whose reality exists only in a mind made lubricitous by +cupidity. + +Marino Moretti is one of the young writers whose short stories and +romances have found much favor. There is an atmosphere of triviality, of +lightness, of inconsequentiality about his writings which is an +important part of his art. In reality he is a finished technician and an +artist with a wonderful mastery of perspective and of color, and a +commendable capacity for expression. His particular charm is that he +creates an atmosphere or a situation, but does not insist upon giving a +chemical analysis or physical description of either. When he takes you +to a drawing-room or to the bathing-beach at the fashionable hour he +does not insist on presenting you to every one or giving you a detailed +history of their lives and particularly of their amatory tidal waves. +Although he seems to give his clientele soft food, he does not insist on +spoon-feeding them. In the guise of pap he gives them often +thought-making pabulum. + +Some of his popular books are "Il Sole del Sabato" ("Saturday's Sun"), +"Guenda," "La Voce di Dio" ("The Voice of God"), and "Adamo ed Eva." + +Antonio Beltramelli is another writer who has studied literary form to +great purpose and with it he combines imaginative gifts of an +exceptional order. His earlier books, short stories entitled "Anna +Perena" and "I Primogeniti" ("First-born Sons"), were well received. He +has recently come back to similar presentations in "La Vigna +Vendemmiata" ("The Harvested Vineyard"), which while not revealing the +spiritual growth which his admirers expected from him, shows him, +nevertheless, to be a man of parts. His chief defect is his ignorance of +behavioristic psychology which is nowhere better shown than in this +collection of short stories, "La Madre," for instance. Moreover, it is +an ambitious writer who makes a story of these unromantic facts; a +stupid man with some of the characteristics of the ox and the rat is +married to a gross, slovenly creature who deceives him. A friendly +neighbor opens his eyes and he finds her and her paramour in the brake +and cane around the vineyard. On his way thence he encounters the parish +priest and asks him if one would be justified in meting out personal +punishment to such transgressors. "Perhaps yes, perhaps no" is the +reply. When he comes upon the guilty couple he kills the man with the +blow of a stick, then falls back upon the priest's words for +justification. + +"Gli Uomini Rossi" ("The Red Men") is his best-known romance. He has +read and still reads Cervantes and Rabelais. Had he the gift of artistic +presentation he might become a great novelist, but until now he has +confounded embellishment with natural beauty. + +Among the fiction that has appeared in Italy during the past year a few +books call for mention, not because of their intrinsic merit but because +it is indicative of the change that is going on in the minds of the +common people which reflects particularly the thought now being given to +social and psychological questions. + +The American reader of Italian fiction cannot fail to be impressed with +the poverty of subject-matter which it displays. This is explained +partly by the fact that it is sometimes biographical and very often +autobiographical--moreover, the family and social and religious customs +of Italy do not make for novelty or variety in individual life. The zone +in which all the details of existence is predetermined by convention +extends much farther with them both up and down the social scale than +with us. If man is independent of it to some extent woman is not, and +since there is no object in chronicling the obvious, popular Italian +fiction is apt to deal with excursions of man beyond his own circle and +class. Another thing that has to be kept in mind is the position of +women. The important woman in the life of the majority of Italians is +the mother, not the wife. She is on terms of equality with her son and +she retains much of the authority of the Roman matron in her children's +married life. This it need scarcely be said is changing with the eternal +flux of things. + +Italy of to-day is a very new country. Whenever we as a nation do +something which the Italians consider gauche or raw, and they are +obliged to dislocate an inherent politeness by mention of it, they +excuse us because we are so young. So one excuses an infant for some +verbal or conductual infraction. In reality we are about a century older +than Italy of to-day, and we have spent that time developing a "manner" +that reflects our protracted habituation to freedom. That it is +sometimes masked by arrogance and self-satisfaction is to be regretted. +Hence our indifference to convention which is often painful to the +foreigner. It is a mistake to think that it is only the upper classes of +Italy who are beholden to unwritten convention and customs. In truth, +subscription to them is more mandatory amongst the Borghesia and Il +Popolo. With the gradual dissemination and acceptation of the doctrines +of socialism, the equal rights of women, and the widening sphere of +culture through universal education, many of the shackling conventions +of to-day will disappear. The younger workers are blazing the way. Of +those who herald this change Mario Mariani must be heeded. In "La Casa +dell' Uomo" ("The House of Man"), he makes a satiric onslaught against +the amorous, avid of money and of pleasure, who are ready to sacrifice +every basic virtue in order to obtain them. After presenting a picture +of the present-day cages of human beings he tells his story through the +mouth and diary of the janitress of a modern apartment-house, who being +deprived by time of her pulchritude and sensuous appeal, has been +obliged to forego her chosen profession, that of Mrs. Warren, and to +gain her livelihood in the sweat of her brow. She has visions of a day +when she can no longer even do that, and yet must needs have food, +raiment, and shelter; so she keeps a diary which sets forth the +flagrancies of the tenants, men, women, and children. She does not admit +that the entries are the wythes of blackmail. She salves such conscience +as has survived her life of sin by assuring herself that the entries in +the book are to assuage literary growing pains. When Signor Mariani +obtained the documents by fabrication or by stealth he found himself in +possession of the "characters" of many individuals, young and old, who +present a strange similarity to those we encounter in daily life. He has +seen fit to publish them without saying whether it was art or bread that +was the incentive, and they constitute a serious charge against society. +The wonder is that if such things exist the social fabric conserves the +appearance of well-being. In truth, life is not a mask behind which the +wearer laughs, if this diary is to be believed. It is in reality a +tragedy made up of a tissue of hypocrisies, banalities, sordid +commonplaces, inimical to joy, subversive of pleasure, and destructive +of happiness. + +It is obvious that de Maupassant is the author's model. Despite a +certain vivacity of form, his tales are in substance very old-fashioned +and his characters are so sordid and sensual that their actions and +their fate from an artistic point of view fail to interest. + +In "Smorfia dell' anima" ("Grimaces of the Soul"), the central theme is +that all people who defy accepted morals are much more honest and happy +than those who hypocritically accept convention but do not conform to +the moral laws which underlie them. There is a certain amount of truth +in this view, but it will not stand too much insistence. + +Though Signor Mariani's books are not entitled to laudation, they, with +his commentual writing, encourage us to await the advent of his full +powers with a sincere belief that he will arrive in Italian letters. + +Gino Rocca is a young Milanese writer who has returned from the war with +ideas and capacity to express them. His novel "L'Uragano" is what is +popularly called powerful. It is the same old theme, love and adultery, +but it introduces what may be called new reactions. It is a story of a +young man who, "temperamentally unfit" to live in the refined and +shut-in atmosphere of his parental home, goes to Milan and does +successfully newspaper work while giving himself copiously to what is +called a life of sin. The picture of this life is one with which readers +of modern French fiction are familiar. Through the mediation of a +sympathetic aunt he encounters a lady burdened with an unworthy husband, +who makes such appeal to him that he abandons the gaming-table and the +underworld, but in such a way as to leave the impression that it would +have been only temporary had not the call to arms put them beyond his +reach. In the army and in the hospital, while idealizing his innamorata +he has experiences which show him the perfidy of the feminine human +heart. When he returns to Milan he realizes that even with his enriched +experience he is not yet the man who understands women, for he has yet +to learn of the inconstancy of her to whom he attributed all the +virtues. This discovery gives the writer an opportunity to depict a +profound emotional storm from which the novel gets its name and from +which the hero emerges a better man. + +There is nothing noteworthy in the book except its character +delineation. It is a novel in so far as it is an exact and complete +reproduction of social surroundings or environment, but photographs are +often spoiled by being colored. It shows the writer to have a mastery of +literary technic and an unusual capacity for expression. + +Another writer who has shown himself a master of verbal structure and +adept in the delineation of character, a student of psychological +reactions and facile artist of the environment in which they are +displayed, is Raffaele Calzini. His first short stories, "La Vedova +Scaltra" ("The Wary Widow"), published seven or eight years ago, were +hailed by some critics as the work of a writer of potential distinction. +They are coloristic or impressionistic stories. Although he has not yet +given proof that he will earn enduring fame, he is nevertheless one of +the most promising of the younger writers, and, although he is not +prolific, each succeeding publication has added to his fame. His last +contribution is a comedy entitled "Le Fedeltà" ("Fidelity"). + +I could not have better illustrations of the rôle played by +autobiography in modern fiction than two recent novels--one by Michele +Sapanaro, "Peccato" or "Six Months of Rustic Life"; the other by +Frederigo Tozzi, "Con gli Occhi Chiusi" ("With Closed Eyes"). The first +is a fresh, ingenuous book with a vein of romanticism which does not run +into great effusion or great amativeness, in which is depicted the +atmosphere, environment, and inhabitants of a small community in +southern Italy, whither the writer has gone to visit his peasant brother +and to recover from some of the wounds inflicted upon him in +transformation from peasant to "gentleman." It is undoubtedly an +elaborated, embellished chapter of the author's life. + +That "With Closed Eyes," a novel of provincial and peasant life in +Tuscany, is wholly autobiographical, we have the testimony of a fellow +Tuscan who says of Signor Tozzi that he first met him when he was a +waiter in his father's tavern. Lazy, slothful, unkempt, and of coarse +appearance, he had a passion for reading Angiolieri and Verlaine. He was +radical, socially and politically. After a colorless, misspent youth +beyond authority, parental or communal, he began newspaper work, the +stepping-stones of so many Italian writers of to-day. The discipline of +military life and the environment of Rome effected a change in his +outward appearance, and the composition of his book, "Bestie" +("Beasts"), which the church put on the Index, helped him spiritually. +"With Closed Eyes" is a narrative of his life, sordid, ugly, +commonplace, revealing, however, a gradual spiritual uplift and +refinement. It was not until the publication of "Tre Croci" that he was +much discussed. Competent critics such as Signor Borghese think that +Italy's most promising literary light was extinguished when Frederigo +Tozzi died in Rome, in March, 1920. His literary output was not great +for a man who had lived thirty-eight years, but it can truthfully be +said that each succeeding volume from his pen showed that he was likely +one day to be Verga's successor in the literary primacy of Italy. His +last romance, "Il Podere," ("The Farm,") has not yet appeared in book +form. + +One cannot always judge from first performances the potentialities of a +writer. A few years ago Rosso di San Secondo, a young Sicilian, +published "Io Commemoro Loletta" ("I Commemorate Loletta"), a series of +short stories which in substance and in workmanship showed not only no +talent but no promise of talent. In reality they seemed to show an +absence of artistic capacity, architectural ability, and literary taste. +A year later "La Bella Addormentata" ("The Sleeping Beauty"), a +coloristic, mystic drama, a strange mixture of Plotinus and Dionysius, +revealed real talent. + +The Sleeping Beauty, of infantile mind and facial pulchritude, formerly +a servant, yielded to the advances of a notary, the nephew of a senile, +implacable shrew, whose miserly savings he and his sister hoped to +inherit. After a few secure trips on the sliding-board of sensual +indulgence, the Sleeping Beauty shot to the bottom of the pit and became +the travelling harlot of a caravan which went from one country fair to +another. The more frequently she yielded the body the greater became her +spiritual detachment, until finally she lived in a world of unreality. +Becoming pregnant, the spiritual flame gradually lighted up in her, and +finally blazed under the ardent fanning of a new type of Lothario, Nero +of the Sulphur Mines, half knight, half jail-bird, but withal a romantic +and seductive figure. His flair for her was wholly spiritual. Not only +did he encourage her to renounce her life, but he insisted that she +return to the house of the notary. They go there and she charges him +with her interesting condition, even though three years have elapsed. +Water doesn't flow in the brook of the valley if there is no spring +higher up. The aunt who has sought in vain the opportunity to crush the +cringing hypocrite whose outward life had seemingly been one of virtue +and rigorous conventionalism, sees it now. She compels him to marry the +Sleeping Beauty. He becomes the butt of the taunts and derisions of the +community, juvenile and adult, especially after the child is born. The +strain is too much for him and he hangs himself when he realizes that +the dying aunt has left her money to the child of another and to the +church. + +From the moment the Sleeping Beauty felt a new life within her a +spiritual torch was lit in her soul, which illuminated the abyss into +which she had fallen to such purpose that she found her way out, with +the helping hand which Nero held out to her. Continuing to burn during +her gestation and delivery, it conditioned her spiritual resurrection +and the moral rehabilitation of Nero. The impression left in the mind of +the reader is that they live together happily forever after, the summum +bonum of earthly existence, because of the happiness that flows from it +and because it insures eternal repose in Paradise. Although the play was +received with groans and howls and shrieks of depreciation when it was +first given in Rome, nevertheless some of the eternal verities are +accentuated and carried home by Nero of the Mines and by the Sleeping +Beauty. + +I find greater difficulty in writing of recent Italian poetry than of +fiction. In the first place, I have not read it so extensively, and, in +the second, nearly every writer of fiction writes poetry as well. Some +of the young poets are discussed in the chapter on Futurists in +literature. Here I shall mention one or two others. Guido Gozzano, who +recently died, in his twenty-eighth year, was a prolific writer of +verse. It is confidently claimed by some critics that he earned the +distinction of being called Italy's most representative poet, the only +one since Pascoli and D'Annunzio who made a new vibration to the poetic +lyre and stamped verse with an individual conception which poetasters +have more or less accepted. But he suffered from hyperfecundity, and +many of his intellectual children are anæmic and rachitic. Even though +they are endowed with some feature of beauty their vitality is so slight +that no one wants to adopt them, and their parent being busy with the +creation of others, neglects them after having given them one passably +decent suit of clothes in the shape of book-form publications, so they +die. + +Guido Gozzano was a melancholy figure. From life he appeared to have got +only sadness. At twenty-five years it had deluged his soul. His true +infelicity was then of not being able even to be sad. Scarcely had he +entered youth before he felt old. He had no companions, he was often +ill; nothing appealed to him, not even poetry. Literary life resembled +death. He forsook the city for the country, and the novelty of it for a +while diverted him. But it was not for long. He vacillated between doing +nothing and dreaming, between contemplating the emptiness of a grotesque +reality and the nostalgia of an unreal life, felt but not seen. He was +never emotional, never exalted, never blasphemous. Nevertheless, he +would seem to have written incessantly. + +"Verso la Cuna del Mondo" ("Toward the Cradle of the World") consists of +the impressions of a voyage in India made in 1912 and 1913. "I Colloqui" +is a book of fables for children. In the "L'Altare del Passato" ("The +Altars of the Past") Gozzano takes as a rhythm the cry for the things +that were; the past arises anew in the intimacy of his feelings to tempt +him and to inspire him. It is the generous wine that he hopes will +intoxicate him and fill him with joy. Its effects are transitory. + +His last book, "L'Ultima Traccia" ("The Last Traces"), did not +materially enhance his reputation as a story-teller. The story called +"The Eyes of the Soul" is undoubtedly the best. A beautiful girl has to +live her betrothed days alone; her fiancé goes to the war. She contracts +smallpox, which disfigures her. When she is called to his bedside in the +hospital where he is lying wounded, perhaps dying, she is concerned what +his feelings will be when he sees her face. When she gets there he is +not mortally injured, he is blind. + +Francesco Chiesa has already differentiated himself from the writing +herd and his "Viali d'Oro" has had great popularity with the younger +generation of his country. His style, imagery, and masterful synthesis +is best seen in the volume entitled "Istorie e Favole," a collection of +short stories. + +Another young Italian writer who is likely to come to the fore is Piero +Jahier. He wrote the best war story, "Con mi e con gli Alpini." +"Ragazzo," a recent publication, shows him in an entirely different +light. + +Alfredo Bacceli was a young man of great promise in letters. His "Verso +la Morte" ("Toward Death"), showed clear vision, deep feeling, and +mastery of form. + +Some of the most conspicuous of the present-day poets of Italy are +Marradi, Pastonchi, Rapisardi, Siciliani, and Sindici. The first two are +lyric poets, the last two masters of form in addition. + +Luigi Siciliani, who became a member of Parliament in the last +elections, is the one of this group who is most likely to be remembered. +His "Canti perfetti," translations from the Greek, Latin, Portuguese, +and English, published in 1910, showed him to be not only a student but +a writer possessed of exquisite literary craftsmanship. He has written +novels, criticisms, anthologies, but the volume by which he is best +known is "Poesie per ridere," published in 1909. + +Francesco Meriano, one of the group of young literary Italians that are +known through the _Brigata_ of Bologna, and who published some years ago +a volume of Futuristic poetry entitled "Equatore Notturno," is the +author of a volume containing his lyric compositions of the past four +years, entitled "Croci di legno" ("Wooden Crosses"), which has been very +well received by the critics. + +In Marino Moretti's "Poesie" we encounter things which make us think of +the great poets--little perfections that much recent poetry almost no +longer knows, lucidity, subtle vision and modesty. If poetry is emotion +recollected in tranquillity some of these verses are real poetry. + +Alfredo de Bosis, translator of Shelley's Cenci and advocate of Walt +Whitman, is the author of many lyrical poems, some of which have been +highly praised. + +The three most prolific writers for the stage of yesterday in Italy are +Roberto Bracco, Sem Benelli, and Dario Niccodemi. They have all had much +success outside of their own country, and their names are well known to +readers and theatre-goers of our own country. They are now in the +fulness of their mature years, but with the exception of the latter none +has given evidence in recent productions of having sensed the change +that has taken place in the likings of the theatre-going public in +Italy. + +Signor Bracco, a Neapolitan approaching sixty years of age, has for the +past twenty years worn gracefully the mantle of Giacosa. His works have +been published in ten fat volumes averaging three plays to a volume, +mostly comedies. Of these the most important are "L'Infedele" ("The +Unfaithful Woman"), and "Il Trionfo" ("The Triumph"), both published in +1895. The best of his dramas are "Tragedie dell' Anima" ("The Tragedies +of the Soul") and "La Piccola Fonte" ("The Little Spring"), which +becomes the fount of life in inspiration for those with whom the heroine +comes in contact. The best of his tragedies is "Sperduti nel Buio" +("Lost in the Darkness"). This brief enumeration gives no idea of the +versatility of Signor Bracco, who in reality has depicted in his +twoscore plays the ravages of carnal love in peasant and prince, in maid +and in mistress, in priest and professor, in the underworld and in the +overworld, in the cradle and in the grave. + +Had the display of love and the passions that flow from it any confines, +they would encompass Signor Bracco's imagination. Although denied what +is called a scholastic education, he has studied science and philosophy, +literature and art, but always with one object in view: to learn what +human beings think and do when swayed by sexual passion. Not that +anything that he has written can be construed as exalting it or as +licensing it. On the contrary, the moral of the majority of his plays is +that continence, like virtue, is its own reward. Although Signor Bracco +would be the last to admit that he has not had an uplift motive in his +writings, it is difficult to discover it. Nor does he point the way that +will lead to avoidance of the suffering that flows, apparently with so +much directness, from social convention, from privilege, and from the +almost mediæval position of women in certain parts of Italy to-day. He +is a realist of realists in fiction, but he is like a physician who is +content to diagnose disease and leave to others its prevention and its +cure. + +A writer who dyes his products in Bracco's vat, then for contrast colors +them with Sardou and Dumas, which, exposed for sale in the market-place, +find avid purchasers and bring high prices, is Dario Niccodemi, whose +comedies, especially "Scampolo" ("The Remnant") and "L'Ombra" ("The +Shadow"), have had great success. In his last two books, "Il Titano" +("The Titan") and "Prete Pero" ("Priest Pero"), he gives evidence that +he is keenly discerning of the new social consciousness that has +developed in Italy apparently as the result of the war. "Prete Pero," +while depicting the subterfuges of the church to accomplish its ends and +the arguments that it uses to convince that the ends justify the means, +portrays one of those simple, faithful, honest, transparent souls, in +the shape of Father Bragio, who have been the pillars of the Roman +church which no Samson has ever been able to tear down. "I wrote 'Prete +Pero,'" he says, "as a journalist writes a series of articles or as a +speaker makes a series of conferences--for a general idea; but I have +had two, the first æsthetic, to sustain the principle that in Italy, as +in France and in England, and, indeed, in every country agonized by this +terrible war, one might make and make acceptably war comedies; second, +moral, to prove that it is permitted to say from the stage in verse or +in prose that which in the past four years has been said in journals, in +speeches, in conferences, in parliament and in committees, which is: in +the disorder of the social organization produced by the phenomena of war +there have been sublime heroes and brazen-faced cheats and swindlers." +"Prete Pero" showed that Signor Niccodemi has a nose for the favorite +perfume of the modern reader, just as his "L'Ombra" showed it when he +afflicted his heroine with hysterical paralysis and then cured her by +the method which Freud originally called the cathartic method. Dario +Niccodemi has not added materially to the dignity of Italian letters, +but he has amused and diverted his countrymen and ourselves, and for +that we are grateful. + +Sem Benelli, who has recently had political life thrust upon him is, in +common with many literary Jews in Italy, inclined to give himself a +certain mystery of origin by concealing his antecedents. In reality he +was born in 1877. Not only is he well known in Italy but in this +country, where one of his early plays, "La Cena delle Beffe" ("The +Supper of the Jests"), has had great success. He began his literary +career as a journalist on a Florentine review, _Marzocco_. His first +play was published when he was twenty-five years old. Although "La +Tignola" ("The Moth") showed unusual quality of construction and +contrasted with great force the artistic temperament with the world of +the big business, it was not until "La Cena delle Beffe" that he +arrived. + +His great forte is to be able to put melodrama of the most lurid kind +into verse, while depicting the lives and customs of the aristocracy of +the Renaissance, whose standard of morals and canons of conduct were so +unlike those of to-day. His heroes are always in search of revenge, his +women of adventure. In his "Le Nozze dei Centauri" ("The Marriage of the +Centaurs") he widens the field of his activity to display the conflict +of christian and barbarian, but again it is the same thing, adventure +and revenge. He does not trouble to be historically exact. It does not +matter to him whether his characters are true to life so long as they +are true to his conception of revengefulness. To accomplish his purpose +he often strikes a note that reminds of his ancestors of the Old +Testament. + +The leader of all the younger Italian writers in drama and tragedy is +Luigi Ercole Morselli, born at Pesaro in 1883. The commission nominated +by the Ministry of Instruction to decide the most meritorious dramatic +production of 1918 awarded the prize of six thousand lire to him. As a +youth he studied medicine and later letters in Florence, but he soon +deserted them and wandered in America and Africa. His first success, a +pagan theme entitled "Orione," was recognized by competent critics to +have originality and unusual dramatic qualities, but he was by way of +being forgotten when nearly ten years later, 1919, a mystic drama based +upon mythology, entitled "Glauco," appeared. It was produced in Rome and +was greeted with every manifestation of approval. In reality it had an +astonishing but merited success. Glauco, the amorous fisherman, in order +to obtain his Scilla, braves the sea and seeks renown and riches. But, +alas for human frailties, he falls under the enchantment of Calypso. +When he returns to his native shore to claim his best-beloved he learns +of the heart-breaking events that have transpired during his absence. +Neither he nor Scilla can tolerate constant reminder of them and they +disappear in the deep waves after one of the most remarkable farewells +in modern literature. + +Morselli does not follow either the mythological stories or their recent +reconstruction very closely. On the contrary he makes the events of the +legends harmonize with or conform to the laws that govern modern +amatoriousness. His heroes react in their love and hate, ambition, +realizations, in the same way as the people of to-day. His world is a +mythological world, but it is scenery in which we live or visit, and it +is peopled by men and women who love, hate, envy, portray, succor, and +defend, quite like the modern world. + +He has recently published two new dramas entitled "Belfagor" and "Dafni +e Cloe." His fiction is a volume of fanciful tales called "Favole per i +Re d'Oggi" ("Fables for the Kings of To-day"), and short stories which +have appeared in magazines and journals. + +Another young writer for the stage is Nino Berrini. The success of "Il +Beffardo" ("The Jester") was so great that one may confidently look +forward to his career without fear of disappointment. + +Other successes in the theatrical world of 1919 in Italy were "La Vena +d'Oro" ("The Vein of Gold"), of Zorzi, and in much lesser degree "La +nostra Ricchezza" of Gotta. + +The author of the latter is a man of thirty-three years who returned +from the war with new ideas regarding the rights of the people, liberty, +or whatever one calls that which underlies the present social unrest. He +has written many short stories, several romances, of which "Ragnatele" +("Cobwebs"), "Il Figlio Inquieto" ("The Restless Son") and "La più Bella +Donna del Mondo" ("The Most Beautiful Woman in the World") are the most +important. + +Not only is he a man of ideas, but he has disciplined himself to a +chaste and virile way of expressing them. In "Our Riches" he has given +an admirable picture of the honest, high-principled aristocrat-farmer of +his native territory Ivrea, who has the same feeling for his acres that +the ideal patriot has for his country: reverence and love, and a +paternal interest in the welfare of those who gain their livelihood in +serving him. In contrast with him is his grandson, who has the same +reverence and affection for the ancestral home and acres but who sees +life, its entailments and its privileges, in an entirely different +light, who is a socialist in the correct sense of the term. Then he +draws with great distinctness the daughter of the former and the mother +of the latter, who is confronted with the conflict of choosing between +her son, father, and husband, the latter a profiteering shark in the +world of affairs. The weakness of the play is the author's failure or +unwillingness to define his own state of mind concerning property rights +and property distribution, or to define the relationship that should +exist between product and producer, capital and labor. + +Were I obliged to characterize the fictional output of Italy during the +past few years, I should say that it was imaginatively sterile and +emotionally fecund. Whereas much of it displays technical efficiency in +form, construction, and finish, it lacks originality and does not reveal +comprehensive imaginativeness, which the renowned fiction of every +country has always had and must continue to have. It must be said, +however, that it portrays human nature: that is, thoughts and emotional +reactions incited and elicited by new conditions and new aspirations in +such a way as to pique the reader's curiosity and sustain his interest. + +The Italian novelists of to-day are not story-tellers; they are +incident-relaters, narrators of personal experiences, observers armed +with cameras. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +FICTIONAL BIOGRAPHY AND AUTOBIOGRAPHY + + +Often I find myself thinking of the justification of autobiographical +writing in fiction. The modern Italian writer is devoted to it. +D'Annunzio set the example a generation ago and carried it to such a +point that he outraged all sense of decency. So long as he confined +himself to revelation of his own alleged amatory potency and mastery of +the arts of love, even though he trampled upon sacred ideals, the public +tolerated it. When he strained the sensualities of well-known and +beloved notabilities through the percolators of his perverse imagination +they sickened of him and denounced him. It is an exquisite form of +self-appreciation--the belief that the commonplace events, deliberate +thoughts, and vagrant fancies of an individual who has in no way +distinguished himself will divert and instruct others, and that they are +worthy of record. The fact that such writings are bought is the +justification they allege. But the public is like the editor of a +magazine. He has to read reams of trash to find one worthy and +acceptable contribution. The purpose of fiction may be manifold, but it +is read chiefly for distraction and diversion. The critic and +interpreter read it to get the temper of the public mind and the trend +of its projection, but the purchaser of it reads it to get surcease of +the woes of life, whether they be the ruts worn by operating the daily +treadmill or the despondencies thrust upon him by circumstances more +inexorable than the tigers of Hyrcania. It is not likely that the +occurrences in the life of another commonplace individual even though +they are pieced with fiction will suffice to provide this. Therefore +those who turn to the narration of the lives of others in which there +have been stirring events, picturesque phases, and romantic incidents +are likely to have greater success. Whether it is a legitimate procedure +is another question. It is a matter of taste. It was as justifiable for +Mr. Somerset Maugham to portray Paul Gauguin in "The Moon and Sixpence" +as it was for Mr. Morley Roberts to describe George Gissing in "The +Private Life of Henry Maitland," and even more so, for the latter had +revealed himself adequately in his books. Nothing was to be gained by +raking up a past that led through prison any more than the prison days +of O. Henry is an asset of immortality. Sometimes such writings have a +meritoriousness apart from their literary qualities. The "Green +Carnation" did much to inform Britishers how prevalent and pernicious +was the vice which its prototype was afterward locked in Reading Gaol +for practising and apotheosizing. To take a man whose fame has mounted +steadily since his death and make a monster of him is a hazardous and, +many will think, an iniquitous thing to do, even though the individual +during his lifetime was unmoral and immoral. This is what Mr. Somerset +Maugham has done for Paul Gauguin, master of the Pont Aven school of +painting; dislocater of impressionism and neo-impressionism; liberator +of art from stereotyped, slavish copyists of nature; apostle of +intellectualism and emotionalism versus æstheticism, and from it he has +created Charles Strickland, victim of a strange disease resulting in +dissociation of personality. The critics tell us "The Moon and Sixpence" +is a "great" book. From the standpoint of literary construction it may +be entitled to such designation. From the standpoint of one who desires +in fiction some verisimilitude of life as it is, or as it should be if +it were ideal, it is disgusting and nauseous, atavistic in implication, +primitive in delineation, bestial in its suggestion, and it tends to +undermine faith in the fundamental goodness of human nature. It is +radicalism in realism carried to the _n_th degree. + +A middle-class Englishman of unknown antecedents, of commonplace somatic +and intellectual possessions, of emotional barrenness and shut-in +personality, marries, procreates, and serves--on the London Stock +Exchange, after the manner of his kind, until he is forty. If artistic +impulses had peeped from his unconscious mind to his conscious he had +not betrayed them. Then, when constructive incubal activity had passed +its height, he becomes big with the idea that his unsightly hulk harbors +the soul of an artist. He forsakes his family without warning and +without making the smallest provision for their maintenance or welfare, +goes to Paris to study art, to scorn convention and decency, and to +treat mankind with contumely. He knows no French, and gradually his +English vocabulary shrinks to "You are a damn fool" when a man makes +proffer of service or supper, and "Tell her to go to hell" if the offer +of self or succor comes from a woman. When he writes, however, his +mental elaborations encompass the degree that permits him to pen this +chaste message: "God damn my wife. She is an excellent woman. I wish she +was in hell." + +Like all victims of dementia præcox, when the disorder conditions +bizarre conduct for the first time in mid-maturity, he becomes +profoundly egocentric, neglectful of his appearance and of his person, +and callously insensitive to the feelings and rights of others. As the +components of personality dissociate the god disappears, the beast +remains, puissant and uncontrollable when under the dominion of primeval +appetites or instincts. He has no pride to swallow when he feeds from +the hand that still stings from slapping him, no more than does the lion +who devours the meat thrust into his cage on the prong that a moment +before prodded and wounded him. + +"Haven't you been in love since you came to Paris?" is Mr. Maugham's +euphemistic question, in his effort to find out for Mrs. Strickland if +her husband has been faithful to his marriage vows. After noting +Strickland's "slow smile starting and sometimes ending in the eyes, +which was very sensual, neither cruel nor kindly, but suggested rather +the inhuman glee of the Satyr," he got this answer: "I haven't got time +for that sort of nonsense. Life isn't long enough for love and art." +This is not what Michaelangelo said to Vittoria Colonna. It is what Tom +Cat says when not in the throes of concupiscency. Then Mr. Maugham gives +a new verbal dress to the devil, who was sure when ill he would like to +be a monk, but who in good health didn't fancy monastic life. "You know +that all the time your feet have been walking in the mud. And you want +to roll yourself in it, and you find some woman, coarse and low and +vulgar, some beastly creature in whom all the horror of sex is blatant, +and you fall upon her like a wild animal. You drink till you're blind +with rage." + +Poor Strickland, in the throes of mental dissolution, obsessed, enmeshed +in stereotypy, is still capable of sufficient mental reaction to realize +that "You are a damn fool" or "Go to hell" was not an appropriate +rejoinder or comment to such a speech, so "He stared at me without the +slightest movement. I held his eyes with mine. I spoke very closely." +"When it's over you feel so extraordinarily pure; you feel like a +disembodied spirit, immaterial, and you seem to be able to touch beauty +as though it were a palpable thing; and you feel an intimate communion +with the breeze, and with the trees breaking into leaf, and with the +iridescence of the river. You feel like God." The antivivisectionists +should get after Doctor Maugham. It is cruelty to humans to hold +unfortunate Strickland with hypnotic eye, and then thrust a record of +experience so obviously personal upon him--or was it only a recollection +of some published experiences of George Sand and Alfred de +Musset--garnered from those days when he "idled on the quays, fingering +a second-hand book that I never meant to buy," after he settled down in +Paris and began to write a play? + +Every Johnson has his Boswell, though he may be mute, unrecording, and +sterile, and every sadist has his masochist. The young Dutchman, Vincent +Van Gogh, a constitutional psychopath, whose mental aberrations took him +into spiritual exhortation, social reformation, and finally "art," often +tried to kill Gauguin. When the latter showed himself versed in mayhem +Van Gogh made his bed, lit his pipe, wrapped himself in serenity and +shot himself in the abdomen, as lunatics often do. Not so Dick Stroeve, +Strickland's fidus Achates. He worshipped Strickland, who reviled him, +kicked him, spat upon him; Stroeve, who naïvely asks, "Have I ever been +mistaken?" in his estimate of artists, knew that Strickland was a great +artist, greater than Manet or Corot, more puissant than El Greco or +Cézanne, and that he had been sent to complete the cycle which Delacroix +and Turner ushered in. Stroeve, a passive, asexual creature, had married +a temperamental English governess in Rome, where he had earned the +soubriquet of "le Maître de la Boîte à Chocolats" after she had had a +disastrous experience with the son of an Italian prince whose children +she had been hired to instruct. + +When Strickland falls desperately ill from the combined effects of +insufficient food, touting for prurient Anglicans, and translating the +advertisements of French patent medicines that "restore" Doctor +Maugham's countrymen to such a degree that they may go to Paris with +pleasurable anticipation, Stroeve takes him to his house, despite the +strenuous opposition and pathetic protests of Mrs. Stroeve, whose +previous fleeting contacts with Strickland echoed the call of the wild +in her and presaged disaster. From the moment he arrived the fat was in +the fire. No affinities are so difficult to keep from blending as sex +affinities, facetiously called soul affinities by the newspapers. +Strickland's spark was fanned lovingly into glow by Stroeve, and when it +flamed he threw Stroeve out of his house, possessed complaisant Mrs. +Stroeve violently, and then put her on canvas, nude, "one arm beneath +her head and the other along her body, one knee raised, the other leg +stretched out." After nature's cataclysm had spent itself, Mrs. Stroeve +committed suicide in approved feminine fashion by taking a corroding +acid, without condoning her husband's offense--that of being virtuous. +When she died Stroeve, a true masochist, looked up Strickland, forgave +him, invited him to go with him to Holland, because "we both loved +Blanche. There would have been room for him in my mother's house. The +company of poor, simple people would have done his soul a great good." +But Strickland, becoming for the moment verbally more expansive, +replied: "I have other fish to fry." When Mr. Maugham spoke to him about +Stroeve's visit he said: "I thought it damned silly and sentimental." + +The author doesn't attempt a synopsis of the mental process that took +Strickland to Tahiti, via Marseilles, though he depicts experiences that +parallel those of Gauguin. Instead he animadverts on love and the sexual +appetite to such purpose as to reveal that he is not expert in biology, +psychology, or art. "For men love is an episode which takes its place +among the other affairs of the day, and the emphasis laid upon it in +novels gives it an importance which is untrue to life." But what about +the emphasis laid upon it by countless thousands who find in it a +quality of that ennobling spiritual peace called faith, and which will +be their reward when they repose in Abraham's bosom and live forever +with God in paradise? "As lovers the difference between men and women is +that women can love all day long, but men only at times." And the +difference between male and female animals is that the female of the +species permits contact at certain definite times, while the males are +all Barkises. "Art is a manifestation of the sexual impulse. It is the +same emotion which is excited in the human heart by the sight of a +lovely woman, the Bay of Naples under the yellow moon, and the +'Entombment' of Titian." After the author delivered himself of a +statement so pregnant of platitude he must have experienced a sense of +lightening, and a conviction that he would not have to consult the Drei +Abhandlungen zur Sexualtheorie at least until he wrote his next book. + +That art has a definite purpose to perpetuate the creative will and that +God endowed his image with a genesic instinct that he might create and +thus reproduce his kind every one knows, but to contend that one is a +manifestation of the other is puerile, unenlightened, and harks back to +barbarism. One might think that there is no such thing as the psychology +of art or the science of æsthetics. Art has an intellectual significance +as well as, or more than, an emotional significance, and the +unfortunate, unhappy, disequilibrated man who is parodied in this book +contributed his substantial mite in the twentieth century to make us see +it. + +Any one who reads the "Lettres de Paul Gauguin," which are prefaced by a +brief survey of his life by Victor Segalen, or his life by Jean de +Rotonchamps, which was published at Weimar at the expense of Count von +Kessler, will see how closely Maugham described Gauguin's life in the +Polynesian cannibal islands. Strickland marries the native girl Ata, who +had a "beguin" for him, but Gauguin had Tioka in his maison de joie +without benefit of clergy. Doctor Coutras, who gives Mr. Maugham so much +valuable information (via Rotonchamps and Segalen) is M. Paul Vernié, +who attended Gauguin and wrote an account of his last days. + +Despite the fact that in July, 1914, the London _Times_ lifted the veil +of secrecy from the face of the most prevalent disease in the world, and +thus announced that the name of the disease which Fracastorius, the +poet-physician of Verona, borrowed from the shepherd Syphlus should be +no longer taboo by "nice people," the prevalence of the disease and the +efforts to combat it have been widely discussed, though they are not +topics of conversation at dinner-parties or at "welfare meetings" in +churches, as tuberculosis is. It is for this reason, perhaps, that the +author prefers to kill his "hero" with leprosy. But Doctor Maugham has +been devoting so much of his time in latter years to novels and dramas +that he finds the differentiation between them difficult, and, too, +Gauguin's disease has been diagnosticated leprosy, elephantiasis, +syphilis. "La dernière de ces avaries est exacte, mais ne doit pas être +imputées au pays: c'était une pure vérole parisienne." + +"The Moon and Sixpence" is interesting. There is scarcely any diversion +more engrossing than reading about others' infirmities unless it be +relating one's own. Hence the continued popularity of Pepys, Amiel, +Rousseau, Marie Bashkirsteff, and other garrulous sufferers. But it is a +book that no one can be the better or happier for reading, and it does +Gauguin's memory an injury because it parodies it. His life as it has +been revealed to us was bizarre and irregular enough. We could wish that +he had been less like Rimbaud and more like Rodin, but, distressing as +his behavior was, seen in conventional light, we should like not to have +seen it featured in fiction. + +Mr. Maugham wrote a novel, "Out of Human Bondage," which is a far more +meritorious piece of work than "The Moon and Sixpence," in which some of +his professional colleagues--he is a physician--recognized portraitures. +Perhaps it was his success with them that encouraged him to try a larger +canvas. + +The author's admitted cleverness was never more evident than in the +depiction of Mrs. Strickland's character and characteristics--a smug +Philistine, who runs the gamut of preciosity, jealousy, martyrdom, +autorighteousness, and autosanctification. She is pleased and proud as +she views the veneer of sanctimoniousness which her son, in holy orders, +gives the dearly beloved husband of Mrs. Charles Strickland, who wrote +his father's biography "to remove certain misconceptions which had +gained currency," viz., that Doctor Maugham is masquerading as a +psychiatrist and publishing his experiences with the insane, meanwhile +throwing off "punk" about art and traducing normal, though admittedly +"immoral," man. + +"There is in my nature a strain of asceticism, and I have subjected my +flesh each week to a severe mortification. I have never failed to read +the literary supplement of the _Times_." So says Mr. Somerset Maugham. +The first part of the statement is difficult to believe after reading +"The Moon and Sixpence." The latter part may be true, but it can't be +truer than the statement that any one, possessed of ordinary decency and +sensibility, and belief that love, sentiment, kindliness, generosity, +altruism, forgiveness, and faith are the seven lamps that illumine our +path on our way to immortality, will subject his flesh to severe +mortification, while being interested and sometimes even amused by +reading Mr. Maugham's new book. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +THE LITERARY MAUSOLEUM OF SAMUEL BUTLER + + "Those two fat volumes with which it is our custom to commemorate + the dead--who does not know them, with their ill-digested masses of + material, their slipshod style, their love of tedious panegyric, + their lamentable lack of selection, of detachment, of design?" + + _--Lytton Strachey._ + + +Samuel Butler's "Note-books" and "The Authoress of the Odyssey" added to +the delights of the spring of 1915, which I spent in Sicily. The former, +which is the quintessence of his wisdom and his impudence, gave +revealing peeps into the mental and emotional make-up of the man who in +"Erewhon" forecast the advent of the supremacy of machines and +anticipated Mrs. Eddy in considering disease a sin and a crime, and the +latter gave a quickened interest to Trapani, Segesta, and many other +places, some of which have since become shrines in my memory. + +From these "Note-Books" and from "The Way with All Flesh," which gave a +remarkable vista of his own unconscious mind as well as those of his +ancestors, I made a vivid picture of the author. It has been blurred, +and in some respects quite erased by the two massive biographic volumes +recently given to the world by Mr. Henry Festing Jones,[A] and which +depicts him in all the nakedness of his virtues and his infirmities, +revealing an unloving and unlovable character. Some day it will be +explained to us why we cannot be left in possession of the cherished +delusions that add to our happiness, increase our good-will toward our +fellow men, and in no wise impair the reputations of those to whom they +are directed. + + [A] "Samuel Butler, author of 'Erewhon,'" a memoir by Henry Festing + Jones, Macmillan & Co., London, 1919. + +One of the things that is most difficult to forgive a biographer is the +wealth of sordid details they give us about our gods. Who can forgive +Ranieri, for instance, for having told us with so much particularity +that Leopardi hated to change his shirt or to take a bath, that he had a +passion for cheap sweets, that he insisted upon keeping the servants of +the household where he was a guest up until midnight in order that he +might have his principal meal, that he was morbidly susceptible to +adulation? It does not advantage any one to know such things, even if +they are true, and if it serves any laudable purpose I am not aware that +it has been set forth. + +Mr. Jones's biography is painfully candid and distressingly frank and +confidential. + +Samuel Butler's life was one of rebellion and resignation, of contention +and strife, of unhappiness and unyieldingness, of disappointment and +suspicion, of wrongheartedness and rightmindedness, of rude energy and +crude revery. He had a vanity of his intellectual capacity that +transcends all understanding and a passion for what he called doing +things thoroughly. He believed in the music of Handel, in the art of +Giovanni Bellini, and his credo was the thirteenth chapter of St. Paul's +First Epistle to the Corinthians, which apotheosizes charity and +humility. Samuel Butler may have had charity and humility on his lips, +but I fail to find from reading his biography that they ever got as far +as his heart. He had an unhappy childhood, a perturbed adolescence, a +lonely and isolated early manhood, an obsessed maturity, and an +emotionally sterile old age. He hated his father, he pitied his mother, +he barely tolerated his sisters, and he suspected the integrity and +motives of his illustrious contemporaries who, though polite to him, +personally ignored him controversially. Indeed, part of the time he must +have felt himself a modern, though tame Ishmael, his hand against every +man, and every man's hand against him. + +Although he had a few forgiving, appreciative friends, a constant and +ardent mistress, and a devoted servant who mothered and domineered him, +engrossing interests and boundless energy, still he was chronically +unhappy, the sweetness of his soul being embittered by contempt of his +fellow men. + +The offspring of a narrow-minded, obstinate, inflexible, selfish father +and a gentle, reverential, yielding, and kindly mother, it was taken for +granted that he would follow in the footsteps of his father and +grandfather and become a clergyman. He found when he began to take +thought that he could not accept the Christian miracles or believe in a +personal, anthropomorphic God. So he went to New Zealand and became a +successful sheep-grazer, and within five years he had more than doubled +the four thousand pounds which he had been able to screw from his +father. + +His life during these years is interesting in so much as it shows how a +man of education and breeding lived in the bush while developing +intellectually. The devil often tempted him there, but not always with +success, though he became terribly fussed over the death and +resurrection of Christ. He thought and wrote about it, but he was not +successfully delivered from his dilemma until the idea of "Erewhon" took +possession of him. This idea was that machines were about to supplant +the human race and be developed into a higher kind of life. When the +conception first seized him he wrote to Charles Darwin, whom he started +by admiring and ended by despising, that he developed it "for mere fun +and because it amused him and without a particle of serious meaning." He +had Butler's "Analogy" in his head as the book at which it should be +aimed, but when "Erewhon" appeared most readers thought he had "The +Origin of Species" in mind. + +From this time one begins to see how extraordinarily laborious were all +of Butler's writings. "Erewhon" was not published until eight years +later, during which time he had written and rewritten, corrected and +re-corrected, pruned, elaborated, and incorporated sentences from +letters, records of experiences which he had while prospecting for and +developing his sheeprun, and innumerable notes from a commonplace book +which he early acquired the art of keeping. Ten years after its +publication he wrote to an indiscriminating, ardent admirer: "I don't +like 'Erewhon'; still it is good for me." + +The next book he wrote, "The Fair Haven," he liked very much, but few +others did. When he was a very young man he had written a pamphlet on +the Resurrection. He was disappointed that it made little or no +impression. Finally he decided it had been written too seriously. It +then occurred to him to treat the subject as he had treated the analogy +of crime and disease in "Erewhon." The book purports to be written by +the son of a clergyman, the antithesis of Butler's father, insane before +the manuscript was completed, and of a mother, the replica of his own +mother. A brother gives the book to the world, prefixing a memoir of the +author modelled after Butler. The book fell flat. The few who resented +it were the sensitive orthodox whose feelings were outraged. Butler +could not understand why he was unable to induce people to reconsider +the gospel accounts of the Crucifixion and the Resurrection. + +The second distinctive characteristic of Butler's make-up was his spirit +of God-I-thank-thee-that-I-am-not-as-other-men. + +When Butler left New Zealand he had eight thousand pounds, partly in his +pocket and partly invested in the country that had been so bountiful to +him; he decided to return to England and devote himself to painting, +which he felt convinced was the field of activity in which he gave real +promise. It was then from the exceeding high mountain that he saw +Charles Payne Pauli, of Winchester, and Pembroke College, Oxford, who +had gone out to the colony and found employment on a newspaper. One +evening Pauli called upon Butler and stayed talking until midnight. "I +suddenly became aware that I had become intimate with a personality +quite different from that of any one whom I had ever known." Within a +few months there was established a strange intimacy, "one of those +one-sided friendships when a diffident, poetical shy man becomes devoted +to the confident, showy, real man as a dog to his master." He loaned +Pauli one hundred pounds that he might return with him to England; he +maintained him in London until Pauli was called to the bar; then he put +him on an allowance which he continued for many years and which used up +one-half of his savings and earnings. + +When Pauli began to earn a comfortable income at the bar he treated +Butler with scorn, though accepting money and food from him. When he +died none of the nine thousand pounds which he had accumulated was left +to Butler. Indeed, the latter did not know of his death until he saw a +notice of it in the London _Times_. However, his love for Pauli, which +surpassed understanding, surmounted all obstacles and he wrote a long, +detailed account of the relation between himself and Pauli which, his +biographer says, if ever printed in full, will be "very painful +reading." + +Some time before he broke with Pauli he started a friendship with +another man which fortunately did not test his indulgence and his +generosity to a similar extent, but it was no less remarkable. Indeed, +it was more so, for Butler was now fifty-six, and he poured the depleted +vessels of his affection upon Hans Rudolf Faesch in such a way as +practically to submerge this young man. I doubt if there is anything in +literature of men's friendships which for intensity of passion and +affection surpasses the letters which Butler addressed to the young +Swiss. The poem, "Out in the Night," addressed to Faesch on his +departure for Singapore, is a genuine, impassioned expression of grief +coming straight from the heart. And the letters to Faesch are truly +remarkable documents. In fact, the letter written to Hans Faesch after +he had started for Singapore, when Butler was fifty-nine years old, +might well have been written by Pericles to Aspasia or by a sentimental +youth to his dulcina. "I should be ashamed of myself for having felt so +keenly and spoken with as little reserve as I have if it were any one +but you; but I feel no shame at any length to which grief can take me +when it is about you." And yet we speak of Anglo-Saxon frigidity and +aloofness! + +Butler would seem never to have been in love in the ordinary usual way. +We are justified in concluding that he had only a tenderness for +"Madame," who "during the twenty years of intimacy with Butler had no +rivals." Certainly he never was in love with Elizabeth Mary Ann Savage, +an extraordinary woman whose mentality is reflected in all of Butler's +books. From 1871, when he was writing "Erewhon," until her death, in +1885, Butler submitted to Miss Savage everything he wrote, and +remodelled in accordance with her criticisms and suggestions. Not only +did he submit the drafts of his books to her, but the suggestions of +many of them originated with her. If ever the soul and spirit of one +person operated through another, the soul and spirit of this brilliant +woman operated through the apparent mental elaborations of Samuel +Butler. She understood him as no one else understood him; she loved him +as no other woman loved him. Her devotion to him, her appreciation of +his talent, her unrequited love, her unfailing humor and mirth, her +incomparable courage when confronted with serious disease and with +death, and her apparent willingness that her talent should shine through +him is one of the most extraordinary things in literature. I am at a +loss to understand why neither his biographers nor the critics of +Butler's writings have given the subject adequate consideration. + +Some years ago a youthful Austrian psychopath, Weininger, wrote a book, +"Geschlecht und Charakter," which had great popularity. It was widely +read in the original and in translations. Amongst other things that he +discussed was the sex endowment of man. The hundred per cent male is +very uncommon, and he is rarely encountered amongst creative artists. +The feminine percentage in them is considerable, often more than fifty +per cent. Samuel Butler had many feminine traits. He was vain, gossipy, +vindictive, swayed by his emotions, and he allowed himself to be wooed +by a woman. He took from Elizabeth Mary Ann Savage without giving a quid +pro quo or even acknowledgment. He did not have the courage to say to +her in the flesh what he said of her in the grave. He sold to the public +as of his own manufacture the warp and woof of her intellectual +weavings. Her letters, which form such a large part of the first volume +of these memoirs and which Butler wrote to her father "the like of which +I have never elsewhere seen," testify the public debt to her contracted +in the name of Samuel Butler. + +The wit, humor, irony, and sarcasm of these letters all combine to +reveal a remarkable soul and rare personality. For twenty years she was +a true, steadfast, resourceful, sympathetic helpmate to Samuel Butler. +He accepted her amatory homage and her literary co-operation, and she +might legitimately have inferred from his letters that she was +somatically as well as spiritually sympathetic. Many women have +convinced themselves that their passion was reciprocated by men who gave +less tangible evidence of it than Samuel Butler gave Miss Savage. That +she loved him there can be no doubt, but her unæsthetic appearance +appalled him, her halting stride annoyed him, and her loving attentions +bored him. Some years after her death he composed two sonnets to her +memory, the first exquisitely vulgar, the second painfully pathetic. + + "She was too kind, wooed too persistently, + Wrote moving letters to me day by day; + The more she wrote, the more unmoved was I, + The more she gave, the less could I repay, + Therefore I grieve not that I was not loved + But that, being loved, I could not love again. + I liked; but like and love are far removed; + Hard though I tried to love I tried in vain. + For she was plain and lame and fat and short, + Forty and over-kind. Hence it befell + That, though I loved her in a certain sort, + Yet did I love too wisely but not well. + Ah! had she been more beauteous or less kind + She might have found me of another mind. + + "And now, though twenty years are come and gone, + That little lame lady's face is with me still; + Never a day but what, on every one, + She dwells with me as dwell she ever will. + She said she wished I knew not wrong from right; + It was not that; I knew, and would have chosen + Wrong if I could, but, in my own despite, + Power to choose wrong in my chilled veins was frozen. + 'Tis said that if a woman woo, no man + Should leave her till she have prevailed; and, true, + A man will yield for pity if he can, + But if the flesh rebels what can he do? + I could not; hence I grieve my whole life long + The wrong I did in that I did no wrong." + +Her memory deserves a better fate than interment in Mr. Jones's huge +mausoleum. + +The third of Samuel Butler's distinguishing characteristics was that he +was incapable of falling in love with any one but himself. + +He labored prodigiously to become a painter, and during his life he +succeeded in having five pictures hung in the Royal Academy exposition. +However, he never got out of Class C as a painter, and when he was +forty-one he forsook the brush for the pen. Meanwhile he had (according +to his father) killed his mother by the publication of "Erewhon," +launched "The Fair Haven," got thoroughly enmeshed in the teachings of +Darwin and the contentions of Mivart, Lamarck, and others, plunged into +Hellenic literature to give it specificity of origin and display, and +was otherwise very busy pushing over statues of heroes which he mistook +for tin soldiers. Early in life he began keeping notes. His principle +was that if you wanted to record a thought you had to shoot it on the +wing. When he thought of or said anything especially illuminating or +amusing, or heard any one else say anything of the sort, down it went. +He was his own Boswell with all of that immortal's colloquiality and +ingenuousness. He did not hesitate to make frank comments on the people +he met, and photographic descriptions of such individuals, of his family +and friends, and their letters went to make up the novel (if novel a +narrative of fact can be called) through which he was made known to the +general public, and by which he will probably be longest remembered, +namely, "The Way of All Flesh." It was begun when he was thirty-one and +finished fifteen years later. Because it is autobiographical, and +biographical of his family and friends, he found the necessity of +frequently rewriting it, as time, event, and God changed them. + +This is not the place to discuss the merits and demerits of that book. +It had an artificial popularity--Mr. G. Bernard Shaw being the +artificer. There was one thing about it concerning which every one +agreed: to pillory your parents in public is the equivalent of beating +them up in private. + +The fourth of Samuel Butler's characteristics was insensitiveness to +what is generally called refinement or finer feeling. Though an artist +he had little æsthetic awareness. If he knew the canons of good taste he +did not subscribe to them. What he called his little jokes, which Mr. +Jones relates with great gustfulness, is the ample proof of this +accusation. "What is more subversive of a sultan's dignity than pinching +his leg? Pinching his sultana's leg." "We shall not get infanticide, +permission of suicide, cheap and easy divorce, and other social +arrangements till Jesus Christ's ghost has been laid." Cheap and vulgar +prostitution of intellectual possession a gentleman would call it. + +Mr. Jones and Alfred, clerk, valet, and general attendant, "a live young +thing about the place, and a cheerful addition to 15 Clifford's Inn," +became very intimate with Butler. Mr. Jones had been a barrister, but +had abandoned the law and was under a modest retainer of two hundred a +year from Butler to give him Boswellian service. They found Butler +companionable, and there are such indications as letters from casual +acquaintances, particularly in Italy, to show that he was agreeable and +sympathetic to some persons. + +Aside from these there is very little in these two massive volumes to +testify to the kindness, gentleness, simpleness, and humility of Samuel +Butler. Apparently he disliked every one with whom he had to do or with +whom he came in contact, save Mr. Pauli, Mr. Faesch, Lord Beaconsfield, +and Richard Garnett. Still he was pleased with Mr. Garnett's +discomfiture on hearing his lecture on "The Humor of Homer." Searching +Mr. Jones's plethoric volumes carefully, it is difficult to find kind or +appreciative words for contemporary or forebear. + +"How many years was it before I learned to dislike Thackeray or Tennyson +as much as I do now?" "Middlemarch is a long-winded piece of studied +brag." "What a wretch Carlyle must be to run Goethe as he has done!" "We +talked about Charlotte Brontë; Butler did not like her." "I do not like +Mr. W. J. Stillman at all." "I do not remember that Edwin Lear told us +anything particularly amusing." "All I remember about John Morley is +that I disliked and distrusted him." "I dislike Rossetti's face and his +manner and his work, and I hate his poetry and his friends." "No, I do +not like Lamb; you see Canon Anger writes about him, and Canon Anger +goes to tea with my sisters." "Blake was no good because he learned +Italian at over sixty in order to read Dante, and we know Dante was no +good because he was so fond of Virgil, and Virgil was no good because +Tennyson ran him, and as for Tennyson, well, Tennyson goes without +saying." "I said I was glad Stanley was dead." "I never read a line of +Marcus Aurelius that left me wiser than I was before." Speaking of +Maeterlinck, who was then coming to his estate, "Now a true genius +cannot so soon be recognized. If a man of thirty-five can get such +admiration he is probably a very good man, but he is not one of those +who will redeem Israel." Though Butler was fascinated by G. Bellini, he +surely had heard of Raphael. + +Darwin, Wallace, Ray Lankester, most of the scientists of his time who +did not fully agree with him; novelists, philosophers, artists, +poets--all excited his disapproval. When he was fifty-three he made a +note to remind himself to call Tennyson the Darwin of poetry and Darwin +the Tennyson of science. Thus would he empty the vials of his wrath and +contempt. + +He acided his system, as the Italians say, with hatred and envy of his +fellow man who had achieved fame or who was upon the road to it. It is +difficult to rid one's mind of the thought that the motive that prompted +him to literary work was that he might show how contemptibly inadequate +the masters were or had been, all of them save Handel and G. Bellini. + +Samuel Butler took himself with great solemnity. He believed what he +wanted to believe and he believed he knew about many things far better +than experts and empiricists. When they did not agree with him he took +great umbrage and wrote disagreeable letters to them or made disparaging +references to them in his notes. "He never could form an opinion on a +subject until he had established his volatile thoughts and caged them in +a note. This enabled him to make up his mind." Thus he made up his mind, +aided by Miss Savage, that "The Odyssey" was written by a female, or, to +use his felicitous expression, "any woman save Mrs. Barrett Browning." + +Samuel Butler's most deforming characteristic was lack of reverence. He +was endowed with an orderly mind. It was his passion and pastime to +train and develop it. He never let anything stand in the way of +accomplishing that purpose. His greatest literary gift was his capacity +for presenting evidence. His chief weakness was his incapacity to gather +evidence. He assumed certain things and then proceeded to prove to the +reader that they were facts. This is a procedure that has never had +favor in the courts or in the laboratories. Neither has it been accepted +as a legitimate procedure in what might be called constructive +literature, critical or creative. The only place where it has ever been +received with favor is the pulpit, and Samuel Butler was the true son of +the cloth which he did so much to deride and from which he believed he +had divested himself. + +We should never have known what a pathetic figure he was if Mr. Jones +had not seen fit in his affection and his obsession to reveal him to us. +We can forgive Mr. Jones for this, however, because of his belief that +Samuel Butler is immortal. Would that we could also forgive him for +publishing a portrait of Mr. Butler standing before the hearth in the +sitting-room of his home--in his shirt-sleeves! We could not have been +more shocked had we found that he wore garters around his arms to +regulate the length of his shirt-sleeves. England indeed is changed. +This life of Butler gives the lie to Britishers' reputation for +stolidity and formality. + + + + +CHAPTER X + +SAINTS AND SINNERS + + +Many a pia mater has been stretched to aching in the past few years by +thoughts of death and its harvest of human flower in first, fresh bloom. +Mystics have tried to give death a symbolic significance; they would +have us believe that it has or will have a repercussion in some occult +way beneficent to the world and those who are allowed to tarry here. +"What is this grave which the world was coming in its heart and in its +daily practices to treat as final? May it not be that the answer of the +whole world, which is busy with the question, will bring into being a +new adaptation of living to dying--a new Death?" is the way one of them +expresses herself. Were we concerned herein with death, either new or +old, we might deny her premise any foundation, and reason therefore that +any conclusion she might incline to draw must be false and misleading. +The world has in its heart to-day a yearning for promise and proof of +immortality such as its composite heart has never had. That Christianity +as practised fails to satisfy that yearning, does not justify the +allegation that the thinkers of the world have become materialists. + +Historians and critics who view the question from a biologic angle +profess to see in war a contribution to our evolutionary progress: it +kills many of the most virile, but it kills also the weaklings, actual +and potential. The virile who remain push the weaklings to the wall, +particularly in the procreative contest. It puts a premium on prowess +and valor, and makes the race franker and braver, more resolute and more +efficient; it uproots decadency; it sacrifices the grain to get rid of +the tare; it plucks the flower that the thistle may be eradicated. The +philosopher accepts it as a part of God's programme: some he allows to +succumb to bullets, others to germs. The latter is the wise man, for he +accepts things as they are, and at the same time tries to shape their +course in a way that will give him and those he loves, which is all +mankind, the greatest safety. + +We get accustomed to and become tolerant of everything save pain. Even +in such upheaval as the World War it was beyond belief how little the +mechanism of daily life was disjointed. Fifteen millions of men and more +were engaged in a life-and-death struggle, and yet the ordinary events +of daily life were very little disturbed. People seemed to have time for +work, for play, for relaxation, for contemplation. I was always reminded +of this by reading the papers and observing people in theatres, +concert-halls, stadia, churches, restaurants, and public places +generally. I realize full well that one cannot sit still and nurse +either his griefs or his hopes; that man is so constituted that he must +display activity in some form. But I never fully realized that man is +chronically happy. And yet it must be so, for how otherwise could he +come out from prisons rotund and well-nourished, or from dark filthy +tenements with a smile on his face? How else could we be so +pleasure-seeking and pleasure-displaying as we were in those agonal days +of the war? + +The war put many things out of joint, but it did not divorce man from +felicity save in individual instances or for short periods of time. The +thing that the war dislocated most was further tolerance of the +paradoxes of the Christian religion, the irreconcilability between +preached and practised Christianity. Every one admits that the +fundamental principles of Christianity are perfect and beautiful--that +is, they are as perfect and as beautiful as the finite mind can grasp. +But nothing can be more imperfect and uglier than the way in which the +professional pietist practises it. There isn't a tenet, as formulated by +its Founder, or such perfect disciples as St. Francis of Assisi, to +which the professing or professional Christian conforms even +approximately; and because his fellow man, prostituting it in some +similar way to conform with his personal bias, does not agree with him, +he proceeds to point the finger of scorn at him and to hail him as +infidel and unbeliever. + +I have no intention of prophesying whether the church will weather the +storm in which it is now floundering or not. I think very likely it +will. One reason for so thinking is that it has weathered all previous +storms; one of them five hundred years ago was of severity that will +never be forgotten. Since then education and enlightenment have lifted +man from the supine obedience and resignation of the domestic animal, +and he has demanded, and in a measure obtained, his worldly rights. This +encourages me to believe that he may soon demand his spiritual rights: +liberation from the tyranny imposed upon his mind by the Junkers of the +church, freedom to look upon God as the fountainhead of wisdom, mercy, +and love who mediates succor to the poor, the mourning, and the meek +more willingly than to the rich, the joyous, and the arrogant; liberty +to live according to the mandates of Christ and to die in confidence +that his pledges will be redeemed. Another reason is that man must have +a religion. Individual man can live without it, but collective man +cannot, and there is not the slightest sign of the second coming of +Christ. Religion was never so openly repudiated as during the Great War, +and it never wielded as little influence on the determinations of man's +conduct as it does to-day. Those who convince themselves otherwise make +themselves immune to the teachings of experience. + +The paucity of men who have the capacity for constructive statesmanship +is pitiable, but how trifling is such a capacity compared with that +required to formulate the tenets of a livable new religion! The +practices of the church to-day are not those of the thirteenth, +fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, when it was steeped in every +conceivable kind of depravity, licentiousness, simony, wealth, power, +arrogance, avarice, and flattery; when it betrayed its mission to +protect the weak; when it fornicated with the princes of the world; when +it crucified Jesus in the name of egoism. But in what way has it +espoused the sacred cause of the lowly, the best-beloved of Him who died +that eternal happiness might be vouchsafed us? If Christ's vicar could +remain silent without being called to account as was the case a few +years ago when we were offering our fathers on the sacrificial altar for +the liberation from slavery of God's ebony image, it is not likely that +he will be called on to explain a similar silence during the Great War. +I do not profess to say, not even to know, the attitude of the hierarchy +which governed the Roman Catholic church toward the war. If it was +Germanophile or Austrophile, it was more wicked than the harlot of +Babylon. I should say the same had it been Anglophile or Francophile. +The man who can believe that the temporal head of the church is the +infallible spiritual guide of her adherents cannot believe that it +should take sides against any of her own people. "The house divided +against itself must fall." What I should like from the church is a +definition of her attitude toward war. She teaches her children what +their conduct should be about indulging their genesic extent, about the +property and person of their fellow men, about intemperance of language +and of appetite. Why not about war? What troubles me with the church is +not so much the determination to keep her children in ignorance, nor +that she has her back to the door which opens upon a vista of the +world's progress and advance, hoping that she may keep it closed in the +face of the divine forces of evolutionary progress which are seeking to +push it open. That might be tolerated, but not her arrogation of +self-sufficiency, her assumption of self-satisfaction, her boasted +immutability, her sanctimonious semblance of resignation, her mumblings +of archaic sayings in a language that neither its votaries nor one-half +its priests understand, her profession to protect the weak and aid the +poor while at the same time she bends the knee to the rich and traffics +with emperors. + +Though I lived nearly two years in the city where the church's mediæval +gorgeousness is more striking than in any other city of the world, and +where its chief stronghold is, it was rarely that its practices or its +preachings disturbed my spiritual equanimity, my belief in God, or my +fathomless faith. Nearly every day my duties took me through the Piazza +of St. Peter and along the Vatican Gardens, and my thought was more +often of his mediæval predecessors than of the voluntary "prisoner" who, +while occupying the sumptuous palace, eats out his heart because he is +not allowed to be a temporal sovereign--in other words, to be the +antithesis of Him whose vicar he claims to be. + +One morning, after I read the communiqués and had that glow of +satisfaction in the accomplishments of my fellow men, that feeling of +pride which every ally had during the last weeks of the war, I turned +the paper and saw the arresting headline, "Translation of the Bones of +St. Petronius," and I read: + + "This morning at eight o'clock the Holy Father, accompanied by the + pontifical court, repaired to the Sistine Chapel, where were + gathered the residents of Bologna who had come to Rome for the + occasion. The pope, clad in sacred vestments, celebrated the mass + and gave communion to those present. After the mass Cardinal + Gusmimi, Archbishop of Bologna, gave a brief discourse, while the + pope sat on the throne. The pope then responded, recalling the + religious glory of Bologna and the life of the sainted Bishop + Petronius. He then covered himself with other sacred vestments + appropriate for the occasion and assisted the archbishop of Bologna + in taking from the provisory urn the bones of that saintly man who + had yielded this life for a place in the heavenly hierarchy many + years ago, and placed them in the urn offered by the Bolognese; + having done this, he placed the urn on the altar. The ceremony + lasted upward of two hours." + +In my fancy I saw a lot of able-bodied men thus engaged while those +whose spiritual destinies they had elected to shape were being +slaughtered on battlefields, struggling with wounds and disease in +hospitals, contending with cold, thirst, hunger, and indescribable +discomfort. What was the purpose of it, what benefit did it mediate, +what enlightenment flowed from it? If Petronius was a good man, if he +loved his fellow men, and if he did all that was within his power to do +to make them better men, more capacious for a full life here and more +worthy of eternal life, why should they not allow him to enjoy his +reward in the bosom of the Lord? How can they enhance his happiness, +what does mankind gain by taking the semblance of that which once formed +a framework for his spirit and transferring it from one vessel to +another while mumbling or chanting over it? What deep symbolism attaches +itself to this attempt to stay nature in gathering the ashes of +Petronius to their ultimate destiny? Would not these men give a better +account of their stewardship to their Master were they to devote their +time and their strength and their minds to the betterment of the +physical and spiritual lot of those poor, desolate, forsaken +unfortunates with whom I spent the afternoon--a trainload of men who had +been imprisoned in an enemy country and who were returning to Italy to +die of the dreadful disease that had been thrust upon them by those +insatiate monsters of cruelty, the Austrians? + +I have rarely spent two hours more steeped in misery than I did that +afternoon at Forte Tiburtino, where I went to visit the enormous +hospital constructed around that old fort. It was intended to be used +for temporary concentration of the sick and wounded soldiers sent from +the front, until their disorders and diseases could be interpreted +sufficiently to indicate where they should be sent for most speedy +restoration to health. The protracted inactivity on the battlefronts of +Italy had allowed the hospital to remain for many months unutilized. +When Austria decided to send back to Italy a number of the men captured +in the Caporetto disaster, upon whom she had thrust tuberculosis through +starvation and every conceivable deprivation, it was decided to use this +hospital for their shelter until they should die or be sufficiently +nurtured to be sent to parts of the country whose climate is favorable +to recovery from that disease. Two or three times a week a trainload of +two hundred or more of these pitiful creatures arrived, many of them in +a dying state. As a rule, they had been _en route_ for a week, and, +though the Swiss Red Cross and the Italian Red Cross both attempted to +make some provision that would contribute to their comfort, very little +evidence of their efforts was to be seen. + +Forte Tiburtino is three miles beyond Rome on the road to Tivoli. The +train is switched at the Portonaccio station to the rails of the tramway +and goes directly to the gates of the hospital. It was the first day of +autumn, the wind was blowing a gale, whereby the unfortunates arrived in +a cloud of dust which must have added to their suffering. But that was +as nothing, I fancy, compared with the pain and ignominy put upon them +by the antics of one of my countrywomen clad in the uniform of an +American relief organization, an affable Amazon who, approaching her +physiological Rubicon, had begun to display somatically and emotionally +the results of disturbance and inadequacy of those wondrous internal +secretions that give elasticity to the skin, lustre to the hair, sparkle +to the eye, and appearance of health to the _tout ensemble_. She but +heightened her painful plainness by a stereotyped smile which, while +displaying a row of long teeth, set at an obtuse angle, accentuated the +aquilinity of her nose and the prognathousness of her jaw. Everywhere I +looked she was there. Every place I went I heard her: "Bentornato," +"Benvenuto," "Aspetti un memento, farò la sua fotografia." The ways of +the Lord are obscure. Otherwise one could explain why he did not let +these poor devils die without having thrust upon them this presence, +voice, and affected cheer. I saw them, weak and prostrated as they were, +shrink from her as one might shrink from a famished alligator. + +They opened the side doors of the cars and put steps against them; the +white-clad orderlies came down first, and then began the procession of +the weak, the emaciated, the forlorn, the desolate. Some were able to +descend unaided, others had to be helped, one on either side, and still +others dropped inert and corpse-like, across the strong back of an +orderly who carried them the few feet to a stretcher. Now and then one +would step out with an air of attempted jauntiness and a feeble smile, +but for the most part it was a procession of those who had lost hope, +who had abandoned faith in every one and everything, and who read over +the portal, "_Lasciate ogni speranza voi ch'entrate_." It is some such +procession that Dante must have encountered frequently in his passage +through the infernal regions. "_Nulla speranza gli comforta mai nonchè +di posa, ma di minor pena._" Not only did their faces reveal absolute +despair but their bodies were reduced to such a state of emaciation that +they were scarcely recognizable as human beings. Major Pohlmanti +afterward told me that the majority of them had lost upward of forty per +cent in weight, some of them, indeed, as much as sixty per cent. Many of +them were so scantily clad that their chests and legs and arms were +bare. Some were without socks, and their bony feet, thrust into cloth +shoes with wooden soles, gave the finishing touch to what seemed to be +animated skeletons covered with dirty brown paper which had been soaked +in putrid oil. After those who were able to get on their feet had passed +out came those who were practically in the throes of death, and those +whose minds had been dethroned by suffering and privation. One was able +to keep the sob in his throat until _they_ appeared, and then the effort +to suppress it was impotent. Indeed, + + They had a rendezvous with death + When Spring brings back blue days and fair, + +and they are reconciled that he shall take their hands and lead them +into his dark land, as Alan Seeger said in those precious lines which +will ornament his memory for many a day. + +The procession slowly wound its way within the gates, and I supposed +that they would be conducted and helped lovingly and tenderly to the +pavilions ready to receive them; that they would be undressed and given +hot, stimulating nourishment by nurses and orderlies recruited, perhaps, +from those who had come before and whom nature had been kind enough +partially to restore. But immediately they were confronted with a +species of Italian bureaucracy which hindered their progress toward this +haven of rest and of solace toward which they had been looking forward +for many days, perhaps months. They were segregated in a large, barnlike +structure a few yards within the gate, permitted to sit on rude, +unbacked, uncomfortable benches, and compelled to await their turn until +their names and their histories and an enumeration of their possessions +could be recorded. I felt that God would have been kind if he had +stamped across their brows the letter V to stand for virtue and valor, +as he stamped the letter A upon the breast of Arthur Dimmesdale to +testify to the people of New England the frailty of that Puritan parson, +which was revealed to his parishioners when they gathered together to +listen to the confession of his sins and to decide his punishment. There +they sat, inanimate, inert, resigned, awaiting what the Italian +Government might have in store for them with the same indifference as +they awaited that which nature had in store for them. + +Never again shall I believe that the victim of tuberculosis is +optimistic and hopeful. It may be that their obvious and striking +forlornness was the expression of starvation and not of disease. Only +about thirty per cent of them, I am told, showed signs of active +tuberculosis after the ravages of inadequate and unsuitable food have +been overcome. I saw and talked with many of their predecessors, and +especially those who had been there a number of weeks, sufficiently long +for them to have gained in weight and in strength, but even they were +still branded with that expression which hopelessness comes nearest to +describing. + +It occurred to me that perhaps these were the men who sat down on the +sides of the road and in the fields before that great disaster in the +Friuli and were resigned to being taken captive, and that the +resignation which they then displayed had been stamped on them gradually +day after day since then, until now it had become indelible. Life had +had no joy or poetry for them. Neither the present nor the future +had been tinctured with pleasure nor flavored with hope, and since +that day they had been silently awaiting that which now seemed +imminent--translation. + +I could not but contrast the event of the morning with that of the +evening. Probably every one of these boys and men had been brought up in +the faith which the Holy Father claims is the only true one. They had +been taught that God is Justice. They had been imbued since earliest +infancy with the belief that, next to loyalty to God, their most sacred +duty was to their country. In their own way they had done their best for +both, and this was their reward. Their expressions of despair, their +manifestations of hopelessness, their silent portrayal of their +abandonment needed no explanation. The saint in the Vatican was having +his reward on earth, and the sinners in Forte Tiburtino looked for +theirs only in heaven. + + "Ahi giustizia di Dio! tante chi stipa + Nuove travaglie e pene, quanto io viddi? + E perchè nostra colpa si ne scipa?" + + "Ah, Justice Divine! who shall tell in few the + Many fresh pains and travails that I saw? + And why does guilt of ours thus waste us?" + + + + +CHAPTER XI + +WOMAN'S CAUSE IS MAN'S: THEY RISE OR SINK TOGETHER ... + + "But I would have you know that the head of every man is Christ: + and the head of the woman is the man; and the head of Christ is God + ... but the woman is the glory of the man. For the man is not of + the woman but the woman of the man. Neither was the man created for + the woman; but the woman for the man." + + +Woman's position in the world, socially, politically, and economically +was profoundly altered by the Great War. Every contact with the affairs +of the world, save uxorially, was changed and I believe that one of the +aftermaths of the war will be further to change that relationship, to +extend her liberty, to enhance her privileges until every semblance of +the cage that has confined her since time immemorial is destroyed. + +Eye-witnesses of the political and social emancipation of women do not +realize how extensively concerned with it the historian of the future +will be. Even less do they realize how directly certain social and +economic changes of the beginning of the twentieth century will be +traced to the entrance of women into the political arena. The individual +who would attempt to forecast the eventual effects of national +prohibition upon a people would have no respect whatsoever for his +reputation as a prophet. I assume there is little doubt that women +initiated and in large measure accomplished that legislation. Small +wonder they did. They had to bear the brunt and the pernicious effects +of alcohol consumption. Man drank it, but women paid; paid in privation, +in suffering, in disease, in ignominy--they and their children. There +are many habits, conventions, laws that deal with women differently than +they do with men. We may confidently anticipate that woman in full +possession of political privileges will soon turn her attention to +legislation whose purpose will be to change this, to effect a like +relationship of all human beings but especially of men and women. + +The most ardent and pious Christian must admit that the practice of its +principles is inimical to woman's welfare or woman's full development, +using the terms welfare and development in the conventional sense of +to-day. There are undoubtedly many intelligent, honest, serious women +who subscribe to St. Paul's teachings of woman's duties and privileges +and who take no umbrage at his pronouncements. These were in a word that +she should be man's aid, his servant, and his ornament; that she should +minister unto his corporeal needs, and that she should be the instrument +through which God permitted man to reproduce his image and perpetuate +mankind. The Christian religion came gradually to be considered +figurative in its practicability, an ethical system strict conformation +to which would cause the individual to be looked upon as a victim of +mental aberration, but ideally quite perfect. With this conception the +restrictions put upon woman's activity gradually began to disappear, and +those that remained, such as, for instance, being obliged to cover her +head in church, were not only willingly accepted but were considered a +prerogative in so far as they facilitated personal adornment and thus +contributed to the realization of a fundamental, inherent ambition--to +be attractive. + +Opponents of feminism have busied themselves with extraordinary industry +and tireless assiduity to point out the differences between man and +woman, always to the disadvantage of the latter. Their mental endowment +is inferior to man; their physical strength is less; their moral caliber +more attenuated; their emotional nature shallower. Why should any one +take the trouble to deny any of these? He who maintains that every +specimen of the human species endowed with average reasoning power +should live in the enjoyment of freedom and liberty should not allow +himself the trouble of denying them. He should admit it with the same +readiness that he admits that there are anatomical and physical +differences between the sexes. But the opponents of "rights of women," +to use the phrase that has now come to have a sinister meaning, are not +satisfied with such admission. They want to have us admit that, in so +far as these qualities are at variance with those of man, so in +proportion is woman inferior. This no well-balanced, thoughtful, +unprejudiced man who has had much to do with men and women for a +sufficient period to entitle him to pass judgment upon the matter can +possibly admit. One may say dogmatically that woman has not the +potential or actual capacity of man in the field of politics and +statecraft, in the field of art and literature, in the field of science +and investigation, in the field of peace and strife. He may say it, but +he can furnish very little substantiation of his statement. Neither will +he be able to say it convincingly very much longer. It is not and will +not be fair or just that any one should make ex cathedra statements upon +such subjects until women have had the same freedom in fields of +activity that men have had for countless centuries. No weight or +credence need be given to statements that women are possessed of +intellectual and moral qualities that militate against their fitness to +occupy or adorn the important positions of life's constructive +activities. Possessions or infirmities which many of their ill-wishers +maintain unfit them for such places may disappear when they have had +opportunity to indulge their freedom. These alleged infirmities may be +merely reactionary to the restrictions of their environments since time +immemorial, since it is notorious that the place often develops the man. +No bird can tell how far it can fly until it tries its wings. + +The American people are less astonished than any other nation to find +that women have invaded every field of human activity save that of +active warfare. They have long since thrown down the barriers that kept +women from entering such fields of activity, and welcomed their entrance +into them. They were encouraged to believe that they would give an +earnest of their activities and they have accomplished it without loss +of their sex attractiveness. The matter, however, is quite different in +the countries of Europe. There only the women of the lower classes have +earned their bread in the sweat of their brow, and particularly in the +fields, in the mills, and in the shops. But to-day all that is changed. +They drive tram-cars, load and unload ships, they till the soil and work +the mines, they make and deliver munitions; they have replaced the +porter and the ticket-taker at the stations; they are the +letter-carriers, cab-drivers, guardians of the peace; they direct and +administer great mercantile houses; and they are forcing their way into +every profession. They have not yet been in any of these activities a +sufficient length of time to enable any one to say whether or not they +can successfully compete with man. The prophets of old were stoned, and +he would be a daring one who would venture the statement that man will +successfully dislodge woman from all the positions she so satisfactorily +filled during the war. In some countries she will have gained, before +the end of the great social and economic adjustment which we are now +attempting, the political privileges which more than anything else will +put her on an equality with man, namely, the franchise. From such +vantage-point she will most successfully hold what she has gained. It is +too much to expect that woman will emancipate herself and come into the +arena of man's activities with her handicaps and lack of training and +not make mistakes prejudicial to her welfare. To expect it would be as +illegitimate as to expect that a strong man who had never trained for a +prize fight could enter the ring and successfully contend against a man +equally strong or stronger who had been training for the contest for a +long time. + +No one was so fatuous as to believe in 1914 that the Central Powers, +after having devoted a quarter of a century to the most assiduous +training and preparation for the war that they thrust upon the civilized +world, would not jeopardize the liberty of the world. The Allied nations +had been content apparently to risk their fate without such preparation +merely because they had right on their side. They made many mistakes and +some of them were so flagrant and enormous as nearly to have cost them +their existence. Women likewise have right on their side in the struggle +which they have waged against the mandates of Christianity and the +usurpation of man. But right alone is not sufficient in such a contest. +They must combine might with it and might these days spells +organization. Without it nothing worth while can be accomplished. I +venture to prophesy that the striking legislation of our country of the +next generation will be accomplished largely by the influence of +organized women. This war has given them opportunity to display their +might and examples of what organization can accomplish. Unless I +misconstrue all signs, they will never again be deprived of the +privileges which they have at the present day. On the contrary, such +privileges will become larger and more comprehensive until they are upon +an absolute equality in every walk of life with man. + +In the world of politics, society, economics, education, and religion +the question of rights of woman may not be given the constructive +attention to which it is entitled. In our country it is possible that +women are sufficiently organized to present their claims and insist upon +their being heard, and not only demand their rights, which are liberty +and equality, but they will get them. In England I am not so confident +of the result. In France and Italy I am still less confident; in fact, +their cause in these countries as things are at present seems to me +almost a hopeless struggle. The only thing that consoles me is history. +When one recalls that all that which we now speak of as democracy flowed +from one master mind in Cromwell's little army; that the Laocoön hold +which the church had upon the people in the Middle Ages was broken by +Luther and a few similar masters whose spirits successfully carried the +idea of liberty; that all that which is now spoken of as industrial +ascendancy flowed from the activities of one or two supermen in the mill +districts of northern England only three or four generations ago; then +one is lifted above his depression. Liberty and tolerance have taken on +a new significance. This is not due entirely to the war. The war minted +the meanings, but the gold was ready for the stamp. Liberty has come to +mean that woman and man are not only equal before God but that they are +equal before man. And, now that this admission has been wrung from +unwilling man and imposed upon governments one after the other, what +kind of a life do we wish? What are our visions? What are our sane and +legitimate aspirations? Are we willing to yield supinely to the tyranny +of state or of money? Are we content further to tolerate the infirmities +and impotency of present-day education? Shall we continue to close our +eyes to the hypocrisies of the church? Shall we be willing to submit to +the restrictions that are put upon us by law and covenant concerning +marriage and its entailments? Shall we bow down to autocratic +governments whose rulers claim, and apparently have their claims +allowed, to have divine guidance? Shall we be content with the +concentration of property or of private capitalistic enterprise? Shall +we be callous enough to see countless thousands of God's own, the poor, +deprived of the advantages of food and clothing, education and the gifts +of hygiene--in brief, of everything that makes life worth living? I +firmly believe that the rank and file of educated, thinking, +serious-minded persons who are not immediately concerned with the +possession or administration of any of these, will not tolerate them, +and in so expressing my belief I do not feel that I label myself +socialist. I feel that I enroll myself in the legion marching forward +under the banner of liberty and the belief that enlightenment is +followed by progress as unerringly as night is followed by day. + +These things may be brought about by revolution, just as democracy was +brought about in France after the teachings of Voltaire, Rousseau, and +the French encyclopædists had blazed the way and the aftermath of the +American Revolution had reached that country; but I am firmly convinced +that one of the things that the World War will accomplish is that this +social reformation and reconstruction will be brought about without +violence and without revolution. Once a satisfactory integration of a +large number of individual lives is brought about, then integration of +the community and of the state is bound to follow. No one is so fatuous +or so blind as to hope that integration of individual life can come to +him whose creative impulses in any field are hampered or stultified, but +when these creative impulses, whatever they be, are encouraged, +nurtured, developed, facilitated, then the genus homo will reach its +full estate and we may confidently look forward to community and state +integration upon which lasting reform can be carried out socially and +politically. There is not the slightest advantage to be gained by what +is called political and economic reform unless at the same time there is +a reformation of the creative forces of life--education, sex relations, +and religion. + +Any scheme of life that concerns itself only with life is bound to be a +failure. Man is so constituted that he must have a philosophy from which +he can form a creed that facilitates his craving for immortality. It is +this belief in immortality, as fundamental a demand as life itself, +which is the final conditioning impulse of all that is best in man and +which gives him an inexhaustible strength and a lasting peace. + +How any intelligent person can believe that the teachings of Christ as +practised to-day, and I emphasize the word "practised," furnish such a +philosophy or a system of ethics, transcends my understanding. The chief +branch of the Christian religion stands for dogma to-day just as firmly +as it did before the Renaissance, and it pretends the humility of Christ +while maintaining the imperiousness of Cæsar. There is scarcely a +minister of the Protestant church who is not selling his birthright for +a mess of pottage by not daring to get up in his pulpit and tell his +flock that they must live up to the basic principles of Christ's +teachings. These ministers are just as cognizant as I am that their +branch of the Christian church has lost its hold upon the people except +in so far as its alleged teachings are reconcilable with their +pleasurable conduct in private and in public affairs. I do not mean to +say that there are not many wholly sincere and devout believers in these +churches who feel the inspiration of the teachings of Christ. But +because they are paid workers in the vineyard of the Lord they dare not +jeopardize their existence and take no heed for the morrow, and they +dare not insist that those to whom they minister should conform their +conduct to Christ's commandments, because it would hazard their very +existence and provoke the starvation of their children. + +Do the meek inherit the earth? Have they inherited it? Does any one +rejoice and be exceeding glad when men revile him and persecute him and +say all manner of evil against him falsely? Is there any clergyman +to-day who is teaching and insisting that if any one shall break any one +of these least commandments and shall teach men to do so he shall be +called the least in the Kingdom of Heaven? Suppose we grant that the +Sermon on the Mount is not to be taken literally, but symbolically, of +what are these mandates symbolical? "If thy right eye offend thee, pluck +it out and cast it from thee. If thy right hand offend thee, cut it off +and cast it from thee." Why does one not give the same heed to these +commands as he does to "Thou shalt not kill; thou shall not commit +adultery"? The reason is that he who kills or commits adultery is liable +to be punished by the law, and he is deterred by the fear of such +punishment or of the social ostracism to which he would be subject. +Christ referred to the fact that "It hath been said that whosoever shall +put away his wife, let him give her a writing of divorcement, but I say +unto you that whosoever shall put away his wife, save for the cause of +fornication, causeth her to commit adultery." But the present-day +mandates of Christianity are in no way in keeping with this. + +As a matter of fact, every one must admit that the only conformation +which Christians make to the commands and counsel of the Sermon on the +Mount is a repetition of the verses following on "After this manner +therefore pray ye," and those commands which are at variance to-day with +statutory and conventional laws. + +I am not railing against Christianity. I am of those who firmly believe +that if we were to conform our lives to the tenets of the ethical and +moral teaching of Christ we should not have the need of social +reconstruction which we have to-day. I am contending against the +hypocrisy of those who proclaim themselves Christians from the housetops +and who persecute others who do not conform to those trivial doctrinal +modifications which one sect maintains are the only true interpretations +of Christ's teachings. I am clamoring against the flimsy hypocrisy under +which half the people of the civilized world live in regard to marriage, +and who pretend to shudder and feel ill when you profess that you cannot +look upon marriage as a sacrament. I am railing against those who +believe that there should be one code of so-called morality for men and +an entirely different one for women. If the code that is practically +universally accepted to-day is proper for men, it is likewise proper for +women, and I want to live to see the day when women will have as much +freedom in their conduct in every walk of life as men have. The idea +that woman's life centres in motherhood and that all her instincts and +desires are directed, consciously or unconsciously, to that end is +buncombe. It would be just as legitimate to contend that all man's +instincts and desires centre in fatherhood and that his frenzied passion +to accumulate fortune, or his uncontrollable ambition to obtain fame, or +his insatiate appetite for power, or his insuppressible feeling to +externalize his thoughts in music, in art, in poetry, in invention, were +all secondary characteristics. The reproductive faculty of woman is +incidental to her existence. If any one desires to claim it was the +purpose of God in creating her, I shall not deny it, but as a student of +human nature, and as a physician whose life has been spent with +women--most of them, fortunately for me, honest and intelligent--I +maintain that civilized, cultivated, thinking women do not find that +motherhood satisfies their demands, their yearnings, their +aspirations--in brief, their personal development. The creative will has +other yearnings; not so imperative always in their demands for +satisfaction, but nevertheless insistent on being satisfied if the +possessor is to be spiritually content. + +There are other reasons for the decline in the birthrate of the educated +and civilized people of every country than the fact that motherhood does +not completely satisfy the physical and mental demands of +women--financial reasons, social reasons, and reasons that partake of +both of them, yet not entirely of them, such as the occupation of women +and the celibacy which comes of enforcement or from choice. These must +be taken into consideration in our social renaissance when we shall +erect our ideals of justice and liberty. The time will never come again +when woman shall be man's willing or unwilling slave. The time has gone +by when society shall require that the wife be faithful while the +husband is faithless. Never again will the saintly, self-sacrificing +woman who never questions her husband's authority but who yields +supinely to his will be our ideal. + +Woman may not be so strong as man. She may not be so truthful. She may +be more impressionable to sinister influences. She may be less capable +of erecting ideals and conforming her conduct to them. She may be less +steadfast in the pursuit of any plan of life, or less capable of +adhering to the ideal canons of conduct. She may or may not have any or +all of the sins of omission or commission of which she is accused by +man, but she is a human being made in God's image, of whom He may be +more proud than He is of man. She has been rocked in the cradle of +liberty and of freedom for the past five years, and to such purpose that +at the present moment she is not only able to walk but to stride. In the +future it will require the best effort of man to outdistance her, even +though he has the benefit of ages of experience and the advantage of a +start of forty thousand years. + +We shall soon see whether Socrates was right when he said: "Woman once +made equal to man becometh his superior." + + + + +CHAPTER XII + +POSTBELLUM VAGARIES + + +It seems incredible that we who have chanted "Peace on earth, good-will +to men" for upward of two thousand years, professing the Christian +religion and enjoying its benefits, should have in the year 1914 +proceeded to discredit our professions and our protestations. + +It is interesting to have lived in those times, for it brought into +one's thoughts and imagination sentient recognition of qualities or +characteristics of individuals and of peoples which, until the advent of +the war, one didn't know existed. Students of events curious to know and +to understand the factors and forces that had shaped the world, +geographically, politically, socially, religiously, were obliged until +1914 to rely upon the written records of the past. After that they had +but to observe daily events or read of them in the public press to +become apprised of what is meant by world progress. It has been a +universal belief that greater reform, politically and socially, flowed +from the French Revolution than from any premeditated, organized +violence that the world has ever seen. In the years preceding that +momentous event the peoples of Europe, and more especially those of +France, were living in a state of intellectual and physical oppression +which is almost impossible for the individual of average intelligence +and education to appreciate. Although republican forms of government had +frequently existed and had been conducted in many instances with much +success, there was no indication that any of them had left the smallest +trace of democracy in Europe, and the idea of social equality on a +physical, intellectual, moral basis did not exist. I fancy there is +scarcely an observer of the events which transpired during the Great +War, or a person who gives any concrete thought to the matter, who will +not admit--indeed, who will not maintain--that the results which have +issued and which shall issue from that conflict and particularly those +that have to do with men's relationship to each other in every walk of +life, whether it be governmental or individual, conductual or spiritual, +will be so radically changed that the issues of the French Revolution +will seem trivial compared with them. + +It was vouchsafed me to be in a position during the last year of the war +to see at short range and sometimes from a vantage-point the workings of +the minds of a people who have had liberty, unity, and nationality on +their tongues and in their hearts for half a century and more. The +Italians were in the lime-light from the day Germany threw a brand laden +with explosives and poison gases into the different Christian countries +of Europe. Her conduct as a whole since that time has been one of +dignity, honesty, responsibility, and the exponent of the highest ideals +of nationality. Whether or not she succeeded at any time in gaining the +complete and absolute confidence of her allies, it would be difficult to +say. To get the confidence of an individual or a country you must trust +them, and the more implicitly you trust the greater will be the +confidence and the finer the quality. Every one knows that Italy's +alliance with Austria was an unnatural one and the majority of her +people have always believed that the issue of it would be disastrous. +Even the most shallow student of history knows that Austria stood +menacingly over Italy during the entire period of the unholy alliance, +but never more insultingly so than in 1912, when she veritably defended +Turkey, while Italy was at war with that country. When Italy decided to +throw her lot in with the Allies, there is no doubt whatsoever that it +was with the hearty approbation of the vast majority of her people. The +treaty which her minister of foreign affairs, Sonnino, made with the +Allies, and which is known as the Treaty of London, and which sets forth +what Italy was to have when victory was hers, although not known to the +people, was satisfactory to the government, and one who reads it now can +readily understand why it was so. The question was--would it be +satisfactory to other governments? Was it an instrument consistent with +the new liberty? Was it not at variance with what was going to be +considered a fundamental right of the people, the principle of +self-determination? + +Italy's conduct during the first two years of the war drew forth the +approbation, the praise, and the admiration of the whole world. The +quality of approbation was undoubtedly merited. Whether the quantity was +merited is another question. Then came their colossal disaster of +Caporetto, the explanations of which have been many--some partially +satisfactory, others not at all. One of the undeniable results of it was +that upward of a half-million of her vigorous fighting men were marched +into Austrian detention-camps and prisons. The results of this +defalcation upon Italy and upon her internal resistance everybody knows. +It was a greater shock to Italy and far more sinister in its effect than +it was upon the Allies. Following it, she gave an example of capacity to +put her house in order, and to present a solid front, the like of which +has rarely been given by any country of the world. She cleaned her house +to good purpose. How thoroughly she cleaned it no one can possibly know +who was not permitted to enter it. The account which she gave of her +courage and her strength when the enemy attempted to cross the Piave, in +June of 1918, and which she gave in maintaining her lines in the +mountains against an enemy infinitely superior in numbers, was the +earnest of her honesty and determination. + +There were, however, some things that awaited, and still await, +satisfactory explanation. When the war began Italy had a population of +about thirty-six millions, Austria-Hungary about fifty-four millions. +Italy had an army of upward of four millions of men. It was currently +estimated that Austria-Hungary had an army of between six and seven +millions. It is believed by the Italians that the greater part of the +dual monarchy's army was on the Italian front, and Italy convinced +herself that she was standing out practically alone against an army of +greatly superior numerical strength and larger military reserves. She +admitted that a few Allied divisions were with her, but she maintained +that she was giving far more to the western front than she received from +all the Allies. There is no doubt that there were a hundred thousand +Italians in France, both in the lines and behind them, and there is +likewise no doubt that there was no such number of Allied soldiers in +Italy. She had called to the colors boys born in 1899 and 1900. Indeed, +youths of the 1899 class were sent to the front after the military +reverses of October, 1917. Italy looked upon this in the light of a +sacrifice which she was obliged to make in order to resist the forces of +the empire which was at her throat. She believed that the Italian front +was of signal importance to the alliance as a whole, and she made no +secret of the fact that she was counting on the immediate assistance of +American divisions. Her government frequently said that very nearly a +tenth of her entire population was in the United States, and that +America had always been her most trustworthy friend, and that two +hundred thousand American soldiers would not only be a great moral +force, but would impart fresh vigor to the national resistance. + +No one denied the truth of these statements, but cogitating on them one +is led to certain reflections, and they are: With an army of four +millions of men, why is it they were able to put only a million and a +half on the front? I understand that men were needed for munition +factories, for the essential industries that provide for war +consumption, and for the maintenance of the civil population; that +fields must be tilled, mines must be worked, water power must be +guarded, and railways must be manned. These things have to be done in +every country, but soldiers do not do them. Other countries have +militarized workmen, but they do not count them when they are +enumerating the man strength of their army. In reality Italy had called +to the colors all her healthy men between eighteen and forty-five in +order that she might more easily manage them, govern them, discipline +them. + +The outsider who sees Italy through the veil of her statesmen's oratory +and polemics knows her only pleasantly masked. One is led to think +sometimes that they are more concerned with the appearance than the +substance. It often looks as if they were banking too much upon her +great and glorious past, and not looking to the furthering of conditions +that make for the happiness and efficiency of their people. The +conditions produced by the war have reminded the politicians in control +that the people love their government in proportion to the benefits they +derive from it, and I fancy it has at times felt that the people were +not giving it that strong support which is rooted in love and +consideration. "Four-fifths of the Italians have always lived on the war +footing," said Prime Minister Orlando in one of his speeches to +Parliament. He meant to convey that the Italians, being accustomed to +hardships and sacrifices, could stand war better than others. He claimed +to see in this a source of strength. Yet he must have known that the +soldiers lying down by the roadside in the days of Caporetto, awaiting +with Mohammedan indifference the coming of the Austrians, were replying +to the officers who were urging them to retreat to some place of +reorganization: "We have always lived on polenta, and we shall always +have it, and it will always taste the same even if the Austrians win." +Though not responsible for the sins of the past, it seems incredible +that the authorities were not aware of this wide-spread feeling among +the people. + +It is in the hour of great trial that our conscience shows us, as in a +mirror, all our past shortcomings, and it admonishes us that we reap +what we have sown. Reviewing the past, the Italian Government must have +known that it could not have the unswerving loyalty of a people who for +fifty years had been fed on promises, big words, and magniloquent +speeches covering illiterateness, oppressive taxation, obstacles to +activity, and necessity of emigration. It is not with words alone that +one gives happiness to a nation and receives love and support. +Emigration and Bolshevism are the two symptoms of the disease that +threatens the nation. Nearly a million Italians emigrated in 1913, and +socialism has a firmer footing in Italy than in any other country. +Surely these facts have far-reaching significance. The conclusion is +that there can be little doubt that men had to be called to the colors +so as to manage them better with martial discipline. Possibly it was a +wise measure and a necessary prologue to the rigid censorship and to +Sacchi's decree, which was a kind of _lettre de cachet_. + +I have often asked myself, What is the Italian's most dominant +characteristic? What is his most conspicuous idiosyncrasy? One day I +answer it in one way, another in another. But on mature reflection I +think it is that he believes what he wants to believe and that he does +not trust any one implicitly. He trusts his own fellow citizen least of +all. He says he trusts him, but when he puts him in a position of trust +he puts somebody in to watch him and to report on him. The Italian has +not that confidence in his fellow human beings that a normal man has in +his honest wife, that a normal mother has in her dutiful child, that a +normal lover has in his trusted _innamorata_. I am so prejudiced in the +Italian's favor that I must defend even his infirmities. For centuries +Italy was divided and weak, and countless times she has been the tool of +the ambitious, the insatiate, and the predatory. She has been used over +and over by more powerful nations as tongs to get their chestnuts out of +the fire. For every favor she has received she has had to pay dearly, +and she has learned by sad experience that promises are usually made of +fragile material. Leaving out the treatment she received from France and +England in the nineteenth century, more particularly during the years +when she was big with nationality and unity, and during the period when +she gave birth to these beloved terms, the treatment she received from +these nations in 1911 and 1912, while she was waging the Libyan War, +still rankles in her bosom. Despite Salisbury's promises and his parable +of the stag, they recall England's disparagement of her initiative and +of her conduct of her righteous War. They recall the sinister frenzy +that France displayed when they took the S. S. _Carthage_ into one of +their ports because they believed she was carrying aeroplanes to the +Turks, and the S. S. _Manouba_ because she had Turkish passengers +camouflaged as doctors and nurses. She recalls also that when the Hague +Tribunal practically decided in her favor, neither France nor England +displayed the slightest graciousness. + +Despite these stabs of yesterday, Italy must purge herself of distrust, +which is the ferment and leaven of weakness. She must make good her +alleged trust of France, her professed confidence in England, her hail +of the United States as her deliverer. It is difficult for me to believe +that often she has not had one language on her lips and another in her +heart. The time has come when she must make the words of her heart and +her tongue one. The moment has arrived when she must put her cards upon +the table and say: "That is my hand and I play the cards face upward." +If she can be made to realize it, Italy is big with the prospect of a +glorious future and her delivery will not be long delayed. + +Nothing impressed me so much in Italy during the momentous last months +of the war as her ideas of nationality, the ideas that found +dissemination, if not birth, in the prophetic soul of Mazzini and which +began to germinate nearly a century ago. "Great ideas make peoples +great, and ideas are not great for the peoples unless they go beyond +their boundaries. A people to be great must fulfil a great and holy +mission in the world. Internal organization represents the sum of means +and forces accumulated for the performance of a preordained mission +without. National life is the instrument; international life the goal. +The prosperity, the glory, the future of a nation are in proportion to +its approximation to the assigned goal." These words were written by +Mazzini several years after his ideas had made Italy great, and during +the war they were on the tongue and in the pen of every constructive +statesman who was satisfied to live only under liberty's banner. + +For fifty years or more, but particularly since that fateful day, the +20th of September, 1870, when Italian union became a reality, she had +professed the profoundest sympathy for the oppressed nations of her +hereditary and actual enemy, Austria-Hungary. Since the beginning of the +World War the proud spirits of these oppressed nations, now commonly +spoken of as the Czecho-Slovaks, had been active in devising plans that +would liberate them and their peoples from the jaws of the monster. The +whole civilized world who love liberty were in sympathy with them. No +one denies that they accomplished results that were almost miraculous. +Those who had real knowledge of what was going on in the world knew that +in a measure we owed to them the secrets of Germany's diabolic +machinations in our own country when we were on terms of amity with the +Central Powers. It was not denied that Italy's success on the Piave in +June, 1918, was in some measure at least due to the information that the +Czecho-Slovaks were able to give the Italians. + +In April, 1918, there was a congress of Czecho-Slovaks in Rome, which +was warmly received by the Italian people and by some representatives of +the Italian Government. This congress formulated the principles upon +which it was waging war against Austria-Hungary. It set forth in +language that even a child could understand its ideas of nationality. It +put before the democratic nations of the world the ideas that they +represented and proposed to represent. Their claims received the +approbation of the prime minister of Italy, but for some inexplicable +reason the stamp of approval of Italy's minister of foreign affairs, the +only one who was in a position to represent the government +authoritatively, was withheld from them. It was necessary, apparently, +to bring the country to the brink of dissolution of its government by a +public agitation of the question initiated by the _Corriere della Sera_ +before Sonnino's official approval of their aims could be secured. +Despite the fact that France, England, the United States, Japan had in +turn accorded to the Czecho-Slovaks the right of nationality, and +despite the fact that it was well known that that organization called +into being by Italy's noble, loyal sons known as the Fascio was warmly +and industriously championing the cause of these oppressed people, yet +the governmental hand had to be forced before she would put it on the +table and play her cards face upward. When the _Corriere della Sera_ was +able to throw off the manacles of the censorship and bring the subject +of discussion into the public arena, the influential journals that +represent the standpatters in the government, such as the _Giornale +d'Italia_, the _Epoca_, and even the _Messaggero_, denied that there was +any dissension or shadow of dissension between the prime minister and +the minister of foreign affairs, and they continued to deny it in the +most determined and deliberate way up until the very last moment. +Sonnino's champions maintained that the position he took was necessary +that Austria-Hungary's intrigues be rooted up and killed. The fear was +expressed that the new policy favorable to the Jugoslavs might +circumvent the stipulations of the Treaty of London, which were +favorable to Italy, and sacrifice them to the exaggerated claims of the +Jugoslav ideas of nationality. + +The _Corriere della Sera_ pointed out the futility of too great +adherence to the Treaty of London and asked: "Can we expect Wilson to +feel bound by the I. O. U. given to us in London if he did not sign it?" +It insisted that the maintenance of the London treaty in full force was +incompatible with a policy favorable to Czecho-Slav aspirations. This +embittered those holding the opposite view. The _Tempo_ rejoined: "An +attempt is made to make Italians believe that there is a conflict +between Rome and Washington due to our 'imperialistic ambitions,' which +are looked upon with distrust by Washington. It is for this reason, they +tell us, that the United States is loath to give us the help of their +forces on our front. The nation rebels against this and will not allow +anybody to put a noose around her neck and blackmail her by any such +dilemma: either we must have a change of policy, with consequent +revision of the London stipulations, or abandonment on the part of the +Allies. We are not defending Sonnino, but what is much nearer our +heart--the interests of Italy. We defend the Pact of London as the only +guarantee of our interests. You can't tell us that an effort is not +being made to diminish those stipulations: It is not true...." (Here the +censor intervened.) "We entertain no prejudice against the Czecho-Slavs +provided they do not insist stubbornly on crossing our path, and prove +that they can do what is necessary in their own interests instead of +expecting sacrifices from us. Let them meet us halfway by implicitly +recognizing the integrity of the rights guaranteed to us by the Treaty +of London, which are the reasons for our having entered into this war." + +In the same paper, August 20, 1918, appeared this editorial statement: + + "Either this war will make us secure in the Adriatic or it will be + a complete failure as far as we are concerned. In politics there + are no friends. There are interests only. The friends of to-day may + be the enemies of to-morrow. It doesn't profit us to take away the + control of the Adriatic from Austria to give it to those who up to + yesterday have been the bitter enemies of our race and who now, + because it is convenient to them, pose as our friends. We are not + surprised that this is of no concern to Mr. Steed (the English + pro-Jugoslav journalist, for many years correspondent of the London + _Times_ in Italy and now its editor). Were we English instead of + Italian we also would not mind to see the Czecho-Slavs inherit the + vantage position of the Adriatic held to-day by the Central + Empires. This may be sufficient for those who only see in this war + an Anglo-German conflict, but it is not sufficient for those who + look only at Italian interests. It is easily conceivable that + others may be interested in perpetuating our weakness in the + Adriatic which will prevent our further development, but it is + absurd that Italians should blindly follow such foreigners. Ask our + navy officers, defenders of Italy, what they think of those who + advise us to give up our just claims to the Dalmatian coast and + islands, which is not only a pistol aimed at Italy's head, but a + series of machine guns. The Treaty of London covers also our rights + on the Ægean islands, eastern Mediterranean, and colonies. If we + establish the precedent that this treaty can be abrogated or + diminished, we do not know where this may lead us--all our + interests protected by it may be questioned sooner or later. This + fact has surely not been grasped by those who intoxicate themselves + with demagogic magniloquence, who believe that after the war men + will go to play the bagpipe in the shade of ilex-trees, and that + the kingdom of Saturn will be restored. It can be understood only + by men still in possession of their full mental powers, who know + that this is a conflict of political and economic interests, after + which men will continue to forge weapons for the great competitions + in the vast world, resuming the struggle for the control of + colonial markets and supremacy of the seas. Only such men + understand the necessity of defending _unguibus et rostris_, even + against our allies, the juridical ground we have conquered. The + London treaty must not be discussed, as it is the only + justification for our war, conceived as a war, for national + development and balance of power among the nations which will + constitute the new world which will be born out of this conflict. + Whosoever thinks differently is a traitor to his country." + +This is what may properly be called "tall talk." After this climax of +virulence, a tendency developed in the press tending to mitigate the +effect of such rancor. An attempt was made to show that the variance of +opinions was more formal than substantial, and that it was for +Parliament to decide. Even the _Idea Nazionale_ expressed this opinion, +though for years it conducted a campaign to undermine the authority and +prestige of parliamentary institutions in Italy. + +The _Tempo_, however, did not back down, but asked: "Is it true or not +that during the meeting of the oppressed Czecho-Slavs in Rome no +territorial agreement could be arrived at because the Czecho-Slav +representatives did not want to accept the Adriatic limitations involved +by the Treaty of London?" It also sarcastically remarked that the Treaty +of London is now being called the "Pact of London," that somebody has +already started to call it a "memorandum," and that it is to be expected +that soon it will be called a "laundry list." And it continued: "Is it +true or not that our requests, contained in that document, are an +indispensable minimum to insure our safety in the Adriatic such as will +justify the enormous sacrifices we have made in this war? Are we not +right, then, to distrust this policy favorable to the Czecho-Slavs which +tends to postpone the solution of geographic points without first +recognizing the Italian claims as being fundamental? Let the +Czecho-Slavs first recognize our right to safety and let them dispel our +legitimate diffidence. All this discussion seems to have been the +pleasant outcome of those who entertain the jolly notion that we are +waging a poetic war instead of trying to solve in our favor vital +military and political problems, and that we should be perfectly +unconcerned about knowing whether on the other shore of the Adriatic +there will be either Germans or Slavs, Republicans, Catholics, Orthodox, +Conservatives, Democrats, musicians, or poets." + +Gradually the thunder-clouds began to disperse and a conciliatory +element was introduced into the discussion. "Rastignac," who drives an +authoritative quill, and who is one of the leading and much-listened-to +journalists and lawyers of Italy, wrote in the _Tribuna_, the newspaper +identified with Giolitti: + + "Would it not be better to keep silent instead of creating currents + of ideas hostile to Italy, all on account of the Pact of Rome + between an Italy which is still invaded by Austria and a Jugoslavia + which still exists in dreamland? Is this new pact, born through the + efforts of the Anglo-French friends of the Czecho-Slavs, capable of + diminishing the Treaty of London, which is fundamental for our + interests? Poor Italy, if this should prove to be the case. We are + quarrelling as if the war had ended, Austria had been conquered and + dismembered, and as if we were already seated before the green + table for the signature of that treaty which will assign to this or + the other power the shreds of Austria. Meanwhile we forget that + there are seventy-two Austrian divisions on our soil, and that the + war is continuing without the possibility of foreseeing when it + will end. I am well aware that our friends of England and France, + prompted by their great love for Jugoslavia, seem quite ready to + sacrifice the Treaty of London to the new Pact of Rome. These + friends are strongly inclined to be very generous, at our expense + unfortunately. We are being lulled into the belief of a sure + dismemberment of Austria, on which dismemberment is based this new + creation of our allies, _i. e._, Jugoslavia. It is strange, + however, that there are in France some political parties who + reproach Clemenceau for having ruined the rich possibilities of + which the letter to 'dear Sixtus' was full.... It is no mystery + that tradition is not easily uprooted in England and that one of + the deepest-rooted of them has always been that of friendship with + Austria. There are roots much older and stronger than the new ones + of the "Society of Nations." ... Let's not base our policy entirely + on a hope which will last we do not know how long, _i. e._, the + destruction of Austria. Do not forget, please, that this, the + greatest conflict of history, is nothing but a conflict of + interests ill-concealed under the rosy cloak of the highest and + noblest idealism. Its true essence remains a struggle for political + and commercial supremacy. It is no time now to read the 'Fioretti + of St. Francis.' We shall have time later on for this." + +The _Corriere della Sera_ stuck to its guns. It was neither blinded by +the rhetorical dust which the pro-Sonnino organs kicked up, nor was it +asphyxiated by their noxious gases, and Sonnino had to line himself with +England, France, the United States, and Japan in according the +Czecho-Slovaks nationality and rights of allies. + +Italy's trials, ill fortune, and good fortune since then are much better +understood if they are contemplated in light of that discussion and of +her momentous election of the autumn of 1919. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + +WORLD CONVALESCENCE + + +We had become so habituated to war and its machinery, its incidents and +horrors, its demands and entailments, that when we were thrust suddenly +into a new world with whose conduct and ordering we were unfamiliar we +had the sensation of one who comes from long tenancy of a dark room into +the glare of sunlight, the feeling of unreality of one who emerges from +a delirium. The abdication of emperors, their flight and their fate +distracted us for a moment; the abyss into which the Central Empires of +Europe had been hurled arose before our eyes; the needs of the +unfortunates in the devastated districts and of those struggling to get +back to their native land made appeal to us; thoughts of future work and +play occurred to us, but none of them engrossed us. Though saturated +with the joy of deliverance no one gave himself over to revelling in it. +Groping in darkness as we have been for so long, we blinked and gasped, +trying to accustom ourselves to the divine light of the new day that had +dawned, and to discern and define beauties which the new world would +present. We were like a person who had suddenly been liberated from a +danger that not only threatened his life but made existence +insupportable. Utterance could not give such thoughts relief. Only +appreciative silence could express his gratitude. + +In the lull or convalescence that came after the world's injury and long +illness, peace terms were formulated, indemnities exacted, the map of +Europe remade, and compacts formulated and signed to prevent another +holocaust. Thus the greatest venture the world ever embarked upon will +end. Then will come the great task--reconstruction of the world's +institutions. + +The question that has fatigued the human mind since time immemorial, +"What shall man do that he may live again?" is for the hour replaced by +another more likely to be answered, "What kind of a world will the one +just wrought be in which to live, and when will it be habitable?" The +old world has been delivered of a promising offspring. Its travail was +terrible and sanious. The accoucheur had to call to her aid the counsel +and service of many nations, but the new-born world gives promise of +great tidings. Grief for the old world that yielded its existence in the +agony of deliverance is engulfed by the joy that has come in +contemplation of the beauty, purity, and immaculateness of the new +world, in which liberty shall be as free as the air in which it is +suspended. + +What will this new world that is arisen from the destruction of empires +and from the ashes of tyrannical institutions be like? In what way will +it be better and more satisfying than the one that existed previous to +the war? What are the benefits that will flow from the sacrifices that +have been made? What are the rewards that will follow the labor and +effort expended to win the war? What are the mercies that will be +vouchsafed us for our deeds of commission and of omission? How shall +things be ordered that man, mere man, without other possession than +intelligence, without other aspiration than to be permitted to display +his dominant instincts,--love and constructiveness,--without other +ambition than to enjoy life and make others enjoy it, may be worthy of +his mission and deserving of its reward? These are the questions that +are occupying the mind of every thinking person in the whole world +to-day. + +Before any one of them can be answered the fate of the former Central +Empires must be settled, because the Allies must know with whom they are +dealing and how much they are deserving of confidence and trust, and how +much they can be relied upon to carry out the terms of any agreement. We +may be absolutely certain that recent advantageous treaties will be +abrogated and that territories appropriated in the last half-century +will be restored. That which we cannot feel reasonable assurance of is +what form of government the former Central Empires will have, or whether +that which they bring forth will not be, in reality, a resurrected +Trojan horse, the Teuton's contribution to political camouflage. + +The spokesmen of these newly formed governments say they will be +democracies. But who are the spokesmen? Are they not of them who until +yesterday were fighting for the preservation of the country and +government which had been selected by God and by themselves to thrust +"Kultur" upon the world, and which had been wantonly attacked by its +neighbors on the north, the south, the east, and the west? Did they +admit until that fateful yesterday that their government was not +perfect, or at least possessed of only such trifling imperfections that +they, the Socialists of one kind or another, could readily remove them? +Nothing has transpired in Germany since the abdication of the Kaiser, so +far as we have been informed, that permits us to say with anything like +assurance what form of government Germany hopes to have. All that we +really know is that the government has fallen into the hands of the +German Socialists, the deeply dyed-in-the-wool Socialists and the +Socialistic Democrats. So far as one can predicate judgment on the +reported sayings of the spokesmen of either of these two parties, the +purpose of the present government is to save as much as it can of the +previous régime and to continue it, minus the Kaiser and the war lords. + +In none of the addresses or communications of any of these spokesmen is +there any real admission of defeat, any intimation of humility, any +indication of having been lessoned, nor, indeed, of anything that can be +interpreted as recognition of the fact that Germany has been the victim +of _Grossenwahn_, megalomania, which prompted and compelled her to a +line of conduct which conditioned her destruction. On the contrary, +everything that has been said has a note of determination to +rehabilitate herself in order that she may take the leading position, +morally, intellectually, commercially, in the world. At the very moment +when admission that she had lost the war was forced from her, and while +she was prostrate on the field of battle and in a state of collapse in +every acre of her territory, instead of silence and of resignation, +instead of an indication of that humility which tauts the heart-strings +of the conqueror, there was clamor of exultation setting forth the +virtues of the people and their ineradicable potentialities. Having been +denied victory on the field of battle, if that _Gott_ who was their +_Feste Burg_ does not desert them, they will now win a greater +victory--they will show the world that they can conquer themselves and +convert defeat into victory. They are without shame and without modesty. +They ask for succor from the nation which less than eighteen months ago +was a negligible quantity and which four years ago was made up of +drivelling idiots and men mad with lust for wealth. "You will not let +countless thousands of women and children die of starvation." No, we +shall not let them starve, but we shall have adequate care that never +again will it be within your power to thrust the mailed fist of one +extremity upon the honest, God-fearing people of the world while with +the other you snatch the food from the mouths of those unable, because +of age or infirmity, to provide for themselves. + +One does not fail to detect the ring of exultation with which they say +that they will win the greatest of all victories--that of showing that, +though defeated in arms, they can be masters of themselves. They have no +recognition whatsoever that the destruction of mediæval imperialism and +the unfurling of the flag of liberty have been due to valor and +sacrifice of the peoples of the whole world, who have accomplished it +without other motive than to make the world a fit place in which an +honest man can live. In short, they are endeavoring to make it seem that +their defeat in the material control of the world by the German sword is +to be an opportunity for a great German triumph. + +At this distance it is impossible to distinguish between the arrogance +of the German Kaiser and his supporters and the arrogance of the German +Socialists. They have every appearance of being born of the same +monstrous mother made big of Satan. That which the latter are now +stating they can do is the same as the Kaiser and his cohorts of +authority, founded in divine rights, thought they could do and set out +to do a quarter of a century ago. The Germans are as intoxicated with +their own vanity, their own self-sufficiency, their own divine mission +and potentialities to-day as they have been at any time in the twentieth +century. + +No one denies that Germany defeated may make any attempt at government +which she chooses. At the same time no one can abrogate the right of the +conquerors to see to it that the form of government which she institutes +and which she attempts to carry into operation shall not be one that +militates against the success of the ideals for which the Allies have +striven, not for themselves alone but for the whole world. It needs no +prophetic vision to discern in the expressions of dictatorial arrogance +of those who have taken the government in hand in Germany the same +assumption of superiority which led to their defeat, the greatest the +world has ever seen. In brief, as we see it to-day, the effort in +Germany at the present time is to substitute one kind of class interests +for another which was admitted by the world's best judges to be not only +pernicious but destructive of liberty. If the former was of such a +nature, why does not the latter partake of it? If there were any +indications of sincere desire to establish an honest form of democratic +government in Germany, there is no doubt that its originators and the +whole German people would soon realize that they were dealing with a +magnanimous conqueror, but in view of the fact that the wild beast has +now in its agonal days the same snarl, the same venom, and the same +sharp teeth that it had when it was lusty and well-nourished, it is +necessary that the conquerors should harden their hearts and judiciously +guard the springs and cisterns of their generosity. + +Promises of Germans should no longer be adequate. We should demand +deeds, and not only that but that they should be backed by the sentiment +and determination of the whole people and not of those who in +maintaining that they speak for them speak only for themselves and their +malignant ambitions. Teutonic tradition and authority must be replaced +by Jeffersonian, Mazzinian, Wilsonian liberty and justice. + +It would be well for the whole world to realize that we are on the +threshold of the most fundamental transformation that the human mind can +conceive. We have been so long accustomed to the institutions and +conventions that constitute authority and privilege that it is almost +impossible for any one to realize that they are about to cease to exist. +Not only has the death-knell of such class privileges been rung, but +likewise that of institutions which have stultified intellectual growth +and moral supremacy, and amongst them none has more importance than +organized religion, that is, religion which claims to be authoritative +in so much as its directors or trustees--call them what you +may--formulate a dogma to the teaching of which all others must conform +in order that they may have life everlasting. People's religion must be +left to the free choice of the people. + +Few of us realize that the curtain rung down on the 11th of November, +1918, was the closing of the second act in that great drama of which the +first act was the French Revolution and of which the third and closing +act will be devoted to social and political reconstruction. The majority +have some ill-defined notion or thought that we shall go back to the +kind of world that existed previous to August, 1914. There isn't the +smallest chance of it. I doubt whether even those who have had a vision +of the impending transformation realize, however, how great or +far-reaching the change will be. The time has come when the people are +going to rule the world. They are going to administer its affairs in +such a way that every man and woman capable of taking thought will have +opportunity to be heard and will be privileged to live without +authority, whose purpose it is to make the masses conform to a line of +conduct that will make for the advantage of the few, favored by birth or +fortune which may have been their birthright or their acquisition. For +years the word socialism and that for which it stands have been redolent +of bad odor. This war has purged it of its disagreeable connotation, and +to-day that which is meant by socialism is equivalent to the rights of +man. In the minds of many socialism and anarchy are synonymous, but in +reality the socialism which the war just finished has nurtured to a +lusty youth is much freer from anarchy and from the potentialities of +destruction than the reign of autocracy, of capital and of bosses, which +it supplanted. + +I realize that it is difficult to defend this position in view of what +is happening in Russia. To-day the bugaboo to the world's children is +Bolshevism; that is what will "get us if we don't look out." When a riot +breaks out anywhere nowadays it is Bolshevism. It has become a +shibboleth, a name to conjure with, this social and political experiment +in organized and carefully planned violence that has been carried out by +the Jews in Russia since the conclusion of the peace of Brest-Litovsk. +The word has suddenly come into wide-spread use and it is being given +the connotation of socialism. In truth it is the socialism of the young +Russia. Its theory is a perverted Marxism and its practice is an +envenomed Hindenburgism. The etymology of the word Bolshevism as a name +for a pseudopolitical party finds its origin in the programme of the +party itself, that is, in the ultraradical tendencies of "Maximilist +extremists" professed by the party leaders, Lenine, Trotzky, and +Sinowjew. The leader Lenine said of the Bolsheviks in a moment of +frankness: "For every genuine Bolshevik of my party there are sixty +idiots and thirty-nine rascals," and no one can doubt his fitness to +judge. We should not forget that the Russian public that looks on Lenine +as its idol is honeycombed with deserters, ruffians, and at least three +hundred thousand common criminals who were liberated from the prisons +and from exile in Siberia by the revolution. + +The Bolsheviks are neither a party nor are they the expression of +democratic and revolutionary Russia, as a great many persist in +believing. They are a mob drunk with ultraradical doctrines, who from +exceptional circumstances have become able to seize the power, +dominating with methods ferociously reactionary a hundred and twenty +million individuals. And the world is witnessing in astonishment the +spectacle offered by these bandits who, illegally holding the state +power, arbitrarily decide the fortunes of a whole people after having +allured them with fallacious promises, betraying them before the enemy. + +The absolute unpreparedness of the Russian people--eighty per cent is +illiterate--to pass into a régime of democracy and social autonomy has +facilitated the successes of the Bolsheviks, whose "ideas" or +conceptions, as expressed in the programmes of Lenine, Trotzky, et al., +consist in carrying "persuasion" to the majority of the ignorant masses. +Such "ideas" are first of all that the "proletariat has not and must not +have a country." "The issue of the World War is of interest to the +proletariat only from the point of view of the possibility for them to +take advantage of the general situation, doing everything in order to +turn the war of the states into a war of classes." + +The bastard Bolshevism of present-day Russia professes, furthermore, the +conception formerly considered as purely anarchic that "the property of +others does not exist"; theft and violence are the normal means of +exchange; liberty of speech is non-existent; neither press liberty nor a +free literary production exists, because the Bolsheviks are exercising a +censorship more tyrannical than the ill-famed imperial censorship. Their +methods of coercion are to bring about financial exhaustion by means of +fines and indemnities; physical exhaustion by means of enforced labor +and confiscation of food supplies, and moral exhaustion by removing the +foundations upon which individual life is integrated, removing all +dominant objects, such as desire for scientific or artistic creation, +religious principle, or strong and lasting affections. It is not only +the dictatorship of proletariat which the Bolsheviks are trying to +establish but a dictatorship of tyranny, and they use every conceivable +means, showing themselves especially rabid against the well-to-do +classes, against the intellectuals, against capitalism and militarism. + +The application of all this "programme" carries with it, as a first +consequence, the complete dissolution of every state form, in the +political sense as well as in the economic sense. The disorganization is +complete; hunger, by which the masses see themselves threatened, +increases the spread of every form of criminality and violence. The +destruction of every sentiment of individual responsibility and the +abolition of religious faith contribute to take away from the class of +those who are better fitted to resist morally every obstacle and +restraint in the choice of their actions. It is the "universal +destruction," it is the madness of the _après nous le déluge_! + +The position of the Jews, radically changed after the revolution of the +spring of 1917, which gave them equal rights with the rest of the +population of Russian origin and religion, has had its triumph in the +recent manifestations of Bolshevism. In fact, besides Trotzky, whose +real name is Braunstein, there is a high percentage of Jews among the +mob leaders and dictators of the "soviet" (councils) by which every city +is administered, forming in this way an infinite number of "small social +republics" in every part of the vast Russian territory. + +The words of one of the most profound connoisseurs of the Russian soul, +Dostoievsky, words which, alas, are prophetic not only of the concrete +facts, but also of the general dangers which threaten his country, +portray the condition that has come to pass. + + "Our people, in the immense majority, adapt themselves cheerfully + to the hardest discipline, and it is the easiest thing in the world + to drag them toward the most noble deeds or toward the most ignoble + crimes. I tremble to think of what these good people are capable of + doing if they are left, even for a moment, without discipline. + Alas, side by side with them there are always some evil spirits, + full of envy, thirsty of power, with their soul filled with selfish + passions and bad instincts; it is they who always exercise a + mysterious and nefarious influence on the Russian mobs. I had a + striking example of this when the whole population of a prison, + about four thousand persons, was supinely submitting to the will of + one of these demons who took advantage of them. Nobody dared to + murmur. The Russian needs an idol; he feels the need of bending, of + being guided, of obeying. Free the Russian people of a leading + power which they willingly followed and they will immediately + create for themselves another dominator more obnoxious and + nefarious. Let God preserve us when the crowd of the weak ones will + follow under the power of the wicked ones. What a horrible + spectacle we shall witness then! What atrocities! What useless + slaughter! We shall see the country and religion betrayed; we shall + see Russia fall the prey to external enemies; we shall see material + servitude, the loss of all our acquisitions, the oblivion of all + the affections. Let God save me from seeing this turning-point in + Russian history!" + +God saved him, but this mercy was not extended to us. We shall have to +be witness of Russia groaning under the system of bloodless terror, but +it will not be for long. In theory the Bolsheviks desire the same thing +as the Socialists; in practice they want it plus revenge, that which has +been the motivating characteristic of the Jew since time immemorial. +Their power is founded in resources which I suspect are largely in +America, and their agents have been granted citizenship and protection +in practically every country of the world. So soon as the motives of +their supporters then shall be widely known, and so soon as their +monstrous practices shall be revealed to the whole world, this malignant +exuberance that has developed upon the healthy growth of Liberalism and +Socialism will be removed by a giant cautery wielded in a hand more +powerful than that of Hercules. + +A decree recently issued by the Bolsheviks of Vladimir, published in +that official Soviet organ _Izvestija_, and now beginning to be widely +published by European papers, will be relished by many in the U. S. A., +where unquestionably the Bolsheviks have largely been financed. + + "Every girl who has reached her eighteenth year is guaranteed by + the local Commissary of Surveillance the full inviolability of her + person. + + "Any offender against an eighteen-year-old girl by using insulting + language or attempting to ravish her is subject to the full rigors + of the Revolutionary Tribunal. + + "Any one who has ravished a girl who has not reached her eighteenth + year is considered a state criminal, and is liable to a sentence of + twenty years' hard labor unless he marries the injured one. + + "The injured, dishonored girl is given the right not to marry the + ravisher if she does not so desire. + + "A girl having reached her eighteenth year is to be announced as + the property of the state. + + "Any girl having reached her eighteenth year and not married is + obliged, subject to the most severe penalty, to register at the + Bureau of Free Love in the Commissariat of Surveillance. + + "Having registered at the Bureau of Free Love, she has the right to + choose from among men between the ages of nineteen and fifty a + cohabitant-husband. + + "Remarks: (1) The consent of the man in the said choice is + unnecessary; (2) the man on whom such a choice falls has no right + to make any protest whatsoever against the infringement. + + "The right to choose from a number of girls who have reached their + eighteenth year is given also to men. + + "The opportunity to choose a husband or a wife is to be presented + once a month. + + "The Bureau of Love is autonomous. + + "Men between the ages of nineteen and fifty have the right to + choose from among the registered women, even without the consent of + the latter, in the interests of the state. + + "Children who are the issue of these unions are to become the + property of the state." + +The "decree" states further that it has been based on the excellent +"example" of similar decrees already issued at Luga, Kolpin, and +elsewhere. + +A similar "Project of Provisional Rights in Connection with the +Socialization of Women in the City of Hvolinsk and Vicinity" was +published in the _Local Gazette_ of the Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies. + +I am not sure that this lurid conduct of the Bolsheviks will do the +cause of social reconstruction harm. I recall the conduct of the +promoters of woman-suffrage in England in the few years preceding 1914. +Their campaign seemed to be founded in insanity, and yet something of +the kind was necessary to concentrate the world's attention on their +rights, and the Bolsheviks have got the world's attention and thought +to-day--and will have them to-morrow. + +Socialism is adverse to imperialism and capitalism. Imperialism has been +conquered, but capitalism has not yet been throttled. One will be able +more safely to prophesy how much it has been weakened, potentially and +actually, after labor has had its next chance at the bat in Great +Britain. This war was not undertaken to overcome capitalism. It was +undertaken to overcome imperialism and the tyranny of foreign +domination, but its success has been dependent upon the people, who will +now assert their rights, and the most fundamental of their rights is +that they shall not be oppressed by money. It is not sufficient that the +principles of nationality defined by Mazzini shall be upheld--that is, +that the peoples of one nationality shall not be dominated by the +peoples of another. It is necessary, if such peoples are going to live +in freedom, that they must not be dominated or enslaved by any +mastodonic power which is protected from attack, such as capital. Had it +not been for the determination of the people to have the right to live +in freedom, the miracle that transpired in the closing months of 1918 in +Europe would not have been wrought. The factors that sustained the +peoples of the conquering nations in these long, dark months of tragedy +and of carnage, the thing that made them go on stubbornly and +steadfastly with the war when the odds seemed to be all against them, +may be summarized in one sentence: "Their determination to have their +inalienable right, the right to live in freedom." One may perhaps say +that in different countries of the world they have had such right, but +the person who says this would have great difficulty in naming the +country. Any one who contended that in republics such as ours capital +has not been privileged and arbitrary, that it has not been the dominant +factor in making and adopting the laws to which the people are beholden, +would be laughed at by any sane man. + +And now that the people who have lived and died, toiled and wrought, +suffered and supplicated through fifty-two months of agony have won, +there will arise from those who have survived a dominant chorus which +will insist upon the fulfilment of the promises that were made them to +incite them to victory. Their hopes and desires and aspirations must be +satisfied. I am one of those who believe that they will make their +demands orderly and insistently, and not by means of revolution or +serious disturbance of order. They will work out their salvation by +mutual co-operation, not only amongst themselves but with those who are +the leaders of the world's thought, many of whom have been heretofore of +the privileged classes, but they will insist upon certain fundamental +things which I have previously enumerated, and the foremost of which is +the dispersion of great wealth, particularly hereditary wealth. The +revolutionary Socialist sees an easy solution of the matter in the +giving of the wealth to the masses and of recognizing no other source of +wealth except labor, but that is not the kind of Socialist who will have +to do with the reordering of the world that is now being born. It is the +Socialist who is to-day frequently called the individualist, who +believes that the dissipation of individual property and initiative will +spell a greater ruin for the masses than for the individual and who +believes in harmonizing the principles of individual liberty with those +of solidarity, who will be the Socialist of the New Era. + +The future state will be arbitrary only in so far as it is the +expression of the collected, united force of its citizens. They will +really make its laws, not have them made for them by capital or +privileged interests; they will enforce them impartially, and it is +devoutly to be hoped the external force of such peoples will be +conventionized in such a way with other peoples that armies and navies +will practically cease to exist. The basis of such hope is in the League +of Nations, for then we shall have a world-state which shall make +international law or convention subject to law and enforcement. Once the +fear of invasion of a country is overcome and once the principles of +nationality can be established and put into operation, there will be no +reason for the existence of armies and navies. + +The beneficences subsumed under the name liberty that must flow from the +sacrifices that we have made for the welfare of the people must assure +their health, contribute to their happiness, and promote their +efficiency. Disease must be prevented, not by personal effort as on the +part of physicians who do it for gain or fame, but by the state, which +shall devote adequate sums for research, investigation, propaganda, and +enforcement of the principles of sanitation. It shall likewise devote +adequate sums for the education of all the people and thrust such +education upon them in order that they may make use, not only for +themselves but for the state, of the talents with which they have been +endowed, so that liberty and personal initiative may be made running +mates, and no closely knit organization as the church shall be permitted +to stand in the way of such education. It shall permit them to worship +God as they, educated, see fit and proper, and it shall not attempt, or +tolerate the attempt of others, to thrust a religion founded in +authority upon them, non-conformation to which is followed by +punishment, often in condign form, such as social ostracism, refusal of +the ministration of paid priests, refusal of burial in consecrated +grounds, or threat of punishment. It shall not enforce upon them a +conduct at variance with the laws of nature in sex relations; therefore, +it shall solve the marriage and population questions, or at least make +an attempt to do so. It shall give the same freedom to woman as it does +to man and not have one written or unwritten law for the former and +another for the latter. It shall replace our present economic system by +a better one; in other words, money must be given a new valuation. + +When everything has been said, the state is the thing. What constitutes +a state or a nation? We know what has constituted it in the past, but +when we read history we realize that it has never been stable, always +has been in transformation. Some have been more stable than +others--England more than Italy, France more than Austria, the United +States more than France. When a nation does not change it is dead like +Spain, strangled by the parasite, arbitrary authority, the church. + +A new order of state-formation is about to be instituted--that of +nationalism. Comparatively few people appreciate what is meant by +nationalism. Until the wide-spread discussion of the aspirations of the +Czecho-Slovaks in America, I doubt whether any one, except students of +history and statesmen, gave any attention to it whatsoever. And yet, +despite this, no one has elaborated the fundamental facts of nationality +as clearly as has President Wilson. Nearly a third of all the peoples of +Europe have been obliged to submit to governments to which they were +antipathic by birth, sympathy, or tradition. In other words, Italians +living beyond a certain arbitrary geographic line have been obliged to +subscribe to the laws of Austria; French living beyond a certain +geographic line have been obliged to subscribe to the laws of Germany; +Slavs to those of Hungary. Patriotism, that indefinable quality made up +of primitive instincts, intellectual convictions, and religious feeling, +which is supposed to be the greatest of all the virtues, has been an +artifice for a third of all the peoples of the European continent. If +they were really patriotic, their hearts and minds were with their +mother countries, and therefore their conduct toward the ruler to which +they bowed the knee must have been that of the hypocrite. One of the +things on which all the Allied nations are agreed is that in the +remaking of the map of Europe every man shall be free to elect his +nationality and that no one shall be coerced to be a citizen of another +nation. He may elect to be a citizen of another nation, but that is his +concern. + +It is more than probable that there will be very great difficulty in +rearranging the map of Europe satisfactorily in order that this +principle of nationality may be fulfilled, and nowhere will it be so +difficult as in Italy. The agreement of Italy with the Allies previous +to her entering the war, and which is known as the Pact of London, gave +her, in event of victory, large sections of the Dalmatian coast of which +she has great need in order to facilitate the development of her +commerce and to provide her with certain essentials which her territory +does not furnish. This Dalmatian coast and the territory contiguous to +it to the east--Istria, Croatia, Bosnia, and Herzegovina--are not +populated by Italians to any considerable extent. As a matter of fact, +the vast majority of the people are Slavs, and it is this country which +many people believe and hope will eventually become Jugoslavia. There is +no doubt whatsoever that Italy will get all her unredeemed territory, +but whether or not she will get much more than that on the continent of +Europe is doubtful in the minds of many, including her well-wishers. + +The question of nationality is not going to be an easy one for +Austria-Hungary to settle. In reality, German-Austria constitutes an +important hinge upon which all the problems that are connected with the +reconstruction of Central Europe swing. Aside from the Czecho-Slovak +nation, which is Bohemia and the territories that were lopped off from +it previous to the time when it was absorbed by Austria-Germany, the +smaller nations that have come to the surface and have been +differentiated in this waterspout that has disturbed the waters of the +Austro-Hungarian Empire will have to wait a long time for their rights +and differentiation, but the status of German Austria will have to be +settled very promptly. It has been said repeatedly in the newspapers +that these people have expressed a desire to unite themselves with a +German confederation, probably Bavaria. A great many people see in this +accession to Germany of ten or twelve millions of people a potential +menace in so far as this added number might make for a disturbance of +the equilibrium of power. But one cannot say whether or not this fear is +groundless until we see what form of government Prussia and Bavaria and +the other states of Germany are eventually going to have. If the +principles of nationality are not going to be invalidated by any future +settlements, the Germans of Austria would have only two choices--to +constitute an independent government of their own or to link themselves +with one of the Prussian states. As a matter of fact, it is most +unlikely that the Allies will attempt to give them any advice in this +matter, which means they will not attempt to direct or coerce them. + +France may not have an easy time with Alsace-Lorraine. In the two +generations that have elapsed since Germany took them, it is not at all +unlikely that many of their people have become a part of the national +consciousness of that country. The just way would be to let the adults +of Alsace-Lorraine decide at the end of another forty-eight years, +during which time it is united to France, by universal vote of its +adults, men and women, whether they want to have French or German +nationality. I should think France would be taking no risks in such a +plebiscite. + +England will have Ireland to deal with after the war even more than +before the war. There is only one way that she can do it successfully +and that is on the principles of nationality. The Irish are no more like +the English than the Czechs are like the Austrians; in fact, they are +less so. They are different emotionally, intellectually, morally, and +physically, and England will not much longer be allowed to coerce them. +Her one privilege in Ireland is to force universal education upon her +people. If this had been done before, England would have long ere this +brought about that instinctive liking and common purpose which is the +basis of all sound union, whether it be between individuals or between +components of a nation. + +Italy's chief difficulty is going to be with the Jugoslavs, as the +southern Slavs are called, and already these difficulties have begun. +The southern Slavs have not, so far as I can learn, formulated a +definite programme, and they were never recognized as belligerent allies +by the Entente. Italy had a hesitating recognition of southern Slav +aspirations forced from her, but there is no trust or confidence reposed +in the Slavs by the Italians. The Croatians, the Bosnians, the +Montenegrins, the Albanians do not know what they want, save change, and +that they have wanted since time immemorial. They have no specific +programme and there is no definite interlacement of their desires with +Serbia. So far as their plans can be gleaned, realization of them, even +in the most fundamental one of establishing a plebiscitary area, would +find itself in violent conflict with Italy's pre-bellum agreement with +the Allies known as the Treaty of London. + +All things come to him who waits. If while waiting things do not come to +us that make life forever after unlivable, we shall be fortunate, and +forever grateful. + + November, 1918. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + +BANQUETS AND PERSONALITIES + + +I marvel how men in public life stand banquets, especially Italians, who +take to them like babes to mothers' milk. I fancy they often long for a +succulent chop and a baked potato, with a tray for mahogany and a book +for company! But the _banchetto_ gives them an alluring arena for +oratory, and my deliberate conviction is that the Italian has more +pleasure in speaking than in any other voluntary act. Not only does he +like to talk, but he likes to be talked to. The Italian language lends +itself to sonorous oratory, and one can become more impassioned while +delivering himself of simple thought and plain sentiment in it than in +any other tongue. Rome has always been the city of pilgrims. Formerly +they came in pursuit of the salvation of their souls; now they come to +help make the world safe for liberty. Missions, delegations, committees, +distinguished personages with their trains come nearly every day from +all parts of the world, and to each is given a banquet, to some many +banquets. + +A diverting one was a luncheon given to a delegation of the Japanese Red +Cross headed by Prince Tokugawa. There were many distinguished +personages present, including the Premier Orlando, the minister of war, +the minister of the navy, Duke Torlonia, the directors-general of public +health and of military health, and other exalted or celebrated +personages "too numerous to mention." It was a pleasant party. The Japs +interested me very much. They looked less Oriental, if that means +anything, than their fellows with whom I have come in contact. I fancy +this is due partly to the fact that they were in uniform not unlike that +of American officers, and also they seemed bigger, that is--of greater +stature--and more deliberate and suave than many that I had previously +met. I talked to the Prince and found him intelligent and communicative, +without sign or display of royal prerogative. Professor Seigami +Sawamura, who sat on my left at lunch, is a lawyer who seemed to have +about the same point of view on ordinary topics that a well-educated, +cultured man of his profession in America might have. The man on my +right was----, who spoke English perfectly, and whom I discovered, after +a small attempt to draw him out on the political situation, to be an +adherent of Sonnino, Minister of Foreign Affairs, and of his entourage. +He seemed to be as devoid of capacity for constructive thought as any +educated Italian of thirty-five or forty in political life that I have +ever met, or perhaps it was that he had a wonderful facility for +concealing it. His small talk, however, was quite perfect, and I can +imagine that he might have radiated considerable luminosity in a +properly selected salon. + +The speeches of the visitors and of the Japanese Ambassador to Italy +were most diverting. I have never been so entertained and instructed by +oratory of which I didn't understand a word. After the speeches were +delivered they were put into excellent Italian by a young attaché of the +Italian embassy who must have spent many years away from his native +sunny Italy in order to get the mastery of the Oriental language that he +displayed. Banquet speeches are, as a rule, a series of platitudes in +ornate dress, interspersed with sentiment and expressions of +appreciation and praise phrased diplomatically. These speeches had those +qualities--all save that of the Japanese Ambassador. His remarks had +been carefully prepared and were read. Undoubtedly they had been +submitted to the Mikado or his advisers before they were put before us, +for they stated the position of his government relative to the war, +narrated their reason for participation in its activities, and made +statement of their determination to have the efforts of the Allies +crowned with success. + +The Italian premier, Orlando, replied. He is a real orator. Even below +the stature of the average Italian of the South, the large, shapely, and +well-poised head, surmounted with thick, closely cropped gray hair +brushed pompadour, the sparkling eyes, ruddy face, and genial expression +give you at once the feeling that you are in the presence of a man of +power, of resourcefulness, and of facility. No one could mistake that he +is a man of the people. There is no trace of arrogance or of +self-exaltation, and when he speaks you feel that his words are +fountained from sincerity. His remarks gave evidence of research and +careful preparation. After having pointed out the pleasant relations +that had always existed between Italy and Japan and the present intimate +solidarity, he cited some historic instances which bind the nations in +amity. It was a forebear of the Prince Tokugawa, the Shogun Yasu +Tokugawa, who in 1613 permitted a Western ship to land in Japan, and who +facilitated the advent of the first Japanese ambassador to Rome. The +visitors were apparently very much pleased with his remarks, as he +intended they should be. There was nothing said that seemed to indicate +that there was any general adhesion to the belief that if the Allies won +the war England would become the vassal of America, or of the yellow +people of the extreme Orient, such as the _Frankfurter Zeitung_ has +recently said would probably be the case. + +All of the visitors with whom I spoke were loud, and seemingly sincere, +in praise of the treatment they had had at the hands of the Americans +during their visit there, and I gathered that there exists at the +present time between America and Japan a more generalized sentiment of +trustfulness than existed before the war. At least, it may be said that +the Jap loses no opportunity to say "nice things" of our country. + +A benefit that flows from such a gathering is the opportunity it gives +to see, in their hour of semi-relaxation and at short range, some of +those who are helping to make history in this country and whose names +one sees every day in the newspapers. The first impression that one gets +is that they are substantial, serious, intelligent, earnest, alert in +their appearance, manner, and conduct, sincere in their efforts, and +unalterable in their determination. I fancy that they compare favorably +with a similar group of any nationality. Though perhaps you are +disappointed in finding that none of them bears any particular outward +manifestations of genius, if there be such thing, yet you have no +misgivings that they are individuals capable of constructive thought and +mature deliberation, self-reliant, and confident. + +The next day I went to a midday banquet tendered by Melville E. Stone, +the general manager of the Associated Press, by the newspaper men of +Rome. It was a very different gathering. Newspaper men have a make-up, a +physiognomy, a general appearance, more or less founded in what may be +called personal neglect, that is, an insensitiveness to personal +æsthetics, which is quite characteristic. One can't pick a newspaper man +from a crowd with the same readiness and accuracy that he picks a monk +or an actor, but the majority of journalists become hall-marked after +they have plied their vocation for any considerable length of time. I +was impressed with the appearance of intelligence and seriousness of the +men of the Italian press. Few of them bore the somatic signs of intimacy +with Mr. Barleycorn. The company had a fair sprinkling of ministers, +including Nitti and Gallenga, deputies, and ex-ministers, but as far as +I could see there were no dukes or princes. The latter are ornamental +and not infrequently pleasing to look upon, but a gathering of newspaper +men is redolent of democracy, which is antipathic to princely presence. +We lunched at the restaurant in the Borghese Gardens. It was a much +simpler affair than the banquet tendered the Japs at the Grand Hotel, +but it was an ample, edible lunch, and you had the feeling that we had +foregathered to honor one who was deserving. + +When one attempts to describe Mr. Stone he is tempted at once to say he +is a typical American. But what is a typical American? There are so many +types. William Jennings Bryan is a typical American. So is Henry Cabot +Lodge. Benjamin Franklin was a typical American, yet he fraternized with +dukes and flirted with duchesses, the sheer embodiment of _suaviter in +modo_ and _fortiter in re_. While successfully putting America on the +map and advancing the humanities generally, he immortalized himself and +affectioned the French people. Abraham Lincoln, we like to think, was a +typical American, but were one to encounter him incog. in ceremonial +circles, political or social, in Europe to-day, ninety-nine Americans +out of a hundred would deny him. Uncle Sam is supposed to depict the +somatic make-up of the typical Yankee, and at the same time to convey +the idea that he is a man to be reckoned with emotionally and +intellectually at all times, in his moments of relaxation and in his +hours of activity. Nevertheless the average person has something fairly +specific in mind when he says, "He is a typical American." He means a +man who displays and who often can't conceal a determination to put +through that which he has planned; who is self-confident, opinionated, a +stranger to ceremony and oftentimes unfamiliar with ordinary social +amenities; who is fully appreciative of the accomplishments and +potentialities of his country and its institutions, and who doesn't +hesitate to contrast them with those of other countries, often to their +disparagement; who speaks only one language, American, and that not +always either grammatically or elegantly; who is often a stranger to +culture and the last person in the world to find it out; whose dress is +that of a farmer or a fashion-plate, and who has bizarre tastes for food +and drink--cocktails and ice-water bulk large in his necessities, and he +despises Continental breakfasts; who is attracted by the treasures of +art and moved by the beauties of nature, but the immediate result of the +emotion is to enhance the value of something similar in his own country, +yet when he treads his native heath he is often a disparager of it, its +possessions, and its institutions. + +Melville E. Stone is not that sort of typical American. His record is +not unlike that of thousands of his countrymen. He is temperamentally +and emotionally an Irishman, and intellectually and physically an +American. The son of an itinerant Methodist preacher who forsook the +cloth for commerce during the Civil War, and was thus able to provide +for the maintenance and education of his children, he gives you the +impression of a man who has made his way in the world, and made his own +way. Although he is now past the age allotted to man by the Psalmist, he +has the appearance and conduct of a man easily ten years younger. I had +opportunity of observing him at short range for three or four days, for +he was our guest, and as all the other members of our household were +away I saw more of him than I otherwise might. He is a man of vast +information, which he is not averse to sharing with others, and, unlike +many who have such possessions, his information is accurate. This, in a +measure, is due to the fact that it is largely personal. As the general +manager and general motivator of the greatest news-collecting bureau in +the world, he is constantly coming in contact with men who are making +history, and his personality is so ingratiating that they allow him a +personal contact which in many instances apparently reaches intimacy. +Although he is a man who talks freely, my impression is that he is not +indiscreet. In addition to this, he has been a studious reader. It was +interesting to find that he is a bed reader, for my belief is that the +man who reads attentively in bed has an impression of what he reads made +upon the memory cells of his brain cortex which sleep then stamps with +permanency. + +I gather Mr. Stone had very little schooling; that is, he did not go to +college. As a boy he went to school in the winter and worked in the +summer and during other vacations, and apparently the work that he did +most willingly was newspaper work. He became editor of the Chicago +_Daily News_ while still a very young man, and continued in that +important post for a quarter of a century. He acquired the art of going +easily and successfully to men in political life and other avenues of +constructive activity while in Chicago, Washington, and the capitals of +Europe. The thing that has made him a man of culture, however, is an +inherent desire for knowledge, which, he early realized, is the only +means that man can successfully employ to add to his stature. He is a +true Celt, emotional, sensitive, tenacious of his opinions, reliant in +his judgments, a hater of his enemies, and an admirer of his friends. If +I were asked to enumerate his most distinctive possession, after a short +intimacy with him I should say it was a quality which we speak of as +justice. When he brings a question up to the threshold of his +consciousness for solution, or a problem for decision, the first thing +that he considers is "Is it just?" After that its feasibility and +advisability are discussed. + +The representative gathering of Italians which greeted him at lunch were +prejudiced in his favor. In addition to that, they were saturated with +the belief that America was the young Lochinvar who came out of the West +to deliver them from threatened bondage. I doubt very much whether any +one in America to-day realizes the feeling that Italians had for +America, and it is one of great interest. Until the advent of America +into the war Italians practically knew nothing of the United States of +America, save that it was a place to which large numbers of their +poorest and most ignorant inhabitants emigrated, and where they made +money which enabled them to return to their native land, or to maintain +their families or dependents during their exile. Of the history of +America, of the men who made that history and who are making it, of its +institutions, its traditions, its accomplishments, its potentialities +they knew practically nothing. Undoubtedly there are many who would not +accept this statement as true, but I am convinced that it is. Naturally +there are men of culture, men of studious habits, men with inclination +for historic reading who are exceptions to this blanket accusation. I +was very much amused last winter, when dining with an admiral of the +navy on duty at Spezia, by the inquiry whether I came from North America +or from South America. There are many Italians who claim to be educated +who make very little differentiation between the two continents, and I +have never yet met an Italian, unless he was a bookish man, who knew +anything about our literature. In my own profession I doubt that there +are a half-dozen men in America whose fame has reached Italy, and those +whose names are familiar are known because of some eponymic association. + +I could cite many examples to show not only the indifference which +Italians have to the history and literature of our country but also the +absence of any desire to know about them. Then, their conceptions or +ideas of Americans are quite extraordinary. They got them from tourists +whom they saw overrunning their country en prince or en Cook, and made +up their minds that they were a type of uncivilized Croesus or of +unæsthetic barbarian. They saw the effete, the effeminate and decadent, +or the semi-invalided business man surrounded by a bevy of overdressed +females whose chief interest seemed to be their luggage and the sights; +and they saw the weary and wearisome gapers constituting the "personally +conducted." Then again, the Italian is no great traveller. He likes his +country, he is content with it, and, although he rails against his +government, he would feel that a large part of the pleasure of life was +taken from him if he were not permitted to discuss critically, and often +disparagingly, what are commonly called politics. I don't mean to say +that the Italian "fancies" himself, but neither the spirit of admiration +nor of emulation distinguishes him. He is like the Roman in miniature. +The Roman still thinks he is the last cry of God's handiwork in the +human line. + +When America declared war on Germany, and particularly when she declared +war on Austria, Italians quickly got interested in America; and when +they learned that America came so generously to Italy's aid, first, in +supplying the money for the conduct of the war, and then in supplying +the material needs of her people, Italians manifested a tremendous +interest in us and in our country, and they began to look upon us as +their guide and their savior. I never heard a disparaging word of our +country or of him who was directing our ship of state until after the +Peace Conference. They looked upon Woodrow Wilson as a man inspired. +There were times during the war when they would have been very glad if +America had acquiesced more readily and more whole-heartedly in their +requests, such as in July, 1918, when they believed that it was +imperative to have large numbers of American troops in Italy. But at the +same time, when their wishes were not met and their requests not +granted, they did not sit in adverse judgment upon him who made the +decision. In fact, they believed he could not err. + +It is natural that they should have been concerned about the situation +that existed in the early summer of 1918. There were two millions of +American troops in Europe, with more constantly coming, and there were +only a very small number in Italy. The Italians saw themselves pitted +more or less alone against a country, Austria-Hungary, which had an army +nearly twice as large as theirs and which was more rapacious than a +hungry wolf goaded into renewed ferocity by recent defeat. They +sincerely believed that if they had received help at that time they +could have overcome their hereditary and acquired enemy promptly, and it +is likely that they could. That might have been a reason for sending +American troops to Italy, but it was not an adequate reason. The one +task in hand was to win the war, to win it expeditiously and to win it +in such a manner that would put Germany, as she was constituted and as +she had been constituted for the past twenty-five years, out of +existence; that is, to exterminate the war lords, to destroy them and +their influence. The man or men who were permitted to look at the +question from all angles were far better able to plan how this should be +done than the councillors of one nation who naturally saw the question +only from one side, that is, their own point of view. + +It is likely also that the Italians constantly reminded themselves that +if they had received help from the Allies early in 1916 the war might +have been ended. I have heard many an Italian say that they were in a +position then to overcome the Austrian army had they received such help +and that with the simultaneous activity of the Russians on the eastern +front they would have carried the Allied arms into Vienna. But you do +not grind your grist more satisfactorily by regretting that the waters +that have gone over the mill were not used more efficaciously. + +I have wandered far afield from the testimonial lunch to Mr. Stone, but +my reflections are apropos of the remarks which the Honorable Nitti, a +wizard with figures and a magician with men, made. Many of his +countrymen profess to distrust him and to say that Giolitti made him and +still controls him. Nothing could be more absurd. Nitti is the type of +man who is made by his endowment and by his environment. It would be +easier to think of any other public man in Italy as the tool of a +dictator, dethroned or enthroned, than it would be of Nitti. The son of +poor parents who sacrificed everything for his education, he has been +journalist, author, teacher, economist, professor, advocate, and +statesman. When he first went in the House he sat on the extreme left, +and gradually he moved up toward the centre, although he is always +inscribed in the radical party. He is unquestionably of formidable brain +and combines a will of iron with an audacity that has the appearance at +least of transcending all temerity. + +In appearance he is the typical middle-class South Italian, short, +rotund, with thick neck and massive face adorned with a smile that +rarely comes off. He is a polished orator and his political papers read +like literary documents. He is reputed to be a master of political +stage-setting. Realizing that the most potent factor in shaping men's +judgment is the press, and realizing that the man who has his fingers on +the keyboard of the organ that makes the music was the honored guest of +the occasion, he embraced the opportunity to put before Mr. Stone and +his colleagues his convictions of the needs of Italy and his hopes that +they might be gratified. I am sure that he did not say publicly anything +that Mr. Stone had not already heard in private audience, for the doors +leading to the council chambers of the men of influence in this country +swing open welcomingly to Mr. Stone, but to say them in his presence to +the representative press of Italy convinced us that his hopes and +aspirations in this matter were the expression of the government, and he +was willing and wished to communicate them to the public. + +The other speakers were entertaining but scarcely instructive. One +doesn't expect inspired sentiment or statement at testimonial banquets, +but I felt that the speakers missed an opportunity to herald the +democratization of the world through education and enlightenment via the +press. Many nice things were said about Mr. Stone, but I confess frankly +that I was disappointed that no one took it upon himself to interpret +his accomplishments or to dwell upon and elaborate his activities and +accomplishments symbolically. If they would stop telling us Germany's +motives in precipitating the Great War and give us instead a credo for +the present and the future, it would be a relief. I am firmly convinced +that Germany thrust the war upon the world because she couldn't inhibit +her latent and active cruelty which possesses and has possessed her for +generations, as lust possesses the satyric man who, when he becomes +intoxicated or unbalanced, throws prudence, precedent, precept, and +principles to the wind and gives himself and his possessions to the +orgy. The Central Powers will have to pay the full penalty for their +crimes, even though they deny their guilt, just as the wilful murderer +is electrocuted, even though he goes to the chair protesting his +innocence. + +The guest's speech was felicitous. He dwelt briefly on Italy's +justification for entering the war when she did; he justly evaluated her +work and he paid a deserving tribute to her resourcefulness in having +extricated herself from the horns of the bull after the Caporetto +disaster. He brought Columbus, Mazzini, and Garibaldi, our debt to them +and their inspiration for us, into his remarks in such a way as to +convince his auditors that they constitute for us a revered Italian +trinity, and he adequately depicted the tenderness and affection that +his countrymen have for Italy. + +It takes a big man, using that word in one of its conventional senses, +to conduct a successful publicity campaign. In the first place, he has +to understand the people with whom he works, and the first successful +step in understanding them is to want to understand them. If he has +preconceived ideas not founded in reliable information or experience, if +he is biassed and hypercritical, if he doesn't know how to elicit +testimony and evaluate evidence, if he hasn't habituated himself to look +at events, heralded or transpired, from different points of view, if he +isn't animated by the spirit of service--that is, to do his work for the +good of the cause--he is doomed to failure, or at least he can be only +partially successful. Then again, he must be a man who worthily +represents his government and his people. He should know his way about. +He should be familiar with ordinary social amenities, so that he may go +easily amongst his superiors and excite their approbation, and he must +have the capacity to bear true witness while constantly keeping the +burnished side of his shield before the people he is aiming to succor +and orient. There are few ways in which one can be of more service to +his country than by making proper propaganda in an allied country. The +narrow-minded, biassed, obsessed man has the worst possible equipment +for such position. + +Propaganda is the priceless privilege of the press. + + + + +CHAPTER XV + +SENTIMENTALITY AND THE MALE + + +It is a long time now that the belief has been generally accepted that +God made man, and, contemplating his work, realized that it was a +failure for the purpose for which man was created. He then made woman. +The way in which this was accomplished is full of interest to the +artificer, but it does not concern me, whose lifelong study has been of +the finished species; nor does the object of the creation of man, +alluring as it is, tempt me to digress from the subject of his +sentimental endowment. Soon after his organism was endowed with sentient +possession, man was made aware that he had imperious desires which not +only demanded satisfaction but which insisted upon being satisfied. It +pleased the Christian church to enshroud the most vital of these +God-given desires in the mantle of sin, save when its appeasement was +done in conformity with the restrictions laid upon it by the church. It +may quite well be that such restrictions were founded in wisdom. For a +long time England maintained that it was right to restrict the franchise +to owners of property of a certain value, and for many centuries the +world accepted slavery without a thought that it was wrong. Ruskin spoke +truly when he said: "The basest thought about man is that he has no +spiritual nature, and the foolishest that he has no animal nature." + +The facts around which these remarks are spun are first: God reproduced +his image, and, finding that the image was incomplete and useless for +the purposes for which he was created, he made him whole, as it were, by +creating the female; and second: that he endowed man and woman with +mental and emotional qualities which were to aid them in living their +lives happily for themselves, usefully for others, and acceptably to +him. The moment this endowment was made known to them the fat was in the +fire. "She tempted me and I fell" has been the subject of picture and +poem, story and sermon, excuse or extenuation, since time immemorial. +Learned tomes and ponderous volumes have set forth specifically the +difference of the sexes, more or less uselessly too, for no one needs to +be convinced that there are anatomical and physiological differences. +The obvious is never interesting; the pleasurable quest is pursuit of +the elusive, the intangible. There are differences between the sexes +that defy specific designation, for I do not admit that specificity is +given to these distinctions by saying that men differ from women +emotionally, morally, spiritually, ethically, or that they react +differently to the same stimulus under the same circumstances, or that +there are soul differences of kind and degree. We do not have to decide +whether these distinctions are inherent or acquired. We have only to +admit that they exist. The plain fact is that tradition and experience +teach us that both the male and the female of the _genus homo_ have +certain spiritual endowments, both on the emotional and the intellectual +side, which have come to be looked upon as characteristic. Courage, +valor, secrecy are universally considered to be characteristics of the +male. On the other hand, patience, sentiment, vanity, and fickleness +have become traditionally linked up with the opposite sex. Women are +often braver than men, more continent, less vain, but to admit this does +not diminish the acceptability of the general proposition. No one is +likely to contend that either sex has a monopoly of any of these +qualities, but I fancy it will readily be admitted that sentimentality, +in its most flagrant display, is a more characteristic ancilla of woman +than of man. Bulwer Lytton was a shrewd observer when he wrote: "There +is sentiment in all women and sentiment gives delicacy to thought and +tact to manner." But sentiment with men is generally acquired, an +offspring of the intellectual quality, not as with the other sex, of the +moral. A man considers it a term of reproach to be called sentimental; +on the other hand, such designation in no way detracts from a woman's +estimate of herself, nor does it derogate her in the esteem of others so +long as she confines it within certain limits and so long as it does not +condition her conduct. Many a man on reviewing his past recognizes that +his ship of celibacy foundered upon the sandy shoals called +"tender-minded." The tender-minded girl is one with a mind somewhat +underdeveloped, saturated in sentimentality usually associated with a +streak of obstinacy which is beyond parental influence. + +With nubility there comes to every girl a wealth of emotional endowment +which is often most bewildering--indeed, it upsets some unstable +organizations, while to others it is merely an intoxication. It disturbs +their equilibrium, it tends to break down their inhibitions and to befog +the perspectives that have been so carefully developed for them, and it +not infrequently roils the water of life in which they have been +floating and swimming without effort to such a degree that they +constitute a problem for parent and teacher. The average girl gradually +throws off these disequilibrilizing effects; and the moonlight walks in +the garden, or the romantic plans to spend an idyllic life in a tiny +cottage covered by a rambler rose-bush far from the madding crowd, +companioned by an Adonis and the poetry of Tennyson, her extravagant +protestations of love for another girl, her exuberant interest in some +mystic or fantastic cult, and other concomitants of this period, are +given proper valuation. + +She emerges into womanhood with a "head" for the intoxicating libation +that wells up in her tissues, and is poured through her soul as sap +wells up in a tree, even to the smallest branches preparatory to its +bloom and fructification. The knowledge is borne in upon her that she +can manage the new possession conformably to the canons of church, +state, and society, and that the total of what has come to her at this +period may be split up into qualities or possessions to which are given +specific names, such as sentiment. Soon she realizes that these +qualities become important assets in her display of the _ars amoris_ and +they prepare the road that leads pleasantly and propitiously to the goal +which shall be the fulfilment of her physiological destiny, namely, +maternity via matrimony. When that gratifying stage has been reached and +fulfilled she understands that sentimentality, modestly displayed, +contributes largely to her success, not only in her family but in the +world. + +How different with the opposite sex! He likewise feels the obscuring +mists of sex potency and of sentimentality settling over him as puberty +approaches. He is also bewildered, but it is early made clear to him by +his fellows who have gone through the experience that the slightest +manifestation of it will be the signal for loosing on him the floodgates +of their contempt and for opening for him the sluiceways of their scorn. +To be called a mollycoddle is worse than being called a sneak, a cad, or +a liar, and he is made to appreciate that if he merits such designation +his companions will give him the kind of reception the wedding guests +gave the ancient mariner. It is borne in upon him that display of +sentiment in any form whatsoever is not "manly"; so he not only +suppresses sentimentality, but in order to conceal it he goes much +farther and no longer treats his sisters with the same kindness and +consideration as before; he withdraws his intimacies and his confidences +from his mother, professes a contempt for the society of girls, and +embraces every opportunity to display a furious antagonism toward +sentimentality. + +This period is oftentimes a trying one for the parent, and, as every one +knows, it is fraught with danger to the individual, particularly if he +is a weak character, because it is during these times that sinister +associations and injurious habits are formed which are prejudicial to +physical development and mental evolution. This is the period of life +which has furnished the fertile soil in which the modern English +novelist successfully sows his seed. + +The average boy emerges from this period with a vision so adjusted to +his immediate environment and the world that he senses things as they +really are. He begins to get some idea of the purposes and value of +life, its obligations and its privileges, and as the result of intuition +or tuition, that happiness and usefulness, the chief aims and objects of +life, stand in direct and measurable relationship to the possession and +display of certain qualities which are commonly spoken of as virtues. As +his mind unfolds and he is able to give relativity to these qualities, +he becomes aware that sentiment in a man is not a deforming but a +meritorious possession, which, when used properly, is a great asset, but +that it is one of the qualities of his make-up that should not be +displayed to the vulgar gaze, and is a possession which he should rarely +use save to blend with other qualities to give them savor. He +appreciates that sentiment gives momentum to his designs and tone to his +accomplishments, while furnishing appropriate and fitting setting for +their display, and with discernment he is able to distinguish clearly +between sentiment and sentimentality and knows that the word sentiment +is used synonymously with feeling or conviction. Sentiment is a +composite of many of the virtues and is a subjective possession which, +when revealed in words, action, or conduct may become sentimentality, +providing the origin of these words, acts, and deeds is founded in +sentiment. + +The possession of sentiment, that is, of feeling, is a most desirable +one so long as it does not warp the judgment, interfere with the +mission, or prevent a man from doing his duty. The man or woman who is +devoid of feeling is a species of monster, but the man or woman whose +plan of life is based upon sentiment and whose conduct conforms to +sentiment is mentally and morally unhealthy. As Lowell says: "Every man +feels instinctively that all the beautiful sentiments in the world weigh +less than a single lovely action." Decisions, plans of action, conduct +conditioned by or founded in sentiment can be followed safely only if +they are submitted to the acid test of reason before acceptation or +subscription. Sentiment as a possession may be compared to a ferocious +dog. He may be invaluable as a watch-dog, which adequately chained gives +you a feeling of security, and at appropriate times can be unleashed to +signal advantage, and accomplishes under guidance that which merits full +approval; but let loose at all times he is an intolerable nuisance and +may get you into one trouble after another. + +The sentimentalist is a person who, in decisions, judgments, plans of +action, and conduct of them, point of view in dealing with persons +individually and collectively, has his conduct so colored by sentiment +that his plan of action and ability and methods of its execution seem +illogical and incapable of being subjected to the test of reason. +Carlyle put it tersely when he said: "The barrenest of mortals is the +sentimentalist." + +The agonal struggle of the Great War was not necessary to convince us +that very little is to be accomplished in the world single-handed. The +individual can give birth to the idea, the plan, or possess the +initiative which may revolutionize some phase of the activities of the +world, but to carry out the idea he must have the co-operation of many. +It is in securing such co-operation that he has a great opportunity to +make a proper use of sentiment. There is nothing that an organizer or an +administrator finds out earlier or surer than that loyalty is the cement +that keeps his organization together, and the more it sets the more firm +and invulnerable becomes his organization. + +How to engender such loyalty is a problem that each person confronted +with it must solve for himself. Some do it by meriting the respect and +admiration of their coworkers and subordinates by display of such +qualities as kindliness, justice, generosity, consideration of the +welfare of their fellows, while others encompass it by the whole-hearted +and unselfish way in which they give themselves to the work. Some do it +quite impersonally and may possibly not be on terms of intimacy with any +member of their organization. This does not necessarily mean that they +hold themselves aloof from those with whom they come in contact; on the +contrary, there may exist a genial comradeship from which mutual +respect, admiration, and possibly even affection are developed. Some few +develop loyalty from personal contact on the basis of sentimentality. +They proceed upon the plan that if they cannot secure the personal +admiration and affection of those associated with them, impelling them +to do their best because of this relationship rather than for the good +of the cause, they have not been completely successful in their +accomplishment. To this end they not infrequently resort to a display of +sentimentality which is distressing to the impartial onlooker. That +great dissector of the morals and motives of men, Thackeray, said: "One +tires of a sentimentalist who is always pumping the tears from his eyes +or your own." They lavish praise upon those who have not merited it, +substituting adulation for admonition; they profess a confidence that is +not justified by results; they claim to see only virtues in every +individual who is drawn into the sacred circle of their employment or +association. Should they have suspicions that some in their circle are +not deserving of confidence or do not have the qualities from which +loyal, useful associates can be made, they delude themselves with the +belief that they can engender a sufficient desire in the inadequate one +to compel him to be loyal and efficient in order that the confidence and +admiration of the chief may be requited. + +People who work together should respect each other, and by it employer +and employee should be linked together. If a more intimate relation +flows naturally from this respect, well and good, but there should not +be the slightest attempt made to engender it on a sentimental basis. The +rugged mind of Carlyle eschewed the sentimental. He stated: "The +sentimental by and by will have to give place to the practical." + +Most men if they strive sufficiently to make others like them can +succeed in their endeavor, but a man should be liked for the inherent +virtues or laudable qualities that he possesses and not for the +semblance of them which he assumes for a special purpose. We like a man +because he is trustworthy, loyal, efficient, reliable, truthful, +co-operative, sympathetic, understanding, but we do not necessarily like +him because some one else tells us that we ought to like him, +particularly if we have found that he does not possess any of the +qualities we desire and which would have made him acceptable. The +sentimentalist is often guided in his decisions and in his conduct +relative to others by the fear that, if he apprises the individual of +the reason why he no longer wishes to keep up business or professional +relations with him, the individual thus treated will devote some time +afterward to tarnishing the lustre of his halo. + +The sentimentalist fears especially the criticism, disparagement, and +possibly one might say the malignity of those from whom he chooses to +separate after they have been weighed and found wanting. It is not that +he fears that injury will be done him, because not infrequently his +career is so successful that it can withstand an enormous amount of +disparagement and criticism without detrimental impression. The +disparagement of such individuals can do him no harm save in the +humiliation to his pride when it is brought home to him that he has not +been able to make the leopard change his spots. Self-interest is the +subconscious motive that often leads to a display of sentimentality. The +sentimentalist realizes that allegations of merit and of capacity are +"things that are graceful in a friend's mouth but blushing in a man's +own," and as such praise is the breath of his nostrils he will go to +great lengths to achieve its accomplishment. But, though he may be +deceived by flattery, there are others who know that "on ne trouve +jamais l'expression d'un sentiment qui l'on n'a pas; l'esprit grimace et +le style aussi." He is the easy prey for those who appeal to his vanity +or to his susceptibility to flattery, to advance their own or others' +projects and interests, and he may be led into doing things which his +sober judgment tells him are not desirable, because he feels that he +must not run the risk of lowering himself in the estimate of the +individual from whom he has accepted adulation, reverence, or adoration. + +When the male sentimentalist habituates himself to this worshipful +attitude from the other sex he becomes covered with points which +Achilles had only immediately above the heel. The sex which has long +been popularly known as the weaker has an inherited or acquired code of +morality which permits them to make demands of the sentimental man which +a mere man, unless base, would scorn, and now that the sex has been +emancipated we begin to feel that they should come out in the open and +play fair. If they want to rely for their successes upon the weapons +that have been vouchsafed them heretofore, they should not have the +privileges which they are asking for and receiving to-day. Heaven knows +no one is more desirous that they should have what they ask for in that +direction than I am, but they should not use their sex quality to take +an unfair advantage. Thus oftentimes one who merits the designation of +"pillar of strength and tower of fire" becomes a reed in the emotional +wind that blows from the designing woman. She may not be designing in a +malignant sense; she may merely enjoy the display of power. It is +remarkable what a sentimentalist will put up with in the shape of +indignity and inefficiency rather than run the risk of being impaired in +the esteem of one who has this kind of influence over him. Emerson, one +of our deepest thinkers, said: "Man is the will and woman is the +sentiment. In this ship of humanity will is the rudder and sentiment the +sail; when woman affects to steer, the rudder is only the masked sail." + +There is nothing more Jove-like than virility and continency, but a man +saturated with sentimentality produces a sensation akin to that which +the child experiences when she finds her doll is stuffed with sawdust. + +Sentiment in a man is like scent in a rose. It is the finishing touch to +perfection; when it is deficient it thrills one no more than the painted +flower; when it is excessive the heaviness of its enervating odor is +oppressive. + + + + +CHAPTER XVI + +THE PLAY INSTINCT IN CHILDREN + + +Italy's greatest recent patriot is Cesare Battisti, who suffered +martyrdom for love of his native land. He was an Austrian subject, +professor of biology and geography in the University of Trent and a +deputy in the Austrian House of Parliament. In the beginning of the war +he returned to Italy to fight against the country of his adoption and to +favor the fortunes of his native land, and his efforts were crowned with +great success. He entered the Italian Army as a lieutenant of the +Alpini, and in 1916 fell into the hands of the Austrians, who quickly +and cruelly despatched him by the most barbarous methods that they could +conceive. Streets and piazzas have been named for him, hospitals and +monuments have been raised in his honor, and his name is known to every +man, woman, and child in the kingdom. + +But it is not of Battisti that I would write, but to record a train of +thought that was initiated by the sight of the orphans who were +occupying the building which Italy's most distinguished physician, +Ettore Marchiafava, aided by generous friends of the sick poor, has +taken over for a tuberculosis hospital, and which will be called after +Cesare Battisti. There were about two hundred girls, ranging in age from +six to fourteen, in the charge of an order of nuns. The building is +situated on a hill in the outskirts of Rome known as Monte Verde, which +is the southern continuation of the Janiculum. In former days it was a +palatial villa belonging to some dignitary of the church and latterly +church property. It commands a magnificent view of Rome, of the Tiber, +of the Campagna, the Castelli Romani, and the Alban Hills. When I +arrived the children were in the grounds about the house and more or +less segregated in a broad walk or alley lined by trees which led from +the street to the villa. They were walking up and down in twos or threes +or singly, apparently without other objective or display of desire than +to walk. They looked like children of many nationalities, healthy and +clean; but, more than that, they looked happy, contented, satisfied. As +I passed amongst them, nearly every one greeted me with a smile and +"_Buon giorno_." There was no show of embarrassment, shyness, +bashfulness, or artificiality. + +I looked over the grounds of the place, several acres, and saw not the +slightest sign of games, swings, playgrounds, sand-piles, or other +feature with which children divert themselves or are diverted in other +lands. I went through the house from cellar to garret, and rarely have I +seen an inhabited building with fewer signs of habitation. The +dormitories contained long rows of beds with no sign of tables, chairs, +stands, comfort-bags--nothing save the beds. The refectory was equally +barren. The schoolroom was desolation itself--benches, long desks, and a +solitary blackboard. The only indication that anything was taught save +that which could be imparted by word of mouth was a typewriting machine. +Examine as carefully as I might, I wasn't able to detect the smallest +object for the diversion, entertainment, distraction, occupation of the +little ones that the place was utilized to harbor, to nurture, to +develop, and to instruct. When I returned to _terra firma_, there they +were, walking up and down the alley as they were when I went in. A +gentle-eyed sister was among the groups of the smaller ones, but they +seemed not to need care. They were self-sufficient. + +For the first time I felt the sensation of oppression in the presence of +a crowd of joyous children. I felt they were in a prison-house narrower +and more restricting than that which closes in upon the budding man, and +I went away without thought of Cesare Battisti, but big with solicitude +for these lusty young beings whose best and most potential quality, the +play instinct, was being stultified, or at least not cultivated. + +I marvelled that the country which made the most constructive +contribution to child pedagogy of the nineteenth century fails to see or +to realize that the most potent, directly God-sent possession of a child +is its imagery or fancy, which externalizes itself in every child in the +desire to play--to play parent, construction, warfare, games, or ape the +activities of their elders. The explanation cannot be that Italy is +ignorant of the cultivation of the child's instinct for play in other +countries or of the immense provision that is made to enhance it both in +public and in private life. I can readily understand that there might be +wilful opposition to it in church institutions, as its elaborate display +is considered inimical to that humility which is the essence of the +Christian religion. Punish the flesh, have a contempt and a disdain for +any of its clamorings, treat it as if it were a vessel unworthy of its +sacred cargo the soul, scourge it and humiliate it, and you will find +favor in His sight. It is extraordinary and inexplicable that man should +feel himself free to suggest to himself and to others that a +suppression, even abnegation, of God-given instincts which are as much +an integral part of the _genus homo_ as his speech capacity, is +necessary in order that the individual should find favor in God's eyes +and be worthy of reward when he is called to join Him. It seems so much +more consistent with reason that the species were provided with +instincts that they might be utilized, and therefore that the duty of +the teacher and the guide is to foster these instincts, to develop them, +and to direct them toward the channels where they may be utilized to the +advantage of the individual, the community, and the state. If it were +only the church that displayed an opposition to the development of the +play instinct in children I should not concern myself particularly with +it, as I am not inclined to take issue with the church, either in its +propaganda or in its teachings. I consider that it takes an unfair +advantage of infants and children, but I solace my indignation with the +thought that when the child comes to man's estate mentally he is free to +liberate himself from its enthralments and inhibitions. It may be said +that it has shaped his mental processes, activities, and inclinations to +such purpose that he does not see straight, and that accusation is true, +providing they have sterilized his mind to such a degree that he is no +longer capable of constructive thought. There is no doubt that they +often bring about such mental eunuchoidismus, but it is probable that +the great majority of those thus sterilized would have been dead-wood in +the stream of evolutionary progress had they been left intact. But +insensitiveness to the child's needs is not confined to parochial +schools and other church institutions where children are harbored and +taught. In Italy it is displayed in nearly every public and private +institution where the young are segregated for purposes of instruction +and maintenance. + +I would not be understood to say that there are not playgrounds of any +kind connected with Italian schools, but the few that exist are scarcely +worthy of the name. The plain truth of the matter is that the play +instinct has been thwarted so long in the Italian that it doesn't seem +to exist any more. One of the things that strikes the stranger who +penetrates far enough into family life to permit him the opportunity of +observation is that the parent doesn't play with his children as does +the Anglo-Saxon, and children do not play with each other. I cannot +conceive that the child, left to itself, does not + + "Hold unconscious intercourse with beauty + Old as creation," + +and give evidence of it and of the activity of its developing mind which +reveals itself constructively in that which we call play. But the +observation and experience of children in Italy lead me to believe that +when they grow up and recall + + "Those recollected hours that have the charm + Of visionary things, those lovely forms + And sweet sensations that throw back their life, + And almost make remotest infancy + A visible scene, on which the sun is shining," + +they do not expose a treasure-house in which are stored the +recollections of the most envied times of their lives. + +The little _villino_ that I occupy is cared for by a couple whose only +child is a little girl of eight. From my window I survey her activities +and I have never yet seen her in play, + + "Seen no little plan of chart or fragment + From her beam of human life + Shaped by herself with newly learned art." + +When I look out in the morning she is likely to be sitting outside the +gate as if awaiting something to transpire that would be worthy of +observation, attention, or participation. When I return in the middle of +the day and again in the evening and when Sundays or other times I am in +my rooms for a protracted period, I see her ever busily engaged in doing +nothing. The only imaginative or emotional activity that I have ever +witnessed her display is that sometimes I find her humming and she +always smiles and greets me most affably. At times I see other children +make a visit to her, but it is obviously a ceremonious one, for there +are no shrieks or yells, no tumbling or rolling, no scampering or +chattering, none of that display of physical vitality and joy of living +that lambs or colts or calves or even puppies or kittens make. They are +like a miniature group of Giacondas, older than the rocks upon which +they sit, who have tasted all the joys to satiety. The doll that I gave +her has apparently been put away, not at all unlikely with a scapular or +holy beads. At least, I have never seen her with it in her arms since +the day she received it. There is no sign of miniature wheelbarrow or +shovel or sandpile, no little wooden geegee, no bicycle or miniature +locomotive, no blocks or other material from which to construct a castle +or a kitchen, no indication whatsoever that she attempts to portray any +of the vagrant thoughts or fleeting fancies that arise in her budding +mind. When I go on a Sunday to the little villages in the Campagna or in +the Castelli Romani to which the proletariat repair with their families +in _villeggiatura_, I see hundreds of children, but never once have I +seen any of them playing, nor are they noisy and boisterous. If they are +clamorous and restless, it is for food or for appeasement of some other +physical need. Even the little boys do not play in the streets. Their +one source of amusement is for a number of them to gather around a pile +of small stones used for repair of the road and to divert themselves by +hurling them at one another when a carriage or an automobile is not +passing, at which time they concentrate their efforts on attempts to +slay the occupants of these vehicles with the deadly missiles at hand. + +On the Janiculum where I live there is a paradise for children, a little +park with the roaring, splashing fountain of St. Paolo at one end of it +and the entrance to the broad, shaded driveway that traverses the +Janiculum to St. Onofrio at the other. On either side of this drive are +broad lawns interspersed with flowerbeds and shaded with most seductive +trees, amongst which is Tasso's oak, now fallen into such a state of +decrepitude that it has to have artificial support and braces. The place +is often alive with children, painfully decorous and silent. They often +remind me of Millet's "Man with the Hoe," bowed down with the weight of +ages. Not infrequently I meet in the morning and in the evening whole +troops of children going and returning from the accessible fields of +Monte Verde, always lined up like soldiers, two abreast, and the only +manifestation of externalized emotion I have ever seen in them is that +occasionally their keepers--priest, nun, or sour-visaged +guardian--permit them to break into song--patriotic anthem or lyric +wail. + +It is notorious that games play no such part in the diversion of the +adult Italian as they do in the countries peopled by our own race. Golf, +tennis, football, cricket, baseball are practically unknown except as +they have been established by foreigners for their own use. Naturally +they have attracted some Italians, but there is no general interest in +them. Contests of endurance, such as bicycle races and rowing, they +have, and horse-racing has a certain vogue, but chiefly because it +facilitates taking chances on the winner. This is the more remarkable, +for when they do go in for games they often excel, showing aptitude, +endurance, and daring. There is no nationality that compares with them +in their riding, for instance. It is not true to say that they do not +play games. The Spanish game of ball known as _pelota_ is played in some +centres where the _jeunesse dorée_ segregate, and another game of ball +called _pallone_ is played a little, but with no enthusiasm, and it +arouses no considerable interest. In fact, nothing included under the +head of sport plays a great rôle in Italy. Fortunately it is being +encouraged, and within a generation we may confidently anticipate a +decided change. It would, of course, be ridiculous to say that they do +not shoot and fish. You often encounter in tramping through the country +a man with a gun on his shoulder, but usually he is a pot-hunter, and +now and then your rambles bring you face to face with a Nimrod, but in +nine cases out of ten he likewise is animated by the desire for +succulent food. + +On superficial examination it seems extraordinary that this state of +affairs should exist in a country which for many centuries seemed to +have had its chief enjoyment in murder, sense-gratification, games, and +contests of courage, strength, and endurance. No one can read the +history of the days of Roman supremacy without being struck with the +fact that the chief amusement of the populace of those days was play, +display of strength, skill, dexterity, and inventiveness. Archæologists +and others interested in unearthing and interpreting archaic remains +tell us that the aphorism that there is nothing new under the sun is +true so far as games are concerned, and I expect any day to hear that +they have disinterred a golf course at Ostia, a diamond or a football +field at Salerno. However, after reflection, it occurs to me that there +are many reasons why the Italians, young and old, do not play +spontaneously and intentionally, or as naturally and pleasurably as +those of other nations. It is easy enough to understand why all play +ceased in those days of intellectual apathy, artistic sterility, and +emotional decay which, beginning with the fourth century A.D., continued +for nearly a thousand years. I have never looked into the matter with +sufficient care to be able to say whether or not there was a renaissance +of the play instinct or any elaborate and wide-spread manifestation of +it beginning with the fourteenth century, but my impression is that +there was. We have records of tournaments and jousts and games of +various kinds in certain cities of Italy, such as Salerno; there still +exist the physical features or foundations of such play. Any one who has +read Italian history until the successful movement of nationality of +1870 will not be astonished that play in any form did not have a great +vogue during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The people were +too busy devising plans to outwit their neighbors and to get possession +of their lands and their treasures to have time for play. + +The Italian nature or temperament is not favorable to development of the +play instinct. The Italian likes to act, or to display histrionic +possession, more than anything else; it has often been remarked that +they are born actors, and not only do they produce more great actors and +actresses than any other country but you see more finished and artistic +acting in Italy than in any other country of the world. They are devoted +to mimicry, adepts in pantomime, and their "marionettes" have reached a +high degree of artistic development. As for the cinema, they go to it +with the ardor of a lover to his mistress. The theatre and gambling is +the Italian idea of diversion, relaxation, and amusement. + +The display and satisfaction of the play instinct spell work, oftentimes +most laborious work carefully planned and elaborately carried out. The +successful pursuit of games of all sorts requires not only work but +oftentimes protracted physical training and profound physical effort. +The Italians do not take kindly to them. In the south of Italy there are +six months of the year and often more when no one is keenly disposed to +active physical effort and at no time in the year is there that +atmospheric incitation to physical activity that exists in England or in +our own country. It may well be that children of the South do not take +kindly to play because of the great and protracted heat, during which +they are taught to remain within doors several hours in the middle of +the day, and children of the lower classes are often obliged to work +during the cool hours. + +Italian children mature very early, and the emotional disequilibrium +that comes with the supremacy of a new internal secretion makes them +self-conscious, bashful, retiring, and inimical to play. I am not +inclined to lay much stress on any of these occurrences as an +explanation for the apathy for play shown by Italian children. Jewish +children, who live in countries quite as hot as Italy, and who certainly +mature as early as Italian children, are naturally playful, and not only +playful but inventive of games. If one reads the biographies of some of +the literary Hebrews of America who have set forth in print their +renunciations and their successes, it will be seen that despite their +most unfavorable surroundings the play instinct in childhood--which, +after all, is the imaginative faculty--is often very strong. + +Another thing that is very curious in Italy is that children of both +sexes do not play together. It is true that no particular effort is made +to keep them apart when they are very young, but there is no more +unusual sight in Italy than a boy from ten to fourteen with a girl of +the same age, unless it is to see a young man with a young woman who is +not his wife. There is no open and fraternizing relationship between the +sexes. If you say in Italy that a young woman is the _amica_ or friend +of a man, you mean what is signified in French by _chère amie_. In +certain parts of Italy, and particularly in the South, the position of +women in society and in relationship to men savors very much of the +Oriental. + +Every one is agreed that play does two things for the young child--it +promotes its physical welfare and it facilitates its budding +imagination. More than this, it contributes materially to its education +and, particularly, it develops its constructive faculties. It teaches +older children and youths who participate in games of skill and control +the principles of give and take, bear and forbear, and it shows them how +to be victors without arrogance and losers without venom. It instils +principles of honesty, favors frankness and directness, and generally +paves the way for successful dealing with their fellows socially, +commercially, and politically in mature life. When one considers the +pains and money that are expended in our own country and in England to +teach young people how to play, it is astonishing how apathetic the +Italians have been toward the matter. + +My belief is that Italy is awakening to the fact that play is one of the +most important factors in the development of the people, and if this war +had not come on I should most likely not have had occasion to make these +observations and to draw conclusions from them. I am told that a few +years ago they began to have mixed schools, that is, schools where +children of both sexes are assembled during school hours, and in many +cities there were stadia where sports of all sorts were encouraged and +fostered. + +There are many factors that have tended to impede the development of +play in this country and the recognition of its importance, but aside +from that there is something in the Italian temperament or nature that +is antipathic to the play instinct and inimical to sports. Pedagogy has +recognized its importance but it has not succeeded in promoting and +developing it. + +I have often wondered whether the suppression of the play instinct +practically to the point of abnegation is not manifest in the energies +and success of a people. Aside from the field of mechanical application +as represented by that in the profession of engineering, I do not know +of any realm in which the Italian of the past three or four generations +has signally distinguished himself. There have been poets, artists, +architects, physicians, priests, statesmen, philosophers, explorers, or +interpreters of life and events whose names have taken permanent places +in the world. I mean to say that in this period there have been many +Italians who have attained eminence and earned immortality, but there +has been no one from whom an epoch dates: no Pasteur, no Deisler, no +Thompson, no Devries, no Stanley, no Edison, no Langley, no Wright, no +Morgan, no Eddy--to enumerate only a few of those that are legitimately +put in the class of supermen. + +This paucity of genius may be no more than a coincidence, but it strikes +me, nevertheless, as extraordinary that a country which has enjoyed +freedom as this country has for the past fifty years, has not manifested +the fruits of its liberation from tyranny and oppression such as were +manifested in France after the French Revolution, when once its +devastation had been cured. + +If the child is father to the man, it stands to reason that indulgence +and training during childhood will manifest their effect during +maturity, and success in any activity of human life stands in direct +relation to imagination or vision and industry. It likewise follows that +if we neglect to facilitate the development of the former and to develop +the appetite for and form the habit of the latter during the early years +of life, it is too much to expect the display of them in later years. It +is quite possible, it seems to me, that the reputation for lack of +directness in their dealings with the peoples of other nationalities, +their circuitousness in the business affairs of life, their secrecy or +lack of frankness and candor, their ceremoniousness, their failure to +cement a solid friendship with other nations of Europe, may, in some +measure at least, be linked up with the suppression of the play instinct +in childhood and the subservient place which they have given to women. + + + + +CHAPTER XVII + +"IF A MAN WALKETH IN THE NIGHT, HE STUMBLETH BUT IF HE WALKETH IN THE +DAY HE SEETH THE LIGHT OF THIS WORLD" + + +My morning walks take me the length of the Janiculum. In the early light +of these autumn days Rome and its settings take on an expression of +seductive resignation due largely to the clouds which rob it of that +glare which is the most trying feature of summer in Rome. The clouds +permit streams of light to filter through, as if from a monstrous +search-light, especially over the Castelli Romani and the Alban Hills. +Ordinarily Monte Cavo is on the horizon line, but to-day, after the sun +had been nearly an hour on its diurnal way, hundreds of parallel bundles +of light were directed perpendicularly upon it, so that another chain of +mountains came into view beyond, and the decaying villa surmounting it +seemed to be in a valley atop of a mountain peak backed by other peaks. +The way from my _villino_ to St. Peter's is past the Garibaldi monument, +and I am well acquainted with the countenances of his generals and his +guard, whose life-size busts in marble flank the monument in long, +parallel rows, constituting an alley leading up to it. If their effigies +do them justice, they were fine-looking, intelligent, and resolute. + +It takes me also past the hideous lighthouse which Argentina thrust upon +the Italians, and which has been erected upon a spot from which one has +perhaps the most commanding view of Rome, its near and distant +environment. + +This morning I determined that I would spend a half-hour in the Church +of S. Onofrio and refresh my recollections of the frescoes of Baldassare +Peruzzi and of Pinturicchio, and pay a tribute to the memory of the +greatest poet of the late Renaissance, Torquato Tasso. On the side of +the steps that lead down to the shoulder of the hill surmounting St. +Peter's is an oak-tree, long since dead, but securely banded and spliced +and propped by indestructible metal. Here, it is said, Tasso sat and +contemplated, too forlorn and ill further to poetize, during those +months of 1594 while he was awaiting his call to the capitol to be +crowned poet laureate. When the illness to which he succumbed increased +to such extent as to incapacitate him he repaired to S. Onofrio "to +begin my conversation in heaven in this elevated place, and in the +society of these holy fathers." It is strange enough that Tasso is a +very real and living force in Italy to-day. Not only are many of his +poems, and selections from them, read in the schools, but "Jerusalem +Delivered" on the screen has recently had a remarkable success in Rome +and in other cities of Italy. + +The Convent of S. Onofrio is now scarcely more than a reminder of what +it was in its golden days. Long before the Italian Government had +abolished the right of monasteries to hold property, and therefore +delivered the death-blow to the parasitical grasp which they had upon +this country, the Ospedale Bambini Gesu had taken possession of a large +part of it and converted it into a work of mercy and of salvation which +finds, I fancy, more favor in the eyes of people to-day than does +conventual life. The church, rather impressive from without and +particularly when approached from below, is small and dainty and has +distinctly a spiritual atmosphere. It is what the Italians call _molto +carina_. When I entered the church there was one solitary female +prostrate before an image. I fancied that she had had a troubled night +and had repaired to this sacrosanct environment early in the morning to +purge herself of her sins and to ask forgiveness. For a long time she +remained in an attitude of profound contrition, and I was curious to see +if, on arising, she displayed in feature or in form any evidences or +manifestations of indulgence in those transgressions which we are taught +are so offensive to the Lord. My vigil was rewarded by the sight of age, +deprivation, and poverty. Had pulchritude or passion ever been a part of +her, all sign of them had passed; had sins of commission ever brought to +her riches or the semblance of riches, she had long since forfeited +them; had her transgressions been translated into fugitive pleasures, no +signs of them remained. Like Tasso, she had repaired there to begin the +conversation she hoped to continue in heaven. It is much more likely, +however, that she had gone to church without definite antecedent thought +or determination. It seems to be as much an act of nature for women in +Italy when they reach a certain age to haunt the churches as it is for +their hair to turn gray. They do it quite as mechanically as they do +their housework. I often doubt that there is any spiritual or emotional +feeling accompanying it whatsoever. I am certain that the recitation of +prayers which were learned in infancy, and which have been repeated +thousands of times without the smallest attention to the significance of +the words, as children recite them, is not associated with any spiritual +alteration, neither humility nor exaltation. It is part of the meagre, +barren daily life of these old women, and they get from it something +which for them constitutes pleasure and satisfaction. + +As I sat in contemplation of the frescoes surrounding the high altar, +and which set forth the coronation of the Virgin, the Nativity, the +Flight into Egypt, a middle-aged monk or priest came forward and +volunteered to draw the curtain that more light might fall upon them. He +was incredibly dirty and dishevelled, and he had lost an eye, but he was +gentle and simple and friendly. He told me what he knew about the +frescoes; he bemoaned the evil days upon which the world had fallen, and +he expressed the hope that peace and tranquillity would soon again be +ours; but when I attempted to talk to him about the significance of the +war and the universal awakement to man's rights that would flow from it, +I found that his comments were ejaculatory and that his reflections had +no root in thought or reason. It is incredible that a person so naïve +and so lacking in every display of intelligence, culture, and +perspicacity can be a spiritual teacher or guide. Perhaps it is that +faith alone is necessary that one shall satisfactorily fulfil his duties +as priest. + +He called my attention to an oil graphite on the side walls of the +chapel which had been uncovered in recent times. In early days its +artistic merit or value was not appreciated and it had been covered over +with other pastels or paintings thought to be more appropriate or more +fitting. The composition is a figure standing in what seems to be a +square box and on either side a number of closely massed masculine +figures, each one having a different facial expression, one of +astonishment, another of incredulity, another of humility and +satisfaction. It depicted the Resurrection of Christ, my little friend +thought, but when he saw a figure outside the box that resembled Christ, +he thought it must be the resurrection of Lazarus, and then in the most +childlike way he remarked that the figure in the box seemed to be a +female one, and as that didn't seem to fit in with the resurrection of +Lazarus he gave it up. I fancy that he had never read that when Martha +and Mary made their successful appeal Lazarus had been dead four days, +and that after Jesus lifted up his eyes and said, "Father, I thank thee +that thou hast heard me," Lazarus came forth bound hand and foot with +grave-clothes and his face was bound about with a napkin. These +accoutrements of the grave would successfully conceal sex, even from the +eyes of a sacerdotal Sherlock Holmes. + +I persuaded him to take me into the convent that I might see Leonardo's +lovely fresco of the Virgin and the Child, and standing before it he +spoke of the sweetness of the mother's expression and of the dignity and +nobility of her pose and carriage in a way that made me forget his +ignorance and his unattractive exterior. + +In the northwest chapel of the little church is the grave and monument +of Tasso. There is nothing particularly meritorious about the monument, +and there is nothing even suggestive of poetry. The effigy represents +the poet in the costume of a Spanish cavalier as he appeared at the age +of his greatest activity. The chapel opposite is a jungle of frescoes +depicting scenes in the life of S. Onofrio, who lived like an animal in +the desert for more than half a century, and who, for thus outraging +nature's laws, was brought to Rome to teach others how to live +acceptably in God's eyes. After he had gone to his final reward, which +we trust was the opposite of a desert, the church in its wisdom made him +a saint. + +I did not attempt to visualize the desert-dweller or his activities as I +descended the steps that lead from this lovely hill to the Tiber, for I +was soon lost in contemplation of a view with which I was very familiar +but which now presents itself at a different angle, for I had never been +down this well-worn stone staircase. The little street led first past +the fine old Salviati Palace, a vast, massive structure built apparently +to provide a sumptuous _piano nobile_ and a great impressive court. It +has, I suppose, a definite architectural beauty, but to me it looks +merely massive, cumbersome, and overgrown. It reminds of nothing so much +as of a lady whose figure, once worthy of admiration, had become altered +by the adipose that is fatal to beauty. From here it is but a few steps +to the Villa Farnesina, with its priceless possessions from Raphael's +hand, but my way leads me across the rickety iron suspension bridge +immediately in front of the Salviati Palace, to cross which one must pay +a penny. From the middle of this bridge one gets a stunning view of the +Castle of S. Angelo and the Holy Ghost Hospital. The latter, an enormous +Renaissance structure, accommodates upward of five thousand patients. It +looks to-day much as illustrations of it show that it looked five +hundred years ago. In those days it was the last cry in hospitals, but +it is far from that to-day. In fact, as a hospital it leaves much to be +desired. I go there sometimes to visit the library, which has one of the +largest collections of incunabuli in the world. As you look over it from +the end of the Ponte Ferro, the dome of St. Peter's seems as if it were +suspended from the heaven and its marvellous symmetry is most +impressive. When you look at the dome of St. Peter's and the church +together, there is something a little incongruous. I do not attempt to +define it, but it is the same thing that you get when you look at a man +whose hat doesn't fit. + +After crossing the Tiber I strike into the heart of the densely +populated city through a succession of narrow streets without sidewalks, +and flanked on either side with never-ending little shops, now and then +crossing a piazza which gives space and light to some massive mediæval +palace. But none of them solicits me to stop until the Palazzo Braschi +comes into view. I have seen its wondrous staircase, with its many +columns of Oriental granite, so often that I would pass it by without a +thought were it not for the brutally hideous figure of Pasquino, who +greets me from his pedestal like an old acquaintance. I realize quite +well that he has been called one of the most beautiful remains of +antique sculpture, and that the expert eye, guided by a knowledge of +Hellenic art supremity, may see charm and wondrousness in it, but I have +bid him good-morning and good-day many times, and, like some old +acquaintances, he does not get nearer my heart as I learn to know him +better. There have been innumerable conjectures as to what the figure +represents. The one most generally accepted is that it represents +Menelaus supporting the dead body of Patroclus after the vile Trojan had +stabbed him in the back while Hector was engaging his attention. You +have such a feeling of pride in Patroclus and the wonderful things that +he did with his Myrmidons that your heart goes out to him. When the +Trojan War was going badly, he was persuaded to take up the direction of +the forces against the enemy, and one cannot help feeling grateful to +Menelaus for having played the good Samaritan to him at the end. But if +this old King of Sparta had made Helen behave better when Paris came to +visit them, she might never have eloped with that hazardous youth after +he had made the memorable decision on Mount Ida, spurning power promised +by Juno, and glory and renown tendered by Minerva, in order that he +might have the fairest woman in the world for wife. But one should not +be too hard on the old king. There is no telling just how far Helen +acted on her own initiative and how far Venus was responsible for the +flight. Still, were it not for this little irregularity in the conduct +of the royal household, we would have been denied a knowledge of the +greatness of Greece and a record of its accomplishments in one of the +greatest poems, which has been a solace and a stimulation to countless +lovers of literature the past two thousand years. + +Though I bring no trained eye or accurate information to the discussion +of Pasquino's identity, I am convinced, since seeing the bronze statue +of a boxer which Lanciani unearthed in excavating the Baths of +Constantine in 1885, that this statue is no other than an early marble +setting forth the same subject. To me it is the effigy of a fighting +brute. Whatever his name or his profession may have been, he has become +known the world over as Pasquino, and satires and sarcasms similar to +those which he is supposed to have uttered to the amusement and +edification of the Romans in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries have +become known as pasquinades all over the world. + +Italians like to write stories concerning historic incidents and to +embellish them with a veneer of verisimilitude. They like particularly +to give them a personal note, deprecatory or laudatory. When the +Egyptian obelisk was being forced to a perpendicular position in the +Piazza of St. Peter's, the crowd had been admonished under penalty of +death to be silent. The stillness of the piazza, broken only by the +creaking of the ropes, was suddenly torn asunder by a shout of "Wet the +ropes." Thus the famous obelisk was preserved intact, and the man whose +discernment had accomplished it, instead of having his head cut off, was +allowed to furnish the palms for St. Peter's every Palm Sunday. +Incidentally he was ennobled, and since that time his reward has been +the family's chief asset. In the same way, one of the river gods of the +fountain set up in the middle of the Piazza Navona seems to be drawing a +mantle up over his head while the others, those of the Danube, the +Ganges, and the Rio della Plata, are looking straight ahead. Bernini, +who built the fountain, says that Nile was so shocked by the façade +which Borromini, a contemporary architect, added to the Church of St. +Agnes, which is immediately in front of it, that he had to veil his +face. + +The story of Pasquino is that he asked questions concerning the conduct +of the reigning power, which, of course, in those days was the pope, and +made reflections which Marforio, the river god which stood between the +horse-tamers in the Piazza della Quirinale, answered. Pasquino, in +short, became the organ of public opinion, and it was not subject to the +censor, for the authors prudently kept out of sight. His most poisonous +venom and destructive wrath were directed against popes and cardinals. +If he said the things that he is alleged to have said about Alexander VI +and Innocent XI (the holy man who started the Inquisition), it is easy +to understand that one of their successors wished to throw him into the +bottom of the Tiber, the resting-place of countless priceless objects of +art for many centuries. As a matter of fact, however, the stories about +Pasquino to be found in every guide-book are, like many other stories +when run to earth, largely fiction. + +Thirty years ago there was published in the _Nuova Antologia_ an article +by Domenico Gnoli which sets forth the real history of Pasquino. When +Cardinal Carraffa went to live in the Braschi Palace he had the statue +set up at one of the corners, and there it has since remained. In those +days religious processions were as common as automobiles and bicycles +are to-day. The priests in them often rested at this corner, and it +became the custom to make up the statue to represent different +personages, and the man who was intrusted with this task happened to be +a professor in the adjacent university. He encouraged his boys to write +epilogues, elegies, and epigrams which they pasted or stuck on the +statue. At first these were purely literary efforts, juvenile flights to +Parnassus, but later they took on a political and social flavor, while +still later they became concerned with the doings of the Curia. These +pasquinades have been collected in book form, and some of the volumes +exist at the present time. The majority, however, have been +lost--perished in flames, destroyed as having no value, or disappeared +in other ways. Thus the statue was initiated as a news-bearer or organ +of public opinion. + +Immediately across the road from the statue there was a tailor or barber +shop, and the name of the chief operator was Pasquino. It was in this +shop that the messages stuck on the statue were collected, deciphered, +and discussed, and when the witty tailor died they gave his name to the +statue and thus immortality was thrust upon him. In reality, after the +cessation of the publications, "Carmina quæ ad Pasquillum fuerunt posita +in anno," and the murder of the professor who had encouraged his +students to put forth their youthful efforts, men groaning under the +oppression of their rulers, men big with ideas of what we now call +liberty, men in whom the germs of freedom and equality had been +implanted, saw a fairly safe way of getting their sentiments before the +public, and they utilized Pasquino as a forum from which they could +radiate their ideas and their sentiments. During the entire sixteenth +century these men conveyed to the Borgias and to Julius II and Paul III +and Innocent X and Innocent XI and Pius VI an expression of their +feeling and conviction concerning their conduct, individually and +collectively. Whether these contributions had anything to do with +shaping public opinion and leading up to the great Reformation, it is +impossible to say. + +Whatever Pasquino accomplished or didn't accomplish seems not to concern +him, for there he sits tranquilly upon six blocks of volcanic stone, +indifferent to the passing show and to the transpirations of the world. + +A few paces beyond the Palazzo Braschi I suddenly come upon one of the +most attractive and alluring piazzas in Rome, the Piazza Navona, or, as +it is sometimes called, the Circo Agonale. By its oblong form, its +seductive symmetry, its elaborate decorations--three beautiful +fountains, the central one surmounted by an Egyptian obelisk which once +stood in the Circus of Maxentius; by its boundaries, which include the +Palazzo Pamfili, the Church of S. Agnese, and the Church of S. Giacomo +of the Spaniards, and innumerable small and large houses--it succeeds in +conveying to the observer, who is susceptible to æsthetic impressions, +sensations which are as purely pleasurable as anything can possibly be. +Were it not for the distinctively Italian architecture one might easily +imagine that he was in the centre of some provincial large city of +France. It has, more than any other public square that I have ever been +in, that quality which we speak of as foreign. No two buildings are +alike, and, mean though many of them are, and especially toward the +northern end, they blend in such a way as to produce a perfect harmony +of color and architectural effect. In olden times they held races here, +and I can imagine how marvellous a sight it must have been with the +palaces and houses gayly decked with flags and drapery, rich rugs +hanging from the window-sills, on which leaned beautiful ladies, frail +and strong, attended solicitously, perhaps watchfully, by cavaliers and +admirers, and the square below filled with the pleasure-loving crowd +whose conduct betrayed nothing else save a desire to be amused and +diverted. During the summer I often sat for a half-hour on my way home +in this square, and, while watching the countless children from the +surrounding tenements in those simple indulgences which they call play, +tried to fancy some of the events that had taken place in the square and +in the palaces and churches bordering it. + +It was in the Pamfili Palace, built by Innocent X in 1650 for his +predatory and dissolute sister-in-law, Olympia Malacchimi, that the +fortunes of the Pamfili family began. Here she sold bishoprics and +beneficences, and here she externalized that conduct which brought +infamy on her name. What a story an account of the intimate doings of +that family would make! Their palace in the Corso is one of the most +beautiful Renaissance residences in the world, and their villa on the +Janiculum is an approximation to a rural paradise. All that is left of +the family is a faded, sad, suggestible, middle-aged princess, whose +English appearance and manner betray a lifelong habit of emotional +suppression, and one son who is eking out his miserable days in the +mountains of Switzerland. + +Immediately adjacent to the palace is the Church of St. Agnes, built +about the same time and on the spot where the girl whose name it +commemorates was supposed to have had miraculous delivery from +humiliations and outrages similar to those to which the Belgian nuns +were subjected by the Germans. I say "Germans" advisedly, for I am +unable to understand why any one should think for a moment that the term +"Hun," so widely applied to them, carries with it any such obloquy or +opprobrium as the simple name "German." I venture to say that in years +to come, when any one wishes to describe abominations, cruelties, +savageries for which no name is adequate, he will use the term +"Germanic." Then even the most inexperienced in crime and sin will get a +glimmering of what is meant. + +It is related that when Agnes was about fourteen years old she was taken +to a lupanalia and there, bereft of all her clothing, became the target +of the word and the conduct of a group of lubricitous monsters. +Overwhelmed with shame, her head fell upon her chest and she prayed. +Immediately her hair took on such miraculous growth that it concealed +her nakedness. But there were other more startling experiences in store +for her. For her rebelliousness and general contumacy she was condemned +to be burned alive. When the flames were about to devour her they +suddenly became possessed of a dual quality, one radiating refreshment +upon her, the other destruction upon her executioners. The lady had many +other experiences which have long since been denied her sex, but it is +popularly believed that she devotes much attention in her heavenly home +to seeing that maidens who request her in a proper frame of mind and +body, which for the latter is twenty-four hours' abstinence from +everything but pure spring water, are provided with husbands. It would +be trivial of me to add that she probably is overworked these days when +so many prospective husbands are at the front, but I have no real +information on the matter, and I sincerely hope that the nubile Italians +have no serious difficulty in finding spouses. + +From here my route is to the Corso, which at this early hour is nearly +deserted. There are many streets that I may take: one that leads to the +Pantheon; another that goes past the Palazzo Madama and other +interesting public and private buildings. As a rule I take the latter, +for it leads me to the Via Condotti, which ends in the Piazza di Spagna. +Before the war this piazza was the rendezvous of American tourists. The +vendors of objects of art and of Roman pearls, the antiquarian who had +his wares fabricated around the corner or in the Trastevere, the dealer +in genuine Raphaels and Tintorettos, the rapacious dealers in old books +are all there, but most of them are on their knees in their shops with +half-closed shutters, praying for the war to end so that the gullible +rich Americans may come again. Their prayers are heard and their +supplications will soon be answered. Meanwhile I cast a glance at the +wretched monument erected a half-century ago to commemorate the +promulgation of the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception, look lovingly +at the semi-sunken boat-shaped fountain just in front of the steps, and +begin slowly to mount the most impressive steps in Rome, which seem to +lead up like heavenly stairs to the massive, double-belfried Church of +Trinità dei Monti, with the graceful Egyptian obelisk in front of it. +Nowadays the steps are not so picturesque as I have often seen them in +peace time, when lovely artists' models, picturesque loafers and the +exponents of the _dolce far niente_ collected on the steps and made, in +conjunction with the flowers and plants that were exhibited there for +sale, an almost unique picture. It is now deserted save for some +hazardous Greek or Italian who attempts to eke out a living by disposing +of flowers that have been camouflaged to look fresh. Nevertheless the +staircase and its environment make an appeal which repeated visits serve +only to increase. From the top of it, in the little square in front of +the church, one gets an attractive, though limited, view of the city and +of Monte Mario, but it is a view that convinces him that he is in a city +quite unlike any other in the world. + +A picturesque old woman who sells papers at the bottom of the stairs has +made a regular customer out of me, and I scan the morning news as I +ascend the steps, and by the time I have reached the top I find thoughts +of beauty and of the good old days are being replaced by thoughts of +work and of the war. As I walk across the Pincian Hill I am conscious +that I am big with joy at what the past twenty-four hours have +accomplished at the battle-front, and throbbing with anticipation of +what the following day will bring forth. That it will soon bring +victory, complete and absolute, even the professional warrior is now +forced to admit, and soon we shall bask again in the light of a livable +world. + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + +THE AMERICAN EAGLE CHANGES HIS PERCH + + +The shrieks of the American eagle have been joyous sounds to American +ears since 1776, when we discovered his capacity to render our hymn of +freedom. Heretofore our national bird has been in best voice on his +native soil. When brought to Europe by statesman or hero, by citizen or +delegate, it was found that certain conditions there impaired his +vocality and the flap of his wings. Suddenly in 1918 all this changed. +Conditions were not only favorable--they were ideal. Perched upon a +parapet of Guildhall, sitting majestically on the Eiffel Tower, alight +on the campanile that crowns the Capitoline Hill, his shrieks conveyed a +message to the people of Europe whose ears have awaited it longingly for +centuries, and the flapping of his wings created a current that +stimulated and energized them. Floating majestically through the +empyrean, he was to those human beings, weary of war, of tyranny, and of +privilege, what the dove was to the occupants of the ark--the emblem of +salvation. Nothing could then convince the peoples of Italy that this +harbinger of hope had not been liberated by Woodrow Wilson. I cannot +believe that the American eagle has permanently forsaken the United +States of America. I anticipate hearing there again the familiar scream. +One tolerates him better at home than in Europe, but I must accord the +bird great sapiency in having selected the autumn of 1918 to give the +European people the opportunity to judge of the quality and quantity of +his vocal production. + +It is a platitude to say that no prophet or potentate, no king or +conqueror was ever greeted with such spontaneous, whole-hearted, genuine +enthusiasm as President Wilson was greeted in Italy, and, if I may judge +from newspaper accounts, the reception which was offered him there was +not unlike that which he received in England and France. He went to +Italy when its people were incensed by the conduct of the newly fledged +Jugoslavs, and when the press was in the throes of inflammatory polemics +over the fate of the Treaty of London. It was widely known in Italy that +President Wilson was not in sympathy with the Sonninian alleged +imperialistic policies and that he was fully in sympathy with the +Jugoslav aspirations. Nevertheless, the Italians, from royalty to +peasant, welcomed him with a spontaneity and warmth, an enthusiasm and +whole-heartedness, a genuineness and devotion that was as moving as +anything I ever witnessed. The hour of his arrival in Rome was not +definitely known until shortly before he arrived. But despite this +hundreds of people remained in the street all night, and thousands of +them gathered there before sunrise in order that they might not miss the +opportunity of looking upon him whom they firmly believed to be the +apostle of liberty and freedom, the herald of light and brotherly love. +It was not curiosity alone that prompted them to this effort and +sacrifice of comfort. Curiosity undoubtedly entered into it, but the +potent reason for the outpouring that took place that memorable January +was that their presence might convey to our President an expression of +their esteem and an earnest of their appreciation of his efforts. + +No American, though he had the heart of a frog and the emotional caliber +of a lizard, could suppress the succession of thrills that mounted from +his bowels to his brain on seeing with what dignity, suavity, and +self-respecting composure their Chief Magistrate comported himself as he +was transported through the Via Nazionale, seated beside the most +democratic and beloved king in the world. Though the American spectator +had spent his time impregnating with venom darts which he believed he +would gladly drive into the President, he had to admit that there was a +man who more than satisfied all of Kipling's "Ifs." When he encountered +him later in the Palazzo del Drago acting as host at the table of his +country's charming ambassadress, or at Montecitorio, where he told the +Solons of Italy of his country's hopes, ideals, aspirations, and +willingness, or in less solemn moments on the Capitoline, when he +received the honorary citizenship of Rome, he knew that his first +impressions were founded in verity and he lent a willing ear to the +screech of the American eagle which revealed itself throughout the +entire Italian press. Every city of Italy clamored for a visit, and +though he spent but a few minutes in Genoa and a few hours in Milan, the +outpouring of the people to welcome him was no less remarkable than it +was in Rome. The tribute which Europe gave Mr. Wilson seemed to depress +many of his countrymen on the other side of the Atlantic. It is an +extraordinary thing that while Europe rocked with his fame America +reeked with his infamy. + +After having lived two years in Italy I found many things about the +Italians difficult to understand. After having lived fifty years in the +United States of America I find some things about the Americans beyond +comprehension. Nothing is so enigmatic as their attitude toward Woodrow +Wilson, the man who was accorded higher esteem in Europe than was ever +vouchsafed mortal man, and who gave and has since given earnest of such +accord. From the day he decided to represent our country in the Peace +Conference the papers and magazines began to contain the material from +which could readily be formulated a new hymn of hate. What was the +genesis of this display? What was the cause of this distrust? From +whence did this venom emanate? How could a man whose life was a mirror +of integrity, whose ideals were of the loftiest, and who attempted to +conform his conduct to them excite such contempt? Why should the only +statesman who had revealed the ability to formulate a plan which, put in +operation, led to cessation of hostilities, who was the leader in +formulating the terms of peace, and who insisted, and had his insistence +allowed, that it should incorporate a covenant whose enforcement would +make for perpetual peace, be hated and distrusted, vilified and +traduced, thwarted and misrepresented by so many of his countrymen? What +had he done, by commission or omission, that such treatment should be +accorded him? I propose to attempt to answer these questions and thus to +suggest why he has been a failure as President. I know the replies +usually given to these questions by his depreciators and defamers. "His +nature is so imperious and his temper so tyrannical that he cannot +co-operate with others; he neither solicits advice nor heeds counsel; he +selects his coadjutors, aides, and advisers from those whom he knows he +can dominate; the passport to his favor is flattery, and intimacy with +him is maintained only by the cement of agreement; he neither made +preparation for war when there was ample time for doing so nor did he +wage war until months after repeated _casus belli_; he is hypocritical +in having sought and accomplished election under the slogan 'He kept us +out of war,' and immediately on being elected he 'thrust' the country +into war; he was 'too proud to fight' in 1916, but keen to fight in +1917; he has hebrewphilia and popophobia; he is a socialist masquerading +as a liberal; he is a Bolshevik beneath the mask of a radical. In brief, +he is temperamentally unfit to be President of the United States; +intellectually and morally unfit to represent its people; and withal so +completely under the dominion of an insatiate ambition to be the +greatest man the world has ever known that every kindly human feeling +has been crowded from him." + +Intelligent, educated men who have never seen him, who know little of +his career save that he was president of Princeton University and +governor of the State of New Jersey and twice President of the United +States, elected by the Democratic party, hate him as if he were a bitter +personal enemy, malign him as if he had injured their reputation for +honesty and probity, calumniate him as though he were a man without +character, depreciate him as though his career were barren of signal +accomplishment, and distrust his motives and procedures as though he had +once, or many times, betrayed them. Men who are unable to give the +smallest specificity to their dislike of him feel that they add to their +stature by detracting from his accomplishments and defaming him. Not one +of them with whom I have talked has been able to state the facts of his +disagreement and rupture with the trustees of Princeton University. My +understanding was that he insisted that the university should submit to +certain reforms that would make it democratic in reality as well as in +name, and that would enhance its pedagogical usefulness, and that there +should not be a privileged class in the university, viz., members of +exclusive clubs whose portals were opened by money. He maintained that +his training as an educator, his experience as an administrator, his +accomplishment as a student of history and as an interpreter of events, +his experience with men, entitled him to a judgment concerning the needs +of such an institution that should be given a hearing, and he contended +that his recommendations, rather than those of trustees whose training +had been largely in the world of affairs, be put in operation and at +least be given a trial. He had the courage to jeopardize his very bread +and butter, and that of his family, at a time in his life when his +physical forces had reached their zenith rather than sacrifice what he +believed to be a principle. The men who were permitted to take Woodrow +Wilson's measure in that contest had no more idea of his stature than if +they were blind. They would have laughed to scorn the idea that five +years later the people of the United States would select him for their +president. It was in this episode that his repute not to be able to do +team-work with his equals and his inferiors originated. Time has shown +that it isn't only a question of being able to do team-work, he cannot +do his best work in an atmosphere of friction and dissent. It is as +impossible for him to yield a position which he has taken, and which we +will assume he believes to be right, as it is impossible for the magnet +to yield the needle that it has attracted; therefore he adopts the only +course for him--he doesn't enter contests, save golf with his physician. + +His cabinet meetings are a farce, so say they who have never attended +one and who have never even spoken to a cabinet member. He selects +pygmies for his cabinet and for his aides in order that they may proffer +him no advice, resent no contradiction or protest indignities to their +offices. This in face of the fact that he and his cabinet and his aides +have conditioned the only miracle of modern times, namely, throwing a +whole country, millions of whose people were adverse to war, into a +bellicose state which was never before witnessed; conditioning and +transporting the men and material resources of that country across the +Atlantic and into the fighting lines at a crucial moment, at a time when +the backs of the Allies were against the wall, according to the +statements of their own authorized spokesmen; who succeeded in +engendering in the composite mind of the American people a determination +to win the war that was more potent than men or weapons; who impregnated +the composite soul of the Allies with a faith that the world would be an +acceptable abode for the common people once the enemy was crushed, that +transcended in its intensity the faith of the Christian martyrs; who +filled the heart of every statesman of the Allied nations with a hope +and belief that there was within him the masterful mind that would +conduct their legions to victory and salvation. If he and his pygmies +accomplished this, I am one who maintains they are myrmidons and giants. +But they didn't do it, his detractors say. The rejoinder to which is: "I +know, a little bird did it!" + +If we had entered the war after the sinking of the _Lusitania_, when the +wise men of the West say we should have gone in, countless lives and +inestimable expenditures would have been spared. Where is the man in the +United States of America to-day who has revealed the Jove-like mind that +entitles him to make such sentient statement? When he is found, how can +he possibly know? What delivery of thought, idea, conception, execution +has he ever made that entitles him to be heard, not to say believed? How +can any one possibly know what would have been the result of our +entrance into the war at that time? If any one thing is responsible for +America's efficiency in the war, it is that it had the American people +fused into one man with one mind, determined to win the war. I am sure +that I encountered nothing in the United States in my travel from the +Atlantic to the Pacific and back again in the spring of 1916 that made +me believe that the people of our country wanted war, or that there +could be developed in them at that time a sentiment which would make for +such internal resistance of the people as they displayed in the spring +of 1917 and continued to display until November 11, 1918. I cannot speak +from personal knowledge, for I was not in the United States during the +year of its war efficiency, but I am told that there was never a whisper +of disloyalty or a syllable of disparagement of the President personally +during that time. But many of those who were silent then are strident +now. Their enforced silence has enhanced the carry-power of their +voices, and their clamor prevents the harmony that the world is seeking. +They not only defame Wilson, but they contend that the part we played in +the war has been overestimated. It has been, but not by us. It has been +evaluated by those whom it was our most sacred privilege to aid. They +neither minimize our efforts not underestimate our accomplishment. The +British know that they were steadfast; the French realize that they were +resolute; the Italians appreciate that they were brave. We know it, but +that does not prevent us from realizing the magnitude of the rôle we +played, and the man who was responsible for it is the man to whom the +world, save a political party in the United States, gives thanks and +expresses appreciation. His name is Woodrow Wilson. Americans do not +boast of the part they played in winning the war, but they do encourage +that which is far worse than boasting--lying about it, particularly when +the motive for such perversion of truth is deprecation of their Chief +Executive. + +He is an idealist and theorist. He is the kind of idealist who destroyed +the Democratic machine in the State of New Jersey, which had been the +synonym for corruption in politics for a generation; the kind of +idealist who put through the Underwood Tariff Bill, which at one stroke +did more to strangle the unnatural mother of privilege than any measure +in the past twenty years; the kind of idealist who, when the transport +system of the entire country threatened to be hopelessly paralyzed by +reason of the determination of the railway magnates to refuse the +demands of locomotive engineers that their working-day should consist of +eight hours, sent for representatives of the plutocrats and the +proletariats and told what they were to do and when they were to do it, +and the whole civilized world approved. He is the idealist who has done +more to make our government a republican government representative of +the people and not of party bosses than any one in the memory of man. He +is the idealist who is a scholar, a thinker, a statesman, a creator, an +administrator, and a man of vision. More than that, he is an efficiency +expert in the realm of world-ordering. It is to our inestimable +misfortune that his personality has successfully obstacled his projects. + +His secretary of war is a failure; his secretary of state is a +figurehead; his secretary of finance is his family, and so on _ad +nauseam_. + +I am not a competent judge whether Mr. Baker has been a good secretary +of war or not, but I am sure that he is not so unfit as Simon Cameron +was. No one has said of him: "Cameron is utterly ignorant and regardless +of the course of things and probable result. Selfish and openly +discourteous to the President. Obnoxious to the country. Incapable +either of organizing details or conceiving and executing general plans" +(Nicolay). President Wilson has never had to say of any of his cabinet +what Lincoln said of Seward: "The point and pith of the senators' +complaint was that they charged him, Seward, if not with infidelity, +with indifference, with want of earnestness in the war, with want of +sympathy with the country, and especially with a too great ascendancy +and control of the President and measures of administration. While they +seemed to believe in my honesty, they also appeared to think that when I +had in me any good purpose or intention Seward tried to suck it out of +me unperceived." + +So far as I know, no one has characterized President Wilson's mentality +as "painful imbecility," as Stanton characterized Lincoln a few months +before the latter appointed him secretary of war. + +He has been accused of not surrounding himself with the ablest men of +his party or of the country, in the conduct of the affairs of the nation +during the period when the country was emerging from the position of +aloofness from world politics which it had maintained from the time +Washington warned of the danger of "entangling foreign alliances." But +it does not convince me that a man is not competent to do the job that +the President has given him because his training has been as a +stockbroker and his activities on the bear side of the market. That is +not the kind of training that one would give his son whom he wished to +see become a statesman, but it occurs to me that the task entrusted to +him may be one which a statesman is not best fitted to handle. It may be +a job that a man with the mentality and training and moral possessions +that he selected could do better than any one else. + +What earnest of superior constructive, intellectual powers has any +public man in the United States displayed that justifies +self-constituted critics in saying that the men selected by President +Wilson are not their peers? It is universally admitted that President +Wilson has a more masterful and comprehensive grasp of politics in +America, using that word in its conventional, every-day sense and +meaning, particularly a familiarity with bosses and the "machine," than +any President ever had. No one denies his statesmanship. He is, +therefore, a competent judge of who was best fitted to do the work which +it was necessary to do in order that the programme which he formulated +for the benefit of humanity might be executed, and particularly that the +yoke might be lifted from the necks of the oppressed nations and that +another world calamity in the shape of war might be avoided. His choice +of aides and representatives was not acceptable to men who put party +interests before public interests, who are willing to sacrifice world +weal for worldly advancement, and who lash themselves into a frenzied +state by repetition of the admonitions of Washington or Monroe. It does +not detract from the glory of the father of his country, or from the +lustre of great interpreters of national law, to say that the principles +that they enunciated and the practices that they initiated centuries ago +are not necessarily those that should guide us now. It would be just as +legitimate to say that physicians should follow the teachings of +Hippocrates or Galen, because the one was the father of medicine and the +other its greatest expositor, as it would to say that we must follow +slavishly the teachings of Washington and Monroe. + +That the American Peace Commission did not contain men of the mental +caliber of Mr. Root or Mr. Lodge, that the reservoirs of expert +knowledge were not drained and taken to Paris, that our Commission as a +whole was less sophisticated, less perceptive and apperceptive, than +that of Great Britain, let us say, is to be regretted, just as we regret +the effects of some fallacious judgment or specious decision of our +youth. There were ways of offsetting them, however, and in this +particular instance Congress was the way. The President did not go +beyond his prerogative in selecting the Peace Commission. The public +elected him to make these selections, as well as to do other things. If +the people do not want that such selection should be his privilege and +power, they have only to say it at the polls. The Eighteenth Amendment +was not difficult of accomplishment. Perhaps time will show that Mr. +Wilson "guessed right" oftener in the selection of his cabinet than any +predecessor. + +Mr. Josephus Daniels was the target of scorn and the butt of ridicule +from the time he went into the cabinet until he began to make +preparations for war, but the rumor has reached me that his efforts were +fairly satisfactory to the hypercritical American public. The +President's critics are jealous of the prodigious powers which an +unauthorized representative of the government has in the affairs of the +country, and they do not understand why, if he is the paragon of virtue +that his position seems to indicate he is, the President did not put him +on the commission. But again I say the President knows his limitations +and the public has only recently discovered them. He may short-circuit +some of them by means of Colonel House. He may find him "great in +counsel and mighty in work," or he may have habituated himself to buy +only gold that he has tried in the fire himself. It is his privilege and +no one can gainsay it. + +He is silent and ungetatable. Silence has been considered a sign of +strength in man since the days of Hammurabi, and the greater the man the +more solitary he is. If Mr. Wilson were twice as great, even Mr. Tumulty +would not be allowed to see him! + +Wilson has been accused of pilfering his idea of the League of Nations +from the Duc de Sully and from the Abbé of Saint Pierre. Enemies +animated by malice and fired by envy have striven to show that the +famous fourteen statements or principles were his only by the right of +possession or enunciation; that he resurrected the doctrines of Mazzini, +dressed them up and paraded them as his own. It would be difficult to be +patient with such critics if one did not know the history of +epoch-making events in the world's progress. In truth, the public is +resentful that it was not consulted. It is umbraged that it was not +allowed to make suggestions. It is spiteful because it was treated with +contempt. The public manifested the same quality of spleen toward +Lincoln, only the quantity was greater. In brief, the public professes +not to have any confidence in Mr. Wilson's wisdom, and this in face of +the fact that up to date he has displayed more wisdom than all the +Solons in America combined, and I can say this the more unprejudicedly +as a Republican than I could if I were a member of the party that +elected Mr. Wilson. + +Mr. Wilson is disliked for emotional, not intellectual, reasons. +Although he has probably done more to engrave the graving upon the stone +that will remove the iniquity of the land than any man who has ever +lived, "we don't like" him. There must be some good reason for this +other than envy, jealousy, and resentment, and I propose to inquire for +these reasons in Mr. Wilson's emotional make-up. + +Whether I "like" Mr. Wilson or not does not enter into it. I never knew +Pascal or Voltaire or Benjamin Franklin, and still I am sure I could +make a statement of their qualities and possessions that would elicit +commendation from one who had known them. As a matter of fact, personal +contact with men from whose activities the world dates epochs is not +conducive to personal liking. I cannot fancy liking Rousseau. I am sure +I should not have liked Voltaire. I can even understand why Lincoln was +despised and scoffed at by his contemporaries. I am one of those who +believe Mr. Wilson is a great man, but I am not concerned to convince +others of it. I am concerned alone to explain why he is not beloved of +the people. + +The esteem or disesteem in which Mr. Wilson is held in this country is +due to his personality, and this does not seem to me to be enigmatic. He +has the mind of a Jove but the heart of a batrachian. It is to the +former that he owed his rise, it is the latter that conditioned his +fall. If we were not satisfied to have such a man sail our ship of state +in smooth as well as in turbulent seas, in calm and in tornado, we had +opportunity to drop him from the bridge gracefully in 1916. Although his +possessions and deficits were not so universally known then as now, +still they were generally recognized and widely discussed. Instead of +dropping our pilot we re-elected him. This could only be construed by +him as approval of his conduct. When he continued to display his +inherent qualities he excited our ire. We called him names and neither +forgave nor wished to forgive him. + +Perhaps no one has ever had the opportunity to fix his position so +indestructibly at the apogee of human accomplishment by permitting +himself kindly indulgences or what is commonly called human feelings as +Woodrow Wilson had. If when Roosevelt sought to raise a regiment or +division to take to France the President had been sympathetic to the +project and had wiped out with a stroke of the pen the obvious +difficulties that stood in the way of such project, it would have +thrilled the people of this country of every color, or every complexion, +political and somatic, as nothing else could possibly do. It would not +have taken from his prestige as commander-in-chief of the army one jot +or tittle, nor would it have interfered in the smallest way with the +disciplinary unity which is the vital spark of the army. + +If he had said of General Leonard Wood, "Father, forgive him, for he +kneweth not that which he did," and had the emotional exaltation which +every one has when he forgives an enemy, and given him a command to +which his past performances entitled him, a few soreheads and soulless +pygmies wearing the uniform of the United States Army and their +congressional wire-pullers might have resented it, but the people by and +large would have said: "Our President is a big man: he is magnanimous, +he is a man who walks in the pathway of the Lord, he forgives his +enemies." General Wood would have received the recompense for having +prepared the way for the selective draft that he deserved, for even +though he did it in a tactless and tasteless way, he made a contribution +of incalculable value to the victory of our arms. Had he sent for the +chairman of the committee on foreign affairs and conferred with him on +the selection of the Peace Conference personnel, had he shown some signs +of deference to that committee, had he discussed with them his peace +plan proposals and taken note of their suggestions, modifying his +proposals in accordance with their convictions when to do so did not +yield a fundamental point, we should not have been on the horns of the +dilemma we were for a year following the President's last return from +Paris, and the world would have been spared discomfiture--yea, even +agony. + +Mr. Wilson knows the rules of the game, but he does not know how to play +fair. He knows that contests and strife elicit his most deforming +qualities--intolerance, arrogance, and emotional sterility; hence he +hedges himself about in every possible way to avoid them. He knows that +the sure way for him is to play the game alone. + +Woodrow Wilson does not love his fellow men. He loves them in the +abstract, but not in the flesh. He is concerned with their fate, their +destiny, their travail en masse, but the predicaments, perplexities, and +prostrations of the individual or groups of individuals make no appeal +to him. He does not refresh his soul by bathing it daily in the milk of +human kindness. He says with his lips that he loves his fellow men, but +there is no accompanying emotional glow, none of the somatic or +spiritual accompaniments which are the normal ancillæ of love's display. +Hence he does not respect their convictions when they are opposed to his +own, he does not value their counsels. His determination to put things +through in the way he has convinced himself they should be put through +is not susceptible to change from influences that originate without his +own mind. He has made many false steps, but none of them so conditioned +the fall from the exalted position the world had given to him as his +determination to go to Paris and represent this country at the Peace +Conference. If one may judge what the verdict of all the voters in this +country would have been, had the question of his going been submitted to +them, from the expressions of opinion of those one encounters in his +daily life, it would be no exaggeration to say that three-fourths of the +voters would say he should not have gone. I think I may say truthfully +that I never encountered a person who approved his decision. It is +possible that his entourage or cabinet and counsellors did not contain a +daring soul who volunteered such advice, but it is incredible that both +they and the President did not sense the judgment of their countrymen as +it was reflected in the newspapers. However, it is likely that he would +have gone had he known that the majority of the voters of this country +were opposed to it. + +In contact with people he gives himself the air of listening with +deference and indeed of being beholden to judgment and opinion, but in +reality it is an artifice which he puts off when he returns to the +dispensing centre of the word and of the law just as he puts off his +gloves and his hat. Nothing is so illustrative of this unwillingness to +heed counsel emanating from authority and given wholly for his benefit +as his conduct toward his physician during the trip around the country +in September, 1919. The newspaper representatives who accompanied him +say that he had often severe and protracted headache, was frequently +nervous and irritable, sometimes dizzy, and always looked ill. These +symptoms, conjoined with the fact that for a long time he had high blood +pressure, were danger signals which no physician would dare neglect. It +is legitimate to infer that his physician apprised him and counselled +him accordingly. Despite it Mr. Wilson persisted, until nature exacted +the penalty and by so doing he jeopardized his own life and seriously +disordered the equilibrium of affairs of the country. Indeed, obstinacy +is one of his most maiming characteristics. + +The President attempts to mask with facial urbanity and a smile in +verbal contact with people, and with the subjunctive mood in written +contact, his third most deforming defect of character, namely, his +inability to enter into a contest of any sort in which there is strife +without revealing his obsession to win, his emotional frigidity, his +lack of love for his fellow men. These explain why he did not win out to +a larger degree in Paris, and why he did not win out with Congress. When +he attempts to play such game his artificed civility, cordiality, +amiability are so discordant with the real man that they become as +offensive as affectations of manner or speech always are, and instead of +placating the individual toward whom they are manifest, or facilitating +a modus vivendi, they offend and make rapport with him impossible. + +Probably nothing would strike Mr. Wilson's intimates as so wholly untrue +as the statement that he is cruel, yet, nevertheless, I feel convinced +that there is much latent cruelty in his make-up, and that every now and +then he is powerless to inhibit it. He was undoubtedly wholly within his +rights in dismissing Mr. Lansing from his cabinet, but the way in which +he did it constitutes refinement of cruelty. He may have had a contempt +for him because he had not insisted on playing first fiddle in Mr. +Wilson's orchestra, the part for which he was engaged, but that did not +justify Mr. Wilson in flaying him publicly because he attempted to keep +the orchestra together and tuned up as it were during Mr. Wilson's +illness. + +Selfishness is another conspicuous deforming trait of the President. He +is more selfish than cruel. Undoubtedly his friends can point to many +acts of generosity that deny the allegation. Some of the most selfish +people in the world give freely of their counsel, money, and time. +Selfishness and miserliness are not interchangeable terms. He is the +summation of selfishness because he puts his decisions and +determinations above those of any or all others. It matters not who the +others may be. Until some one comes forward to show that he has ever +been known to yield his judgments and positions to those of others I +must hold to this view. He is ungenerous of sentiment and unfair by +implication. Nothing better exemplifies his ungenerosity than his +refusal to appear before the Senate or a committee of them previous to +his return to Paris after his visit here and say to them that he had +determined to incorporate all their suggestions in the Treaty and in the +Covenant. He did incorporate them, but he did not give the Senate the +satisfaction of telling them that he was going to do so or that the +instrument would be improved by so doing. It has been said of him that +he is the shrewdest politician who has been in the presidential chair in +the memory of man. That is a euphemistic way of saying he knows mob +psychology and individual weakness, but his reputation in this respect +has been injured by his failure to be generous and gracious to Congress. + +The receptive side of his nature is neither sensitive nor intuitive, nor +is his reactive side productive or creative. He is merely ratiocinative +and constructive, consciously excogitative and inventive. In other +words, he has talent, not genius. Genius does what it must, talent what +it can. The man of genius does that which no one else can do. His work +is the essential and unique expression of himself. He does it without +being aware how he does it. It is as much an integral part of him as the +pitch of his voice and his unconscious manner. He is conscious only of +the throes of productive travail; of the antecedents of his creation he +is ignorant. Many artists essay to paint their own portraits and many +succeed in portraying themselves spiritually and somatically as no one +else can. Mr. Wilson did with words for himself in describing Jefferson +Davis what artists do with pigments. + + "What he did lack was wisdom in dealing with men, willingness to + take the judgment of others in critical matters of business, the + instinct which recognizes ability in others and trusts it to the + utmost to play its independent part. He too much loved to rule, had + too overweening confidence in himself, and took leave to act as if + he understood much better than those who were in actual command + what should be done in the field. He let prejudice and his own + wilful judgment dictate to him.... He sought to control too many + things with too feminine a jealousy of any rivalry in authority." + +True, too true; but not nearly so true of Jefferson Davis as of Woodrow +Wilson. Posterity profited by the limitations of the former, and we are +paying and mankind will continue to pay for those of the latter. + +Mr. Wilson is a brilliant, calculating, and vindictive man: brilliant in +conception, calculating in motive, and vindictive in execution. From the +time of his youth he instructed himself to great purpose. He has made a +careful review and digest of the world's history and he has attempted to +survey the tractless forests and untrodden deserts of the future. From +the activities in the former fields he has evolved a plan which he +believes will make the latter a favorable place for the human race to +display its activities, and he has striven to put that plan into +practice. He concedes that others have looked backward with as +comprehensive an eye as his own; he grants that others have had visions +of the future that are even more penetrating than his own; but _he_ has +the opportunity to try out his plan, and _they_ have not, and he is +unwilling to take them into partnership in the development of the claim +that he has staked out. He cannot do it. It is one of his emotional +limitations. Were he generous, kindly, and humble it would be difficult +to find his like in the flesh or in history. He must be reconciled to +the frowns of his contemporaries, the disparagements of his fellows, and +the scorn of those who have been scorned by him. The world has always +made the possessor of limitations pay the penalty. In his hour of hurt, +if sensitiveness adequate to feel is still vouchsafed him, he may +assuage the pain with the knowledge that posterity will judge him by his +intellectual possessions, not by his emotional deficit. + +If we are not satisfied with his conduct as chief magistrate we must do +one of two things. We must either curtail the powers of future +presidents, or we must select presidents for their qualities of heart as +well as mind. Perhaps future candidates for the presidency should be +submitted to psychological tests to determine their intellectual and +emotional coefficients. Those who do not measure up to a certain +standard shall be eliminated. + +One of the most unsurmountable obstacles to advancement of an officer in +the army or navy is an annotation of his record by a superior officer as +"temperamentally unfit." From the day that appears underneath his +pedigree there is scarcely any power that can advance him. It may be +that Woodrow Wilson has been "temperamentally unfit" to be President of +the United States, but for any one to say that he has been +intellectually unfit for that office is to utter an absurdity and an +untruth. Had he been baptized in the waters of humility, had his parents +or his pedagogues inoculated him with the vaccine of modesty, had he +during the years of his spiritual growth come under the leavening +influence of love of humanity, had he by taking thought been able to +develop what are considered "human qualities,"--kindliness, sympathy, +and reverence for others,--had he included in his matutinal prayers, +"Let me accomplish, not by might, nor by power, but by spirit," had he +had Lincoln's heart and his own brain, he would be, not one of the +greatest men that America has produced, he might be the greatest. As it +is, his emotional limitations have thwarted his career and dwarfed his +spiritual stature. The American people speak of this as his fault. It is +in reality his misfortune. We laugh at the child who cries when she +finds that her doll, with outward appearance of pulchritude, is filled +with sawdust, but we wail when we find our gods are only human, and we +resent it when our humans err. + +Woodrow Wilson is better liked by the people of the world to-day than +any prophet or reformer the world has ever had. He has fewer enemies and +fewer detractors. He should consider himself particularly fortunate, for +he owes his life to it, that he lives in the twentieth century. It is +only a century or two ago, in reality, that they gave up burning at the +stake prophets and reformers, and it is only a few decades ago that they +allowed them to remain in their native land or even to visit it. Critics +and self-constituted judges of his conduct will continue to pour their +vials of wrath upon his head and purge themselves of their contempt for +him, but these are the fertilizers of his intellectual stature. + +Woodrow Wilson has had meted out to him more considerate and respectful +consideration than any man who originated stirring impulse that has led +to world renovation. There is a choice between calumniation and +crucifixion. + + Transcriber's note + + _Underscores_ have been used to indicate _italic_ fonts. + + Minor printers errors have been corrected without comment. The + following words have been added where they seemed to be missing. + + Added "about" to: + Then came two books about the outgrowth of the military life. + + Added "by" to: + The next day I went to a midday banquet tendered by Melville E. Stone, + the general manager of the Associated Press, by the newspaper men of + Rome. + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Idling in Italy, by Joseph Collins + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 41934 *** |