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diff --git a/44916-0.txt b/44916-0.txt index 735a574..c0b6ef1 100644 --- a/44916-0.txt +++ b/44916-0.txt @@ -1,37 +1,4 @@ -The Project Gutenberg eBook, Modernities, by Horace Barnett Samuel - - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with -almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or -re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included -with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org - - - - - -Title: Modernities - - -Author: Horace Barnett Samuel - - - -Release Date: February 15, 2014 [eBook #44916] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - - -***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MODERNITIES*** - - -E-text prepared by Marc D'Hooghe (http://www.freeliterature.org) from page -images generously made available by HathiTrust Digital Library -(http://www.hathitrust.org/digital_library) - - +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 44916 *** Note: Images of the original pages are available through HathiTrust Digital Library. See @@ -8051,362 +8018,4 @@ INDEX _Zwischenspiel_, 172, 173 Zola, 118, 136, 145 - - -***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MODERNITIES*** - - -******* This file should be named 44916-0.txt or 44916-0.zip ******* - - -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: -http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/4/4/9/1/44916 - - - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions -will be renamed. - -Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no -one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation -(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without -permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, -set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to -copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to -protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. 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Hart was the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm -concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared -with anyone. For forty years, he produced and distributed Project -Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support. - -Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed -editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S. -unless a copyright notice is included. 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You may copy it, give it away or -re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included -with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org - - - - - -Title: Modernities - - -Author: Horace Barnett Samuel - - - -Release Date: February 15, 2014 [eBook #44916] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 - - -***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MODERNITIES*** - - -E-text prepared by Marc D'Hooghe (http://www.freeliterature.org) from page -images generously made available by HathiTrust Digital Library -(http://www.hathitrust.org/digital_library) - - - -Note: Images of the original pages are available through - HathiTrust Digital Library. See - http://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uc2.ark:/13960/t9d50kh4d;view=1up;seq=9 - - - - - -MODERNITIES - -by - -HORACE B. SAMUEL - -Author of "The Land and Yourself," "The Insurance Act -and Yourself," etc. - - - - - - - -New York -E. P. Dutton and Co. -681, Fifth Avenue -1914 - - - - -DEDICATED - -TO - -MRS. GEORGE JOSEPH - - - - -PREFACE - - -The ten studies which constitute this volume are devoted to individuals -who are held out as being reasonably characteristic of that modern -movement of the last and present century which started with the French -Revolution. At any rate, they were all modern once. For the spirit of -modernity enjoys, like the priest-god of the ancient grove, only a -temporary reign, and is speedily killed by its inevitable successor. - -It is somewhat difficult to find any common denominator for the -subjects of these studies. The essays must be left largely to speak for -themselves. If, however, an attempt were to be made to pronounce of -what the spirit of modernity really consists, one might suggest that it -is a spirit of energy, of fearlessness in analysis, whose sole _raison -d'être_ and whose sole ideal is actual life itself. - -The studies on Miss Marie Corelli and Herr Wedekind are here published -for the first time. Those on Disraeli, Heine, Stendhal, Schnitzler, -Strindberg, the Futurists, and Verhaeren have appeared as articles in -the _Fortnightly Review_; while the essay on Nietzsche's "Genealogy -of Morals" was first published in the _English Review_. I have -consequently pleasure in expressing my thanks and acknowledgments -to Mr. W. L. Courtney and Mr. Austin Harrison for their courtesy in -allowing these articles to be reproduced in their present form. I have -also to thank the editor of the _New Statesman_ for permission to -republish my translation from Marinetti's, "The Pope's Monoplane." - -I have made additions to the essays on Schnitzler and the Futurists -with a view to incorporating some reference to the more recent works of -Dr. Schnitzler and M. Marinetti. - - HORACE B. SAMUEL. - - Temple, _October_ 1913. - - - -CONTENTS - - STENDHAL: THE COMPLEAT INTELLECTUAL - HEINRICH HEINE - THE PSYCHOLOGY OF DISRAELI - NIETZSCHE'S "GENEALOGY OF MORALS" - AUGUST STRINDBERG - THE WELTANSCHAUUNG OF MISS MARIE CORELLI - FRANK WEDEKIND - ARTHUR SCHNITZLER - ÉMILE VERHAEREN - THE FUTURE OF FUTURISM - - INDEX - - - - -MODERNITIES - -STENDHAL - -THE COMPLEAT INTELLECTUAL - - -"I only write for a hundred readers, and of those unhappy, amiable, -charming creatures without either hypocrisy or morality whom I should -like to please, I only know one or two." - -On the assumption that with the natural growth of the population, "the -happy few" for whom Stendhal wrote have sufficiently multiplied in this -country to render it likely that a reasonable number of readers will -possess these requisite qualifications, it becomes relevant to give -both some analysis and some appreciation of a man who is perhaps the -most perfect type of the "intellectual" that Europe has yet produced. - -For Stendhal was an intellectual in the fullest sense of the term. -Neither a recluse scholar nor a rabid doctrinaire, but a man of the -world and of action, of brain, heart, and sensibility, he sought and to -a large extent found in the intellect an energetic servant, by whose -faithful escort he could sally forth on that "hunt of happiness," which -led him in his variegated career from the field of battle to the bowers -of love, and from the high plateaux of reverie to the meticulous _terre -à terre_ observations of psychological science. - -Henri Beyle was born in 1783, in Grenoble in Dauphiné, a town whose -hidebound provincialism he hated consistently from his childhood to his -death. - -"His childhood," to quote from his own autobiography, "was a continual -period of unhappiness and of hate and of the sweets of a vengeance -which was always helpless." Loving his mother, according to his -somewhat pathetic boast, with a man's passion, he lost her at the age -of seven. On being told that God had taken her away, he conceived -with immediate logic an implacable hatred against that Deity who had -deprived him of the being whom he loved most in the world, a hatred -which, turning into momentary gratitude on the occasion of the death -of his _bête noire_, his Aunt Séraphie, was finally merged in the -chilly negation of the honest atheist. Inasmuch as to the quality -of logic Stendhal added those of rebelliousness and imagination, it -is not surprising that even in childhood his relations should have -been inharmonious with his father, a royalist lawyer situated on the -borderland between the bourgeoisie and the gentry. The royalism of -his father immediately sufficed to turn Henri into the reddest of -republicans. The execution of Louis XVI filled his childish heart with -holy glee, and the guillotining of two royalist priests at Grenoble -affected him with an elation which, if solitary, was for that very -reason all the more genuine. So hot indeed was his republican ardour -that he even forged an official order requiring his enlistment in a -body of cadets. But although he was unappreciative of his father, -whom he would refer to in his diaries and letters by the almost -equally offensive synonyms of "bastard" and "Jesuit," he none the -less manifested the deepest affection for his maternal grandfather, -M. Gagnon, a Voltairean doctor of lively intellect and genial -disposition, and for the cook and the butler of the paternal house. - -The child soon began to stimulate by books his naturally precocious -imagination, stealing in his thirst for knowledge those volumes which -the solicitude or conventionalism of his father deemed it inexpedient -for him to read. From _La Nouvelle Héloïse_ in particular he would -appear to have derived imaginative transports far transcending the -joys of a prosaic reality. But he had conceived an early aversion to -poetry by reason of an awful poem by some Jesuit about a fly that got -drowned in a cup of milk. The reading of Molière, however, dispelled -the unpleasant association, and his early ambition became crystallised -into going to Paris and writing a comedy. For apart from the magnetic -attraction of the metropolis itself, Grenoble exacerbated his nerves. -Unappreciated at home, he found himself, with the exception of one or -two genuine friendships, solitary and unpopular at school among those -masters and schoolfellows whom he already despised. It is interesting -to remember, parenthetically, that even when a schoolboy he fought a -duel, and boldly faced the fire of what subsequently turned out to -have been an unloaded pistol by concentrating his gaze on a distant -rock. His intellectual ability carried all before him, and he found in -mathematics a loophole of escape from his provincial prison. Coming out -top in the examinations he obtained a bourse at the École Polytechnique -at the age of sixteen, and was sent to Paris with instructions to place -himself under the protection of M. Daru, a relative of the family -and the holder of a ministerial appointment. By this time his erotic -ambitions were beginning to formulate themselves with comparative -definiteness. He had already experienced a passion for a Mdlle. Kably, -a local actress, which while never attaining a more advanced stage -than that of inquiring the way to her lodgings, was none the less -violent. Anyway, when the boy went to Paris he had finally decided to -live up to the best of his ability to the Don Juan ideal. - -His first sojourn at Paris, however, surprised both himself and -his parents. With considerable obstinacy he refused to attend the -Polytechnique and set himself to study privately in his own rooms. But -the first essay at the single life proved a fiasco. No dashing romances -coloured his solitary existence, while he was either too nervous or -too refined to sully his soul with mere mercenary pleasure. He became -dreamy and ill, and was eventually taken charge of by the Darus. In the -pompous officialdom of this family his health recovered, but his spirit -rebelled. He complains bitterly that he not only had to sleep in the -house but also to dine with the family. He none the less knit a firm -friendship with his cousin Martial Daru, a brainless and amiable youth -who subsequently at Milan and at Brunswick taught him the elementary -rules of amoristic etiquette. - -The Marengo campaign gave him an opportunity of practising that -Napoleonic worship which was his one and only religion. The influence -of the Darus procured him a commission, and the passage of the St. -Bernard was one of the landmarks of his life. He drank to the full -the intoxication of victory which attended the entry into Milan of -the youthful army, and conceived for the Countess Angela Pietragrua, -"a sublime wanton a la Lucrezia Borgia," a passion which ten years -subsequently was duly rewarded. The Milan period was, according to that -epitaph which he penned himself, "the finest in his life." "He adored -music and literary renown, set great store by the art of giving a good -blow with the sabre and was wounded in the foot by a thrust received -in a duel. He was aide-de-camp to Lieutenant-General Michaud. He -distinguished himself. He was the happiest and probably the maddest of -men when on the conclusion of the peace the minister of war ordered the -subaltern aides-de-camp to return to their regiments." - -Returning to Grenoble on furlough, he fell in love with Mdlle. -Victorine Bigillon, the sister of one of his best friends, whom he -suddenly followed to Paris, although his leave would appear to have -been limited to Grenoble. Reprimanded by the authorities he sent in -his resignation, and "madder than ever started to study with the view -of becoming a great man." His experiences, subjective and objective, -during this period are described in his journal with a detail, a -lucidity, an honesty which are worthy of some mention. For we see now -officially scheduled and officially annotated all those heterogeneous -qualities which made up the sum of this man's psychology; his rigid -intellectualism, his sentimentality, his ambition, his artistic -enthusiasm, his constant flow of analytical energy (directed now -against the external world, now against himself, yet scarcely for -a single moment losing itself in a complete abandon), his love of -witty conversation, whether his own or that of others, the sweep of -his intellectual ideals, his intolerance of bores and fools, that -apprehensive self-consciousness which so often made him the dupe of the -fear of being duped, his exuberant _joie de vivre_, and "that love of -glory and sensibility which are only for the _intimes_ friends." - -And extraordinarily stimulating are the reflections, charmingly -interspersed with English phrases, in this breviary of intellectual -egoism, where the _I_ and the _Me_ enter into a Holy Alliance in their -heroic conspiracy against the rest of the world. It was mainly this -self-consciousness which induced Beyle deliberately to set himself to -become a psychologist. "Nearly all the misfortunes of life," writes -our twenty-year-old philosopher, "come from the false notions we have -concerning that which happens to us. Must know men thoroughly." And how -he scolds himself when he fails to live up to his ideal, and when "his -accursed mania for being brilliant results in his being more occupied -in making a deep impression than in guessing others." And so it is that -he reflects, "what a fool I am not to have the knack of drawing out -each man to tell his story, which might prove so useful to me," and -that the man, who was subsequently to style himself by profession "an -observer of the human heart" developed that "universal desire to know -all that passes within a man." Though, however, his love of psychology -was thus, as we have seen, to some extent a case of reaction from his -own nervousness and of externalised introspection, it is impossible to -deny the purity of his intellectual enthusiasm. At an age when even the -chastest of prose writers may well be pardoned for wallowing in the -debauchery of purple patches, he inscribes in his journal that the sole -quality in style is lucidity. It was this deeply rooted abhorrence of -floridity and ostentation that on a subsequent occasion nearly induced -him to fight a duel with a man who had praised unduly the well known -"la cime indéterminable des arbres" of Chateaubriand, that _bête noire_ -of Stendhal's of whom he prophesies in English, "This man shall not -outlive his century." In the sphere of philosophy, characteristically -enough his logical and mathematical turn of mind embraced with natural -love and facility the materialism of the French sceptics. - -"Helvetius opened wide to him the doors of the world," and he became -on terms of affectionate friendship with the aged philosopher Destutt -Tracy. So radical indeed was Stendhal's philosophic bias, that on one -occasion, feeling presumably more studious than amorous, he neglects -an assignation with the lady whom he was pursuing, to plunge with even -greater gusto into a hundred pages of Adam Smith. Though, too, he -habitually worked twelve hours a day, he would appear to have cut a -frequent figure in both those formal and Bohemian sets of the capital -which offered such refreshing contrasts and facilities to artistic -young men. - -His love for Victorine proved unreciprocated. There followed innocuous -passages with a respectable demi-vierge, referred to in the journal as -Adèle of the Gate. But Stendhal found his chief distraction in that -society of authors, men of the world, and actresses whom he met at the -house of Dugazon, a celebrated teacher of theatrical elocution. In this -variegated set, where the mutual relations and complications of the -various members provided a chronic source of interest and speculation, -Stendhal met a young mother, named Mélanie Guilbert (the Louason of -the journal), "a charming actress who had the most refined sentiments -and to whom I never gave a son." To this lady Stendhal set himself to -lay a siege, which was eventually successful after a quite unnecessary -duration. - -The demeanour of Stendhal in society is highly instructive. A man of -such abnormal sensitiveness that "the least thing moved him and made -the tears come to his eyes," he encased himself in an "irony which -was imperceptible to the vulgar," and, posing with marked success as -both a cynic and a roué, notes with interest "the terrifying effect -which his particular kind of wit produced on society." But if his -deliberate brilliancies won him respect rather than popularity, they -certainly consolidated his own selfestimation. "Maximum of wit in my -life--Je me suis toujours vu aller mais sans gêne pour cela," runs -one of these honest confidences which he made to himself, "without -lying, without deceiving himself, with pleasure, like a letter to -a friend." He needed, however, the audience of a salon to put him -on his mettle, and would appear, at any rate during this period, to -have been somewhat ineffective in _tête-à-tête_. His journal records -a lamentable succession of muddled opportunities, of occasions when -he was too natural to observe his companion with sufficient acumen, -and of occasions when he was not natural enough. It was the latter -characteristic, however, which predominated, and even though the -emotion of his love was genuine, its expression was a bookish and -theatrical formulation of an already rehearsed ideal, directed quite -as much to the critical approbation of his own consciousness as to -the actual object of his wooing. Yet the full gusto of a rich _joie -de vivre_ palpitates in this incessant cerebration. Time after time -do we come upon the entry that such and such a day was the happiest -in his life. And if at times "his only distraction was to observe his -own state, it was none the less a great one." His very sensibility -becomes a source of gratification, and he will congratulate himself -that he has perhaps lived more in a day than many of his more stolid -friends will live in the whole of their life. The financial problem -pressed irksomely upon him at this period, and, combining business -and sentiment, he obtained a position in a house at Marseilles, in -which town Louason had obtained an engagement. Whether however because -of parental pressure or because the distractions of business had -cured him of his passion, he soon left Marseilles for Grenoble, and -subsequently returned to Paris. - -The campaigns of 1806 to 1809 offered new scope to the ambition of -Beyle, who always rose successfully to practical emergencies and was, -as he tells us himself, "most simple and most natural in the greatest -dangers." He was present at the battle of Jena, came several times into -personal contact with Napoleon, and discharged with singular efficiency -the fiscal administration of the state of Brunswick. - -The next landmark in his life, however, is his passion for the wife of -his relative, the punctilious but aged M. Daru, a passion the various -nuances of which are faithfully recorded in those sections of his -journal headed "The Life and Sentiments of Silencious Harry," "Memoirs -of my life during my amour for the Gräfin P----y," the narrative of -the intrigue between Julien and Mathilde in _Le Rouge et le Noir,_ -and the posthumous fragment entitled "Le Consultation de Banti," a -piece of methodical deliberation on the pressing question, "_Dois-je -ou ne dois-je pas avoir la duchesse?_" which, it is believed, is quite -unparalleled in the whole history of eroticism. For with his peculiar -faculty of driving his intellect and his heart in double harness, -he analyses the pros and cons of the erotic and ethical situation, -the qualifications and defects of the lady with all the documentary -coldness of a Government report. His diary during this period is so -delightfully honest as to justify quotations: "Tuesday, 18th April -1810, 1st day of Longchamps. On the whole I think that I love the -Countess P----y a little." "10th August, I have proved by an evidence -the truth of my principles about rousing love in the heart of a woman." -"The 4th August. I was reading the excellent essay of Hume upon the -feudal government from two till half-past four o'clock; during this -time she wanted my presence; _au retour_ she cannot say a word without -speaking of me or to me. J'eus le tort de ne pas hasarder quelque -entreprise. Mais je le répète j'ai trop de sensibility pour avoir -jamais du talent dans l'art de Lovelace!" - -Stendhal would appear to have treated this particular liaison rather -as a polite routine of social amenities than as a serious passion. How -refreshing is his account of the tedium of the relationship: "At Paris -I have no time for working to Letellier [a mediocre comedy in verse -which was never finished], I have here nothing but my passion for C. -Palfy; 'tis a month that I reproach to myself the money that I spent -without pleasure of mind into those walls." - -Towards the autumn of 1811 Stendhal journeyed to Milan, his favourite -town in Europe whose citizenship he arrogated in his self-written -epitaph. Renewing his acquaintance with the Countess Pietragrua, for -whom he had languished in dumb nervousness on his first visit to -Milan ten years past, he took an especial joy in compensating for his -previous clumsiness by displaying the easy brilliancy of the man of -the world. And then on the eve of his departure from Milan he writes -in English--"I was, I believe, in love." "Après un combat moral fort -sérieux où j'ai joué le malheur et jusque le désespoir, elle est à -moi onze heures et demi. Je pars de Milan à une heure et demie le 22 -septembre 1811." - -In 1812 Beyle served in the Moscow campaign, having obtained a position -in the commissariat department. It is characteristic that he should -have kept his nerve during the whole of that panic-stricken retreat, -shaving every day, and repelling with considerable sangfroid and -bravery an attack by the enemy on a hospital of wounded. Disgusted by -the Restoration, he settled in Milan in 1814, resumed his relationship -with Mme. Angelina Pietragrua, who would appear to have systematically -deceived him, and lived generally the life of the dilettante and the -man of letters. - -In 1814 he published his first work, _The Lives of Haydn and Mozart_ -par Louis Alexander Bombet. This pseudonym is partly due to Beyle's -habitual mania for anonymity and partly to the consciousness that -the substantial portion of the work had been coolly plagiarised from -Carpani. Nor do any morbid pangs of conscience appear to have ruffled -the serenity of the author, who found a precedent for his action in the -plagiarisms of Molière and a subsequent justification in the money that -he obtained. Emboldened indeed by his success he published in London, -in 1817, a series of travel sketches, _Rome, Naples, and Florence_, -which owed in some places an unacknowledged debt to the _Italian -Travels_ of Goethe. Yet even so, viewed as a whole the book possesses a -richness of material, a raciness of observation, a joy of journeying, -a spontaneity of verve which give it a high rank among travel -literature and make it eminently readable even at the present day. -Less a guide-book than a personal narrative, it describes the actual -life of the period as actually lived by a man who plumed himself at -thirty on still retaining all the folly of his youth. The author was an -enthusiast for the theatre, a devotee of the ballet, and a keen wagerer -of those exquisite ices which formed one of the chief allurements of -the Scala Theatre. An enthusiastic anti-clerical and an eager reader -of forbidden political plays at midnight côteries, he yet feels on -visiting the Church of the Jesuits "a little of that respect which even -the most criminal power inspires when it has done great things." And -how simply natural is the following confession of a traveller's faith: -"I experience a sensation of happiness on my journeys which I have -found nowhere else, even in the most happy days of my ambition." In the -same year, 1817, Stendhal published his _History of Painting in Italy_. -This book is remarkable, not so much by its purely æsthetic criticism -as by the application to the sphere of artistic criticism of those -theories of heredity, climate, and environment which were afterwards to -be so brilliantly exploited at the hands of Taine. Some mention should -also be made of that simplicity of lyric fervour which distinguishes -the extremely fine dedication to Napoleon. - -In 1821 much to his disgust, Stendhal, accused, and apparently quite -unjustly, of being a French spy, was forced to leave Milan. This exile -was all the more irksome as Stendhal's amoristic history had now -reached its great climax. If Louason had constituted the initiation -of his youth, Mme. Daru the acme of his social achievement, and the -Countess Pietragrua the incarnate realisation of his adventurous search -for ideal beauty, it was in Mèthilde, Countess Dembowska, that his -mature heart found a passion which though always ungratified remained -none the less grand. It is instructive to observe how honest was the -love, how deep the devotion of this official rake for "une femme -que j'adorais, qui m'aimait et qui ne s'est jamais donnée a moi." -Particularly significant is it that this man, whose cynicism had gained -for him the sobriquet of Don Juan, should have condemned himself to a -three years' fidelity that thereby he might become more worthy of that -"âme angélique cachée dans un si beau corps qui quittait la vie en -1825." But it is even more interesting to notice how there mingles with -this perfectly genuine attachment the most morbid self-consciousness -and fear of ridicule: - - "Le pire des malheurs, m'écriais-je, serait que ces - hommes si secs, mes amis au milieu desquels je vais - vivre, devinissent ma passion pour une femme que je n'ai - pas eue. Cette peur mille fois répétée a été dans le - fait la principe dirigeante de ma vie pendant dix ans. - C'est par là que je suis venu à avoir de l'esprit, chose - qui était la butte de mes mépris à Milan en 1818 quand - j'aimais Mèthilde." - -In 1822 Stendhal published in Paris that book _De l'Amour_ which he had -composed at odd moments during his sojourn at Milan. Thought by the -author to be his most important work, and deemed worthy by the public -of a total purchase of seventeen copies, the work possesses even at the -present day considerable claims upon the attention. For it possesses -the unique characteristic of being a treatise on the sexual emotion -written by an author who was at the same time an acute psychologist -and a brilliant man of the world, who could test abstract theories by -concrete practice, and could co-ordinate what he had felt in himself -and observed in others into broad general principles. While we do not -propose to enter into a detailed analysis of this work, which occupies -more than four hundred pages of close print, we may perhaps mention the -author's fourfold division of love into "amour-passion, amour-goût, -amour physique, amour de vanité." - -We would also refer to just a few of the innumerable maxims with which -the book is studded, as typical of that naïvely subtle simplicity which -is so characteristic of our author: - -"L'amour c'est avoir du plaisir à voir, toucher, sentir par tous -les sens et d'aussi près que possible un objet aimable et qui nous -aime"--"l'amant erre sans cesse entre ces idées: 1. Elle a toutes les -perfections. 2. Elle m'aime. 3. Comment faire pour obtenir d'elle la -plus grande preuve d'amour possible?" "Tout l'art d'aimer se réduit, -ça me semble, à dire exactement à quels degrés d'ivresse le moment -comporte, c'est-à-dire en d'autres termes à écouter son âme." - -And how curious is the following phrase where the point of view of -this cynical roué seems for once quite in accord with that of the more -ladylike of our lady novelists: "Le plus grand bonheur qui puisse -donner l'amour c'est le premier serrement de main d'une femme qu'on -aime." - -But the philosophical breadth of the author is perhaps best manifested -by that spirit of comparative erotology, which induces him to analyse -the various nuances of love all over the world from Boston to -Constantinople, while he traces the connection between each particular -variation and the climate of the country and the character of the -people. - -With the habitual cleverness of his tongue exacerbated by the -misfortune of his love affair, Stendhal became a distinguished but -unpopular figure with the Parisians. Most in his element "in a salon -of eight or ten persons where all the women have had lovers, where the -conversation is gay and flavoured with anecdote, and when light punch -is served at half-past twelve," he was merciless to the philistine and -the bore, would rally with tactless truth a highly respectable lady -on her liaison with the Archbishop of Paris, and would snub unwelcome -declarations with artistic repartee. - -Plunging vigorously into the controversy between the Classicism and -the Romanticists, Stendhal published in 1825 his celebrated pamphlet -_Racine and Shakespeare_, which denounced the Alexandrine as a -_cache-sottise_ and vindicated the live modernity of a present age -against the dead orthodoxy of a past generation. This little work, -rushed off in a few hours, is one of Stendhal's happiest efforts. The -style is bright with a lucid enthusiasm and sharp with a malicious -logic. How crisp for instance is the truth of the following: - -"Le Viellard--'Continuons.'" - -"Le jeune Homme--'Examinons.'" - -"Voilà tout le dix-neuvieme siècle." - -_Shakespeare and Racine_ was followed by the _Life of Rossini_, whom -Stendhal had known personally at Milan, and by _Armance_ (1827), the -first of that series of novels on which the literary fame of Stendhal -substantially rests. This work possesses all the essential Stendhalian -qualities; the vein of Byronism, the contempt for the bourgeois, the -lucid style, and above all the detailed description of what takes place -in the interior of the mind. The plot consists of the sentimental -complications resultant on the consciousness of the hero, who is one of -those souls made to feel with energy, of his natural disqualification -for efficient marriage. Yet with a subtlety which is Jamesian in -everything but the clearness of the style, the actual difficulty is -never explicitly mentioned, though every nuance of sensitiveness is -delicately delineated. And with what delicate simplicity does Stendhal -narrate the suicide of Octave, who has simply married his adored cousin -in order to leave her the prestige of a rich and honourable widowhood. -Shortly after the marriage Octave has left his wife and set sail for -Greece. - -"Never had Octave been so under the spell of the most tender love as -in this supreme moment. He granted to himself the luxury of telling -everything to Armance except the nature of his death. A cabin boy from -the top of the mast cried out 'land.' It was the soil of Greece and -the mountains of the Morea which were to be perceived on the horizon. -A fresh wind carried on the vessel rapidly. The name of Greece -reawakened the courage of Octave. I salute you, he said to himself, -oh land of heroes. And at midnight on the third of March, as the moon -was rising behind Mount Kalos, a self-prepared mixture of opium and -digitalis softly delivered Octave from that life of his which had been -so agitated. He was found at dawn motionless on the bridge, resting on -some cordage. A smile was on his lips, and his rare beauty struck even -the sailors charged with his burial." - -Stendhal's next work was the well-known _Promenades en Rome_, an -admirable book entirely free from the taint of the conscientious -sightseer, but replete with the original observations of an acute -cosmopolitan who never shrinks from following his fancy along some -amiable digression. It was however in _Le Rouge et le Noir_, 1830, -that Stendhal gave to the world his real masterpiece. This work, which -has become since the end of the last century the revered object of the -cult of the Rougistes, among whom it is a point of honour to know the -whole book by heart, and which occupies an equal rank with that of the -_Comédie Humaine_ or _Madame Bovary_, is remarkable both by reason of -the intrinsic character of the hero and the psychological technique -with which the story is told. - -The hero, like Stendhal himself, possesses a subjective and sensitive -mind, rendered tough and virile by the savage energy of the Revolution. -In fact some previous knowledge both of Stendhal's life and Stendhal's -character are requisite for the full appreciation of a book which, -in spite of the fact that the hero is not only a seducer but also an -attempted murderer, has yet some claim to be regarded as the dignified -confession of a robust faith. - -Julien Sorel is the son of a carpenter in a small provincial town. -Proved guilty from his infancy of the unpardonable crime of being -different from the average child, he is harshly treated by his father. -The Napoleonic legend inflames his imagination, but he lives in the -time of the Restoration, when it is the Church and not the Army which -opens a career to the ambitious parvenu. By a stroke of fortune Julien -obtains when nineteen the post of tutor to the children of the local -mayor, M. de Rênal. Feeling acutely the degradation of his menial -position, he violently rebels against his own sensitiveness, as he -deliberately forges the natural softness of his heart into the most -brutal iron. Formulating the ideals of pride and success, he determines -to live up to them at whatever cost either to himself or others. When -consequently the charming though ordinary Mme. de Rênal begins to -manifest towards him a somewhat personal interest, he sets himself -to force the pace, as a matter neither of sensuality nor even of -politeness, but of sheer self-respect. What for instance are Julien's -feelings during the first assignation? - -"Instead of being attentive to the transports which he was bringing -into existence, and to those feelings of remorse which somewhat dulled -their vivacity, the idea of his duty never ceased to be present -to his eyes. He was afraid of an awful remorse and of an eternal -stultification if he should deviate from that ideal model which he -proposed to follow." From being, however, the mere instrument of his -ethical self-discipline, Mme. de Rênal becomes the sincere object of -his romantic devotion. But the intrigue is discovered and Julien is -packed off to a theological seminary. Though a devout freethinker, -he sacrifices his beliefs to his ambition. His deviation from the -mediocre pattern renders him unpopular, but his very unpopularity -only serves to stiffen his perverse obstinacy for success. After -an agonising struggle he succeeds in winning the due of abilities, -and goes to Paris to become secretary to the Marquis de la Môle, an -influential nobleman, drawn after the model of the author's relative, -Comte Daru. He gains the confidence of his employer, which he rewards -by an intrigue with his daughter Mathilde (Mme. Daru). Here again it -is stern devotion to principle, not natural love, which is the motive. -It is in fact on purely ethical and idealistic considerations that he -goes to the nocturnal rendezvous in the same spirit that a soldier -goes to the field of battle or a martyr to the stake. And as Banti in -that variation of Hamlet's soliloquy of "To be or not to be," which we -have already considered, clinched the question by the consideration -that if he did not embrace the opportunity he would regret it all his -life, so did Julien exclaim: "Au fond il y a de la lâcheté à ne pas y -aller, ce mot décide tout." Note also the masterly delineation of the -girl herself, who, yielding originally by reason neither of her love -nor her weakness, but simply through her romantic desire to emulate -an illustrious ancestress, falls completely in love and manifests a -courage which in spite of some affectation is none the less genuine. -The Marquis de la Môle is compelled to promise to recognise Julien as -his son-in-law and procures for him a commission in the army. But now -just when the hero's ambitions are beginning to realise themselves, -Mme. de Rênal writes, under priestly instigation, a slanderous letter -to his prospective father-in-law, who withdraws his consent to the -marriage. Julien in a fit of rage shoots at Mme. de Rênal, gives -himself up, and dies "poetically" on the scaffold. - -It is not surprising that in view of these facts critics lacking -in subtlety have found the character of Julien the wildest of -impossibilities, the most monstrous of distortions. It is, however, a -reasonably safe maxim to assume that those characters in novels which -are thought to be too bizarre to exist are taken from actual life. In -this case the actual framework of fact is drawn from the history of -a young student of Besançon named Berthet, while as we have already -seen his mental attitude is that of Stendhal himself. While no doubt a -villain from the ethical standpoint of a modern serial, Julien is none -the less, viewed more deeply, the Nietzschean knight-errant of energy -and efficiency, the successful pursuer of a subjective ideal, and a -perfect example of the Aristotelian virtue of [Greek: _engkrateia_]. -Of all the discontented young idealists of the literature of the late -eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, who find themselves thrown -into collision with conventional society, the Werthers, the Renés, the -Don Juans, the Karl Moors, and the Vivian Greys, Julien Sorel is by far -the most interesting and intellectually by far the most respectable. He -has no hysterical and visionary aspirations, no mawkish Weltschmerz. -A phenomenal power of analysis renders his aim direct and simple. -He proposes to open the oyster of the world with the sword of his -intellect. _Le Rouge et le Noir_ is the tragedy of energy and ambition, -the epic of the struggle for existence. - -Reverting from the emotional content of the book to its more technical -characteristics, it may be claimed that it was the first novel in the -history of European literature to portray with successful consistency -a series of characters alternately complex and simple, in a style -which, whatever might be the personal sympathies and aversions of the -author, subordinated all picturesque flourishes to his cardinal aim -of psychological truth. For on the principle that the external life -is but the mere mechanical expression of the life carried on within -the mind, Stendhal portrays his characters by describing their mental -processes. This method is of course most palpable in Julien, who lives -in a chronic state of soliloquy which fails, however, to blunt the edge -of his drastic action, and who keeps inside his brain a register which -tickets every process with the most copious annotations. But even such -comparatively simple characters as M. Rênal, the purse-proud mayor of -a petty provincial town; Mme. de Rênal, the conventionally adulterous -wife; abbé Pirard, the Jansenist priest, all think too according to -their dimmer lights and their limited intelligences, and their thoughts -also are duly recorded with scientific precision. - -The same year in which _Le Rouge et le Noir_ was published, Stendhal -wrote his other great work _La Chartreuse de Parme_, which while -thought by Taine and Balzac, though not by Goethe, to have been his -masterpiece, certainly lacks the original outlook and concentrated -force of the earlier work. In this book, which describes all the -ramifying intrigues of that Italian court life which Stendhal knew and -loved so well, the rich tapestry of romance is successfully embroidered -by the needle of the psychologist. The rapid succession of adventure -is not an end in itself, but simply a means to the setting in motion -of this numerous array of characters whose cerebral interiors are so -faithfully portrayed; Fabrice del Dougo, the hero, no Ishmael of the -intellect like Julien, but a _jeune premier_ with a soul, who runs a -wild career of military ardour, amoristic extravagance, justifiable -homicide, and political persecution, only finally to fall in love with -his gaoler's daughter and die in the self-chosen exile of a Trappist -monastery; the Duchess of Sanseverina (a reincarnation of Stendhal's -mistress, Countess Pietragrua), his dashing and magnanimous aunt who -loves him with an ardour which the reader thinks must at any rate have -needed a papal dispensation; Count Mosca, the hardened minister and -man of the world who is yet capable of all the devotion of a grand -passion; his enemy, the grotesque and plebeian Raversi; the loyal -and sonneteering coachman, Ludovici; the pretty and amiable little -actress Marietta with her obstreperous lover and her avaricious duenna; -Ranuce Ernest of Parma studiously living up to his majestic rôle; and -most romantic if not most interesting of all, Clèlia Conti, with her -pathetic clash of amoristic devotion and filial duty. - -In 1830 the monetary embarrassments of Stendhal forced him to leave -Paris and take up the post of consul at Trieste. The Ultramontanes, -however, with a not unnatural desire to be revenged on a man whose -attitude to the Church is well crystallised in the phrase that "the -priests were the true enemies of all civilisation," drove him from -his position, and he was transferred to Civita Vecchia where he -remained till 1835, solacing his ennui by the compilation of his -autobiography and thinking seriously of marriage with the rich and -highly respectable daughter of his laundress. Returning to Paris, -Stendhal completed _Lucien Leuwen_, that long posthumous romance of the -financial, literary, and political life of the age of Louis Philippe, -a work which, though lacking something of the high vital quality of -_La Chartreuse_ and _Le Rouge et le Noir_, does ample justice to the -encyclopædic powers of the author's observation. For here too we -trace the personal Stendhalian characteristics, the sympathy with -the isolated intellectual, the contempt for the bourgeois and the -philistine, the idealisation of an efficiency that is not always -achieved. We may perhaps give a quotation which well illustrates the -friendly malice with which this detached novelist treats even his most -favoured heroes: - -"He talked for the sake of talking, he bandied the pro and the con, he -exaggerated and altered the circumstances of every story which he told, -and he told a great many and at great length. In a word he talked like -a young man of parts from the provinces; and consequently his success -was immense." - -And how neat in the subtle simplicity of its irony is the following: - -"He was received in this house with that stiffness resulting from -baulked hopes of matrimony which has the knack of making itself felt in -such a variety of ways and in so amiable a manner in a family composed -of six young ladies who are particularly pretty." - -Returning to Paris, Stendhal commenced in 1838 the last of his novels, -the posthumous and unfinished _Lamiel_. Influenced, though by no means -discouraged by the lack of success of his other novels, he determined -to write "in a wittier style on a more intelligible subject," and -with regard to each incident to ask himself the question, "Should it -be described philosophically or described narratively according to -the doctrine of Ariosto?" Hence Lamiel, the most fascinating feminine -character in the whole of the Stendhalian literature. For Lamiel is a -young woman possessed simultaneously of a brisk intellectual honesty, -a lively humour, a charming _naïveté,_ and a Nietzschean outlook on -a tumultuous world. "Her character was based on a profound disgust -for pusillanimity," and "where there was no danger there she found no -pleasure." The whole book is crisp with the true comic spirit. The -scene in particular in which Lamiel purchases her first lesson in the -essential element of human knowledge, as a mere matter of intellectual -curiosity, is a masterpiece of racy delicacy. Yet acuteness of -psychology is never sacrificed to airiness of style. Sansfin the -malicious hump-backed doctor, Comte D'Aubigné Nerwinde the snob, "a -serious, prudent, and melancholy paragon always preoccupied with public -opinion," the plebeian parents of Lamiel, the pompous duchess, the -conventional young lord, are all portrayed with a delightful malice -whose satire is never too extravagant to be otherwise than convincing. - -But it is Lamiel herself who dominates the book, Lamiel with that -mixture of high flippancy and deep seriousness which is so essentially -attractive, ever developing fresh phases in response to her repeated -change of environment, yet ever retaining a fundamental consistency -with her original character. It can only be regretted that Stendhal -should have left unfinished what might well have been possibly the -greatest, and certainly the most amusing of all his novels, and that -having traced the adventures of his heroine from her plebeian origin to -the aristocratic château, and from the aristocratic chateau to Paris, -he should finally leave her floating jauntily amid all the rich welter -of Parisian life with only a synopsis of those subsequent experiences -which if undergone would have entitled her to rank as one of the most -truly romantic characters in the whole of fiction. - -In 1842, Stendhal, with his physical and intellectual faculties still -unimpaired, died suddenly at the age of fifty-nine. Like his hero -Julien, he was "game" to the last, and "I have struck nothingness" was -his self-given substitute for the more orthodox viaticum. - -In endeavouring to adjudicate finally the value of Stendhal, it is -difficult not to yield to the fascination of his cock-sure prophecy of -his eventual fame. For as Stendhal the man, in his autobiographical -writings, _La Vie de Henri Brulard, Le Journal_, and _Souvenirs -d'Egotisme_, would project his ego some years forward and as it -were shake hands with himself across the gulf of time, so, one can -almost say, Stendhal, the incarnation of the early nineteenth-century -Zeitgeist, with his genial greeting, "Je serai compris vers 1880," -shakes hands with those modern men of the world who rightly or wrongly -have imagined themselves to be incarnations of the Zeitgeist of the -late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, as they look back with -appreciative camaraderie at this earlier manifestation of their own -selves. And this no doubt is why Stendhal, viewed of course with a not -unnatural Ultramontane frigidity by such critics as Sainte-Beuve or -Émile Faguet, has become the spoilt darling of Nietzsche, Taine, and -Bourget, and indeed all the more intellectual spirits in modern French -and German literature. - -The life of Stendhal no doubt may not have been as ideally satisfactory -as his theories may have warranted. A man, who professed to find his -chief interest in life in the erotic emotion, he played as often as -not the rôle of the unhappy lover. His spasmodic fits of political and -military ambition spluttered out in the self-complacent consciousness -of their own intensity. He suffered throughout his life from being a -dilettante with a financial competence. Yet it is no small achievement -to have chased happiness so consistently and with so male an energy, to -have kept unjaded to the last his intellectual gusto and the appetite -of his _joie de vivre_, and to have been the first man in European -literature to have put into efficient practice, without thereby in -any way detracting from the clearness of his own personal note, the -important principle that the elaborate delineation of character is even -more the function of the novel than adventurous action or picturesque -description. And so it is that we entitle Stendhal the patentee of -psychology, the inventor of introspection, and take our leave of him -with his own epitaph: - - Qui giace - ARRIGO BEYLE MILANESE - isse, scrisse, amo. - - - - -HEINRICH HEINE - - -Heine seems, viewed superficially, the most baffling, elusive, and -inconsistent of all writers, the veritable Proteus of poetry. He has -so many shapes, that at the first blush it seems almost impossible to -grasp finally and definitely the one genuine Heine. What is really -this man who is now a gamin and now an angel, whose face seems almost -simultaneously to wear the sardonic grin of a Mephistopheles and the -wistful smile of a Christ, this flaunting Bohemian who has written -some of the tenderest love songs in literature, this cosmopolitan who -cherished the deepest feelings for his fatherland, this incarnate -paradox who almost at one and the same moment is swashbuckler and -martyr, French and German, Hebrew and Greek, revolutionary and -aristocrat, optimist and pessimist, idealist and mocker, believer and -infidel? - -Yet it is even because of this surface inconsistency, this -psychological many-sidedness that Heine is a great poet and the one -who, mirroring in his own mind the complexity that he saw without, is -typically representative of the varied phases of the early nineteenth -century. Heine looks at life from every conceivable aspect: he sees -the gladness of life and rejoices therein; he sees the tears of life -and weeps; he sees the tragedy of life and cannot control his sobs; he -sees the farce of life and finds equal difficulty in controlling his -laughter. "Ah, dear reader," says Heine, "if you want to complain that -the poet is torn both ways, complain rather that the world is torn in -two. The poet's heart is the core of the world, and in this present -time it must of necessity be grievously rent. The great world-rift -clove right through my heart, and even thereby do I know that the great -gods have given me of their grace and preference and deemed me worthy -of the poet's martyrdom." - -The first half of the nineteenth century, in fact, in which Heine -lived, is, like any transition period, disturbed, unsettled, -paradoxical. The most diverse tendencies boil and bubble together -in the crucible; the Revolution and the Reaction, Romanticism and -Hellenism, materialism and mysticism, democracy and aristocracy, poetry -and science, all ferment apace in the psychological Witches' Cauldron -of the age. - -Heine simply represented the illusions and disillusions of this age, or -to put it with greater precision, he represented the clash and contrast -between these illusions and disillusions. To arrive then at a correct -appreciation of Heine it will be necessary to glance first at the main -currents of the contemporary events, the political movements of the -Revolution and the Reaction, and the literary movements of Romanticism -and Æstheticism. - -All these currents flow either directly or indirectly from the French -Revolution. To the more sanguine and poetical minds of the time the -Revolution had manifested itself as a species of Armageddon, a gigantic -cataclysm, which, sweeping away all existing institutions with one -great shock, was to leave to mankind an untrammelled existence of -natural and idyllic perfection. These dreamers were destined to be -rudely disappointed. The Holy Alliance temporarily suppressed the -Revolution at Waterloo, and an efficient Reaction reigned both in -France and in Germany. A great religious revival set in in Prussia, -culminating in the Concordat with the Pope in 1821. The Press was -gagged by a rigid censorship, while the students at the universities -were subjected to the most rigorous police espionage. From the point of -view of the German idealists who hoped for liberty and progress, the -Revolution had ended in the most dismal of fiascos. - -Parallel with the Revolution ran Romanticism, which eventually -merged in orthodoxy, or, to put it more accurately, in a mystical -Catholicism. The cardinal characteristic of Romanticism was the -revolt of the individual against the stereotyped prosaic life of the -classical eighteenth century. This revolt manifested itself in the -most untrammelled freedom of the ego, which either took to rioting in -an elaborate self-analysis, as did Hofmann and Jean Paul Richter, or -else simply abandoning ordinary life gave itself up to the cult of -the bizarre, the mystic, the mediæval, and the exotic, and fell in -love with the Infinite, or, to use the terminology of the school, the -Blue Flower. Though, however, Heine was in his poetic youth largely -influenced by the Romanticists (he was, in fact, dubbed by a Frenchman -with tolerable reason an "unfrocked Romantic"), the essence of his -maturer outlook on life is far from being romantic. The life-outlook of -the Romanticists consisted in a vague yearning for the ideal without -any reference to this earthly life; the life-outlook of Heine on the -other hand was made up largely of the almost brutal contrast between -the ideal and the real, between life as it was dreamed and life as it -actually was. - -Another current of thought which it is necessary to mention, though -of course it exercised rather less influence on Heine than did -Romanticism, was the æsthetic neo-Hellenic movement represented by -Winckelmann, Lessing, and to a certain extent by Goethe. - -Heine, however, though a lover of the beautiful, lacked almost entirely -the plastic genius and marble serenity of Hellas, and is, as will be -shown later, only a Greek in the exuberance of his _joie de vivre._ -To summarise then the main tendencies of the age in which Heine was -born, we can see these four distinct currents--the glorious ideals of -the French Revolution, the official reaction against these ideals, the -cult of the bizarre and the infinite yearning of Romanticism, and the -Hellenism of the æsthetic movement. Let us now turn to the poet's life, -and examine the part played by environment, race, and parentage in -moulding his character. - -Heine was born in Düsseldorf on December 1797, and not as is currently -supposed in 1799. - -The Catholic Rhineland, in which Düsseldorf is situated, rebelled more -than almost any other district in Germany against the despotism of the -Prussian bureaucracy; it possessed an almost southern _joie de vivre_, -and only naturally exhibited a distinct inclination to the Catholicism -of the Romanticists, all of which characteristics in a greater or less -degree are to be found in Heine. - -Further, Heine was a Jew, possessing, in consequence, an hereditary -tendency to gravitate to the extreme left wing both of thought and of -politics, while the inborn _Judenschmerz_ in his heart was aggravated -by the anti-Semitic reaction which followed the benevolent tolerance of -Napoleon. - -The poet's father, Samson Heine, was an easy-going, æsthetic nonentity -in moderate circumstances, who does not appear to have exercised any -serious influence on the child's development. This was accomplished by -the mother, _née_ von Geldern, a cultured and strong-minded woman, and -a Voltairean by belief, who did her best to foster and stimulate her -son's youthful intelligence. The favourite authors of the young Heine -were Cervantes, Sterne, and Swift. Of contemporaries, the two men who -exercised any real influence were the Emperor Napoleon, and Byron, "the -kingly man" and the aristocratic revolutionary. Napoleon in particular -was the god of his boyish adoration. This Napoleonic enthusiasm was -largely fostered by Heine's friendship with a grenadier drummer of the -French army named Le Grand, while it reached its climax when he beheld -with his own eyes the beatific vision of the Emperor himself riding on -his beautiful white palfrey through the Hofgarten Allee at Düsseldorf, -in splendid defiance of the police regulations, which forbade such -riding under a penalty of five thalers. - -This worship of the Emperor, moreover, resulted in the wonderful poem -called "The Grenadiers," written at the age of eighteen. The swing and -power of the poem have made it classic, especially the great final -stanza beginning: - - "Denn reitet mein Kaiser wohl über mein Grab." - -Heine received his early education at a Jesuit monastery. The first -event of any moment in his life, however, is his calf-love for Josepha, -or Sefchen, the executioner's daughter, a weird fantastic beauty of -fifteen, with large dark eyes and blood-red hair. Josepha was the -inspiration of the juvenile _Dream Pictures_ incorporated subsequently -in the _Book of Songs_, and exhibiting a genuine power and an even more -genuine promise. - -In 1816 Heine was sent into the office of Solomon Heine, his -millionaire uncle of Hamburg. - -He seems to have been singularly destitute of the financial genius of -his race, and the business career proved from the outset a fiasco. The -real key, however, to the three years spent in Hamburg is supplied not -by Money, but by Love. Having served his apprenticeship in Düsseldorf -with his calf-attachment to the executioner's daughter, Heine proceeded -straightway to a _grande passion_ for his uncle's pretty daughter -Amalie. His love was not reciprocated, and in 1821 the beauteous Amalie -married a wealthy landowner of Königsberg. This Amalie incident was one -of the most important in Heine's life, and is largely responsible for -his early cynicism. He was disillusioned with a vengeance, and could -now with his own eyes inspect the flimsy material of which "Love's -Young Dream" is wove. Though, however, a great personal blow, this -abortive passion is also to be regarded as an invaluable æsthetic -asset. The poet of necessity is bound to write of his own personal -impressions and experiences; and it is obvious that the intenser are -these experiences, the more vital will be his poetry. If Heine's love -for Amalie was the accursed flame that seared his soul, it was also the -sacred fire that kindled his inspiration, and it is to Amalie that we -owe not only a great part of the _Book of Songs_, but also much which -is characteristic of Heine's subsequent life-outlook. - -In 1819, probably because Heine had given convincing proofs of his -business inefficiency, it was decided that he should go to Bonn to -study law. He neglected his studies, and it was not long before he fell -foul of the authorities, owing to his anticipation in the proceedings -of the Burschenschaften or student political unions. - -In 1820 Heine left Bonn for Göttingen. At Göttingen his career was -brief but thrilling, and he was rusticated after a few months on -account of a proposed duel with an impertinent _junker_. - -Transferring his quarters to Berlin, he now spent by far the most -enjoyable period of his university career. The intellectual atmosphere -of Berlin was quicker and less pedantic than that of Göttingen, and he -plunged into his studies with considerable energy. - -In 1821 Heine published the first volume of his poems, containing the -_Dream Pictures_, some miscellaneous juvenile poems, and the _Lyrisches -Intermezzo,_ which was inspired by the banker's, in the same way that -the _Dream Pictures_ had been inspired by the executioner's, daughter. - -The book was an immediate success, how great may be gauged by the -numerous parodies and imitations which it almost instantaneously -evoked. It was at this period that he wrote the two romantic tragedies -of _Ratcliff_ and _Almansor_. Both failures and devoid of much merit, -they served none the less useful purpose of advertising his fame. - -In 1823 we see an echo of his passion for Amalie in his love for his -younger cousin Therese, who seems in many respects to have been a -replica of her elder sister. Therese, however, refused to be anything -more than a cousin to him, and his heart was still further embittered -as is shown by the poem: - - "Wer zum erstenmale liebt - Sei's auch glücklos ist ein Gott - Aber wer zum zweitenmale - Glücklos liebt, er ist ein Narr - Ich, ein solcher Narr, ich liebe - Wieder ohne Gegenliebe; - Sonne, Mond und Sterne lachen - Und ich lache mit und sterbe." - -In 1824 he decided to prosecute his studies for his doctorial degree -with greater seriousness, and leaving behind him the distractions -of the capital, went back once more to the more staid and prosaic -Gottingen. - -Heine intended not merely to take a degree for the sake of ornament, -but also to practise seriously as a lawyer. How serious were these -intentions may be seen from the fact that he went to the length of -paying in advance the heavy entrance fee which the legal profession -then exacted from Jews, and became baptized "as a Protestant and a -Lutheran to boot" on June 28, 1825. - -Heine's conversion has frequently been criticised with superfluous -harshness. Let him, however, explain his position for himself: - - "At that time I myself was still a god, and none of the - positive religions had more value for me than another; I - could only wear their uniforms as a matter of courtesy, - on the same principle that the Emperor of Russia dresses - himself up as an officer of the Prussian Guard when he - honours his imperial cousin with a visit to Potsdam." - -After all, his apostasy brought with it its own punishment, not only -in its deep-felt shame, but in the fact that he eventually threw up -law for literature, and thus rendered so great a sacrifice of racial -loyalty and his own self-respect consummately futile. After selling -his birthright he found that he had absolutely no use for the mess of -pottage which he had purchased. - -In the summer of 1825, Heine, having just succeeded in passing his -degree, proceeded to the little island of Norderney, off the coast of -Holland, to recuperate. Living ardently the simple life and indulging -to the full his passion for the sea, he now wrote not only the second -part of the _Reisebilder,_ entitled _Norderney_, but the far greater -_Nordsee Cyklus,_ which in its irregular swinging metre expresses with -such marvellous efficiency the whole roar and grandeur of the ocean. -Speaking generally, of course, Heine was too subjective to be a real -nature poet. No writer, it is true, fills up so freely and with so -fantastic an elegance the blank cheques of nightingales and violets, -lilies and roses, stars and moonshine, yet none the less these rather -served to grace his measure than as his real flame. His one genuine -love was the sea. With the sea he felt a deep psychological affinity. -The sea was the symbol of his own infinite restlessness, of his own -divine discontent, and mirrored in the sea's ever-changing waters he -beheld the incessant smiles and storms of his own soul. - - "I love the sea, even as my own soul," he writes. "Often - do I fancy that the sea is in truth my very soul; and - as in the sea there are hidden water-plants that only - swim up to the surface at the moment of their bloom and - sink down again at the moment of their decay, even so - do wondrous flower-pictures swim up out of the depths - of my soul, spread their light and fragrance, and again - vanish." - -In 1826 Heine published the _Heimkehr_, the _Nordsee Cyklus_, the airy -and sparkling _Harzreise_, and the first part of the _Reisebilder_. - -From Norderney Heine moved to Hamburg, avowedly to practise, though -it does not appear that he took his profession with much seriousness. -At any rate, until 1831, when he migrated to Paris, his career is -excessively erratic. At one moment he is paying a flying visit to -England, "the land of roast beef and Yorkshire plum-pudding, where -the machines behave like men and the men like machines"; at another -he is on the staff of the _Allgemeinen Politischen Annalen_ and the -_Morgenblatt_ of Munich; he is now in Hamburg, now in Frankfurt, and -now in Italy, where his sojourn inspired the racy and brilliant _Italy_ -and _Baths of Lucca_, both of which works obtained the gratuitous and -well-merited state advertisement of prohibition, and achieved a most -undeniable _succès de scandale_. - -The departure to Paris marks an entirely new epoch in Heine's life, and -offers a convenient stopping-place at which to give some account of his -early poetry and prose, as exemplified in the _Book of Songs_, which -was published in 1827, and the _Reisebilder_, the last part of which, -the _Baths of Lucca_, was published in 1831. - -Though neither the _Book of Songs_ nor the _Reisebilder_ is as great -or as characteristic as the _Romanzero_ and _Poetische Nachlese_ on -the one hand, or the _Salon_ on the other, they are yet by far the -most popular of his works and contain some of his most delightful -writing. One of the first traits that strikes us in the _Book of -Songs_ is the Romantic tendency to bizarre and exotic themes. In the -_Junge Leiden_ and _Lyrisches Intermezzo_ in particular we move in a -ghostly atmosphere of apparitions, sea-maidens, skeletons, and midnight -churchyards. Another interesting characteristic of these poems is his -deep love of the East, a love which is to be probably ascribed more to -the general eastward gravitation of the Romantic school than to the -poet's Oriental blood. This tendency is responsible for two of the most -charming poems in the book, the exquisite lyric starting: - - "Auf Flügeln des Gesanges - Herzliebchen trag ich dich fort - Fort nach den Fluren des Ganges - Dort weiss ich den schönsten Ort." - - "Dort liegt ein rotblühender Garten - Im stillen Mondenschein; - Die Lotosblumen erwarten - Ihr trautes Schwesterlein." - -And-- - - "Ein Fichtenbaum steht einsam - Im Norden auf kabler Höh', - Ihn schläfert; mit weisser Decke - Umhüllen ihn Eis und Schnee. - Er traumt von einer Palme, - Die fern im Morgenland - Einsam und schweigend trauert - Auf brennender Felsenwand." - -This latter poem in particular illustrates admirably the vague melting, -infinite yearning which Heine at first experienced as deeply as did any -of the Romanticists. There are not wanting, however, and especially -towards the end of the book, examples of his later manner, of that note -of rebellion which he was afterwards to strike with such inimitable -precision. Occasionally his wistful pessimism suddenly changes into -cynicism, and in reaction from his morbid sensitiveness he derives a -sardonic satisfaction from probing his own wounds as in the already -quoted "Wer zum erstenmale liebt," while in the mock-heroic _Donna -Clara_ and in the _Frieden_ we see that artistic use of the anti-climax -of which he was afterwards to acquire an even greater mastery. Even in -the comparatively early _Lyrisches Intermezzo_ we see him constantly -playing on that contrast between the Real and the Ideal, between Dream -Life and Waking Life, which formed so integral a part of his subsequent -life-outlook. Speaking generally, however, the _Book of Songs_ exhibits -the sentimental rather than the cynical side of Heine's mind. It -possesses moreover those qualities which remained in Heine throughout -his life, the light, airy touch, the intimate personal note, the -delicate lyric sweetness, and that concision which is found in poetry -with such extreme rarity. - -Let us turn now to the _Reisebilder_. Its most dominant characteristics -are its inimitable swing and the absolute irresponsibility of its -transitions. The grave, the gay; the lively, the severe; the sublime, -the ridiculous; the reverent, the frivolous; the refined, the crude; -the poetic, the obscene, all jostle pell-mell against each other -in this most fascinating of literary kaleidoscopes. It is no mere -guide-book, this record of his wanderings in the Harz, in Norderney, in -England, and in Italy, but rather a description of those reflections -on men and things which were suggested by his various adventures. In -style the _Reisebilder_ marks a new epoch in German prose, or, as has -been said, showed for the first time since Lessing and Goethe that such -a thing as German prose really did exist. Heine was the first to show -convincingly that a Gallic grace and flexibility could be imparted into -the cumbrous and heavy-footed Teutonic language. - -Psychologically the most interesting part of the _Reisebilder_ is the -fervent Napoleonic worship which, combined with his love of liberty and -revolt against reaction, largely contributed to mould his life. The -general tone, moreover, of political, sexual, and religious freedom -that characterises the latter part of the _Reisebilder_ rendered -Heine not a little obnoxious to official Germany, not only because of -the intrinsic heresy of the sentiments themselves, but of the joyous -rollicking insolence with which they were paraded. - -It is small wonder, then, that the Paris July Revolution of 1830 made -the poet feel "as if he could set the whole ocean up to the very North -Pole on fire with the red-heat of enthusiasm and mad joy that worked in -him," and that in the spring of 1831 he migrated finally and definitely -from Germany to Paris. - -This migration to Paris marks the turning-point in Heine's life. His -career in Germany had throughout been erratic, unsatisfactory, and -hampered by political restrictions. In Paris he settled down, felt -that now at last he was in a congenial element, and--found himself. -It was at Paris that he wrote his most brilliant prose and found -inspiration for his highest poetry, that he experienced his wildest -joys and his intensest sufferings. The first ten years of his sojourn -were probably the happiest in his life. His increased literary and -journalistic earnings helped to solve the financial problem, while -socially he was, as always, a pronounced success. He soon found his -way into the centre of the artistic set of the capital, and was on a -footing of intimacy with such writers as Lafayette, Balzac, Victor -Hugo, Georges Sand, Théophile Gautier, Michelet, Dumas, Gérard de -Nerval, Hector Berlioz, Ludwig Borne, Schlegel, and Humboldt. In -social life Heine's most characteristic feature was wit--a wit so -irrepressible as to burst forth impartially on practically all -occasions, and to resemble that of the Romans of the early Empire, -who preferred to lose their heads rather than their epigrams. Yet -in private life he was a devoted son and brother, an ideal husband. -The correspondence which he maintained up to his death with his -sister Lotte and his mother show conclusively what stores of German -_Gemut_ he treasured in his heart. Particularly significant is the -fact that during the whole eight years in which he languished in his -mattress-grave he assiduously concealed from his mother the real state -of his health. Yet none the less "he could hate deeply and grimly -with an energy which I have never yet met in any other man, but only -because he could love with equal intensity," writes the poet's friend, -Meissner. Heine disapproved on principle of swallowing an injury; when -he was hit, he hit back. Not infrequently, as in his rather scandalous -attack on Börne, he would _riposte_ with somewhat superfluous -efficiency, though according to his own theories it must have been -after all only a mistake on the safe side. - -"Yes," writes Heine, "one must forgive one's enemies, but not until -they have been hanged." - -Heine's quarrel with Börne originally arose out of the abomination with -which Börne, who was Radical to the point of fanaticism, regarded the -somewhat poetic and elastic Liberalism of his fellow-Jew, and it is -instructive to enter into an examination of the depth and strength of -those views which supplied the real motive power which drove him from -Germany to France. There can be no doubt that Heine himself took his -Liberalism with perfect seriousness. "In truth I know not," he writes, -"if I merit that my coffin should be decorated with a laurel wreath. -However much I loved Poesy, she was ever to me only a holy toy or a -consecrated means for heavenly ends. It is rather a sword that they -should lay on my coffin, for I was a brave soldier in the Liberation -War of Humanity." It should be observed, however, that this Liberal had -the most aristocratic contempt for the uncultured [Greek: _deimos_], -as is shown by passages such as the following: "The horny hands of the -Socialists who will unpityingly break all the marble statues which are -so dear to my heart"; and, "If Democracy really triumphs, it is all up -with poetry." - -Yet there can be no gainsaying that Heine's political orthodoxy was -perfectly unimpeachable on that anti-clericalism which has always been -one of the most cardinal points of Continental Liberalism. - -He is rarely tired of tilting at Catholicism, and while he regarded -ascetic mediæval Catholicism as the vampire which sucked the blood -and light out of the hearts of men, he dubbed the modern Catholic -reactionaries in Germany "the Party of lies, the ruffians of -Despotism, the restorers of all the folly and abomination of the Past." - -Yet, if his beliefs were too wide to admit of the narrowness of a -consistent partisanship, his enthusiasm was deep and sincere for the -joy, light, and liberty of a new era that was to sweep away all the -unhealthy and plaguy humours of that blind, delirious, and anæmic -mediævaldom, which, to use his own phrase, has spread over the -countries like an infectious disease, till Europe was but one huge -hospital. Politically, in fine, Heine is a brilliant freelance, who, -too proud to wear the uniform of party, none the less fought valiantly -for the army of Progress and Humanity, a forlorn outpost in the War of -Freedom.[1] - -Heine's polemical modernity manifested itself most efficiently in -the _Deutschland_, which, together with its sequel, _The Romantic -School_, was issued as a counter-blast to Madame de Staël's work of the -same name. This history of the religion, literature, and philosophy -of Germany is the masterpiece of Heine's extant prose. An academic -philosophic treatise, of course, it neither is nor professes to be. -As a description half-serious, half-flippant, however, of the main -currents of modern and mediæval Germany by a writer who sees life from -the bird's-eye view of the combined poet, journalist, thinker, and man -of the world, it is unrivalled. It contains some of Heine's loftiest -and most sublime flights, some of his most brilliant and trenchant -epigrams. - -Particularly happy is the comparison drawn between the furious -onslaughts made by the French Revolutionists under Robespierre and the -German philosophers under Kant on respectively the divine rights of -kings and the divine rights of God. - -How delicious is the conclusion of the parallel between the two men: -"Each eminently represents the ideal middle-class type--Nature had -decreed that they should weigh out coffee and sugar, but Fate willed -that they should weigh out other things, and in the scales of the one -did she lay a King and in the scales of the other a God.... - -"And they both gave exact weight." - -As, however, has been previously pointed out, Heine's chief -characteristic as a prose writer is that marvellous elasticity which -can rebound from the frivolous to the sublime with the most consummate -ease and celerity. Interspersed with the bright flash-light of the -epigrammatic pyrotechnics lie really great passages, and pieces in -particular like those on Luther and Goethe possess the clear golden -ring of the grand style. - -Heine's political ideals were subjected to the inevitable -disillusionment. The Revolution of July, which he had fondly hoped -would complete the work of the great movement of 1793, merely resulted -in the anti-climax of the establishment of a bourgeois constitution -under a bourgeois monarch. He tended to become generally embittered. -Money matters, too, began to irritate him, and his health to give -him trouble, and though he found a devoted sick-nurse in Matilde -Crescenzia Mirat, a grisette whom he married in 1841, the lady with -whom "he quarrelled daily for six years in that life-long duel at -the termination of which only one of the combatants would be left -alive," yet none the less his condition began to deteriorate. "The -damp cold days and black long nights of his exile" oppressed him, and -he began to yearn for the old German soil. He gratified his _Heimweh_ -by a flying and surreptitious visit to Germany that inspired the -well-known _Germany_ or a _Winter Tale_, which, together with the -somewhat similar _Atta Troll_, constitutes his most sustained poetic -achievement. These two poems are about as characteristic as anything -which he wrote. They represent admirably his wild classic Dionysiac -fantasy, his sudden dips from the most extravagant Romanticism to the -harsh, crude facts of reality, the marvellous swing and sweep of his -Aristophanic humour. - -Very typical is the following satire on the intimate relation between -anthropo- and arctomorphism. - - "Up above in star-pavilion, - On his golden throne of lordship, - Ruling worlds with sway majestic, - Sits a Polar bear colossal." - - "Stainless, snow-white shines the glamour - Of his skin, his head is wreathed - With a diadem of diamonds, - Flashing light through all the heavens." - - "Harmony rests in his visage, - And the silent deeds of thought, - Just a whit he bends his sceptre, - And the spheres they ring and sing." - -The above quotation shows excellently the essentially poetic quality -by which Heine's wit is illumined. A satirist as keen and vivid as -Voltaire, he possesses all the logical aptness of the Frenchman without -his dryness. His chief characteristic, in fact, is the method by which -in his imaginative flights he combines the maximum of this logical -aptness with the maximum of humorous incongruity. No humorist dives -for his metaphors into stranger water or brings up from the deep more -bizarre and fantastic gems. A charming example of Heinean humour is -the following passage from one of his prefaces: "A pious Quaker once -sacrificed his whole fortune in buying up the most beautiful of the -mythological pictures of Giulio Romano in order to consign them to the -flames--verily he merits thereby to go to heaven and be whipped with -birches regularly every day." - -One of the most cardinal traits of Heine's wit and humour is a -phenomenal freedom of tone and language, a freedom that is occasionally -not always in the most unimpeachable taste. Heine, in fact, is a -writer who admits the public gratis to his psychological toilette, -where he exposes with studied recklessness his most private thoughts. -This question cuts too deep into Heine's life-outlook to be lightly -passed over, and necessitates some examination. In the first place -even Heine's most enthusiastic admirer will admit that a great deal of -this licence is sheer gaminerie; Heine is the mischievous schoolboy -of literature who thoroughly revels in being naughty, grimacing by an -almost mechanical instinct, so soon as he catches a glimpse of the -sacred figures of religion and sex. Like Baudelaire, he loves, almost -indeed as a matter of conscientious principle, to make the hairs of -the philistines stand on end. His one excuse, however, is that even -when he causes the hairs of the philistines almost to spring from their -roots, as indeed he does not infrequently, he conducts the operation -with so light a touch, so exquisite a grace, that the offence is almost -redeemed. Let him speak in his own defence, in the lines from the great -Jewish poem, "Jehudah Halevy": - - "As in Life so too in poetry - Grace is aye Man's highest Good; - Who has grace, he never sinneth - Not in verse nor e'en in prose." - - "And by God's grace such a poet - Genius we do entitle, - King supreme and uncontrolled - In the great desmesne of thought." - -Not unnaturally his coarseness grew apace with the virulence of his -disease, and he himself explains his cause to his friend "La Mouche": -"Vois-tu c'est la faute de la mort qui arrive à grands pas, et quand -je la sens ainsi tout près de moi comme à present j'ai besoin de me -cramponner la vie ne fût ce par une poutre pourrie." This final phase -in fact was simply a reaction against his fate, and is not altogether -without analogy to that same psychological principle which dictated -much of the crude buffoonery of Swift and Carlyle by way of an heroic -protest against their own helplessness. - -Far more important, however, is the fact that this particular trait -of Heine is profoundly symbolic of his outlook on life, especially -where an obscene jest marks the climax of a genuinely poetical flight. -Circumstance turned him into a cynic, who saw frequently in Liberty but -the uprising of a squalid proletariate, who heard in the "sweet lies -of the nightingale, the flatterer of spring," merely the "harbingers -of the decay of its queenliness," and who beheld in love but a mere -illusion of the senses that vanishes so soon as the beloved one utters -a syllable. Held fast in the grip of the great World-paradox, Heine -is forced to look at life as a glaring phantasmagoria of blacks and -whites, in which the sublime and the ridiculous, the pathetic and the -grotesque, the refined and the crude, dance along hand in hand till -they become so confused that it is impossible for the observer to -distinguish the individual partners, and he is reduced to describing, -in pairs, the giddy, whirling couples that make up the fantastic medley. - -This incessant antithesis makes Heine one of the most complete of -modern writers. - -The poet's world is composed of two hemispheres: one is the abode of -the beautiful, the grand, the tragic; the other of the ugly, the petty, -the comic. Most poets confine their efforts to only a small portion -of one of these hemispheres. Heine, however, is the Atlas of poetry, -who supports both of the half-spheres of the world, and who, by way of -proving how easily his burden sits upon him, suddenly turns juggler, -and after showing his audience one side of the magic globe, will, _hey -presto_! whisk the whole world round, and before they know where they -are smilingly confront them with the other. - -In 1848 the spinal affection from which he suffered became so acute -that Heine was compelled to take to that mattress-grave where, -paralytic and half-blind and racked intermittently by the most -agonising spasms, he dragged out the eight most ghastly years of his -life. At first the death-chamber was one of the favourite rendezvous -of fashionable Paris, but as the novelty wore off, his circle of -friends grew narrower and narrower, until eventually a visit from -Berlioz seemed only the crowning proof of the musician's inveterate -eccentricity. - -Heine, however, rose manfully to the occasion, and did all that -he could under the circumstances. Always a passionate lover of -the paradoxical, he now began to appreciate with an intense and -unprecedented relish the infinite humour of the great Life-farce, one -of the most effective scenes of which was even now being enacted in the -person of the poet of _joie de vivre_, who, enduring all the agonies of -the damned, lay dying in La Rue d'Amsterdam to the quick music of the -piano on the story underneath, while only a few feet away shone all the -glow and glitter of Parisian life. - -The chief occupation and solace of the dying man was the writing of his -Memoirs, the great _Apologia pro vitâ suâ_ which was to square his -accounts with the world, and win for him the future as his own. - -Yet at times the greatness of his sufferings would soften his heart. -He would find in the Bible the magic book which had power to dispel -his earthly torments; the "_Heimweh_ for heaven" would fall upon him, -and again would he know his God. It would seem, however, that Heine's -death-bed reconversion is simply to be regarded as one of the numerous -instances of the Prince of Darkness exhibiting monastic proclivities -under the stress of severe physical _malaise_. For eight years Heine -lay a-dying, and with the skeleton of Death assiduously serving the -few bitter crumbs that yet remained of his feast of life, he was, as a -simple matter of pathology, almost bound to believe once more, even if -he had been the most hardened infidel in existence. Heine, however, was -no cynical atheist. The current religions, it is true, he considered -pretty poetry, but bad logic, yet none the less he was genuinely imbued -with the ethical idea. - -"I am too proud," he writes, "to be influenced by greed for the -heavenly wages of virtue or by fear of hellish torments. I strive after -the good because it is beautiful and attracts me irresistibly, and I -abominate the bad because it is hateful and repugnant to me." - -What, in fact, served Heine in the stead of a theology was his fervid -enthusiasm for Progress and Humanity. His real religion was the -religion of Freedom, the religion of the poor people, the new creed -of which Jean Rousseau was the John the Baptist and Voltaire the -chief apostle; Heine's Madonna was the red goddess of Revolution, who -exacted from her worshippers innumerable hecatombs of human victims; -the Man-god whom he revered as the Saviour of Society was Napoleon, -the Son of the Revolution, the drastic reorganiser of the world, who, -unappreciated by the pharisees and reactionaries of his time, and -finding his Golgotha on the "martyr-cliffs of St. Helena," endured for -more than five years all the agonies of a moral crucifixion; while to -complete our version of the Heinesque theology, his _Heilige Geist_ -was the Holy Spirit of the Human Intellect which he says "is seen in -its greatest glory in Light and Laughter," and the Revelation which -inspired him most deeply was, to use once more his own phrase, "the -sacred mystic Revelation that we name poesy." - -It is interesting to trace the influence of these last ghastly years -on Heine's writings. His almost complete physical prostration brought -with it its own compensation in the shape of a marvellous psychic -exaltation, and the _Romanzero_ and the _Poetische Nachlese_ contain -some of his greatest and most moving poems. Nowhere do we see more -clearly his most characteristic excellences, his delicacy, his power of -antithesis, his concision. - -It is Heine's compression, in fact, which is one of the most pronounced -features of his poetic style. The whole quintessence of joy and pain, -of love and sorrow, is frequently distilled into one short poem. This -Heinesque condensation is a variant of the same theory that can be -traced in the old Impressionist school of painters which is concerned -with the outline and the proper light and shading of the outline to the -exclusion of minor details, and in the journalistic cult of the "story" -in which the ideal aimed at is "the point, the whole point, and nothing -but the point." Heine, in fact, is unique among the poets for narrating -a tale with the minimum of space and the maximum of effect, for -narrating it in such a way that each line serves to heighten the level -of intensity, till at length the edifice is crowned by the climax. This -feature of his style is well illustrated by the end of the frequently -quoted poem, "The Asra," in the _Romanzero_: - - "And the slave spake, I am called - Mohammed, I am from Yemen, - And my stock is from those Asras, - _They who die whene'er they love_." - -Though, moreover, he protested to the last against his fate, his tone -in the _Romanzero_ and the earlier _Poetische Nachlese_ is more mellow -than in his earlier writings. His cry from the heart is not the cry -of defiance but rather of the pathetic wistfulness of impotence. Yet -before the candle of his life became extinguished it leapt up in one -final flicker, the most marvellous of all. A characteristic caprice -of fate made him acquainted during the last months of his life with -his one true soul-affinity, the charming woman who is known under the -pseudonym of Camille Selden or La Mouche. - -Is it then to be wondered at that when the rich feast of a perfect -love, for which he had craved Tantalus-like all his life, was offered -to him almost at the very minute that his lips were being sealed -by the cold kiss of death, the whole soul of the man should leap -up in indignant protest, and that such poems as "Lass die heiligen -Parabolen," and the even more wonderful series of stanzas with the -refrain, "O schöne Welt du bist abscheulich," should exhibit the cold -insolent shrug of the man convinced of the righteousness of his plea -that of all the places in the universe this human earth "where the just -man drags himself along beneath the blood-stained burden of his cross, -while the wicked man rides in triumph on his high steed," is the most -iniquitous? - -Heine died at four o'clock in the morning of February 17, 1856. He was -buried by his own directions in Montmartre, "in order to avoid being -disturbed by the crowd and bustle of Père Lachaise." - -His writings form an incessant stream of paradoxes, but his life is the -greatest paradox of all. The prophet of the new religion of liberty, he -was repudiated by his country, and his happiest days were spent in the -land of exile; throughout his life he sought for love, to live years -of the most healthy prosaic domesticity with his mistress, and to find -his one true romance on his death-bed; he imagined that he was a great -political force, but it is rather as a poet that he survives; as a poet -his chief theme was the Joy and Light of Life, and he drew his truest -inspiration from the darkest depths of his agony; even as a great -writer he has been chiefly known by the comparatively inferior _Book -of Songs_ and _Reisebilder,_ while his masterpiece, the _Memoirs_, the -great highly barbed Parthian arrow shot from the grave to transfix his -enemies for all eternity, lay mouldering for many years amid the dusty -archives of the Vienna Library. - -His message, too, the core and kernel of his philosophy, is again -a paradox. To the sphinx-like riddle with which every thinker is -confronted, "Is Life poetry or prose, tragedy or farce?" Heine made -answer that the pathos and poetry of life were contained in the fact -that life was so essentially grim and unpoetical, and that the real -tragedy of the world lay in the ghastly farce of it all. - - -[Footnote 1: _Cf._ the poem "Enfant perdu," beginning "Verlorner Posten -in dem Freiheits Kriege."] - - - - -THE PSYCHOLOGY OF DISRAELI - - -The recent centenary of the birth of Benjamin Disraeli renewed our -interest in the most striking figure in the English history of the last -century. Throughout his life Disraeli made it an important part of his -_métier_ to be interesting, and it is certainly a convincing proof -both of his great natural fascination and of the adroitness with which -he worked his pose, that even beyond the grave his character should -still exercise our curiosity and blind us with the various facets of -its brilliancy. He fairly bristles with paradoxes, this cynic, who -was also a sentimentalist, this Oriental mystic, who was one of the -most finished dandies in London, this shameless adventurer, with his -pathetic and chivalrous devotion to his sovereign, this political -Don Juan, who provided a classic example of conjugal affection. -Many have essayed to solve the riddle of the "Primrose Sphinx"; but -the best testimony to their almost universal failure is that nearly -every biographer has produced a completely different version of his -character. Mr. Hitchman, "one of the helpless, somnambulised cattle -whom he led by the nose," to use Carlyle's phrase, portrays him -(in _The Public Life of the late Lord Beaconsfield_) with charming -_naïveté_ as the "disinterested and patriotic statesman." Mr. T. P. -O'Connor, on the other hand, who, when still sowing his literary -wild oats, painted Disraeli even blacker than the Prince of Darkness -himself, in a book unworthy of any serious biographer, simply -overshoots the mark. Froude, in his _Life_, comes nearer to the truth, -but is hampered by being forced to compress the history of a crowded -life and the psychology of a complex character into a narrow and -inadequate compass. Both Froude, however, and Mr. Sichel, who has given -us an interesting volume on Disraeli's personality, lay too much stress -on his imaginative and idealistic features. - -The reason for this inability to comprehend a character, in many -respects singularly typical of his age, lies not so much in the -alleged inadequacy of the materials as in the incapacity of most -English writers for handling general ideas. The English mind is too -concrete for social psychology; it delights in the almost mechanical -work of classifying animals, but fails to produce any classification -of characters worth the name. The Disraeli problem is admittedly -difficult; the secrecy which until recently kept us from all knowledge -of the greater portion of his papers and correspondence is undoubtedly -a handicap, but the difficulty is by no means insuperable, nor the -material so scanty as is usually supposed. Let us take Disraeli in -relation to his age, his environment, his ancestry, then what would -otherwise have struck us as strange, not to say impossible, stands out -clear and inevitable. Another valuable source of information is to be -found in his novels, though it is always difficult to discriminate -between what is and what is not autobiographical in these works. - -A vigorous and imaginative mind, when writing about its own history, -will naturally not stint itself in its licences; it will abandon -itself to all kinds of hypotheses; it will take a certain phase of -itself, frame circumstances to suit its development, and proceed on the -fictitious assumption; it will indulge freely both in caricature and -idealisation. In _Vivian Grey_, for instance, Disraeli has slightly -exaggerated the more cynical side of his nature; _Sidonia_, on the -other hand, is an idealised version of Disraeli; it is Disraeli raised -to a higher power; it is what he would have liked to have been, but -was not, any more than the actual Byron was as brave, as romantic, and -as fascinating as the ideal Byron who is portrayed in _Conrad, Childe -Harold_, and _Don Juan_. - -Yet, none the less, _Sidonia, Fakredeen, Vivian Grey,_ and _Contarini -Fleming_ possess a strong family likeness, and strike a genuine -autobiographical note. With regard to the two latter, Mr. Sichel, in -his study of Disraeli, is unwarranted in his attempted depreciation of -their evidence, on the theory that they represent merely a distorted -and transient phase of Disraeli's development, to be ascribed to -ill-health and immaturity. On the contrary, the contortions of great -men in adolescence are peculiarly instructive. It is then that the -very elements of the future man are fermenting in the crucible; and -is not growth more significant than maturity? It is not a paradox, -but a fundamental truth, to say that a man is never more himself than -when he is not himself; it is in periods of violent upheaval that the -conventional superstructure is destroyed and the innermost foundations -of character are laid bare. It is far easier to tone down than to touch -up, and the unrestrained sincerity of these early novels, written under -the impetus of intense emotion, throws far more light on Disraeli's -real character than a book like _Endymion_, the official pronouncement -of his maturer years. A prudent use, then, of the novels, and an -examination of his relations to his age, environment, and ancestry -should enable us to construct a psychology of Disraeli that should be -at once convincing and consistent, and adequate to shed light on many -of the obscure points of his character. - -The _Sturm und Drang_ age of the Revolution in which Disraeli was -born marked the passing of Europe from childhood to manhood, from -mediævalism to modernity. Like all transition periods, it was -peculiarly complex; the tendencies being so varied, and were so -frequently accompanied by the reactions against themselves, that it -requires considerable care to disentangle the principal threads. - -It was an age of progress where reaction was frequently to be seen at -work; it was an age significant for a violent outburst of scientific -materialism, and the consequently inevitable mysticism of a religious -revival. It was an age at once scientific and romantic, individual -and cosmopolitan. It was an age where circumstances produced strange -mixtures, so that in England we are brought face to face with the -paradox that Gladstone, the founder of democratic idealism, obtained -his seat under the old system of close boroughs, while Disraeli, the -most brilliant example of the new democratic theory of _la carrière -ouverte aux talentes_, found his way to power as the head of the -aristocratic and conservative party. The predominant note, however, was -one of democratic individualism. With the French Revolution the yoke -of responsibility, political and religious, was violently thrown off; -new and wide fields had been opened out to commerce by the extended -communications and the new mechanical inventions. A quickened life -broke in upon the lethargy of the previous century. The struggle for -existence entered on a sharper and intenser phase. Ambitious men -vehemently dashed themselves against the social barrier, which day by -day became more easy to climb. In every department it was the age of -the clever and ambitious parvenu. In war and in politics Napoleon, in -poetry Burns, in fiction Balzac, give convincing testimony to the power -of the new régime. It was the age of the French Revolution and of the -Holy Alliance, of Condillac and of Chateaubriand, of Laplace and of -Shelley, of Godwin and of Tom Paine. - -But equality is a medal with two faces: on the one side is written, -"I am as good as, if not better than, everyone else"; on the other, -"Everyone else is as good as, if not better than, myself." The first -was the motto of the rampant individualism and vigorous national -policy of Disraeli, the latter of the hesitating Christian spirit -and sentimental cosmopolitanism of Gladstone. Gladstone, indeed, is -such an excellent foil to Disraeli that we may well be permitted the -following quotations, where the rift in Gladstone's lute, between -the churchman and the politician, stands in pointed contrast to the -unity of purpose that from his earliest years actuated his rival. -Gladstone, torn between his missionary impulse and yearning for -apostolic destination on the one hand, and healthy ambition on the -other, writes to his father: "I am willing to persuade myself that in -spite of other longings, which I often feel, my heart is prepared to -yield other hopes and other desires for this: of being permitted to -be the humblest of those who may be commissioned to set before the -eyes of man the magnanimity and glory of Christian truth. Politics are -fascinating to me, perhaps too fascinating. My temper is so excitable -that I should fear giving up my mind to other subjects, which have ever -proved sufficiently alluring to me, and which I fear would make my life -a series of unsatisfied longings and expectations." Disraeli is less -undecided, as is clear from the following quotation from _Contarini -Fleming_: "I should have killed myself if I had not been supported by -my ambition, which now each day became more quickening, so that the -desire of distinction and of astounding action raged in my soul, and -when I realised that so many years must elapse before I could realise -my ideal, I gnashed my teeth in silent rage and cursed my existence," -Disraeli will give up anything rather than his chance of being a great -man. At a time when most clever young men of his age were thinking of a -scholarship he had finally decided to go in for a premiership. He has -planned his campaign, he will fool the world to the top of its bent. -When yet a boy Disraeli says, as Vivian Grey: "We must mix with the -herd, we must sympathise with the sorrow that we do not feel and share -the merriment of fools. To rule men we must be men, to prove that we -are strong we must be weak. Our wisdom must be concealed under folly, -our constancy under caprice." - -None the less, Disraeli had too vivid an imagination, too keen a -sense of the picturesque, not to be affected to a certain extent -by the current Romanticism. We see this in the Eastern novels of -_Tancred_ and _Alroy_, also in _Contarini Fleming_, the English -Wilhelm Meister, which exhibits the weaker and more morbid side of the -author's character, and is a useful supplement to Vivian Grey. But it -is the latter, however, who represents most accurately the ideals and -aspirations of the young Disraeli, and, taken generally, is a broad -adumbration of his subsequent career. But the Disraeli of Vivian Grey -was not so unique as is usually considered, and an analogy between -him and the celebrated Frenchman, who wrote a novel about the same -period, and one, moreover, singularly typical of his age, proves -instructive. Benjamin Disraeli and Henri Beyle were in all superficial -details so absolutely different that one might well hesitate before -making the comparison, yet they were radically similar in many of their -larger outlines, and in particular their characters, as revealed in -the heroes of two novels, _Vivian Grey_ and _Le Rouge et le Noir_, -show an extraordinary resemblance. Both Julien Sorel and Vivian Grey -are impelled by a violent and overwhelming ambition; both, originally -excluded by their status from participation in the great prizes of the -world, set out undaunted to conquer, the one as a priest, the other as -a politician. Cynical, with that extreme and savage species of cynicism -which is the reaction from intense sensitiveness, they both wage war -on society in their passion for success, while the nobler and more -generous instincts with which nature had endowed them perish in the -struggle. - -But this Time-Spirit of individualism was no mere cold-blooded -philosophy of egoism. It was, after all, an age of genuine poetry, of -fresh ideals. The halo of romance played around the most abandoned -sinners. Individualism found, in addition, an æsthetic sanction, as -was seen in the prodigious vogue of Byron, where the picturesque pose -of the one man pitted against society appealed strongly to the popular -imagination. How deeply Disraeli was imbued with Byronism is evidenced -not only by the whole tone and manner of his early life, but by his -resuscitation of the Byronic legend in _Venetia_. - -This spirit of combined idealism and intense practical energy is met -with again in Disraeli's race and ancestry. The Jewish race is a -compound of materialism and idealism. The Jew is the dreamer in action, -combining fluid imagination with adamantine purpose. These two phases -of the Jewish character are seen excellently in Disraeli's father and -paternal grandfather. The latter, an Italian Jew, came over to England -about the middle of the eighteenth century, and quickly made a fortune -by dint of his shrewd business talent and fixity. His son Isaac was -gifted with an unfortunate superfluity of the poetic temperament. His -youth was erratic and unhappy, but when close on thirty he found a -secure refuge in the quiet waters of literature. To his Semitic blood -is also to be traced Disraeli's prodigious tenacity of purpose. He -came of a stiff-necked people, so that opposition stimulated him, and -his early failures served but to render sweeter his eventual success. -He had, too, the calculating foresight of the Jew, and could pierce -the future, if not with prophetic vision, at any rate, with marvellous -intuition. His Oriental strain of mysticism served him in good stead. -He never forgot that he was a scion of the Chosen People, and came of -a race which had never sullied its purity of lineage by changing its -blood. Was he not the chosen man of the chosen race? Could he not read -his future, if not in the stars, "which are the brain of heaven," yet -in his own brilliant and meteoric brain? He had a full measure of the -pride of race, and plumed himself to the last on what he may well have -called "the Oriental ichor in his veins." If his enemies dubbed him a -parvenu he would fling the wretched taunt back in their faces, bidding -them realise that they came from a parvenu and hybrid race, while he -himself was sprung from the purest blood in Europe. How keen was this -genealogical Judaism we can see from the classic letter to O'Connell, -where he wrote that "the hereditary bondsman had forgotten the clank of -his fetters," and from his masterpiece of character-drawing, Sidonia, -who, with wealth, intellect, and power at his command, yet found his -chief "source of interest in his descent and in the fortunes of his -race." Disraeli's Judaism, however, did not extend to the religious -tenets of the creed. Few, no doubt, are the instances of a converted -Jew proving a genuine Christian, but Disraeli had too much of the -mystic in him to be an atheist, and if we take into account the -elasticity of his imagination, there is little reason to doubt that he -was at any rate reasonably sincere in his belief that Christianity was -merely completed Judaism, Calvary but the logical corollary of Sinai; -he would also, no doubt, find a malicious joy in reminding those who -taunted him with his origin, that "one half of Christendom worships -a Jew and the other half a Jewess." Anyway, the Christian religion -played nothing approaching an integral part in his life; while an -amiable acquiescence in its dogmas was, at the best, as it has been -with so many, but an intellectual habit. His Jewish origin helped him, -moreover, in that he approached the problems of politics with a mind -free from conventional British prejudices. He was never a thorough -Englishman, and was proud of the fact, instead of thanking God "that he -was born an Englishman," as do many of his race, who betray in their -every word and action their Jewish nationality. His admirable expert -knowledge of the English character was throughout professional, not -sympathetic. - -When we turn to Disraeli's early environment, we find that it was one -calculated to foster both ambition and a literary imagination. He -breathed from his earliest days the atmosphere of books, and almost -from the cradle imbibed avidly the many volumes of Voltaire. Nothing -is so stimulating to the youthful mind as the unchecked run of a -library, with its delightful excursions into the unexplored country of -literature. His natural sensitiveness was hardened by his experiences -at school, where his nationality and cleverness rendered him unpopular. -The reaction intensified his already precocious ambition, and gave him -that consciousness of semi-isolation which formed one of the chief -parts of his strength. His ambition was further heightened by the smart -literary set which he met constantly at his father's house, and his -early glimpses of the great world. Disraeli is palpably exaggerating -when he says, _apropos_ of Vivian Grey, that "he was a tender plant in -a moral hot-house," but the following passage is significant: - - "He became habituated to the idea that everything could - be achieved by dexterity, that there was no test of - conduct except success; to be ready to advance any - opinion, to possess none; to look upon every man as a - tool, and never to do anything which had not a definite - though circuitous purpose." - -It is this trait of doing things with an object which supplied the true -clue to Disraeli as a man of letters. We admit, of course, the _verve_ -and brilliancy of the novels, their claim to rank as classic, but it is -impossible to arrive at a correct appreciation of them unless they be -taken in the closest conjunction with their author's political career. -_Vivian Grey_, for instance, no doubt afforded an excellent outlet for -the fermenting passion of Disraeli's youth; it was itself one of the -best society novels ever written, but it was something more. Before -that time the future Premier had been hiding his light. How could -he obtain a free field for the exercise of his gifts? His father's -Bohemian clique scarcely answered his purpose. How could he burst open -the doors of society? The bombshell was supplied by _Vivian Grey_. It -was a case of self-advertisement raised to the level of a fine art, and -Disraeli introduced himself to the public with a bow of most elaborate -flourishes. _Contarini Fleming_ strikes a slightly different note, -exhibiting the more poetic side of its author's character; but we must -not forget that at the time when it was published Disraeli's long -absence in the East had temporarily obscured his fame in London, and -that it was the success of _Contarini Fleming_ which secured for him -once more the _entrée_ into society. Similarly, _Coningsby, Sybil_, -and _Tancred_ were, in the main, but the gospels in which, in the rôle -of a political saviour, he propagated the new creed of Young England. -_Lothair_ and _Endymion_ were partly written to replenish his empty -exchequer. The protagonists, moreover, in all his chief novels were -fashioned in the image of himself, and even Lord Cadurcis in _Venetia_, -who is theoretically Byron, is portrayed with the physical features of -the author, so as to ensure a vivid impression on the public mind of -his own personality. Not that Disraeli did not experience a genuine -joy in the wielding of the pen. He could soar high in his flights of -mysticism and romance; could describe the picturesque and the beautiful -in passages of inspired rhetoric, though it was in the dash and -brilliancy of his satire which at its best equalled that of Heine, or -Voltaire, or Byron, that he was most himself. His style is redolent of -his race. It possesses the genuine Oriental glamour, the Oriental love -of gorgeous and grandiose magnificence, the Oriental lack of symmetry -and proportion. His prodigious genius for sarcasm was also Semitic, -if we are to believe Mr. Bryce, who considers that gift a peculiar -property of the race, instancing, as examples, Lucian and Heine, the -greatest satirists of ancient and modern times. - -This same combination of temperament and policy which explains -Disraeli, the man of letters, explains Disraeli, the dandy. Living -as he did in an age which revolted, under the leadership of Count -D'Orsay, against the chaste and classic traditions of Brummel, -and which offered in the elaborate picturesqueness of its dress an -excellent medium for the expression of personality, is it to be -wondered at that so ambitious a nature as Disraeli's should, apart -from other reasons, enter gaily into the sartorial arena? These early -years remind us of Alcibiades, who, in his youth, his genius, his -precocious political ambitions, his aristocratic lineage and superb -insolence, his extravagance and irresponsibility, offers a fairly close -analogy. Disraeli, however, was an Alcibiades with ballast, and his -most erratic phases were governed by a consistent purpose. He had, -it is true, the regular Hebrew love for the picturesque, the racial -craving for flamboyant display; but the unique characteristic of the -man was the ingenious method by which he exploited even his weaknesses -to advance his purpose. Realising that nothing was more fatal to his -career than the indifference of the public, that to be hated was better -than to be ignored, and that notoriety was a passable substitute for -fame, he was determined to bulk largely in the public eye. Living, -fortunately, in an age when dandyism, if not an art, was at any rate -a career, and when "wild, melancholy men" were still the rage among -the ladies, he manipulated the dandy and Byronic pose with phenomenal -success. But his social career was not all pose. Though political -ambition was to him always the main point of existence, he was far too -healthy to lose sight of the small change of life. He had, moreover, -a genuine love of society. His remark _apropos_ of Gladstone, "What -can we do with a leader who is not even in society?" was sincere in -spite of being an epigram, and the hosts of great ladies who crowd his -novels attest conclusively to his social fastidiousness. But the most -convincing proof of this lighter side of his nature is to be found in -his correspondence with his sister. Those letters, dashed off hurriedly -to his "dearest Sa," written with that complete lack of ceremony which -is the sign of a perfect intimacy, show with what zest he frequented -balls and water-parties, dinners and _soirées_. Yet his ambition is -never far in the background. He goes to the House of Commons, hears the -big man speak, and then writes to his sister, "But between ourselves I -could floor them all." His genius for conversation is historic, and we -are not surprised that he considered that the one unforgivable sin was -to be a bore. He had not, it is true, Gladstone's habit of unburdening -himself freely to the most casual of acquaintances. How many, indeed, -were there of his intimates who had penetrated into the secret places -of his heart? But over-much sincerity is a hindrance to the art of -conversation; and many of his most brilliant paradoxes were thrown off -as an evasive retort to an impertinent question. When, however, we come -to Disraeli's social and private life, the most interesting question -that presents itself is that of his relation to his wife. Even though -he had discoursed in _Contarini Fleming_ of the grand passion with all -the high-flown sentimentalism of the age, it was obviously impossible -for him, considering the disparity of their ages, to be seriously in -love with Mrs. Disraeli; and it must have seemed that he had been -forced to exchange the poetry of the mistress for the prose of the -wife. Had he not, about ten years before his marriage, written to his -sister, "How would you like Lady B---- for a sister-in-law? Clever, -£25,000, and domestic. As for love, all my friends who have married for -love either beat their wives or live apart from them. This is literally -true. I may commit many follies, but never that of marrying for love, -which, I am convinced, cannot but be a guarantee of infelicity." Yet -this union, based originally on mere policy and camaraderie, was -eventually crowned with the most faithful of loves. It was his wife's -absorbing interest in his career that supplied the link. He has himself -written that the most exquisite moment in a man's life was when he -surprised his lady-love reading the manuscript of his first speech, and -the sympathy of Mrs. Disraeli in his successes may well have given them -a yet further charm. The situation is well expressed in the remark of -Mrs. Disraeli's: "You know you married me for money, and I know that if -you had to do it again you would do it for love." - -In fact the warm and constant affection Disraeli lavished on his wife -during her lifetime, and the poignant grief that he evinced at her -death, furnish a more than sufficient refutation to those who persist -in regarding him as a mere cynical fortune-hunter. Disraeli, like -Browning, had - - "Two soul sides, one to face the world with, - One to show a woman when he loves her." - -In the other departments of private life he was likewise exemplary. -His hardness was limited to politics; he was the most dutiful of sons, -the most affectionate of brothers, the most faithful of friends. His -debts, for the most part, were incurred by backing the bills of other -men. His touching and romantic friendship for Mrs. Brydges Williams, -the eccentric old Cornish lady who gave him pecuniary assistance at a -critical period of his career, is well known. The story, again, of the -Premier and his wife dancing a Highland jig in their night apparel on -hearing of the success of an old friend, shows how little the bitter -struggles of politics had hardened his heart. Particularly touching, -also, is the mutual affection between him and the Queen, that -sweetened his last years. She was, as we read in a letter of Disraeli's -to the Marchioness of Ely, "the best friend he had in the world." - -But Disraeli, though he fulfilled himself in many ways, was first -of all a politician, and it is Disraeli the politician rather than -Disraeli the man of letters, the dandy, or the human being, that -principally provokes our interest. What were his real views on -politics? How far can we distinguish between the official edition of -himself which he displayed for public inspection and the original that -he alone could read? Given his policy, how far was it justifiable, how -far rational? The view of his most devoted, but yet in reality, quite -unappreciative, admirers, that throughout a political career of over -half a century he remained consistently and absolutely faithful to his -original ideals, and that he introduced into politics an integrity and -disinterestedness that Parliament had rarely witnessed, is even more -absurd than the opinion of his blind and malignant enemies that he -was a mere charlatan who juggled with parties and the people without -possessing a single genuine political faith of his own. Disraeli, as -was inevitable in a man of so detached and unprejudiced a nature, -simply took the then party system at its true worth, and, of course, -realised from the outset that before he could do anything worth -doing he must first obtain that power which alone could give him the -opportunity of doing it. His attack on Peel was, _primâ facie_, an -occasion that it would have been the depth of folly to have missed, and -Mr. Birrell's statement that Disraeli "ate his peck of dirt," and his -comparison of him to Casanova, is mere petulance. For these preliminary -stages of the higher politics Disraeli was admirably fitted, and the -following autobiographic passages from _Tancred_ show how congenial -were his Herculean labours: "To be the centre of a maze of manoeuvres -was his empyrean, and while he recognised in them the best means of -success he found in their exercise a means of constant delight"; and -again, "'Intrigue,' cried the young prince, using, as was his custom, a -superfluity of expression both of voice and hand and eyes, 'intrigue, -it is life, it is the only thing. If you wish to produce a result -you must make a combination, and you call combination intrigue.'" -Disraeli viewed party politics from the dispassionate standpoint of -a chess-player, "playing off the proud peers like pawns," skilfully -manoeuvring his knights and bishops beneath the shadow of the old -mediæval castles, though it was "in his masterly manipulation of his -queen" that he really surpassed himself. What a contrast to Gladstone's -youthful frame of mind, who entered politics because he felt a strong -moral duty to defend that Church which he was afterwards partly to -disestablish against the insidious attacks of philosophic Radicalism. -But Disraeli's point of view was, after all, merely that which was -obvious and rational. It is well known that in Disraeli's day the whole -efficiency of the party system as a means of carrying on the government -was based on that sagacious inconsistency, so characteristic of this -country, which, cheerfully accommodating the most untractable of facts -to the most docile of theories, drew between the two parties no clear -dividing line either of principle or of class. Those genuine lines -of cleavage both of policy and interest that now tend to become more -and more clearly marked did not then exist. The only vital political -distinction then existing in England was that between the Ins and the -Outs. Whigs and Tories were, in their origin, merely the names for the -two rival organisations for the pursuit of political power into which -the oligarchy of the time had divided itself, and the party catch-words -then indicated as much essential difference as the badges by which the -two sides of a "scratch" game symbolise a fictitious distinction. - -Particularly interesting is the following quotation from a letter of -Gladstone, written comparatively early in his career, which shows -convincingly that the subsequent democratic idealist fully realised -the intrinsic farce of the then party system: "Each of them, the Whig -and the Tory Party, comprises within itself far greater divergencies -than can be noticed as dividing the more moderate portion of the one -from the more moderate portion of the other. The great English parties -differ no more in their general outlines than by a somewhat different -distribution of the same elements in each." It is impossible for -the opportunist position to be more cogently stated. It is, indeed, -a strange paradox that political integrity should be traditionally -associated with the name of Gladstone, who accomplished more than any -other of our statesmen in changing statesmanship into demagogy. His -pronouncedly religious temperament, however, led to extraordinary -results, and his psychological condition was best expressed in the -well-known epigram that "he followed his conscience in the same manner -that the driver of a gig follows the horse." It was not that he was -deliberately insincere. He could deceive himself as well as others -with his ingenious sophisms. His sincerity was merely so elastic, -his enthusiasm so adaptable, that he found it easy to be sincere and -enthusiastic, _inter alia_, about those things which coincided with his -interests. - -Carlyle hits the mark in dubbing Gladstone a deeper and unconscious -juggler as contrasted with Disraeli, the clever, conscious juggler. The -latter, at any rate, played the game straight with himself. He did not, -like his rival, have recourse to super-natural inspiration for every -argument that dropped from his specious lips, or degrade his deity into -a veritable _deus ex machinâ_, whose function it was to sanction the -most elementary dictates of Parliamentary tactics. - -Yet, though he exhibited a prudent elasticity in his handling of the -minor details of party politics, in the main outlines of his policy -he remained consistent and true to himself throughout his career. The -romantic strain in his temperament rendered him congenitally opposed to -the cut and dried utilitarianism of the Whigs. The renovated Toryism -of New England, for which he was largely responsible, though to a -great extent merely a move in the game, is deeply stamped with the -impress of his own nature. That his bias was naturally aristocratic no -one can doubt who has read the passage in _The Revolutionary Epicke_ -on Equality, or has appreciated the tone of personal superiority -and contempt for the mediocre that pervades all his writings. His -Conservatism, however, was not the orthodox Conservatism of the Eldon -school, "the barren mule of politics which engenders nothing," to -use his own phrase, but a more picturesque and practical policy. He -poured successfully the new wine of Democracy into the old bottles -of Toryism, and thus, while no doubt indulging the more romantic -side of his nature, placed, his party on a more modern and workable -basis. Disraeli's policy, in fact, was always one of sane and rational -opportunism. In the same way that Gambetta, the exponent of French -Opportunism, opposed "a policy of results to the policy of chimeras" -of the reactionaries, Disraeli opposed to Gladstone's dangerous and -visionary ideals a policy that was at once feasible and salutary. -Disraeli invariably treated England as a definite country with a -definite personality of its own, requiring individual attention and -delicate handling, while Gladstone regarded her as a mere _tabula rasa_ -on which the latest new-fangled doctrines could be easily imprinted. -Precisely the same spirit induced Gladstone to treat the Queen as a -department of State and Disraeli to treat her as a woman. In home -politics he has grasped well that transition from feudal to federal -principles which was the keynote of the last century politics. His -detractors object that no great measures stand identified with his -name; but here the fates were against him. It was a cruel paradox -that when at last he obtained an untrammelled power he was too old -and jaded to initiate any new creative measure in domestic affairs. -I quote Mrs. Disraeli: "You don't know my Dizzy; what great plans he -has long matured for the good and greatness of England. But they have -made him wait and drudge so long, and now time is against him." In his -foreign policy, however, he displayed his characteristic combination -of practical and imaginative strength. In the same spirit in which -he himself had obtained the foremost place in England, he desired -that England should acquire the foremost rank among the nations; -while, as is shown by his Imperial policy, he infused something of -his own picturesqueness into the policy of the most prosaic Power in -Europe. His Indian policy, in particular, proves with what practical -imagination he had divined how much lay in a name, and that to the -feudatory princes it meant all the difference whether they paid their -allegiance to the Queen of England or to the Empress of India. - -Disraeli's master-passion was ambition. But he was no monomaniac like -Napoleon. In the same way that Sidonia, the complete and perfect man, -according to Disraeli, played with a master-hand on the whole gamut -of life, so did Disraeli, though in a lesser scale, live largely and -fully. He lived in the solitudes of the Arabian deserts and in the -crowded drawing-rooms of St. James's; in the halls of Westminster and -the shady quietude of Bradenham; in the privacy of his own study, and -in the historic chambers of Downing Street. To few men has it been -given to express themselves in so many different ways. What matter if -his feats of statesmanship were restricted by the limitations of the -Parliamentary system and the handicap of his own failing health? To -such a nature the joy of life lay rather in the winning than in the -using of the prize. It is the romance and character of the man that -perpetuate his memory rather than his political achievements. He lives -as a great career. When yet a boy he had mapped out his future, and he -realised his ambition in every detail. By sheer force of intellect and -determination he lifted himself from the Ghetto to the highest position -in England. As he himself said, in one of Mrs. Craigie's novels: "Many -men have talent; few have genius; fewer still have character." - - - - -THE GENEALOGY OF MORALS - - -I - -_The Genealogy of Morals: a Polemic_! Nietzsche was well advised to -append the word "polemic" to his title, for it supplies the key to -his whole position. To some extent, no doubt, the "Genealogy" may be -the expression in more philosophic language of those ideas, which -find in Zarathustra their poetic and almost biblical formulation. Yet -philosopher though he may be, Nietzsche is no abstract thinker sitting -down stolidly on some icy height to solve the riddle of the universe, -whatever it may be, by the rigid rules of abstract logic, so that he -may placidly present the solution to such members of the public as -happen to be interested in metaphysics. On the contrary his mind, and -even more truly his temperament, are made up from the outset. Certain -ideas grip him so tensely, and for him, at any rate, constitute so -fiery and omnipresent a reality, as to be from his standpoint things -transcending the mere cavillings of logicians and scientists. - -"You ask me why," says Zarathustra, "but I say unto you I am not one of -those whom one may ask their why." - -The same idea is more technically expressed in the preface to the -Genealogy--"that new immoral, or at least, 'amoral' _a priori_, and -that 'categorical imperative,' which was its voice (but, oh I how -hostile to the Kantian article, and how pregnant with problems), to -which since then I have given more and more obedience (and, indeed, -what is more than obedience)." For, startling though it may seem to -the orthodox, albeit acceptable enough to the acolytes of the new -faith, the fact stands out irresistibly, that all the later writings of -Nietzsche are saturated through and through with the religious spirit. - -For Nietzsche was inspired with as supreme a consciousness of the -infallibility and paramount necessity of his message, as rigid a belief -in exclusive salvation through his own teachings, as has overwhelmed -the brain of any prophet or Messiah known to human history. "I have -given mankind the deepest book it possesses," writes Nietzsche to -Brandes, and means it quite deliberately and quite literally. The -content, indeed, of the religion of this converse Christ may be -diametrically opposed to that of the original, but the machinery is the -same. With the same exalted spirit in which Jesus preached the kingdom -of heaven, so did Nietzsche preach the kingdom of this earth, while it -may be noted incidentally that both kingdoms were the perquisites of -a select few; and as the spurned god of Israel taught self-abasement -to the weak with an intensity that, rightly or wrongly, seems a little -extravagant to our modern taste, so does Nietzsche, and with every whit -as honest a fanaticism, thunder forth to the strong the sublime dogma -of self-expression and self-glorification. Turn, in fact, the doctrines -of Christianity upside down, but leave constant the missionary -enthusiasm of its founder, his chronic fits of extreme depression and -extreme exaltation, and you have the quintessence of Nietzsche. - -As, however, it is the boast of all religions that they are beyond the -realms of exact logic and empirical science, it would be as unfair -to look in our prophet's polemic for the mathematical accuracy of a -Euclidian proposition, as it would be to search for such accuracy amid -the many grandiose and tragic thoughts that loom over the invectives of -Isaiah, Jesus, and Jeremiah. - -Not, indeed, but what there are many new, swift, and illuminating -truths in our philosopher's gospel, just as there were in the -pronouncements of his afore-said Hebrew brethren. But the essence, the -_raison d'être_ of the whole book is purely polemical. Nietzsche is out -to kill, and so long as his weapons effectually subserve that object, -he is, and quite logically, indifferent to aught else. - -Before, however, we analyse in detail the philosophy of this book, it -is advisable to adjust our sights to those particular targets on which -Nietzsche trained his gigantic and murderous artillery. We shall also -have a better prospect of getting really into touch with "the very -inner pulse of the machine," the real core of this philosophy, if we -take a necessarily short, but it is to be hoped none the less vivid, -glance at those reasons which induced Nietzsche to envisage the objects -of his attack with so tense and implacable a hatred. - -Now Nietzsche found his intellectual jumping-off ground in that -hybrid of Christianity and Buddhism stuck on a pedestal of sex, which -constituted the philosophy of Schopenhauer and the essence of the -fashionable pessimism of mid-century Germany. To endeavour to condense -one of the most brilliant and elaborate systems of the last century -into a few words is at best a delicate and hazardous task, yet perhaps -we may adumbrate tentatively the radical elements which spurred -Nietzsche to so sanguinary a revolt. - -Life according to Schopenhauer was a sorry failure, a thing not worth -living on its merits, but kept going by the driving impetus of a blind -life-force and knit with a mutual pity. Life then being intrinsically -evil, the remedy for the evil was to live as little as possible--"Draw -your desire back from the world so that there may be an end of that -phenomenal life which is nothing but grief." Apart from general -asceticism, there were two specific anodynes prescribed by Schopenhauer -for the disease called life--art which transcended life, and lifted -the spectator or listener on to another plane, and philosophy which, -as it were, blunted the sting of life by the contemplation of the -essentially unreal nature of the phenomenal universe. But the greatest -good was Nirvana, a kind of Pantheistic Absolute of negativity, into -which one eventually merged, to enjoy the supreme paradox of a peaceful -self-consciousness of one's own nothingness. - -It is easy for us to sneer, nowadays, at this bilious and suicidal -system, and to explain the whole theory of the Will to Live by the -keen and chronic tyranny which the sexual instinct exercised over -the philosopher himself; the fact remained, Schopenhauer was the -dominant influence of the day--how dominant, can be seen from the -fact that the whole of later Wagnerian music is merely a translation -of his philosophy into the language of sound. It is easy to see the -extent to which Schopenhauer and Wagner were saturated with the whole -spirit of primitive and mediæval Christianity. Human life, forsooth, -is essentially bad and essentially unreal; salvation only lies in -the mortification and annihilation of the self. Apart, however, -from philosophical and theological technicalities, the profound -psychological import of this nihilistic pessimism and neo-Christian -romanticism is patent. Man looks at man's life on earth, and gives it -up as a bad job, or at best makes some fantastic effort to create a -new world to redress the balance of the old. "They wanted to run away -from their misery, and the stars were too far away. Then they sighed, -Oh, that there were heavenly ways, forsooth, to slink into another -Being and Happiness." - -It has, in fact, been well put that, as the motto of Goethe was -"_Memento vivere_," so was the motto of Schopenhauer, "_Memento mori_." - -Now, Nietzsche voiced the revolt of those temperaments whose ears -were attuned rather to "_Memento vivere_" than "_Memento mori_." We -must remember, moreover, that that Christian romanticism which finds -its best metaphysical formulation in Schopenhauer was in itself but -a reaction from the real spirit of the century, that ebullience and -exuberance of the human ego of which Stendhal is perhaps the most -typical manifestation. It might well indeed be instructive to trace the -intellectual descent of Nietzsche from Stendhal, and, applying again -the sociological method, to speculate as to how far he derived some of -the impetus for his philosophy of egoism from the aggressive wars of -Prussia, as exemplified in the Sadowa campaign and the Franco-German -war. It is time, however, that we came to the temperament of the -philosopher himself. It is indeed a platitude, that as man makes his -gods in his own image, so does the philosopher create his systems. -What is Aristotle's ideal of the _bios theokritikos_, and -his conception of the self-contemplative god but the erection into -a universal norm of the thinker's natural philosophic idiosyncrasy? -What is the elaborate "I and Me" of the cosmology of Fichte but the -attribution to the universe of the personal idiosyncrasies of Fichte, -the self-conscious Doppelgänger? And how Schopenhauer promoted sex -into the devil, whose heat animates this earthly hell, we have -already seen. What, then, was the impetus which impelled Nietzsche -to batter down the walls of the contemporary moral and philosophic -universe? The theory of an innate _joie de vivre_, a system highly if -not over-charged with vitality, supplies but half the answer. The real -explanation lies in the stiffening of this natural exuberance beneath -the tension of a grim incessant struggle with a nervous malady. - -It is not actually necessary to go as far as the Swedish writer, -M. Bjerre, who finds in Nietzsche's deliberate and revolutionary -transvaluation of values that break up of the cerebral system from -its previous condition which signalises the earlier stages of general -paralysis. Yet Nietzsche's own writings, particularly his letters, -reveal how potent was the stimulus exercised on his ego by those -nervous headaches which hounded him over the Continent. To prevent -defeat his will had to be perpetually strained to the maximum pitch of -tension. The sweets of comfort being denied him, the only alternative -left was to find a kind of super-happiness in the ecstasies and -exultations of that Titanic contest which was perpetually fought on -the battlefield of his own person. Let him speak for himself: "I made -of my wish to get well, to live, my philosophy--it should, in fact, be -noted--the years when my vitality descended to its minimum were those -when I ceased to be a pessimist." - -We have not, however, at this juncture space to elaborate further -the theory of the superman. Let it be enough to say that it is the -raising to the _n_th power of the spirit of struggling and aggressive -efficiency, and the venting of an over-full vitality by the creation of -new values out of the wealth of the individual ego. As, however, the -glorification of strength involves, and logically so, the degradation -of weakness, and "to build up a sanctuary it is necessary for a -sanctuary to be destroyed," it is not surprising that Nietzsche should -clear the ground for his new creations by a ferocious bombardment of -the crumbling ruins that still encumbered the site. Schopenhauer, -who had been the fount from which Nietzsche's philosophic youth had -drawn its inspiration before, as it were, he had found him out, is -always treated with a certain amount of respect. But the arch-enemy -was the, to him, poisonous system of altruism, self-annihilation, and -world-renouncement which was called Christianity. - -The cynical may smile at the inordinate and concentrated frenzy of this -attack. "Is not your wildly militant prophet simply wasting his powder -and shot? Who in his senses ever heard of Christianity being taken _au -pied de la lettre_, even by the most orthodox of modern bishops? What -is it, to use another metaphor, but flogging a dead horse?" To which -Nietzsche's answer would be that it is by removing the foundations -that you remove also the superstructure, or to translate our metaphor, -"Let me kill Christianity, and I kill at the same time all that system -of altruism for altruism's sake, of abstract truth for the sake of -abstract truth, which is built on that hateful foundation." It may also -be observed that, even apart from the poetic and prophetic licence to -which a man writing under such circumstances would be legitimately -entitled, there are even now not wanting people who do in point of fact -take Christianity with all the implicit seriousness of the mediæval -monks or the early Fathers. It is, indeed, a phenomenon not without a -certain intrinsic humour, that almost at the very moment when Tolstoi -was making his pathetic efforts to resuscitate literal Christianity -with the abortive tears of pity, Nietzsche should swing along to -flagellate the semi-inanimate ghost of the bleeding God, in no monkish -spirit, forsooth, but with all the grim and scientific energy of the -most enthusiastic of executioners, compared to whom Voltaire was but -the most urbane of wits, and Heine the most innocuous of schoolboys. -Having thus taken a brief view of the targets, and of the implacable -and very serious spirit that animates the assailant, let us glance -briefly at the chief lines of attack. - - -II - -The first essay of the Genealogy consists of an essay on "Good and -Evil, Good and Bad." The line of attack is double, being first -etymological, and secondly historical. - -Without going into philological exactitudes, it is, we think, fairly -safe to follow Nietzsche in his theory that the word "good" and its -analogues were originally applied to designate those qualities which -were peculiar to the governing aristocratic classes, albeit qualities -by no means susceptible of the title of "ethical" goodness. Physical -valour being in primitive times the most valuable asset of the -community, it is not unnatural that that quality should be held in -universal esteem. We would remark, however, in passing, that though -Nietzsche professes to make a flying expedition into the domain of -early Greek ethics, which would appear, according to his teachings, to -be represented as an ideal system worthy of modern imitation, he is -apparently oblivious to the fact that the spirit of cunning prudence, -of which he so emphatically disapproves, was one of the most admired -qualities of primitive Greece. - -On the general question, however, we may perhaps supplement Nietzsche's -by Spencer's argument on the meaning of the English word "good," -which, as is notorious, has the double meaning of "ethical" and -"efficient." Instructive, however, though this argument is, it cannot -be said to clinch the question, since, even in the times of ancient -Greece, there were not wanting words such as [Greek: _kalos, aichros, -osios_ to denote, albeit mostly in æsthetic terminology, that ethical -meaning, of which the word _agathos_] fell so signally short. -In other words, to use Nietzschean terminology, the ethical taint even -then existed, though in a less virulent form. - -The other line of attack, however, is more serious, and penetrates to -the very core of the modern moral system with its savage onslaught on -Christianity. What is Christianity, says Nietzsche, but the revolt -of the slaves in the sphere of morals? Our philosopher's suggestion, -of course, that Christianity was a deliberate stratagem on the part -of a revengeful Israel to square accounts with the conqueror, has, -on the face of it, no claim to serious consideration as anything -but a poetic thought. The fact, however, that Christianity from its -beginning catered avowedly for the poor, the weak, the oppressed, the -inefficient, is admittedly true, whatever disputes may range as to the -inferences to be drawn from this fact. And that the accusation of being -a slave-morality is something more than empty abuse, is substantiated -by the numerous slaves who did, in fact, subscribe to the infant -creed. It is, moreover, not without its interest to watch nowadays a -recurrence of the same phenomenon. Just, indeed, as at present the -proletariate are _ipso facto_ ready to believe, quite apart from any -question of any economic justification of the doctrine, in the genuine -iniquity of the rich capitalist, so in the early Christian era the -proletariate were not reluctant to put their faith in the saying, that, -"it was as easy for a camel to go through the eye of a needle as for -a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven." The difference, however, -between modern and ancient Christianity stands out clearly from the -fact that though this identical creed is invoked with something -approaching equal facility on the sides both of the angels and the -devils, it is, on the whole, now identified with the richer and more -prosperous classes. - -It must, however, be frankly admitted that Nietzsche somewhat -overshoots the mark, both in dubbing the history of the world a -conflict between the two ideals, of Rome and Judæa, the egoistic and -altruistic ideals, and in asseverating that the primitive "beast of -prey prowling avidly after booty and victory" was the only type of the -human species worthy of admiration, and that the tamed modern species -is but a diseased distortion. We will deal later with the lacuna -caused in Nietzsche's philosophy by his refusal to recognise the true -significance of the Aristotelian doctrine that man is a [Greek: _zoön -politikon_] when we show that even from his own standpoint the modern -state of man is preferable to the primal. Suffice it for the present -to say that, however large a part of the truth Nietzsche captured with -this potent theory, there remains a not inconsiderable part which still -eluded him. - - -III - -Having endeavoured thus to dispose of the "ethically good" and -"ethically bad" by the theory that such ideas are merely distortions -of the ideas of "practically good and practically bad," Nietzsche in -the second essay of the Genealogy makes a similar effort to take the -sting out of the ideas of "Schuld" (guilt, debt), and "schlechtes -Gewissen" (bad conscience). But here, again, difficulties beset our -revolutionary. He approves of responsibility and the sacredness of the -promise, but disapproves of the bad conscience by which the individual -would enforce these things on himself. He blesses justice, but damns -the social system. We shall find it hard to follow him in his attempted -reconciliation of these divergent standpoints. When, for instance, -he alludes with almost paternal approbation to the savage mnemonics -by which the "conscience" (_per se_) was produced, and then proceeds -to an envenomed, if none the less brilliant polemic against the "bad -conscience," we see that in reality it is not so much the existence of -a conscience _quâ_ conscience, to which he objects, but the existence -of a conscience functioning on what he conceives to be a vicious -basis. Indeed, even the most faithful of our prophet's disciples would -admit that the Nietzschean teaching lays down as thorny and toilsome -a path for the "bold, bad man," or _übermensch_, as Christianity ever -decreed for the good man or weakling. The only difference, in fact, -between Nietzschean and Christian ethics is that between excessive -self-affirmation and excessive self-negation. But one has only to read -_Zarathustra_ to realise immediately that this self-affirmation is no -heedless hedonism, but a tense and chronic struggle of the ego against -the world, subject to as rigid rules and braving as intense martyrdoms -as does the Christian struggle of the spirit against the flesh. We may -say, in fact, that on an officially Nietzschean basis the "bad" man who -fails in being thoroughly and perfectly bad is, and apparently properly -so, subject to as poignant pangs as is the "good" man who fails in -being thoroughly and perfectly good. - -Granted, however, that it is the content of the bad conscience rather -than the existence of a bad conscience _per se_, which provokes his -righteous indignation, let us make some attempt to see how far -Nietzsche is logical in condemning, as he does, existing ethics as the -bastard child of contract and revenge, thriving amid a civilisation -which has no real right to exist. Nietzsche starts off in fine -feather to prove that the word "Schuld" (guilt) is the same as the -word "Schuld" (debt), as though that momentous piece of philological -research crushed all ethics once and for all. We do not for a moment -dispute the philology. Moreover, as far as the general principle is -concerned, it had been previously pointed out by Maine that all crimes -were in their origin torts--that is to say, private wrongs against the -individual (though doubts as to how far this theory is to be carried -are raised by the universal execration which even in the most primitive -societies was visited on murderers like Cain or Orestes). - -It may, moreover, be true that in many cases the local god is simply -a deceased ancestor promoted to a heavenly status, who requires -payment for protecting his descendants. But such arguments can at the -best merely have effect on the theological conception of morality -as a divine ordinance descending immediately from heaven. From the -sociological standpoint, indeed, to derive "ethics" from "contract" -is simply to consolidate one phase of the social instinct by deriving -it from another. As, however, has been hinted before, it was the -theological conception that was Nietzsche's main objective. So long -as he could kill that, he was indifferent to the price, if, indeed, -his morbidly classic and aristocratic standpoint did not hold that -the taint of the bourgeois and the [Greek: _banausos_] attached -automatically to everything commercial. - -The shifts, however, to which Nietzsche is driven are well illustrated -when we come to that further stage in his evolution of the moral idea, -which consists in deriving modern ethics or the "bad conscience" from -the principle of "resentment" or "revenge," which is alleged to be -a totally distinct thing from the "active feeling" by which Justice -enforces its sanctions. But with all due respect to Nietzsche and his -official expounders, we find it hard to appreciate any real difference -in principle between the various drastic measures by which the social -organism enforces its decree. The punishment for murder, we suggest, -would be equally death both in a Nietzschean and in a non-Nietzschean -state, and how anything more than the merest verbal distinction is -achieved by labelling one sanction the "active emotion of justice" and -the other "the principle of resentment" we are frankly at a loss to -conceive. We can only say that the basing of the "bad conscience" on -the spirit of revenge is true in the sense that from one aspect the -function of the social organism is to protect the many against the few -by the enforcements of drastic punishments against its transgressors. -That, moreover, the strong are unduly restricted to pamper the weak is -an arguable proposition, how arguable, can be seen from the present -volubility of the financially strong when menaced nowadays with -taxation for the benefit of the financially weak. But to go to the -length of saying that the whole social fabric is a morbid distortion, -a thing intrinsically bad, a kind of quasi-theological fall from an -ideal state of primitive anarchy, is, at the most charitable estimate, -a mere piece of poetic extravagance. Yet to this length Nietzsche goes -when he pictures his blonde primæval beast swung into "new situations -and conditions of existence"; in other words, into the "pale of society -with a spring and rush." The apparent suddenness of the transition -strikes us, indeed, as naïf as the philosophy of Rousseau or of Hobbes, -who actually conceived the social contract as a specific bargain -entered into at a specific time. - -One of the most interesting parts, however, of the whole essay is -Nietzsche's explanation of the "bad conscience" as the result of -the primitive energy of the savage venting itself in psychological -self-torture when debarred from its natural outlet of physical -violence. "All instincts which do not vent themselves without vent -themselves within," so runs the dictum of the prophet, a dictum -no doubt of great psychological truth, and capable of concrete -illustration when applied to nuns, monks, and other ascetics, or to -definite cases of neurotic introspection, but clearly not deserving to -be treated as the key to the whole social fabric. - -We have already remarked that the real weakness of the Nietzschean -philosophy lay in the neglect of the Aristotelian theory that man was a -_zoön politikon_ or a social animal. Let us resume this line -of inquiry. Nietzsche does, it is true, refer to the "herd instinct" -of the weak, but only to exhibit his very palpable contempt against -the weak who herd together so as to be able effectually to combat the -strong. A yet further proof of Nietzsche's bitter hatred of the social -organism is supplied by the celebrated phrases in _Zarathustra_, "as -little state as possible," and "the slow suicide which we call the -state." In our view, however, the real test of Nietzsche's position -is touched when we come to the position of the aristocratic strong -man. "Are they," one wonders, "tainted or untainted with the herd -instinct?" Nietzsche's answer to this question seems to be that, so -far as concerns the vast bulk of the herd, they are inimical to the -social instinct, but that none the less they find social organisation -(apparently that identical state which we have seen spoken of as -"slow suicide") necessary, not only for keeping the herd in proper -order, but for the purpose of "their own fight with other complexes -of power." Viewed impartially, however, it does not seem to us that -Nietzsche pays sufficient importance to the universality and value of -the social instinct. Perhaps the root of the whole matter lies in the -fact that Nietzsche fixes apparently the human unit as the individual, -whereas, in point of fact, it is that state in miniature, the family. -The origin of the family may no doubt be found in the primæval -instincts of sex and parentship. None the less, it is an indisputed -sociological fact that the family, or its larger manifestation the -tribe, is, as is evident from the slightest perusal of the works of -Darwin, Maine, or Westermarck, the primitive form of human life. It -would obviously be outside the scope of this preface to go in detail -into the whole question of the origin of society, but it would also -appear an indisputable platitude that man, _quâ_ man, thrives by -co-operation and association. In economical terminology this truth is -known as the division of labour, in sociology by our frequently quoted -Aristotelian dictum that man is a social animal. Nietzsche, it is -true, tries to evade, or at any rate minimise, the force of this fact -by treating law as the concrete exemplification of might is right. -This, of course, is true as far as it goes, but it is only one side -of the medal. All law is based on sovereignty, and all sovereignty is -in the last resort based on force. It is possible, no doubt, for this -force, this ultimate sanction to be exercised on approved Nietzschean -principles by the few against the many. To quote the words of Ihering, -the great Austrian jurist: "And so force, when it allies itself with -insight and self-control, produces law. It is the origin of law out -of the power of the stronger who stands in opposition to another, -of which we now begin to get a glimpse." Yet, even though for the -moment we confine ourselves to this aspect, it is obvious that while -such a law subjugates the weak to the strong, it also regulates and -curtails the rights of the strong among themselves, creating, as it -were, a state within a state, or, to use once again the language of -Ihering, "the self-limitation of force in its own interest." Equally -important, however, is the obverse side of the medal, on which appears -the exercise of the ultimate sanction by the many against the few. -To quote Ihering for the last time: "The crucial point in the whole -organisation of law is the preponderance of the common interests of -all over the particular interests of the individuals." The vice, then, -of Nietzsche's theory is that he bisects law into its two constituent -phases, ignores one phase and confines himself to the other, apparently -in blissful oblivion of the fact that even in the most aristocratic of -aristocracies there exists, even though in miniature, the "slow suicide -of the state." - -There is a further criticism which seems to arise properly out of -Nietzsche's vehement denunciation of civilisation. The state and -civilisation are bad according to Nietzsche, because they take the -sting out of this struggle for existence, and cut the fangs of the -superman. But, according to Nietzschean principles, are they not -equally good in so far as they enable the superman to refine and -elaborate his scale of combat? It is, indeed, obvious that the -intellectualisation of the blonde beast of primitive times into the -newspaper proprietor, American financier, or revolutionary philosopher -of modernity would have been impossible but for the intervention of -a very highly developed social organism. Yet even the most confirmed -Nietzschean would admit that Mr. Rockefeller is, in spite of his -evangelistic proclivities, a more highly developed specimen of the -superman than Tamerlane, and Lord Northcliffe than, say, Cæsar Borgia. - -One final observation: according to Nietzsche the test of merit is -efficiency and the test of efficiency is success. Supposing, however, -that a large number of individuals comparatively weak overpower through -sheer force of combination a small number of individuals comparatively -strong. Are not the weak changed into the strong, and conversely? We do -not say that this is necessarily so: we merely adduce the argument to -show how easily Nietzschean principles lend themselves to exploitation -at the hands of the Socialists. - -Nietzsche's philosophy, however, was above all didactic, missionary. -He analysed contemporary morality, not by way of an academic or -scientific exercise, but with a view to striking, and striking hard, -at that aspect of it which he quite honestly believed to be vicious -and deleterious. Hence it is that having in his first two essays -dealt with the etymological and legal aspects of the question, he now -goes straight to the root of the whole matter. What is the practical -application of all these tendencies which he has analysed? The ascetic -ideal--and against this ideal our teacher proceeds to deliver as -tense and concentrated a sermon as ever fell from the lips of any -denouncer of the luxurious or non-ascetic ideal. We have not space, -unfortunately, to follow Nietzsche through his elaborate analysis both -of the ascetic ideal in its origin and in its eventual distortion and -corruption at the hands of the ascetic priest. We will only observe -that to grasp properly Nietzsche's position, stress should be laid -on the fact that in the same way in which it was not the conscience -_per se_, but the current content of the conscience, so it was not -asceticism _per se_, but the current content of asceticism to which -Nietzsche objected. - -As he explains in drastic and elaborate style, the philosopher, like -the jockey or the athlete, would, through the simple exigencies of his -_métier_, live the ascetic life. In such cases asceticism is simply the -mechanical condition precedent of complete concentration. Similarly, -the _übermensch_ (superman) would no doubt be compelled to live the -ascetic life in his strenuous struggle with subsisting values. The -asceticism, however, to which Nietzsche in fact did object, was the -asceticism which was not like the philosopher's asceticism, a means to -creating or promoting actual human life, but was a means to destroying -and minimising actual human life, the asceticism which denied the right -to happiness, and which found in sin the solution to the riddle of the -human world. - -Indeed, it is thoroughly characteristic of Nietzsche's whole attitude -that he demurs vigorously to almost any solution of the riddle of the -world. According to his reasoning, the need for any solution at all, -whether transcendental, after the pattern of Kant and the Idealists, or -quasi-transcendental, after the pattern of the pseudo-metaphysics of -the scientists, argues an inability to take life on its own merits and -on its own valuation. - -Let us finally glance briefly at the practical application of the -Nietzschean philosophy, a course thoroughly consistent with the -intensely practical spirit of our prophet. We are at first almost -overwhelmed by the heterogeneous character of those who profess to be -the true disciples of the great master, a character so heterogeneous, -forsooth, that Nietzsche seems occasionally to be nothing but a -catch-word mouthed by every conceivable school of thought with -the rankest impunity. The Socialists, conveniently forgetting the -opprobrious designation by the sage as "spiders," and their apostolic -"Man is not equal," which he had thundered forth, find a bond of -sympathy in their common disapproval of Christianity, though even -here their standpoints are radically different, since while the -"tarantulæ" rebelled against it as being too narrow a prison, Nietzsche -scorns it as being too comfortable a lounge. Zarathustra, moreover, -showed himself truly Persian in his repudiation of the claims of -the child-bearing machine called woman to equal rights with the -warrior-man: "When thou goest with women," quoth the prophet, "forget -not the whip." Nothing daunted, however, the shrieking hordes of -the ultra-modern sisterhood, from the "Free Lover" to the "Ethical -Lifer," find in Nietzsche the most emphatic justification for alike -their theories and their practices. Does not _Es Lebe das Leben_, the -well-known drama of Sudermann, portray the philosophical dogma of -self-expression leading to highly unphilosophic applications? Does not -the Scandinavian writer and woman with a mission, Ella[1] Key, start -her book _Personality and Beauty_ with the following quotations from -Nietzsche: "Follow after thyself--what says thy conscience?--thou shalt -be that which thou art--let the highest self-expression be thy highest -expression." Truly the Nietzschean aphorisms seem caps guaranteed -to fit the most diverse heads so, but they show the slightest -disposition to tumidity. Young men and nations in a hurry, Socialists -and aristocrats, æsthetes and "woman's righters," all combine in a -cacophonous chorus well calculated to make the shade of Zarathustra, -should he visit Europe, hasten back in disgust to the mountain peaks of -his solitude. - -Yet, however susceptible to abuse the Nietzschean philosophy may be, -such a multifarious exploitation, though repudiated from the official -standpoint, does not strike us as necessarily illogical. The doctrine -of the superman, indeed, has in Nietzsche two distinct meanings--the -evolution of generic man to his extreme limit, as exemplified in the -aphorism, "Man is a bridge between beast and superman," and secondly -the idealisation of the clash between the individual and society, the -apotheosis of the aggressive combatant element in man, the [Greek: -_to thumoeides_] of the Platonic trinity. Yet, whatever meaning may -be chosen, it is well-nigh impossible to prevent individuals from -cherishing the honest and sincere belief that in developing themselves -(whether with or without the rigid discipline incumbent upon the -orthodox superman), they are either helping the development of the -race, or providing a picturesque expression of a considerably altered, -but still authentic, "Athanasius contra mundum." With the present boom -no doubt Nietzscheanism may become a craze (in Germany, of course, it -is already _passé_ and has become academic and respectable), like the -æstheticism of the Wilde period and grown liable to equal if dissimilar -perversions. - -Yet none the less, if taken very broadly and very sanely, Nietzsche -is capable of constituting a valuable modern bible for the -twentieth-century man who proposes to live vastly and to play for grand -stakes. It may no doubt be true that while Heine and Voltaire merely -shot poisoned arrows at Christianity, Nietzsche blew it clean away with -the giant salvos of his artillery; yet on the tremendous space that he -cleared he built a temple to Energy and Efficiency. And note, that he -worships these deities not for any ulterior advantage, but for their -own sake solely. His frenzy for life precludes him at once from being -a pessimist; it does not follow, however, that he is an optimist (in -the hedonistic sense of the word), for neither in his own life, nor in -his conception of that of others, do we find it clearly expressed that -the pleasures of life outweigh the pains. More accurate is it to say -that he is a philosophy transcending optimism. "On! On!! On!!! Live! -Live!! Live!!! whatever the result and whatever your fate. Fight life -and chance everything, for the fight's the thing rather than the mere -trumpery guerdon." So we would venture to phrase the true Nietzschean -spirit, or if an actual quotation is required, "_I say unto you it is -not the good cause which sanctifies the war, but the good war which -sanctifies the cause_." - -The most marvellous thing, however, about this grim lust of life is -that it is absolutely insatiate, absolutely infinite. According to -the theory of the Eternal Return, the events of this life will repeat -and repeat with the tireless inevitability of a recurring decimal. -Taken literally, no doubt this theory is simply the mystical dance -of a Titanic mind striving to scale infinity. But the psychological -significance is none the less profound. Is it not turning the tables -with a vengeance on the Christian idea of a prospective non-earthly -existence, compared with which this existence is a mere shadowy -preparation, to pile future life on future life on future life, and -every one of them a repetition of man's life on earth? It is impossible -for the affirmation of human existence to be carried further. And -this human existence, what is its solution, None, or rather itself! -Existence is its own sanction, its own _raison d'être_, and he who -coldly ravishes the sphinx of life has found a drastic solution far -excelling that of any Oedipus. - - -[Footnote 1: transcriber's note: "Ella" (sic). Should be "Ellen" Key. -(M.D.)] - - - - -AUGUST STRINDBERG - - "I seek God and find the Devil." - - "My hate is boundless as the wastes, burning as the sun, - and stronger than my love." - - -The above quotations give some idea of that black pessimism which is, -at any rate, the most patent characteristic of Strindberg. Yet neither -quotation, motto, nor catch-word can do justice to the multifarious -life and character of this man. For Strindberg, more than any other -European author of our age, has boxed the whole compass of our -modernity with its tumults, its aspirations, its perversities; its -glaring searchlights of science, its pallid flames of mysticism, and -its needle ever pointing to the two opposite though connected poles -of sex. He is in turns the most rabid of atheists, the most devout of -Catholics, the most esoteric of occultists; now the most Utopian of -Socialists, now the most uncompromising of individualists. Running the -gauntlet of three unhappy and dissolved marriages, he has become the -European specialist in conjugal infelicity, to say nothing of being -credited with innumerable conquests, which he himself would doubtless -have designated as captures. His novels, his autobiographies, and his -equally subjective dramas all exhale the most sulphurous hate against -the distorted anomaly of the new woman, yet he is an Orpheus who, -scorning the prosaic joys of some normal and uninteresting Eurydice, -surrenders himself with almost pathological gusto to be torn to -pieces by the monstrous mænads of modernity. The paroxysms of his hate -alternate with moods of the most sentimental idealism, and the harsh -impetus of his onslaught is only equalled by the, at times, abject -meekness of his romantic devotion. - -Before, consequently, we embark on some slight survey of Strindberg's -life and of the more characteristic of his numerous works, let us -endeavour to lay hold of the clues of one or two primary features -which will serve as a guide in the, at first sight, extremely tangled -labyrinth of his psychology. - -Now the dominant emotion in Strindberg's temperament is fear. It is -this fear which, at times assuming the dimensions of _paranoia_ or -systematised delusion and persecution mania, largely supplies the -explanation to his whole attitude towards Man, Woman, and God. He -possessed also a vehemently explosive egoism and a gigantic intellect, -at times dominating his fear and functioning with the most powerful -precision, but as often as not interpreting the whole external world in -the terms of some preconceived subjective emotion. Add also a morbidly -hypertrophied sexual sensibility, together with a distinct strain of -genuine idealism, and one may perhaps be able to envisage with some -accuracy the cardinal points of our author's brain. - -August Strindberg was born in 1849, the son of a _mésalliance_ between -a shipping agent and a servant girl. The circumstances of his childhood -tended to magnify that morbid sense of fear which, according to our -most eminent psychologists, is always innate and never altogether -acquired. The two parents, the seven children, and the two servants -lived in two rooms, and the family always appeared to him like "a -prison in which two prisoners watched each other, a place where -children were tortured and maids brawled." His mother died when he was -thirteen, to be succeeded by the inevitable stepmother. His school life -also was unhappy, but his description of it, though no doubt perfectly -consistent with actual hardship, exhibits at the same time the -reactions of a morbid sensibility to the hard facts of external life. -"Life was a penitentiary for crimes which one had committed before one -was born, so that the child always went about with a bad conscience." - -Note also, at the same time, the presence of the combative aggressive -element in the boy who would lose nearly every game of chess by the -inconsidered vehemence of his attack, or would break open chests of -drawers in the fury of his desire to obtain their contents. And observe -the early manifestations of that fundamental emotion which was to -obtain throughout his life alternative outlets in the two parallel -channels of religion and sex. Thus, like Byron, he experienced a -violent passion for a girl before the age of puberty. So far, again, -as religion was concerned, he had a great horror of darkness and the -unknown, and his deity would appear to have been a god rather of fear -than of love. And though Scandinavians as a race take Christianity far -more seriously than the inhabitants of any other European country, he -would appear to have possessed, even for a Scandinavian, the religious -temperament to an unusual degree. Thus, he said his prayers on his way -to school, and evinced a precocious desire to become a priest. But -the religious element became dormant amid the chequered vicissitudes -which signalised his youth and his adolescence. He started to study -medicine at the University of Upsala, but his lack of funds broke into -his college career and compelled him to earn his own living. He is by -turns telegraph clerk, editor of an insurance paper (for which purpose -he specially learns the higher mathematics), tutor in the family of a -rich Jewish physician, actor in the Karl Moor of Schiller's _Robbers_, -journalist on a daily paper (where the drastic offensiveness of his -criticisms made his position on the staff intolerable), and librarian -in the Royal Library of Stockholm (when he specially learns Chinese -for the purpose of compiling a catalogue). His struggles were bitter -and continued, and the acuteness of his privations manifests itself in -a deep consciousness of class hatred against the prosperous and not -infrequently dishonest philistinism of the day. - -Note, also, the occurrence of combined religious and persecution mania -in the crises of his illness and despondency. For at such times he -takes the Devil himself as seriously as the Deity, believes in an -"Evil God to whom the Creator had handed over the world," and "has the -consciousness of being personally persecuted by personal powers of -evil." These emotional outbursts are all the more interesting because -intellectually he had become the most fanatical of freethinkers, had -read with profit Buckle's _History of Civilisation in England_, and -was a fervent disciple of the new naturalism. During this period he -had already begun to write dramas, none of which, however, have any -substantial significance with the possible exception of the historical -drama _Meister Olof_, which was unsuccessfully performed in 1877-8, and -into which the already misogynous author had introduced the character -of the prostitute, "in order to show that the difference between her -and the ordinary woman is not so enormously great." - -In 1879, however, Strindberg achieved a _succès de scandale_ with -his novel _The Red Room_. The satire of this book (written, it will -be remembered, during his freethought years), may, no doubt, be the -milk of Christian charity when compared with the concentrated vitriol -of the _Black Flags_ of his Catholic period, and the various scenes -and pictures may, no doubt, strike the critic as episodic and lacking -in systematic cohesion, yet the work has some claim to recognition -by reason of the vivid force of its description of contemporaneous -life. The naïvely idealistic hero, the shady actress passing from -seduction to seduction with all the facility of the experienced -_ingénue_, the respectable director of the shoddy insurance company, -the insidious Jewish financial broker, the cynical journalist, the -grim but benevolent doctor, are all portrayed in a style which at once -shines and chills with all the brightness of the coldest steel. Viewed -psychologically, the book is significant as exhibiting the Socialistic -fury of an embittered man "whose class-hatred lay in his blood and in -his nerves," and who revenges himself on the system which had conspired -against him, by exposing with sinister precision its most repulsive -truths. - -The cynicism of _The Red Room_ was succeeded by the Utopian -romanticism of the dramas, _Das Geheimniss der Gilde_, _Frau Margit_, -_Gluckspeter_. The change in mood is probably to be ascribed to the -vogue of _The Red Room_, and to the initial success of his alliance -with his first wife, Siri von Essen, the actress, whom he had married -in 1878, and who was subsequently to enjoy the ambiguous blessing of -being officially immortalised in _The Confession of a Fool_. - -This mood, in its turn, was soon replaced by a concentrated and -fanatical misogynism which was to dominate practically every book -which Strindberg was subsequently to write. The fundamental cause -was, no doubt, the morbidly irritable and suspicious nature of the -man himself. Strindberg's whole attitude towards woman, however, is -only fully understood by some appreciation of the New Woman Movement, -which under the auspices of Ellen Key flourished vigorously in Sweden -in the "eighties." Like, for instance, our own Suffragette agitation, -or indeed, any popular craze, however intrinsically meritorious, this -movement, which was, above all, a crusade for sexual equality, was -attended by wild and perverse extravagances. Not merely the genuinely -masculine woman, but every little doll of a woman in every little -doll's house, became obsessed with the imperative necessity of the -emancipation of her own body and the self-development of her own soul. -A holy war of the sexes was proclaimed, and the sacred shibboleth of -the New Thought, the New Ethics, and the New Love was soon in the mouth -of every woman possessed of the true feminine _esprit de corps._ And -with the praiseworthy object of adjusting the balance of nature, and of -arriving so far as possible at the ideal harmony of an almost perfect -equation, in some cases even the little boys would be brought up as -girls, while, conversely, the little girls would be educated as boys. - -But the misogynism of Strindberg was something far more than a merely -intellectual appreciation of the Anti-Feminist standpoint. Even making -allowance for the considerable impetus doubtless given to his attack -by reason of his personal matrimonial complications, the cause lay far -more deeply ingrained in his own constitution. For the arrogation by -the female of equal rights to the male would of itself tend to provoke -the violent apprehensiveness of a man always morbidly alarmed at the -slightest suggestion of any interference with his own personal rights, -and always scenting a grievance with all the superhuman _flair_ of -the true maniac of persecution. Strindberg's hatred of woman is thus -to a large extent the hatred self-begotten of fear out of its own -spirit, and without the superfluous aid of a concrete reality. If, -too, we identify Strindberg himself with some of his men characters -(_e.g._ Kurt in _The Death Dance_, Axel in _Playing with Fire_, or the -narrator of _The Confession of a Fool_), who render to the objects -of their passion acts of the most abject servility, and who kiss the -feet of women almost as frequently as their lips, we would hazard the -suggestion that he himself (who owns to having found in his reverence -for woman a substitute for his reverence for God) would in certain -moods welcome with morbid alacrity this new feminine domination, while -his reaction from this inverted attitude would but lash his misogynism -to even more hysterical paroxysms. - -These considerations may perhaps explain why in so many of his works -the Strindberg woman and the Strindberg man are so highly specialised. -The typical Strindberg woman is a fiend with the physique of a Madonna -and the soul of a vampire, who sucks dry the life-blood of her heroic -victim. The typical Strindberg man is a Samson shorn of his strength, -writhing in the toils of some Delilah, protesting vociferously, and -yet taking a morbid delight in his own bondage. English readers -will remember the not altogether unanalogous case of John Tanner, -that converse Don Juan of Mr. Shaw, who, with all his fanfaronnade -of masculine independence, is, as he has from the beginning feared, -anticipated and desired, successfully hunted down by his sly and -dashing _Donna Juana_. - -After the publication of _The Red Room_, Strindberg visited both -Switzerland and Paris, where he was invited to meet Björnsen, entered -into relations with the Théätre Libre of M. Antoine, had one or two of -his plays produced, and meditated an unfortunately written satire on -the French capital. In 1883 he produced _Swedish Destinies_, a volume -of essays on contemporary problems, whose romantic masquerade would -seem to have effectively concealed its underlying satire. - -The most significant work, however, which he published at this period -was the volume of twelve (subsequently expanded to twenty) short -stories, entitled _Marriage_. These tales all treat of the various -phases, economic, social, psychological, and physiological, of the -sexual problem, which he observed either in his own life or in the -couples whom he saw in a Swiss _pension._ The characteristic of this -work is its extraordinary seriousness. For to Strindberg the sexual -problem provides neither the excuse for the philosophic flippancy -of the cynic, nor for the priggish modernity of the ethical or -intellectual snob, but is the one obsessing reality of actual life. - -Compared with the black pessimism of this work (relieved though it may -be at times by a ray of tender sentiment or deep paternal feeling), the -grimmest stories of Wedekind are benignly jovial and the most scabrous -tales of De Maupassant but innocently sportive. Neither smile, nor -even leer, ever breaks the set visage of this stern irony, which seems -indistinguishable from life itself. There are no artificial climaxes -or ostentatious flourishes of style to prick the senses of the reader. -Described in a language of the most brutal phlegm and the most forceful -simplicity, the facts of reality do their own unaided work. Each story -is no mere dexterously elaborated incident, but a condensed life. How -powerful, for instance, is such a story as _Asra,_ the history of the -pious youth afflicted with anæmia by reason of his own continence, -and dying two years after his marriage with that superabundantly -healthy ethical worker who subsequently married twice again, had eight -children, and wrote articles on over-population and immorality. And how -genuinely awful is _Autumn_, that frigid anti-climax of a stale and -re-hashed honeymoon: - - "And she sang, 'What is the name of the land in which - my darling dwells?' But, alas, the voice was thin and - sharp. It was at times like a shriek from the depths of - the soul that fears that the noon is passed, and that - the evening is approaching. When the song was over, she - did not at first dare to turn round, as though she was - expecting that he would come to her and say something. - But he did not come; and there was silence in the room. - When at last she turned round on her chair, he sat on - the sofa and cried. She wanted to get up, take his head - in her hands, and kiss him as before; but she remained - seated, motionless, with her gaze turned to the floor.... - - "They drank coffee, and spoke about the coolness of the - summer weather, and where they would spend the summer - next year. But the conversation began to dry up; and - they repeated themselves. At last he said, after a long, - undisguised yawn, 'I'm going to bed now.' 'So will I,' - she said, and got up, 'but I will go first and have a - look on the balcony.' - - "When she came back, she remained standing and listening - at the door of the bedroom. All was quiet inside, and - the boots were outside the door. She knocked, but there - was no answer. Then she opened the door, and went in. He - slept! He slept!" - -Though, moreover, the characters in _Marriage_ are more normal and -average than in any other of Strindberg's works, the author airs again -and again his pet sexual grievances. _Corinna_, in particular, and -_The Duel_, are savage attacks respectively on the ethical amazon and -the womanly woman who makes her very womanliness an engine of tyranny, -while the _Breadwinner_ narrates how an apparently quite impeccable -husband and father, writing himself to death to support his family, -was driven to suicide by the naggings and exactions of a querulous and -discontented wife. - -_Marriage_ was succeeded by the Utopian _Swiss Tales_; but the -strenuous economic struggles to which Strindberg was now subjected -forced him to discard as insipid the vague compromise of free-thought -and to drink the bracing tonic of a Nietzschean and self-reliant -atheism. "God, Heaven, and Eternity had to be thrown overboard if the -ship was to be kept afloat; and it had to be kept afloat because I was -not alone ... I became an atheist as a matter of duty and necessity." - -Yet it is interesting to observe that, taking the solution of the -World-Riddle as a matter of acute personal importance, he studies the -whole history of mankind to satisfy himself that he is right in his -conclusion, and that the element of superstition is still so strong -that when his child is ill he prays, atheist that he is, with all the -fervour of a Christian Scientist. To the period of his atheism are to -be ascribed, with the exception of _Black Flags_, his most powerful, -most drastic work, his two packed volumes of one-act plays, the -autobiographic _Confession of a Fool_, and the Nietzschean novel, _The -Open Sea_. - -Note also that his matrimonial misery and his divorce from his first -wife had given an additional poison to a sting which was always -morbidly eager to inject its venom. - -The plays of Strindberg belong to the naturalistic school of -problem-play which was in full vogue during the period of their -composition. Technically their originality lies in the intensity of -their concentration. Though many of them are one-acters and they nearly -all observe the unity of place, they resemble less the ordinary -curtain-raiser than the one solitary act round which the ordinary -modern play is usually written. Each play is nothing but climax. Though -in some cases they are nearly as long as ordinary drama, it is rare -that they have any subsidiary characters. Even the protagonists are too -occupied with the urgencies of their own immediate crises, and with -exposing the nakedness of their own souls, to have time for either the -artificial jewels of the Pinerovian epigram or the flying rockets of -the Shavian dialectic. The problem is stuck too deep into their lives -to require any artificial flourishing. Observe, too, that nearly every -play is a variation on one theme, the mutual hate, fear, and war of a -malevolent humanity. Their very love but sharpens their enmity, and -they draw blood with nearly every word. - -The three-act play, _The Father_, ventilates the author's chronic -grievance of the ruin of the man by the woman. The plot is cruel -in its simplicity. The husband, though in a state of acute nervous -disorder, is not certifiable. The wife, anxious for a freer life, -smuggles a doctor into the house, plays adroitly on the man's pet -mania that he is not the father of his own daughter, forges in his -handwriting a letter branded with insanity, goads him into throwing -a burning lamp at her, and with the aid of his old nurse gets him by -a ruse into a strait-jacket, in which he succumbs to a stroke. Yet -with all its concentrated sensationalism, and work though it may be -of a constitutional maniac of persecution, the play is too deep, too -sincere, too fundamentally convincing to be ever near that line which -separates the realm of tragedy from the pandemonium of melodrama. With -what ghastly irony does the daughter innocently prick the sensitive -sore in her father's brain: - - [Rittmeister _sits huddled up on the settee_. - - BERTHA. Do you know what you've done? Do you know you've - thrown the lamp at Mamma? - - RITTMEISTER. Have I? - - BERTHA. Yes, you have. Just think if she'd been hurt? - - RITTMEISTER. What would that have mattered? - - BERTHA. You are not my father if you can talk like that. - - Rittmeister (_gets up_). What do you say? Am I not your - father? How do you know that? Who told you so? And who - is your father, then? Who? - -But of all Strindberg's plays, indisputably the most powerful is _Miss -Julie_, that gripping tragedy of the over-sexed young woman who on an -oppressive mid-summer evening insists on being seduced by her father's -butler. The girl is of noble birth, and the duel of sex is intensified -by the duel of class. In the fifty pages of this play, with its three -characters of the woman, the butler, and the cook, which observes -rigorously the Aristotelian unities, every element of the highest -and gravest tragedy is introduced with the most accurate and natural -psychology--the exaggerated dancing of the daughter of the house, who -competes with her own cook for the favours of her own butler-lover; the -ribald grins and songs of the servants; the mingled insolence, common -sense, and respectfulness of the domestic; the hysterical reaction -of the _déclassée_ and dishonoured girl. The following passages may -perhaps give some faint idea of this work's sustained and infernal -power: - - [John _opens the cupboard, takes a bottle of wine out, - and fills two used glasses_. - - THE YOUNG LADY. Where do you get the wine from? - - JOHN. From the cellar. - - THE YOUNG LADY. My father's burgundy. - - JOHN. Ain't it good enough for his son-in-law? - - THE WOMAN. Thief! - - JOHN. Are you going to blab? - - THE LADY. Oh--oh--the accomplice of a thief.... - - JOHN. You hate men-folk, miss? - - THE LADY. Yes, as a rule!... But at times, when I feel - weak--ugh! - - JOHN. You hate me, too? - - THE LADY. Infinitely! I could have killed you like an - animal.... - -And how clutching is the climax, when the girl, a simultaneous prey -to nausea with life and to fear of death, persuades her domestic to -hypnotise her into suicide at almost the precise minute when her father -is ringing for his boots: - - THE YOUNG LADY. Have you never been in a theatre and - seen the mesmerist? He says to the subject: "Take the - broom"; he takes it. He says "Sweep"; and he sweeps.... - - JOHN (_takes his razor and puts it into her hand_). Here - is the broom--go now where there's plenty of light--into - the barn--and--(_whispers into her ear_). - -_Miss Julie_ is remarkable as being the only one of Strindberg's -works in which the man comes off victorious with the exception of the -four-act _Comrades,_ that sombre comedy of Parisian artist life, where -the crowing wife bullies her self-sacrificing husband on the score of -having ousted him from the Salon by her own successful picture, only -to be told that he had simply changed the numbers, and to be finally -ejected from her perverted home by that reasserted man whose efficiency -she had despised and exploited, but whose virile despotism she now -begins to love. - -In _The Creditor_, Strindberg treats again his favourite theme of the -vampire woman and the spoliated man. Thekla, the usual worthless, -demoniac female, having dissolved her marriage with the schoolmaster -Gustav, has married the artist Adolph. The scene is the sea-side. -Thekla has gone off on some jaunt. Her new husband, who is apparently -even more miserable without than with his wife, is a nervous wreck. -He makes the acquaintance of the old husband, who presents himself -incognito to readjust the balance of his matrimonial account. Gustav -plays with masterly hypnotism on the suggestibility of his colleague, -making him doubt himself, his vocation, his health, and at last his -wife. And then when his wife returns, and the enfeebled husband has -made an abortive attempt at asserting his theoretic virile superiority, -he makes love to the wife, is detected by the visitors, and goes -back to his own solitary misery, to leave his wife stranded and his -new confrere dead. Note, too, that here again the human triangle is -complete in itself, and that the agony is protracted to the last shred -of its passion without ever flagging for one single moment. - -Space prohibits any complete discussion of the remaining plays in -the cycle of Strindberg's _Eleven One-acters_. Yet we would mention -_Motherly Love,_ a variation on the theme of Mrs. Warren. The -_souteneuse_ mother, with all her loathsome affectation of wounded -parental feeling, plays judiciously on the morbidly filial conscience -of a clean-minded but weak-willed actress-daughter, prevents her from -obtaining respectable friends or advancement on the stage, in order to -preserve for herself her sole professional stock-in-trade. - -Equally impressive is _The Bond_, which expresses in one divorce-court -scene the whole mordant tragedy of wrangling matrimony and authentic -parental affection. - -In a lighter vein is _Playing with Fire_, the one real comedy which -Strindberg ever wrote. In this the delightful _ménage_ of a young son, -a young wife, a young friend of the family, a young charity cousin, -and a philistine but by no means senile father, everybody is flirting -with everybody else. Particularly admirable in its mixture of the comic -and the ironic is the character and attitude of the conceited and -ultra-modern artist-husband, genuinely jealous of that friend and of -that wife whom he loves so sincerely, and yet throwing them into each -other's arms in a compounded mood of priggish bravado and authentic -affection. The friend, apprehensive lest he may have a bad conscience, -is anxious to take a room in the village. - - THE WIFE. Why don't you stay with us? Out with it. - - THE FRIEND. I don't know. I think you ought to be left - quiet. Besides it might happen that we should get fed up - with each other. - - THE WIFE. Are you fed up with us already? I tell you, it - won't do. I tell you that if you stay out there in the - village, people will begin to talk. - - THE FRIEND. Talk? What will they talk about? - - THE WIFE. Oh, you know perfectly well how stories get - put together. - - THE SON. You stay here--there's an end of it. Let them - talk. If you stay here, it goes without saying that - you're my wife's lover, and if you stay in the village, - it goes without saying that you've broken with each - other, or that I've kicked you out. Consequently, I - think it more honourable for you to be regarded as her - lover--eh, what? - - THE FRIEND. You certainly express yourself with - considerable lucidity; but in a case like this, I'd - rather prefer to consider which is honourable for you - two. - -As we have already hinted, an additional bitterness had been introduced -into Strindberg's misogynism by the unhappiness of his own first -marriage, which was dissolved in 1889. It is this marriage which -Strindberg celebrates in that phenomenal piece of official sexual -autobiography, _The Confession of a Fool_, which has successfully -scandalised the whole Continent of Europe. In comparison with this book -the _New Machiavelli_ is but the tamest Sunday-school reading, and -the romantic confessions of Mr. George Moore the merest healthy pranks -of robustious youth. This work throughout has the real spontaneity of -the genuine diary rather than the studied frankness of the elaborate -literary artificer. The young librarian is in Stockholm. A young lady -makes advances to him. "She has an adventurous appearance, hovering -between the artist, the blue-stocking, the daughter of the house, -the _fille de joie_, the new woman, and the coquette." She presses -her suit, looks at him in an unambiguous manner, and "he only owes -his virtue to her extraordinary ugliness." He is introduced to her -friends, the Baron and Baroness X. He becomes the _ami de famille_. -But the demon of sex is at work, and simply through keeping step with -her in walking he will experience a unification of their whole nervous -systems. Honourable man that he is, he runs away from danger, starts -for Paris in a steamship, and is seen off amid the combined tears -of the married pair. The ship sails. His nerves break down; and in -an hysterical paroxysm he insists on being disembarked, is attended -by a priest and doctor at a small hotel, and returns post-haste to -Stockholm. The Baroness runs away to a watering-place. But matters only -progress with even greater rapidity on her return. The Baron is largely -occupied with a cousin; and an official declaration takes place between -the wife and the lover. With ultra-modern honesty they immediately -apprise the husband, who while giving them the widest margin within -which to exercise their platonic affections, yet reposes implicit trust -in their combined honour. A financial crash, however, disposes of the -Baron; and the gentleman is landed with his lady. There ensue all the -joys and agonies of a ten-years' union. The couple are linked in the -burning bonds of a mutual love and a mutual hate. The author has to -sacrifice his own well-being and career to push forward his wife in -her amateurish efforts in journalism and acting. From that time "legal -prostitution enters into the marriage...." She belongs to the public, -she makes up and dresses for the public, and she consequently becomes -"a prostitute who will finally send in her bill for such and such -services." - -The moods alternate with the regularity of a pendulum. If at one moment -"the nest of love has become transformed into a dog-kennel," and the -author is morbidly jealous of nearly every man and every woman with -whom his wife has the slightest acquaintance, strikes his wife, and -endeavours to drown her; it is only subsequently, in the last stages of -servile uxoriousness, to idolise her again as a martyr and as a saint. -Six times does he leave her (expending on one occasion in debauchery -the proceeds of his pawned wedding-ring), and six times does he return, -only to draw up at last this monstrous dossier of his conjugal life: -"The story is at an end, my beloved one; I have revenged myself; the -account is squared." - -Not altogether inexplicably, Strindberg has been much attacked on the -score of this book. He has been charged with wickedly defaming an -innocent and deserving woman. Yet even though the book be objectively -false, it is subjectively true. It is impossible to doubt its -prodigious sincerity, even though this merely be the implicit sincerity -of persecution mania. Every single nuance of the emotions of a man who -honestly thinks that he is being unscrupulously exploited is faithfully -described. The book may shock by its vehement coldness, its abnormal -callousness, its matter-of-fact explicitness; yet from the literary -standpoint, its entire absence of affectation, the drastic ease of -its simplicity, the swift naturalness of its diction, cannot fail to -convince. It stands out from the whole of European literature as the -superlative masterpiece of suspicious love and monstrous morbid hate. - -In the great novel, _By the Open Sea_ (1890), Strindberg's Nietzschean -mood achieves its grand zenith. The hero, Axel Borg (whom we may -already remember from _The Red Room_), "instead of, like the weak -Christians, embracing a God outside himself, took what he could seize -with his own hands and in his own self, and sought to make his own -personality into a complete type of humanity." Borg, who combines with -the ideals of the superman the hyper-sensitiveness of the neurotic, -lives the single life as an inspector of fishery in a little village on -the Swedish coast, where the sea "frightens not like the forest with -its dark mystery, but brings quietude like an open great big true eye." -He is pursued and caught by an over-sexed young woman, realises her -worthlessness, and sails out to commit suicide. - - "Out toward the new Star of Christmas, ran his voyage, - out over the Sea, the All-Mother, from whose bosom the - first spark of life was kindled, the inexhaustible - source of fertility and love, life's origin and life's - foe." - -This book, with its splendid nature-descriptions, the tragic dignity -of its hero, and the azure swiftness of its limpid style, is one -of Strindberg's most impressive feats. Yet even here the author's -characteristic traits can be distinctly traced. The noble male is -ruined by a despicable woman; while here, too, the cosmic mysticism of -the professed atheist (whose mood can perhaps be best expressed by the -worn _cliché_ of "being in tune with the infinite"), reveals only too -clearly the emotional bias of a fundamentally religious temperament. - -This temperament was soon to manifest itself in the most tragic form. -Jaded with literature, and unhappy again in his second marriage with -the Austrian authoress, Frida Uhl, in 1893, Strindberg embarked on -the study of chemistry, took rooms in the Latin quarter, attended the -Sorbonne laboratories, and imagined that he had revolutionised science -by the discovery of a new element in sulphur. He had by now attained -the, to him, crucial period of the late "forties," and the chronic -excesses of his emotionalism now assumed a religious form, to the -accompaniment of the most acute mania of persecution. - -His experiences in these years, 1895-8, are described in the _Inferno_ -and the _Legends_, works which the mystic and the psychologist can read -with equal if heterogeneous edification. In these books, which are -based on Strindberg's diaries during the actual time, the aberrations -of a disorganised brain are set out with the most unconscious literary -art. His delusions became systematised with all the ingenuity of the -_paranoiac_. Every casual suggestion thrown up by his memory, or the -events and associations of every-day life, every bit of science that -he had ever studied or of mysticism that he had ever felt, are all -utilised to build the infernal scheme of his mania. He is "the innocent -sacrifice of an unjust persecution," the prey of unknown powers, the -conducting-point of electrical streams from unknown agencies. He asks -for a miracle and sees in the heavens the ten commandments and the name -of Jehovah. His friend Popoffski (in point of fact, the Polish-German -novelist Przybeszewski) has come to Paris; it is with the sole object -of killing him by poison. His usual seat at his usual café is occupied; -he is the victim of a universal conspiracy. Eventually the hells of -his torment burn themselves out in an abject ecstasy of atonement, in -Catholicism, Swedenborgianism, and the bastard hybrid of a scientific -occultism. - -From this time the religious obsession sits upon most, if not -all, of his subsequent work. To this mood are due the officially -religious dramas _To Damascus, Midsummer_, the extremely weak -_Advent and Easter_, his new-found theory of _The Conscious Will in -the World-History_, his historical dramas (where the characters, -particularly Luther, were too subjectively conceived to be historically -convincing), and his _Dream-Play_ (where telephones, lawyers, theatres, -enchanted woods, Indra's daughter, military officers, married -couples, casinos, poets, and ballet-dancers all combine to weave the -filmy phantasmagoria of a Buddhistic reality). We may also mention -in this connection the _Blue Books_, the official synthesis of his -life (a series of miniature essays on such apparently heterogeneous -subjects as, _inter alia_, Troy, Christ, electro-chemistry, botany, -surds, Assyriology, optics, geology, Hammurabi, astrology, morphium, -Swedenborgianism, spermatozoic analysis, mystic numbers, Kipling, and -Jehovah). - -Although, speaking generally, Strindberg achieved his masterpieces -during the period of his atheism, many of his later works have -indisputable value. The play _Intoxication_ (1900), for instance -(though the killing through sheer unconscious force of will, by the -hero, of the child of one mistress, in order to gratify the caprice of -another, may strike the unimaginative critic as slightly melodramatic, -and his eventual retirement into a Catholic monastery as somewhat of an -anti-climax), is a work of extraordinary power. - -So also is the _Death Dance_ (1900), in which the middle-aged captain -and his _passée_ wife grind each other to ruin and despair beneath -the mutual mill-stones of their hate, "that most unreasonable hate, -without ground, without object, but also without end." Does not the -author plumb the extreme depths of human malevolence in the passage in -which the wife in company with her cousin is expecting her paralytic -husband to fall down dead? - - KARL. What are you looking at over there, dear, by the - wall? - - ALICE. I'm seeing if he's tumbled down. - - KARL. Has he tumbled down? - - ALICE. NO, more's the pity. He deceives me in everything. - -We would also mention the Maeterlinckian beauty of the _Crown Bride_ -and _Swan White_ (1900), the heroine of which is an idealisation of -the author's third wife, the actress, Harriet Bosse; the delicate -fantasy of _Tales_ (1908); and the _Swedish Miniatures_, of which the -_Sacrifice Dance_ in particular is a positive masterpiece of swift -bloodiness. - -Cruelty, moreover, is an integral element in at any rate primitive -religion. This may conceivably explain why, faithfully fulfilling -what he personally professed to have found a joyless duty, Strindberg -successfully performed in _Black Flags_, his celebrated _roman à clef,_ -the intellectual flaying and dismemberment of all Stockholm Bohemia. -It is amusing to remember that he successfully consulted the oracle -of the Book of Job before he published the work in 1905, to face the -protesting shrieks of his victims with all the devout conscience of -some early priest of Thor who gravely officiates at some blood-stained -human sacrifice. - -It is outside the purpose of this essay to discuss whether these -descriptions of the intellectual and sexual clique of the Swedish -capital constitute a fair portrait or a monstrous defamation, or -whether, for instance, Hanna Paj is a malignant travesty or a -euphemistic delineation of that lady whom all who have the slightest -acquaintance with the Continental Feminist Movement will immediately -recognise. - -As a sheer piece of satire the book waves its black flag unchallenged -amid all the fluttering multicoloured pennons of modern European -literature. What matter if the characterisation be true or false? So -far, at any rate, as the non-Swedish reader is concerned, the illusion -is complete. Kilo, "the little bookseller, with the suffering eyes -of a sick dog"; Falkenstrom, the idealist, whose wife is induced by -her bosom friend to join some alleged monstrous cosmopolitan masonic -sisterhood; Hanna Paj, the feminist lecturer, the fury with the flag -of hate on which was written the device, "Revenge on Man"; Smartman, -the debonair intriguing editor with his two sets of rooms--all these -pictures of "the galley-slaves of ambition linked together in the -fetters of interest, these murderers and thieves who steal each other's -thoughts, addresses, friends, and personalities," are perfectly -convincing. Above all there stands out the delineation of Lars Peter -Zachrisson, "the intellectual cannibal," the "broker of literature, the -promoter of mutual admiration societies, the speculator in reputations, -the founder of syndicates for the manufacture of celebrities," the -morphia maniac, the tippler "who laughs humorously in his moustache and -weeps tears of whisky from his eyes," the father of "that resurrected -corpse, that wandering shame, whose face was known to all, and who was -branded with his own name." And how devilish is the description of this -domestic hell of human hate, where he mocks his wife on her failing -charms and encourages her gluttony with the specific object of spoiling -her figure, where the mother in her turn brings up her children like a -breed of dachshunds whom she sets to bait their father, and where the -two spouses yet feel some inexplicable need of being together in the -same room for the purpose of that mutual nagging and mutual reviling -which constituted the chief interest in their miserable existence. - -To sum up, we have seen how throughout his life the persecution mania -of Strindberg expressed itself in his attitude to sex, religion, and -society, as like at once some veritable Rhadamanthine recorder, and -some cowering victim of divine vengeance, he dispenses and fears those -words of doom in his black adamant of diction. Yet it is impossible -casually to brush the man aside as some mere _paranoiac_. The very -torments of his soul fructified in the stupendous genius of his -intellectual production. With all his perversities, with all his -aberrations, Strindberg remains the blackest, and in his own particular -spheres the most drastic, intelligence in the whole of our European -literature. - - - - -THE WELTANSCHAUUNG OF MISS MARIE CORELLI - - - "By my faith I would as soon listen to the gabbling of - geese in a farmyard as to the silly glibness of such - inflated twaddling, such mawkish sentiment, such turgid - garrulity, such ranting verbosity." - - "Clearness of thought, brilliancy of style, beauty of - diction, all these were hers united to consummate ease - of expression and artistic skill." - - -The above quotations, extracted from _Ardath_ and from the -autobiographical if unofficial description of Mavis Clair in _The -Sorrows of Satan_, are well adapted to express the two extreme views -concerning the merits and the demerits of the lady who, rightly or -wrongly, certainly occupies the most conspicuous position among our -English women-novelists. It is not surprising that such divergent views -should be provoked by a character who, however simple she may be in her -own personal psychology, is from the literary standpoint essentially -complex. - -In _The Romance of Two Worlds_, for instance, the first fruits of -her literary genius, the novelist's theory of the "Soul Germ" and -her conception of the "Electric Principle of Christianity" running -through the whole cosmology would seem unmistakably to foreshadow the -Bergsonian theory of the _élan de vie,_ while the subtly delineated -character of the twentieth-century Chaldæan magician, Heliobas, "who -never promises to effect a cure unless he sees that the person who -comes to be cured has a certain connection with himself," bears a -distinct analogy to the cabalistic mysticism of Mr. Aleister Crowley. -On the other hand, that grim tragedy entitled _Vendetta_ is in almost -equal degrees reminiscent of the stark inexorableness of Æschylus, -and of the human, all-too-human, humanity of Mr. Walter Melville. In -_Ardathy_ that "tale of beauty, of horror, and of extraordinary amours" -(if we may quote from the authorised biography of our novelist), a -subject-matter that might well have emanated from the pen of a Pierre -Louys, is handled with the unimpeachable correctness of a Samuel -Smiles. So, too, the great _Tendenzroman_ "Wormwood" is a dexterous -combination of the _macabre_ phantasy of Mr. Ranger Gull and the -ethical "uplift" of Mr. Guy Thorne. She is, moreover, an authoress who -is keenly alive to the social problems of the day, treating in _Boy_ -and _The Mighty Atom_ of the Wedekindian problem of the influence -of free-thought on the mind of puberty (though it must be confessed -that her solution of that exceedingly thorny problem is by no means -identical with that of the slightly cynical author of _Spring's -Awakening_), and handling in _The Murder of Delicia_ the almost equally -delicate subject of the modern _maquereau_. - -While, too, Miss Corelli has enriched the literature of Anti-Semitism -with such novel and crushing phrases as "Jew-speculator," -"Jew-proprietor of a stock-jobbing newspaper," "the fat Jew-spider -of several newspaper webs," her denunciation of certain phases of -Continental Christianity as "the sickening and barbarous superstition -everywhere offered as the representation of sublime Deity" indicates -some cleavage between her own Protestant theology and that rigid -Ultramontanism which would appear nowadays to be one of the essential -qualifications for the really full-fledged Anti-Semite. And if at -times with the thyrsus of her ecstatic style she is frequently the -Juvenalian flagellant of that "brilliant fashionable dress-loving crowd -of women who spend most of their time in caring for their complexions -and counting their lovers," her features exhibit not so much the sadic -grin of the mænad as the seraphic loving-kindness of some mediæval -saint dumped down by a caprice of a fantastic Providence amid all the -howling welter of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. While too -such phrases as "retrospective and introspective repentance" show -an almost Jamesian preciosity in the fine-drawn distinction between -the repentance for the sins that have been already committed in the -past and for those which are about to be committed in the future, -and between the repentance which takes place within the four corners -of the human soul, and that which occurs within some other sphere of -psychological activity, our lady's entire lack, generally speaking, of -all the affectations of our ultra-modern subtlety are more reminiscent -of the downright horse-sense of President Roosevelt or the transparent -but by no means necessarily shallow simplicity of such writers as Mrs. -L. T. Meade, Mrs. Annie Swan, Mr. Charles Garvice, and Mr. William Le -Queux. - -It is then in view of the fundamentally complex problem constituted by -Miss Corelli that, disregarding alike the convention of her admirers -that she is above criticism, and the convention of her detractors that -she is beneath it, we propose to examine our authoress with the maximum -of seriousness at our command, and to await with sanguine interest the -result of what from the point of view at any rate of the critic is so -revolutionary a procedure. The contents of at any rate the majority of -the volumes of Miss Corelli being necessarily familiar to all readers -of culture, we propose to confine our analysis to a survey of the -cardinal points in our lady's _Weltanschauung_. Strange though it may -seem to "the fashionable atheism of the day" (if we may quote one -of our authoress's favourite and most persistent phrases), it is the -religious instinct which supplies the key of the Corellian psychology. -In this connection it is interesting to remember parenthetically the -pretty anecdote of how when the future novelist, then quite a little -girl, was rejoicing in the sobriquet of "The Rosebud," she would always -have the nocturnal consciousness that angels were present in her -bedroom, and that Dr. Mackay, the mid-Victorian littérateur who had -adopted the child at the early age of three months, is reported to have -made the gentle but not inapposite remark, "Never mind, Dearie! It is -there, you may be sure, and if you behave just as if you saw it, you -will certainly see it some day." - -It was perhaps a few years later that the little girl dreamt of -founding a new religious order, and that an education at a French -convent left on her virgin soul that white cachet which even the -corruptness of Edwardian society, "when the infidelity of wives is -most unhappily becoming common--far too common for the peace and good -repute of society," has signally failed to in any way pollute (if as -a mere matter of grammatical conviviality we may venture to split an -infinitive with our distinguished _consoeur_). When, however, Miss -Corelli attained the ripeness of complete womanhood, the voice of the -angels would appear to have whispered in her ear the great injunction -"to leave the world a little better than she found it," and the -sacred odour of her exceedingly important mission is to be detected -practically in every work that has issued from her pen. Holding, -like Torquemada, Mr. Torrie, Attila, Loyola, and the late Dr. Elijah -Dowie and many other great religious enthusiasts of all epochs, that -conversion is the most efficient method of spiritual improvement, she -concentrates her fire with especial vehemence on the "women-atheists, -who had voluntarily crushed out the sweetness of the sex within them, -the unnatural product of an unnatural age," who have "as haughty a -scorn of Christ and His teaching as any unbelieving Jew," and on -"the common boor who, reading his penny Radical paper, thinks he can -dispense with God and talks of the carpenter's son of Judæa with the -same easy flippancy and scant reverence as his companion in sin." - -Thus it comes that Miss Corelli, with her full share of that -intolerance which is the classical concomitant of all true religion, -would close the harbour of England to the exiled Jesuits of France, -and exclude the Jews from their prominent position in contemporary -society and finance. So far from shedding a single tear over the -tragic death of Zola, she gloats with righteous gusto over his -asphyxiation, which she ascribes to a specific piece of theological -revengefulness on the part of an orthodox and insulted Providence. At -times her strictures come nearer home, and more frequently perhaps -than any other woman-novelist of the day does she castigate those -Episcopalian clergymen who indulge in the mental and physical enjoyment -of illicit sex in wilful disregard of the most fundamental elements -of their professional etiquette, "the vicious and worldly clerical -bon-vivants ... talking society scandal with as much easy glibness -as any dissolute lay decadent that ever cozened another man's wife -away from honour in the tricky disguise of a soul." In _Thelma_, for -instance, the lascivious minister of Christ intent on compassing the -almost compulsory seduction of the prettiest of his own parishioners, -while his "conscience was enveloped in a moral leather casing of -hypocrisy and arrogance," is a piece of characterisation which in its -own particular line of vice forms a fitting analogue to the monstrous -clergyman in Mrs. Voynich's _Jack Raymond_. - -So far, moreover, as the nuances of dogma are concerned our teacher -takes the delicate and middle course, being as deeply shocked by the -ritualistic excesses of the High Church as by what Mr. G. K. Chesterton -has epigrammatically described as the "tea-leaves of Nonconformity." In -fact her theology may perhaps be crystallised in the following formula, -which however difficult in actual practice is from the stylistic -standpoint of perfect simplicity: - - "Why should we be followers of Luther, Wesley, or - any other human teacher or preacher when all that is - necessary is that we should be followers of Christ?" - -But Miss Corelli is no credulous bigot. She is as sceptical of the -historical trustworthiness of part of the initial chapters of Genesis -as Colonel Ingersoll, Mr. G. W. Foote, or Mr. Horatio Bottomley. Let -us quote from _Free Opinions_ the following eloquent parenthesis: "A -legend, which, like that of the Tree of Good and Evil itself requires -stronger confirmation than history as yet witnesseth, which, by the -way, was evidently invented by man himself for his own convenience." - -Let us, however, now turn from Miss Corelli's solitary excursion into -the sphere of the Higher Criticism to some brief survey of her more -positive and constructive philosophy. - -The Corellian cosmology is most fully expounded in _The Romance of Two -Worlds_. This novel is the story of a young girl who, sick in body and -mind, visits the Continent. She makes the acquaintance of a Chaldsean -_mage_ of magnetic personality called Heliobas. Heliobas, realising at -the first sight of the young girl "that her state of health precludes -her from the enjoyment of life natural to her sex and age," gives her -to drink of some rare and special potion with the result that her -soul, dissociated for the time being from her body, takes a flying -trip through space and purgatory, and the lady awakens to a more -complete spiritual harmony. In this book the authoress's individual -theories of the Soul Germ and the Electric Circle are expressed in -voluminous digressions and dialogues whose inexhaustible opulence -might well be called a Platonic Dialectic brought up to the date of -nineteenth-century science. - -This fusion of science and mysticism, which at first sight seem as far -apart as the poles or the sexes, into a harmonious if heterogeneous -unity, can also be traced in the Corellian physiology. Thus in _Thelma_ -we meet the unfortunate creature Sigurd, "an infant abortion, the evil -fruit of an evil deed," destined to so tragic and well-described a -death, while in _Temporal Power_ we are confronted with the strange -character of Paul Zouche, "the human eccentricity, the result of an -amour between a fiend and an angel." - -In the sphere of ethics, Miss Corelli is careful to avoid that -misplaced originality which is so often the gaudy masquerade for a -pallid and degenerate licentiousness. Our authoress finds sufficient -both for her own personal requirements and the spiritual health of her -reader in those good old maxims enshrined in the Bible, the _Family -Herald_, and the copy-books of all self-respecting seminaries. Good -is Good, she says, and Right is Right. We may note also the Corellian -principle of the inevitable triumph of the hero or heroine and the -inevitable damnation of the villain or villainess, a principle which -bears a distinct affinity to the Jewish and Christian doctrines of -Recompense, the Æschylean doctrine of _nemesis_, and the -dramaturgy of the Transpontine Theatre. It may perhaps be urged by the -ultra-modern critic that novels of the stamp of _Anne Veronica, The New -Machiavelli_, or _Esther Waters_, where sin emerges from its slough, -sometimes in triumph, yet always in dignity and comfort, have a closer -correspondence with the actual facts of our modern civilisation. But -our authoress would no doubt confidently retort that it is the pious -duty of the moral missionary to censor ruthlessly such pernicious -intelligence, and that she is proud to prefer the higher if not always -accepted truths of ethics to the lower and degrading truths of a sordid -reality. - -This sublime principle of Divine Justice is perhaps best exemplified -in _Holy Orders_. In this extraordinary book, Jacqueline, the local -prostitute of a picturesque English village, marries a man named -Nordheim, "one of the smartest Jew-millionaires that ever played with -the money-markets of the world." But the wages of sin, though for a few -years a motor car and a Rockefellerian income, turn out in the long -run to be death in a balloon in the illicit company of an aristocratic -drunkard. For sheer psychology and for sheer English the following -portrayal of the villain which represents the cream of two or three -separate passages merits quotation. - - "Claude Ferrers? Why, he is a famous aeronaut; a man - who spends fabulous sums of money in the construction - of balloons and aeroplanes and airships. He is the - owner of a gorgeous steerable balloon in which all the - pretty 'smart' women take trips with him for change of - air. He is an atheist, a degenerate, and--one of the - most popular 'Souls' in decadent English society--just - to have a look at the fat smooth-faced sensualist and - voluptuary whose reputation for shameless vice makes him - the pride and joy of Upper-Ten Jezebels will help you - along like a gale of wind. Claude Ferrers is a modern - Heliogabalus in his very modern way, and by dint of - learning a few salacious witticisms out of Molière and - Baudelaire he almost persuades people to think him a wit - and a poet." - -In view, no doubt, of the high moral tendency of most of the comedies -of Molière, who in _Tartuffe,_ for instance, satirises hypocrisy almost -as effectively, if with a less palpable directness than does Miss -Corelli herself, and in view of the essentially religious or at any -rate mystical spirit that animates so many of the poems of the author -of _Les Fleurs de Mai,_ it must be reluctantly confessed that Miss -Corelli is more impressive as a moralist and as a psychologist than as -a woman of letters and an expert in French literature. It is possible, -however, that this slight error may be explained by the fact that her -acquaintance with these authors may only be second-hand, that she -was involuntarily misled by the rhyme in the two names, and that her -unimpeachable principles have debarred her from even hearing the names -of such refined exponents of the Gallic spirit as M. Abel Hermant and -M. Octave Mirbeau. - -It is, of course, highly characteristic of our authoress's simplicity -of vision that all her characters are either very, very, very good -or very, very, very bad. Realising that complexity of temperament -is but too frequently the mere euphemism for dissoluteness of life, -she is content that her young heroes should be immaculate with all -the immaculacy of the _jeune premier_, that her middle-aged heroes -should be those strong silent men who have contributed so largely -to make England what she is, and that her heroines should be all -equally typical and equally sweet flowers of our English womanhood. -Her villains invariably smile with all the depraved and diabolical -cynicism of Drury Lane, and her villainesses are branded as degenerate -super-women of intrigue and lust. And if the authoress by thus -delineating her characters in the two primary colours of black and -white thus denies herself the intellectual pleasure of minutely -analysing some ultra-modern soul torn a myriad ways by unnumbered and -unmentionable emotions, she has the consolation that she certainly -points her moral with a more obvious precision. - -The only character who in any way suffers from a complex temperament -is Maryllia, the sweet-named heroine of _God's Good Man_. By nature -as white and pure a specimen of Anglo-Saxon girlhood as ever spent to -some good moral purpose her fragrance in the pages of the prettiest -novelette, Maryllia is so corrupted by the fashionable whirl of smart -society, "where without mincing matters it can be fairly stated that -the aristocratic Jezebel is the fashionable woman of the hour, while -the men vie with one another as to who shall best screen her from -their amours with themselves," that she becomes addicted to the vice -of smoking. God's Good Man, however, in the person of that high-minded -clergyman the Rev. John Walden, has the courage to rebuke her at a -dinner-party with an incivility which is, fortunately, more than -counterbalanced by the fundamental kindness of his intention: - - "I have always been under the impression that English - ladies never smoke." - -Maryllia, it is true, at first bridles at this essentially well-meant -reprimand, only, however, to return finally repentant and converted to -her prospective husband. - -It is, consequently, not surprising to find that Miss Corelli's -attitude to modern problems is one of a rugged and uncompromising -conservatism. Thus she disapproves not merely of smoking but also of -the bridge-party and the motor-car and of the _décolleté_ dress which -she so severely satirises in the phrase, "the brief shoulder-strap -called by courtesy a sleeve which keeps her ladyship's bodice in place." - -Consistently enough, also, in the sphere of philosophy she chaffs -the agnostic dilettantism of Mr. Balfour with the most delicate of -badinage: "His study of these volumes is almost as profound as that of -Mr. Balfour must have been when writing _The Foundations of Belief_," -and flicks with a deadly though gentle irony the "sort of cliquey -reputation and public failure attending a certain novel entitled -_Marius the Epicurean_." - -True Englishwoman that she is, Miss Corelli yields to none in her -reverence for established institutions, and does not shrink from -attacking boldly the complex questions of contemporary royal and -political life. Thus, in the 600-page romance, _Temporal Power_, -apparently disapproving of that democratic shuffling of the classes -which is so marked a feature of our ultra-modern age, she treats with -exquisite taste of the problems of the sinister Semitic capitalist, -the intriguing politician who was once a manufacturer, and of the -morganatic marriage of a sailor-prince. - -For our authoress has at bottom a true respect for the social order -of England. What though the monarch masquerade as an anarchist in -_Temporal Power_ and sign his name in the red letters of a woman's -blood? Does not the repeated insistence on the title "Sir Philip," in -referring to the virile and delectable hero of _Thelma_, show that it -is less society _per se_ than the abuses and perversions of society -which constitute the target of the Corellian invective? Does not -again the following passage show the bias of a soul which inclines -with the sincerest sympathy to that innate munificence which forms -the chief petal in the "fine flower" of the English gentry: "They got -their overcoats from the officious Briggs, tipped him handsomely, and -departed arm in arm?" Does not similarly such a phrase as "a dignified -_grande dame_ clad in richest black silk" show that most generous of -loyalties which will not allow the true majesty of the aristocracy to -be imperilled through the stinting of an extra adjective or the lack of -a superlatively appropriate dress. - -Unfortunately many passages in Miss Corelli's novels may occasion -her admirers some heart-searchings as to the reliability of her -social psychology. In such a sentence, for instance, as "Why does -an English earl marry a music-hall singer? Because he has seen her -in tights," it would appear that the real heart of the matter is -tactfully adumbrated rather than specifically described. When again -that lecherous Jew, David Jost, the chief villain in _Temporal Power_, -is sitting at home in his study a few minutes before midnight, after -he had already "supped in private with two or three painted heroines -of the foot-lights," does not our authoress attribute to the horrible -Hebrew a capacity for concentrating an amount of pleasure into a -brief period, more consistent with the powers of some hustling and -record-breaking American than with the more protracted languors of -the Oriental? Similarly, when she writes that "the public are getting -sick of having the discarded mistresses of wealthy Semites put forward -for their delectation in 'leading' histrionic parts," Miss Corelli is -either inverting the more natural and logical order of events, or is -attributing to such isolated members of the Jewish race as happen to be -licentious a retrospective generosity in respect of past kindness which -however gratifying to their co-religionists seems somewhat inconsistent -with the general trend of her attitude. - -The Corellian dialogue also frequently gives the psychologist food -for thought. "O God" (cried impetuously the heroine of _Thelma_ after -she had listened virtuously to the illicit overtures of the villain, -a "lascivious dandy and disciple of no creed and self-worship"), a -magnificent glory of disdain flashing in her jewel-like eyes, "what -thing is this that calls itself a man--this thief of honour--this -pretended friend of me, the wife of the noblest gentleman in the land!" - -Or take again so characteristic a specimen as the following: - - "You will be made the subject for the coarse jests of - witticisms at your expense--your dearest friends will - tear your name to shreds--the newspapers will reek of - your doings, and honest housemaids reading of your fall - from your high estate will thank God that their souls - and bodies are more clean than yours." - -If, however, Miss Corelli disdains the more gramophonic accuracy of -Mrs. Humphry Ward, she is none the less perfectly entitled to answer -that her characters like those of Mr. G. Bernard Shaw, being something -more than mere mechanical and objective copies of humanity, subserve -the far higher function of being the mouthpieces of the subjective -philosophy of their creator. - -Our last quotation, however, brings us to the burning question of Miss -Corelli's attitude towards the sexual problem. In this connection it -will not be without its interest to draw some slight analogy between -Miss Corelli and her equally distinguished if not equally popular -sister-in-letters, Mrs. Elinor Glyn. - -We would remark in the first place that the sexual problem clutches -Miss Corelli hotly in its drastic grip. Her religious temperament -may no doubt occasion a profound and genuine abhorrence for physical -sin, but as was the case with the even more religious Tolstoi, or -that strangely interesting character Elfrida (the ethical sexual -reformer in Herr Frank Wedekind's _Totentanz_), her abhorrence merely -supplies an added vehemence to the unflinching nature of her treatment -and the drastic audacities of her missionary work, while the proud -consciousness of her own personal virtue may conceivably entitle her to -find at once a duty and a recompense in the sanguinary flagellation of -her less immaculate sisters. Though, moreover, a moral teacher, Miss -Corelli is also a psychologist, and her aphorism "Men never fall in -love with a woman's mind, only with her body," can be well compared -for its bold but delicate cynicism with Mrs. Glyn's maxim, "Love is a -purely physical emotion." - -But Miss Corelli with all her unimpeachable correctness is by no means -blind to the temperamental significance of a _grande passion_, though -of course she does not specialise on this subject to the same extent -as her distinguished colleague. It is none the less instructive to -compare Miss Corelli's saving grace of a _grande passion_, "the one of -those faithful passions which sometimes make the greatness of both man -and woman concerned and adorn the pages of history with the brilliancy -of deathless romance," with the following fine passage from Mrs. Glyn -in which she admonishes those philistine readers "who have no eye to -see God's world with the stars in it and to whom Three Weeks will be -but the sensual record of a passion" with a dignified apologia for the -life of her heroine--"Now some of you who read will think her death was -just, in that she was not a moral woman, but others will hold with Paul -that she was the noblest lady who ever wore a crown." - -The latter quotation, however, brings us to an important distinction -in the sexual ethics of our two novelists. For while Miss Corelli -on the one hand is no respecter of persons and would be prepared to -treat an "Upper-Ten Jezebel" or a "soiled dove of the town" (if we may -borrow two typically Corellian phrases) with scrupulous impartiality -according to their respective deserts, the novels of Mrs. Elinor Glyn -constitute a valuable sexual hierarchy by which the degree of license -to be enjoyed and condoned is in direct proportion to the social rank -of the lady or her paramour. Thus the continued adultery on the part -of the Princess throughout a period of three weeks in the novel of -that name is freed from any taint of offensiveness or indignity by the -exalted rank of that royal personage who is decorated in this one book -with several sets of stars. The ordinary untitled gentlewoman, however -(if we except Agnes the lady in _Elizabeth's Visits to America_, who -"had an affair with her chauffeur," and the Mildred in _Beyond the -Rocks_, whose lovers, however, were "so well chosen and so thoroughly -of the right sort"), though she may frequently infringe the spirit -of the seventh commandment, is usually far too prudent to break the -letter. Thus the romantic young wife in _Beyond the Rocks_, in spite -of the assiduous attentions of an extremely fascinating peer, "an -ordinary Englishman of the world who had lived and loved and seen many -lands," succeeds by the most heroic self-control in preserving the -technical chastity of a Prévostian _demi-vierge_. Note, however, by way -of contrast the extremely wide margin which is allowed to the hale and -energetic duchess: "Her path was strewn with lovers and protected by a -proud and complacent husband who had realised early he never would be -master of the situation and had preferred peace to open scandal. She -was a woman of sixty and, report said, still had her lapses." - -But the paramount importance of social etiquette in sexual relationship -is most effectively illustrated in _His Hour_. This novel deals with -the mutual physical passion between a barbaric and dissolute Russian -prince and a typical and refined modern Englishwoman. Matters reach a -crisis when the prince lures the lady by night to the sinister solitude -of a deserted hut. "His splendid eyes blazed with the passion of a -wild beast"; the lady faints, and when she wakes up in the morning of -course assumes that she has been ravished. Not unnaturally she is quite -upset that she should have been the victim of such insulting behaviour, -"she, a lady, a proud English lady." The commands of society, however, -are inexorable in such matters and she consequently writes proposing -marriage with dignified irony to that bestial nobleman, who had, -according to her own theory, put her own status as a gentlewoman into -such delicate jeopardy: "I consent--I have no choice--I consent. Yours -truly, Tamara Lorane." - -So far as mere erotic description and dialogue is concerned, there is -very little to choose between our authoresses. The following passages -are fair examples of Mrs. Glyn's conception of romantic love-making: - - "Then, sweet Paul, I shall teach you many things, and - among them I shall teach you how to LIVE." - * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * - "Beloved, beloved," he cried, "let us waste no more - precious moments. I want you, I want you, my sweet." - * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * - "My darling one," the lady whispered in his ear, as she - lay in his arms on the couch of roses, crushed deep and - half-buried in their velvet leaves, "this is our soul's - wedding, in life and in death they can never part us more." - * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * - -If, however, we would make any distinction between the respective -techniques of the two ladies, we would say that while Mrs. Glyn tends -to exhibit the practical modernity of Mayfair or Continental society, -Miss Corelli is at times more exotic and luxuriant, at times more -explicit and direct, for blunt, plain woman that she is, she never even -once dabbles in those mystic messages of the stars which Mrs. Glyn -interprets with so facile and consummate a felicity. We search in vain, -for instance, in the works of Mrs. Elinor Glyn for a passage like the -following, which but for the pendent nominative might quite well have -come out of the _Aphrodite_ of M. Pierre Louys or the _Mafarka le -Futuriste_ of M. Marinetti: - - "This done, they rose and began to undo the fastenings - of her golden domino-like garment; but either they were - too slow, or the fair priestess was impatient, for - she suddenly shook herself free of their hands, and - loosening the gorgeous mantle herself from its jewelled - clasps it fell slowly from her symmetrical form on the - perfumed floor with a rustle as of fallen leaves." - -Again, the delicious sachets of Mrs. Elinor Glyn's diction never -somehow exhale such whiffs of unadulterated English as the following: - - "With the seduction of your nude limbs and lying eyes - you make fools, cowards, and beasts of men." - -We may, perhaps, conclude this portion of our comparative analysis by -suggesting for the erotic crest of Mrs. Elinor Glyn a Debrett and an -Almanach de Gotha enveloped in a silk and scented "nightie"; for that -of Miss Marie Corelli, a volume of the Self-and-Sex series lying open -between a doffed domino and a crinoline. - -It is also noticeable that while Miss Corelli, with whatever detail she -may feel it her duty to portray their erotic sins, is always primarily -concerned with her characters' ethical significance for good or for -evil, Mrs. Glyn devotes herself more specifically to their physical -qualifications. Miss Corelli's typical hero, for instance, is the -Rev. John Walden, that middle-aged God's Good Man whose ripe dignity -of manhood is subordinated to the description of his more spiritual -qualities. Mrs. Glyn's typical hero is the Paul of _Three Weeks_, "a -splendid young English animal of the best class." - -We thus find that the space which Mrs. Elinor Glyn will devote to -telling us that her heroine's skin "seemed good to eat," or that her -hero had "fine lines" and "velvet eyelids," will be devoted by Miss -Corelli to the description of the corresponding attributes of her -hero or heroine's soul. Miss Corelli, however, is by no means obtuse -to the baleful effect on the spiritual life exercised by physical -blandishments. She will thus explain the precocious corruption by -senile perversity of a young girl in a remarkable passage whose stark -realism certainly succeeds in portraying fully an important ethical and -physiological truth: - - "Old roués smelling of wine and tobacco were eager to - take me on their knees and pinch my soft flesh;--they - would press my innocent lips with their withered - ones--withered and contaminated by the kisses of - cocottes and soiled doves of the town." - -As showing the comprehensive ultra-modernity of Miss Corelli's outlook -on the sexual question, we would refer finally to her frequent -allusions to "the unnatural and strutting embryos of a new sex which -will be neither male nor female." Though, however, she is in one of -her maxims apparently of opinion that "true beauty is sexless," we -would infer from the following passages that she does not go so far as -Péladan in ascribing an important ethical and sociological significance -to this new type: - - "Men's hearts are not enthralled or captured by a - something appearing to be neither man nor woman. And - there are a great many of these Somethings about just - now.... Beauty remains intrinsically where it was first - born and first admitted into the annals of Art and - Literature. Its home is still in the Isles of Greece - where burning Sappho loved and sang." - -Returning, however, from Lesbos to Stratford-on-Avon, let us make some -brief survey of Miss Corelli's style. To condense into a few phrases -so delicate and baffling a phenomenon is difficult. At one moment her -weighty nouns, guarded not infrequently by a triple escort of epithets, -possess the pomp and luxuriance of the true Asiatic style, at another -the brisk horsiness of her diction has all the spontaneous force of -English as it is actually spoken. At times such passages as "A moisture -as of tears glistened on the silky fringe of his eyelids--his lips -quivered--he had the look of a Narcissus regretfully bewailing his own -perishable loveliness. On a swift impulse of affection Theos threw one -arm round his neck in the fashion of a confiding schoolboy walking -with his favourite companion.... Sah-lûma looked up with a pleased yet -wondering glance. 'Thou hast a silvery and persuasive tongue,' he said -gently," are reminiscent of the mellifluous cadences of _Dorian Gray_. -Anon she will indulge in a vein of frank but militant simplicity that -bears a greater resemblance to the style of Mr. Robert Blatchford, the -celebrated atheist: - - "A small private dinner-party at which the company are - some six or eight persons at most is sometimes (though - not by any means always) quite a pleasant affair; but a - 'big' dinner in the 'big' sense of the word is generally - the most painful and dismal of functions except to - those for whom silent gorging and after-repletion are - the essence of all mental and physical joys. I remember - --and of a truth it would be impossible to forget--one - of those dinners which took place one season at a very - 'swagger' house--the house of a member of the old - British nobility, whose ancestors and titles always - excite a gentle flow of saliva in the mouths of snobs." - -We would incidentally mention that Miss Corelli is above all a purist -in her diction, and that she has registered her emphatic protest -against the use of the expression "Little Mary," "a phrase which, -although invented by Mr. J. M. Barrie, is not without considerable -vulgarity and offence." Though, moreover, her language is on the whole -essentially English, Miss Corelli by no means disdains the use of -classical figures. For instance in the phrase "after-repletion" from -our last quotation we meet an interesting survival of the Greek use -of a preposition to qualify a noun. The occasional anacoluthon also -(or lack of orthodox syntax) which is found in her works points to a -by no means unprofitable study of Thucydides, unless indeed it is -simply in order to emphasize her lack of any literary snobbery that our -authoress so frequently declines to curtsey to the affected rigidities -of pedantic grammar. Her frequent use, again, of compound words such -as "socially-popular," "brilliantly-appointed," "Jew-spider" betrays -the distinct influence of the Teutonic idiom, while such a phrase as -"braced with the golden shield of Courage" shows what unique results -can be obtained by a metaphor simultaneously fashioned out of the -defensive article of war of the ancient Spartan and the preservative -article of attire of the modern European. - -Finally, what is the real secret of Miss Corelli's success? It is -that she is sincere and that she means well. Whether her invective -rises to the lofty scorn of an Isaiah, a Mrs. Ormiston Chant, or a -Juvenal, or whether the smooth current of her hate meanders along -with all the tepid benevolence of a grandmotherly facetiousness, it -is impossible to doubt her portentous sincerity. It is this quality -which distinguishes her most effectively from the merely journalistic -authors of the "big" serials. These ladies and gentlemen, it is true, -effect their object and succeed in presenting the outlook on life of -the typical man or woman in the typical street or alley. But their -most brilliant productions but produce the effect of an intellectual -_tour de force_, as though achieved in despite of the natural bias -of their temperaments, by dint of a diligent study of the well-known -Manual of Serialese. Miss Marie Corelli needs no such manual. Her -_Weltanschauung_, broad, plain, simple, touched at once with a high -consciousness of her ethical mission and a ruthless observation for -all the sins and follies of the age, is the authentic and spontaneous -outcome of her own unique psychology. - - - - -FRANK WEDEKIND - - - "Alike in the comedies and dream-plays too You see but - a domesticated Zoo, Their blood so thin that in that - hot-house air They batten on a vegetable fare, And revel - chronically in chat and calls, Sitting like our friends - yonder in the stalls, _One's_ stomach of liqueurs will - disapprove, Another wonders if he really love, Another - hero starts with threats to pass From this foul world to - one perhaps more divine, But through five mortal acts - behold him whine, Yet no kind friend supplies the _coup - de grâce_, But the real thing, the wild and beauteous - beast, I, ladies, only I provide that feast." - - -These lines, delivered by a lion-tamer in the due professional -panoply of riding-coat, top-boots, and a revolver, are extracted -from the prologue of Frank Wedekind's tragedy, _Die Erdgeist_, and -illustrate efficiently the bizarre and Mephistophelian genius of a -German dramatist alike in his qualities and his defects indisputably -unique. Buccaneering no small way in front of the very left wing of -the æsthetic movement, Wedekind is at once the _bête noire_ of the -reactionaries and the spoilt darling of the ultra-moderns. To his -enemies he is a mere shoddy Anti-Christ, to his friends a dramatic -Messiah leading back the inner circles of the chosen intellects into -the promised land of vice and crime. It cannot be denied that his -subject-matter gives considerable colour to both these theories. Life, -as seen through the medium of his plays, is but a torrent of sex -foaming over the jagged rocks of crime and insanity. Take examples -from his three most powerful plays. In _Die Erdgeist_, the theme -of which is the baleful glamour of the "Evil Woman," three of the -four acts are punctuated with almost complete regularity by a death; -_Frühlingserwachen_, again, deals with hoydens and hobbledehoys, whose -only occupation appears to be the creation, discussion, and destruction -of life: In _Die Totentanz_, on the other hand, the scene is laid in -a "private hotel" (if one may borrow the highly convenient euphemism -of Mr. Shaw), while a charming interlude in lyrics is provided by one -of the boarders and a temporary visitor, and the hero and proprietor -is a "marquis," who psychologically is much more closely related to -Hamlet than to Sir George Crofts. Add to this choice of subject-matter -a violently impressionist technique and a hangman humour, whose grin is -at its broadest amid the sharpest agonies of the victims, and one can -form an approximately accurate idea of an author, conceivably somewhat -poisonous to anæmic constitutions, but certainly both piquant and -stimulating to the hardened and the adventurous. To arrive, however, -at a correct appreciation of so monstrous a phenomenon, it will be -advisable to investigate first the literary and social tendencies by -which it has been produced, together with the character of the audience -for whose edification it disports itself, and then by the light of such -investigations to proceed to an analysis of his individual works. - -For the ten or fifteen years following 1880, both the novel and the -drama in Germany were transformed into a Zolaesque laboratory, where -interesting human experiments were conducted by skilled operators -with scientific precision. There were three chief causes for this: -firstly, a healthy reaction against the colourless and conventional -school which had held the stage for so many years, a school somewhat -analogous to that of our own Mid-Victorians with their strong silent -men and sweet insipid women; secondly, a dogmatic and uncompromising -materialism was the creed of the most ambitious and efficient -intellects who found their chief mental diet in Zola, Taine, Darwin, -and Haeckel; thirdly, the abstract theory of the struggle for -existence had received an excessively concrete exemplification in the -Franco-German war and the colossal commercial impetus that followed -in the wake of a united Germany. Naturalism, however, was destined by -the very character of the nation to be but a passing phase. Even apart -from the inevitable swing of the pendulum and the powerful Catholic and -religious reaction, whose force is seen at a glance in the numerical -majority of the Centrum, the German temperament is in its essence as -romantic as the French is logical. The nation, moreover, being at -bottom religious, "the death of God," to use the classic phrase of -Nietzsche, left a most crying lacuna. The philosopher of the Superman -adroitly filled the vacancy by the deification of Man. Human life -became an end in itself embraced with the most poetic exaltation and -pursued with all the zeal of religious martyrdom. The struggle for -existence, ceasing to be a bare scientific formula, was metamorphosed -into a classic arena in which the "life-artist" battled for the crown -of his Dionysiac agonies, finding the most delicious music in the -perpetual clash of brain with brain, and experiencing a sweetness in -the very bitterness of the conflict.[1] - -Crushed then by the force of these tendencies, pure realism died. _Die -Ehre_ and _Die Weber_, it is true, still hold the German stage, but in -_Johannes_ and in _Die Versunkene Glocke_ respectively both Sudermann -and Hauptmann have deserted to the Romantic camp, taking with them, -however, a good proportion of the Realistic equipment. Particularly -typical of this amalgamation of the two forces is _Hannele_, where the -pathological and mystical explanations are to be accepted concurrently -and not as alternatives, as in Mr. Henry James's _Turn of the Screw_. -As was, however, only natural, there was a considerable reaction, and -orthodox naturalism was deliberately flouted by the Secessionsbühne in -1899 with their penchant for fairy-dramas and their genuinely æsthetic -project of stretching between the stage and the audience a veil of -transparent gauze intended to draw the scene into a misty distance. The -rankest idealism seemed for a time the order of the day. "All that the -young and the moderns have fought against with such animosity between -1880 and 1890, pseudo-idealism, bookish dialogue, false and artificial -characterisation, clap-trap stagecraft, all this celebrates in this -drama a joyous resurrection; let us acknowledge it; we have lost the -battle against falsehood and stupidity, conventionalism, and the -public, lost it absolutely," writes Julius Hart in the _Tag_ of 1902. - -But the most interesting direction was given to this neo-romanticism by -the æsthetic movement and _Kunstschwarmerei_ which began to sweep over -music, literature, painting, and the drama with an almost Nietzschean -intensity. Pure realism and pure romanticism, then, both being extinct, -and an agressive horde of exuberant and heretical artists being alive, -the solution for the artistic problem was found in the æsthetic and -romantic treatment of realistic themes. The prose of the human document -became illuminated with the poesy of the human imagination. Realism -and Romanticism went into partnership in the freest of unions, and -Wedekind is one of the most interesting fruits of this drastic alliance. - -The realistic method might be worse than useless for æsthetic purposes, -but the realistic stock-in-trade was invaluable material for spirits -bursting with an almost morbid healthiness, spirits for whom no subject -was too terrible, no sensation too violent. Let us, however, turn to -the official pronouncement of Wedekind's preface to his revised and -expurgated edition of _Die Büchse von Pandora_, in which he states his -defence to the prosecution which the first edition of that interesting -book had brought upon his martyred head: "Wedekind is an apostle -of the modern movement. It is the motto of this movement to effect -a transvaluation of æsthetic values in style and stagecraft. The -followers of this movement have for over fifteen years repudiated the -claims of the so-called 'æsthetic-content' and of mere formal beauty; -they hold it permissible to depict artistically and to represent on -the stage the ugly, the crude, the repulsive, and even the vulgar, -provided always that such characteristics are not treated as ends in -themselves--that is to say, when the work is not created by love of the -abhorrent for its own sake but is merely the medium for the expression -of an artistic idea. Wedekind, accordingly, as the disciple of these -authors, chooses to shed a light upon the darkest crannies of vice, and -in particular to surround with a poetic framework those sexual subjects -which have been the peculiar subject of medical science. The end and -goal of his writings is to awaken fear and pity." - -Such an apologia can scarcely be said to be superfluous when one of the -sub-plots of the play in question deals with the heroic, if somewhat -nauseating, rebellion of a woman in the determination of whose lot -nature has made a somewhat unfortunate mistake. - -Before, however, we proceed to gaze upon the black and lurid pictures -of our dramatic artist, it is advisable to turn very briefly to the -audience for whose particular benefit they exercise their hellish -fascination. Wedekind's audience, in a word, is the extreme left -wing. The German left wing, however, is considerably more numerous, -more advanced, and more dangerous than the English. Our own æsthetic -movement was killed almost instantaneously by the Wilde debacle. We -still, of course, have our ultra-modern movement, such as it is, but -for practical purposes no one could be more amiable or innocuous -than the ladies and gentlemen who used to constitute the highly -respectable audiences of the Court Theatre, or who find in the Stage -Society a mildly audacious means of spending their Sabbath evenings. -Germany, however, with its vastly superior education, and its horde -of professional men and women, schoolmasters and piano-mistresses, -lawyers, doctors, poets, and littérateurs, has the disease of modernity -with a vengeance, carrying through each symptom to its logical -conclusion with a violence and intensity to which our own fluttering -unconventionalism affords but the faintest and most shadowy parallel. -Free-love, which, with the possible exception of a certain ephemeral -incident successfully immortalised in three or four recent novels, -is in England little more than a name, the mythical bogey with which -the halfpenny press pretend to frighten their delighted readers, or -is at best among the smart and the semi-educated rich the philosophic -sanction for highly unphilosophic impulses, is in Germany a theoretic -dogma almost as sacred as that of woman suffrage and demanding almost -as devout sacrifices on the shrine of its philosophic altar. When again -the subtle souls of Great Britain will so far break the ice of their -insular reserve as to discourse about the tragedy of existence, the -far more heroic spirits of German modernity will have recourse to all -the æsthetic delights of a fine and artistic suicide, which indeed -in the most advanced circles is almost a fashionable analogue to our -own appendicitis, or will find in the modern dogma of "living their -own life" the substantial though possibly slightly less exhausting -equivalent to our English hunger-strike. How strong is the neo-æsthetic -movement may be gauged by the phenomenal success in Berlin of _Salome_ -and _Monna Vanna,_ the great scenes of which were followed avidly -by young girls with an enthusiasm which was more than æsthetic. It -may also be mentioned incidentally that Wilde's _De Profundis_ was -published in German before it appeared in England, a circumstance -due quite as much to a keener intellectual enthusiasm as to superior -commercial enterprise. - -Realising, then, that while it is orthodox in England to be ashamed of -one's passions and emotions, the German ambition is to plume oneself on -taking everything _an grand sérieux_, let us turn to a consideration -of those plays in which, on a large canvas and in big bold splashes -reminiscent of the not unanalogous methods of the Secessionist -painters, Wedekind is pleased to present framed in gigantic irony: - - "Les immondes chacals, les panthères, les lices, - Les singes, les scorpions, les vautours, les serpents, - Les monstres glapissants, hurlants, grognants, rampants, - Dans la ménagerie infâme de nos vices." - -It will, perhaps, be well to start with that little masterpiece of -a dramatic caricature, _Der Kammersänger_. A fashionable singer, -having completed his engagements in a provincial town, is snatching -at last a few minutes' well-earned repose prior to catching his -train. He has given strict orders that he is at home to no one. But -there is no repose for the famed. An English school miss, who has -waited two hours in the rain, smuggles herself into the room: she -prattles her enthusiasm with pretty infantile gush: a few deft words -of paternal advice and she is summarily dismissed. But again the great -man's seclusion is desecrated by the entrance of a brother artist, a -pathetically grotesque figure of a megalomaniac failure whose publisher -complains that he spoils his one chance of success by refusing to die -and thus afford an opportunity for posthumous discovery. But the genial -tolerance of the illustrious one is considerably harshened when his -colleague insists on playing his own compositions in a scene every whit -as racy and delightful as the classic episode in Wycherley's _Plain -Dealer_, where Major Oldfox, having tied down the Widow Blackacre, -discharges at her helpless person the most deadly poetical fusillade. -Exit, however, the composer, after an interesting philosophic lecture -by his victim on the singer's life and of the contempt which as -a practical man (for at an early period in his career he was "in -carpets") he has for his fashionable bourgeois audience for whom he is -a mere article of luxury as much in request as a motor-car or a new -dress. Then, as the climax of this crescendo of invaders, enter Helene: -a formal invitation to elope: the artist, however, has his contracts -to fulfil and his train to catch, and the favour is declined with -thanks: tears and threats of suicide: he endeavours to pacify her, and -she promises to be good: he will miss his train if he is not quick. -The romantic woman, however, unable to bear the final parting, shoots -herself on the spot. The remorseful lover follows her example? Not a -bit of it. He is politely regretful for the contretemps, but after all -business is business, and he must catch his train. It is impossible -without copious quotations to give a full idea of the piquant irony -with which the comedy is salted; the truth and reality of the theme -stand out all the more brilliant from their garb of romantic travesty, -while the superb impudence of utilising death as an essentially comic -climax is without parallel in European literature. - -Let us, however, now turn from light comedy to serious tragedy in -the shape of _Der Totentanz_. The scene, as already mentioned, is -laid in a "private hotel." Where Shaw, however, sees but the problem, -Wedekind has only eyes for the poetry. To Shaw the irony is a weapon, -to Wedekind an end in itself. Elfrida, a young lady in Reformkleid, -one of the most militant members of a suppression society, interviews -the proprietor, the Marquis Casti Piani, on the subject of a former -maid of hers, for whom she has been searching for some years. The girl -is identified, and the whole question philosophically discussed. The -proprietor, moreover, who is an extremely well-dressed gentleman with -a first-class education, polished manners, and all the introspective -subtlety of the most modern of decadents, neatly turns the tables -by announcing that the real impetus which made the girl change her -calling was the "suppression literature" which the puritanical young -woman had with unpardonable carelessness left lying about. The ice -being thus broken, he proceeds in his capacity of sexual expert to -diagnose the respective psychologies of his _tête-à-tête_ and himself. -Why, they are both tarred with the same brush. If he, the trafficker, -pursues his unpopular vocation even more as a matter of sexual mania -than of commercial enterprise, so does she, the philanthropist, ply -her good work out of an equally morbid craving to move in a congenial -atmosphere. Are they not both but the obverse and reverse of the same -medal? Paradoxical and super-Shavian dissertations on the theory of -woman are then followed by blandishments and caresses, in respect of -which with a marvellous genius for brutality he chaffs her on the -crudity and inexperience of her technique. Then comes the most _outré_ -scene of the play when Casti Piani and Elfrida watch from behind -a screen the courtship of Lisiska, the missing servant-girl, by a -young man in a check knickerbocker suit; the bizarre paradox is but -accentuated by the swing and beauty of the lyrics in which this wooing -is conducted, and the distorted idealism of the girl, who, as the -martyr-priestess of the _joie de vivre_, is almost genuinely convinced -of the sanctity of her mission. The interlude over, the audience come -from behind the curtain. Stung to the wildest pitch of emulation, the -extreme limit of self-sacrificing ecstasy, the neurotic woman completes -the cycle of her psychic revolution by the supplication, "Verkaufen Sie -mich." The marquis, who has thus succeeded beyond his most sanguine -expectations, in a fit of nervous revulsion shoots himself before the -girl's eyes. Three of the inmates rush from three distinct doors, -and the over-civilised satyr expires with their kisses on his lips, -kisses savoured and criticised with all the frenzy of the moribund -connoisseur--"Küsse mich--nein, das war nicht--Küsse--küsse mich -anders." - -It is impossible to express more cogently the whole tragedy of the -dying sensualist. - -No normal Englishman can be expected to enjoy such a play; in justice, -however, to the author, this freny is æsthetic as well as sexual. New -worlds, in fact, have been needed to regale the insatiate appetites of -the dramatist and his hearers; "Heaven has been blown to pieces by the -artillery of science; earth is cold, stale and unpalatable; perforce -let us batten on the fires of hell," would run his motto. As Baudelaire -in verse, and Beardsley in painting, found their theme in the vicious -and the abhorrent, so does Wedekind in the drama. As an ordinary play, -_Der Totentanz_ falls outside judgment; as a sheer literary curiosity, -a dramatic fantasia on the sex-motif, a deliberate essay in the art of -the ironical and the brutal, the piece achieves its own and peculiar -ambition. - -_Die Junge Welt_, on the other hand, flows in a current which, in -spite of the eventual madness of the principal male character, is -limpid and playful by comparison with the Phlegethontian course of the -_Totentanz._ The theme of the comedy is the woman movement. In the -prologue, one of his most aery and delicious pieces of work, Wedekind -shows us a bevy of schoolgirls at lessons, chattering, fooling, and -"ragging" their master with the most delightful _naïveté_. They have a -pretty taste in literature, forsooth, reading surreptitious copies of -_The Arabian Nights_, talking gravely of Schopenhauer and Nietzsche, -and quoting with the prettiest of pedantry Schiller, Goethe, and even -Ovid. No mere prattlers, however. Glorying in their grievance, they -found a league, the solemn oath of whose members is never to marry -until the most glaring outrages in the education of the young are -remedied. Towards the end of the scene some youthful figures of the -opposite sex enter. How long will the league last? - -Then we come to the actual play where the sacred circle has been -already cut by a marriage of one of the members. The whole comedy, in -fact, shows how irresistibly the Life Force claims its own. The brisk -racy dialogue and the satiric character drawing of the ultra-moderns -are equally delicious. Particularly charming are Anna, masking the -temperament of her Shavian namesake beneath the pose of the new woman; -Karl, the picturesque scamp, who has married a seamstress on abstract -socialistic principles; and Meyer, the modern poet, who, when his -fiançée presents herself to recite a poem which he has written, in -the most faithful of Cupid costumes, is most righteously indignant -because--the dress fails to harmonise with the subtle spirit of his -masterpiece. - -A masterly little piece of irony, again, is the celebrated -stage-direction, when, at the climax of an intense passage, a -baby squalls, and is carried off the stage by its mother, to the -accompaniment of music. Perhaps, however, the deftest touch of -satire is the analysis of the decline of the _détraqué littérateur,_ -accustomed to transcribe each kiss fresh from the lips of his beloved -into his artistic note-book.--"When I made my psychological studies on -Anna, then Anna becomes unnatural--on some other specimen--she became -jealous--there was no other alternative but to make them on myself." - -Wedekind's dramatic masterpieces, however, are _Die Erdgeist_. and -_Frühlingserwachen_, which merit, consequently, a somewhat more -detailed analysis. _Die Erdgeist_, as has been already remarked, -deals with the theme of the modern Lilith, not from the point of view -of orthodox dramatic technique like Mr. Pinero, not scientifically -like Zola, but æsthetically. No show of esoteric detail, no orthodox -_dénouement_; simply atmosphere. The play, together with its sequel, -_Die Büchse von Pandora_, constitutes the epic of the courtesan. In the -first act, Schwarz, a painter, is at work on the portrait, in pierrot -costume, of the wife of a Dr. Goll, a lady rejoicing in the various -Christian names of Nellie, Eva, and Lulu. A middle-aged journalist, -named Schön, who is in the studio, is on old and friendly terms with -Frau Goll. The fact that female beauty is the _raison être_ of the -creature's existence is soon made apparent by the following dialogue: - - LULU. Here I am. - - SCHÖN. Splendid. - - LULU. Well? - - SCHÖN. You put the wildest imagination to the blush. - - LULU. Do you find me nice? - - SCHÖN. You're a picture that makes artists despair. - -The pompous conventionalism of the doctor is seen almost immediately, -when he suggests with heavy gravity that she is not wearing her costume -with sufficient reserve. The artist proceeds to work, and the mere -mechanism of posing brings out at once the sheer sexuality of the -animal which he is painting. Goll is carried off by Schön, and the -artist and the pierrot are left alone. The young painter proves more -attractive than the old professor, who arrives towards the climax of a -wild scene. In the scuffle, Goll is killed. Death, however, is a pet -theme of Wedekind, who proceeds to batten thereon with abnormal gusto. - - SCHWARZ. The doctor is bound to be here in a minute. - - LULU. Doctoring won't help him. - - SCHWARZ. Still, in a case like this, one does what one - can. - - LULU. He doesn't believe in doctors. - - SCHWARZ. Won't you, at any rate, change? - - LULU. Yes, at once. - - SCHWARZ. Why are you waiting? - - LULU. I say-- - - SCHWARZ. What? - - LULU. Please close his eyes. - - SCHWARZ. They are awful. - - LULU. Nothing like as awful as you. - - SCHWARZ. As I? - - LULU. You're a depraved character. - - SCHWARZ. Doesn't all this affect you? - - LULU. Yes, I too am as well moved. - - SCHWARZ. Then I ask you not to say anything. - - LULU. You are moved as well. - -Shocked by her comparative callousness, Schwarz subjects her to a -catechism--does she believe in a Creator, a soul, or anything--only to -find himself beating against an eternal "I don't know." - -So ends the first act, and this creature, whose hair is a net of -murder, whose lips are poisoned fruit, and whose eyes are pits of hell, -has already one death to her credit. - -The second act discloses Schwarz married to Lulu, and in the heyday of -artistic fame and fortune. A fleeting light is cast on the swamp, from -which the fiend has emerged, by the entry and departure of Schigolch, -her old ragamuffin of a sire. Then follows a _tête-à-tête_ between Lulu -and Schön. Combining, as she does, the soul of an Ibsen woman with -the body of a Phryne, she complains of her husband's obtusity: "He -is not a child--he is commonplace--he has no education--he realises -nothing--he realises neither me nor himself--he is blind, blind--he -doesn't know me, but he loves me; that is an unbridgeable gulf." The -painter returns, and is given by Schön the outlines of his wife's past. -Schön had picked her out of the gutter at the age of twelve, and had -had her educated; her antecedents were ghastly; after the death of -Schön's wife, Lulu wished to marry him; to obviate that, he made her -marry Dr. Goll with his half a million. Lulu is anxious to be good, -but must be taken seriously. The painter then commits suicide, and the -author feasts again on the carnage in a scene which, for sheer horror, -challenges even _Macbeth_. - -"After you," says Lulu, after they have heard the body fall, and Schön -has opened the door. - - SCHÖN. There's the end of my engagement. Ten minutes ago - he lay here.[2] - - . . . . . . . . . . . . . - - SCHÖN. That is your husband's blood. - - LULU. It leaves no stain. - - SCHÖN. Monster! - - LULU. Of course you will marry me. - -Then, by way of a really strong curtain, they send for a reporter, and -dictate the official version of the thrilling story. The third act is -the dressing-room of Lulu; she has gone on the music-hall stage as a -barefoot dancer of classical measure; Schön, having temporarily freed -himself from the spell, is about to marry a charming, "innocent child," -whom he has brought to witness the spectacle. The insult stimulates -the girl to a supernormal fascination. Having refused the proposals -of a prince, she deliberately sets herself to cast her wand over the -journalist. She mocks him brazenly, with her magic potency over him, in -a scene of the most subtle cruelty. - - SCHÖN. Don't look at me so shamelessly. - - LULU. No one is keeping you here. - -The Circæan witchery is complete, and the man, transformed, writes, at -the dictation of the enchantress, a letter breaking off his engagement. - -In the fourth act, nemesis is at hand. His marriage with Lulu shatters -the constitution of the aging journalist, who falls a victim to -persecution-mania. Lulu, though genuinely in love with him, surrenders -herself almost mechanically to the kisses of his son. The journalist -can stand no more--such a creature is not fit to live--she must commit -suicide with the revolver which he produces. Simply as a matter of -self-preservation, she turns the weapon against the man himself. Then -ensues the most devilish scene of all. Fearing the prison-cage, the -brute turns for help to the child of its prey: "I shot him because he -wanted to shoot me. I loved no man in the world like I did him. Alwa, -demand what you will. Look at me, Alwa; look at me, man, look at me." - -Those anxious for the further history of Lulu should turn to the livid -pages of _Die Büchse von Pandora._ There, in flaming characters, they -will read of her imprisonment, of how, being deprived of a mirror, -she at last found relief by seeing her reflection in a new spoon, of -her rescue therefrom by her inamorata, the Countess Geschwitz, and of -her flight to Paris with Alwa Schön; they will read of her life there -among _souteneurs_, blackmailers, and millionaires, of her migration -from Paris to London, of her degradation to the streets, and her final -assassination at the hands of Jack the Ripper. - -Wedekind, who to the _métier_ of the artist joins that of the -_enfant terrible_, strains in this play every nerve to shock. As the -susceptibilities of the left wing of most of the English intellects -are about on a par with those of the right wing of the German æsthetic -movement, from our own point of view he more than overshoots the mark. -None the less, the English reader, though stifled amid the fumes of the -monstrous debauch, is forced to admire here and there passages of a -potency truly infernal. The final scene in the wet and noisome garret -is indisputably tragic, when the squalid thing gazes at Schwarz's -pierrot picture of her dead beauty, only to throw it in revulsion out -of the window, or where Alwa and Schigolch analyse the melancholy past. - - ALWA. She should have been a Catherine of Russia. - - SCHIGOLCH. That beast! - - ALWA. Although her development was precocious, she - once had the expression of a gay and healthy child of - five years old. She was then only three years younger - than I. In spite of her marvellous superiority to me - in practical matters, she let me explain to her the - meaning of _Tristan and Isolde_, and how fascinating - she was when I read it to her and she grasped its - meaning. From the little sister that felt herself like - a schoolgirl in her first marriage, she became the wife - of an unfortunate and hysterical artist; from being - the wife of the artist, she became the wife of my late - father; from being the wife of my father, she became my - mistress; so flows the stream of the world. Who can swim - against it? - -So ends a play not without some resemblance to Hogarth's _Harlot's -Progress_, if one can imagine the fanatical moralist treating such -a subject with the artistic irony of a very much Germanised Aubrey -Beardsley. - -But Wedekind's most serious contribution to dramatic literature is to -be found in _Frühlingserwachen._ The orthodox stage-conventions, it -is true, are sweepingly ignored; the scene is changed with more than -Shakespearean frequency; the characters indulge in prolonged romantic -soliloquies; none the less, the night of genuine tragedy broods over -the whole piece. - -The first act opens with a conversation between Frau Bergman and her -daughter Wendla. The girl is growing up, fit to wear longer dresses, -and exhibiting the morbidity appropriate to her years. In the next -scene we see schoolboys at talk; with intense gravity they travel -from their work to religion, and from religion to sex, discussing the -Platonic and American systems of education, remarking that Superstition -is the Charybdis into which one flies out of the Scylla of religious -mania, or comparing notes on the growth of their respective manhoods. -Melchior, the leading spirit of the knot, promises to provide his less -experienced friend, Moritz, with a written synopsis of the mechanism -of life. In the third scene, we get the other side of the medal, when -a bevy of girls discuss life. How shall we dress our children? Which -is it better to be--a girl, or a man? Then, again, the scene is filled -with schoolboys, and we see the academic enthusiasm of young Germany. - -"I've got my move," cried Melchior. "I've got my move--now the world -can go to pot--if I hadn't got my move, I'd have shot myself." A -British youth with his cricket or football "colours" fresh on his -victorious head could not possibly have manifested a more sacred joy, -and one thinks incidentally of the Viennese student who shot the -professor who had ploughed him in his viva voce. - -Scene V, after a short philosophic exposition by Melchior of the -universality of egoism, contains an episode between himself and Wendla, -when at her own request he hits and beats her, so that, forsooth, she -may realise the sufferings of a friend of hers similarly handled by her -parents. After we have paid a visit to Melchior's study, where Melchior -and Moritz are reading _Faust_ together, we are transported once again -to the house of Wendla and her mother. This scene is the most pathetic -in the first act. The old fairy tales about the stork cease to obtain -credence, but the birthright of knowledge claimed by the child is -refused by the mother. - - "Why can't you tell me, Mother dear--see, I kneel at - your feet and lay my head upon your lap--you put your - skirt over my head and tell me, and tell me as if you - were alone in the room. I promise not to move--I promise - not to shriek." - -Could the dim forebodings of innocence, the harrowing consciousness of -mystery, be more poignantly delineated? - -In the third act, events move apace. A poetic nemesis befalls the -prudish mother, for the child surrenders all unwitting to the ardour -of Melchior. Spring has indeed awakened. Moritz, however, has been -unsuccessful at school; he wanders into the forest to make the end. -Four pages of soliloquy; a dramatic device, no doubt, but none the less -indicative of the exaggerated introspective pedantry of the average -German schoolboy. "I wander to the altar like the youth in old Etruria, -whose death-rattle purchased deliverance for his brothers in the coming -year." Then, when his thoughts are at their darkest, a pretty little -artist's model comes tripping along barefoot; gay and sparkling is her -careless life. "Come home with me." But the schoolboy has his lessons -to do, and he hies himself to his final task. Act III.--Apprehensive of -a suicide epidemic, the masters hold a meeting in which the question -of whether the window shall be open or shut is apparently of as much -importance as the expulsion of Melchior. Then comes the funeral of -Moritz; the father repudiates the paternity of so prodigal a son, while -the classical professor sapiently remarks, "If he had only learnt his -history of Greek literature, he would have had no occasion to hang -himself." Melchior, however, is still at large, and after a harrowing -dialogue between his father and mother, is packed off to a reformatory. - -But the transformation scene goes merrily on, and we behold first the -reformatory, from which Melchior effects an escape, and then Wendla's -sick-room. Amid the most trenchant satire on the pompous fashionable -doctor, it becomes apparent that the child has brought home to her -mother the full wages of innocence. - - FRAU BERGMANN. You have a child. - - WENDLA. But that is not possible, Mother. I am not - married. Oh, Mother, why did you not tell me everything? - -The finale of the play is laid in the churchyard, over whose wall there -clambers the escaped Melchior; he walks past the tombstone of Wendla, -dead from her mother's heroic efforts to save her reputation; after an -interview with Moritz, out for a nocturnal stroll, with his head tucked -under his arm, he meets a mysterious stranger, who launches him in the -world. - -Such is a synopsis of a play produced in Germany amid the wildest -acclamation and disparagement. Its success is largely due to the fact -that it is pregnant with a problem which, in Germany, at any rate, is -of peculiar moment. "Is such a subject capable of artistic treatment?" -demands the man of the old school. If, however, the treatment is -somewhat more drastic than in Longfellow's - - "Standing with reluctant feet - Where the brook and river meet," - -the subject is the same, the reason for the difference being that -German blood flows with a swifter current and a fuller volume than the -thin New England trickle of the early nineteenth century. As a sheer -piece of psychology, the work is as great as James's _The Awkward Age_, -if one may compare a Vulcanic forge with a Daedalean web. That, indeed, -the theme is unfit for tragic treatment, let those maintain whose -ideally balanced temperaments have never experienced the throes and -travails that attend the birth of manhood or womanhood. - -Some reference should be made to Wedekind's less important works--to -the somewhat inferior farce, _Der Liebestrank_; to the highly -serious _So ist das Leben_, a work whose psychology and symbolism -are analogous to Ibsen's _Volksfiend_[3]; to the amusing, but not -particularly significant _Marquis von Keith_, with its mixture of -the problem, the extravaganza, and the character study, and its -delightful comedy passage, when a boy wins his way with his father -by blackmailing him with suicide; to _Minnehaha_, the prose-poem, -compounded of the spirits of the classics and the coulisses; to the -satiric grotesque, _Oaha_, an elaborate skit on the celebrated Munich -journal with its chronic confiscations by the police and its special -"prison-editor"; and to _Hidalla_, that rollicking burlesque tragedy -of Free Love and Eugenics. On a higher plane, however, are the volume -of short stories, _Feuerwerk_, and the collection of poems entitled -_Die Vier Jahrzeiten_. Like Guy de Maupassant, Wedekind treats only -the one subject. His technique, however, is different, and while the -Frenchman crowns each tale with a climax, the German clothes it with an -atmosphere. _Feuerwerk,_ moreover, is worth reading, if only for the -style, with its noble simplicity and its majestic roll. The masterpiece -of the series is _Der Greise Freier_, where, set in the background of -an Italian honeymoon, lies painted the grey romance of a young girl -realising her love in the very arms of death. Matchless, again, as a -mock heroic _tour de force_ is _Rabbi von Ezra_, a philosophic sermon -by an aged Hebrew, delivered in the grandiose style of the prophets, -on his comparative experiences with the wife of his bosom and the -strange woman. The poems, also, are, with a few exceptions, innumerable -variations of the eternal theme. With all its fantastic bizarrerie, -reminiscent of Baudelaire, Poe, or Verlaine, the mood is throughout -more masculine, not to say more brutal. No lover has yet set his -enamoured features to a grin of such tigerish ferocity; no writer of -songs has yet refined melodious lyrics with such Nietzschean gusto, -such Satanic exultation. _Keuscheit_, in particular, is truly the -apotheosis of the super-brutal. In a more normal vein, making quite a -new departure in the art of light verse, is the charming poem beginning: - - "Ich habe meine Tante geschlachtet, - Meine Tante war alt und schwach." - -Of course it is inevitable that, like the Secessionist painters, -seeking, as he does, such drastic effects by such drastic means, when -he falls, he should fall with overwhelming heaviness. Occasionally, -instead of being powerful, he is merely crude. At his best, however, -his poems exhibit the swing and ripple of the authentic lyric. Typical -of him at his best are _Heimweh_ and _Der Blinde Knabe_. Yet now and -again the cry of the sufferer pierces the cynic's mask. - - "Ich stehe schuldlos vor meinem Verstand, - Und fühle des Schicksals zermalmende Hand." - -Among Wedekind's more recent works we would mention _Zensur_ and -_Schloss von Wetterstein_ and, far more particularly, _Musik_ and -_Franziska_. - -_Zensur_, with its sub-title _a Theodicy_, is an _apologia pro vitâ -suâ_, arising more particularly out of the fact that the play, _Die -Büchse von Pandora_, was actually censored even in Munich. The -protagonist of this work, _Walter Buridan_, is without disguise -Frank Wedekind, for the postulate of the Wedekindian personality, -as a fundamental element in contemporary national culture, is as -important in Germany as was some years ago the postulate of the Shavian -personality in England. And, indeed, with all his clownings and -buffooneries, Wedekind is frequently as serious as Mr. Shaw himself. It -will therefore be appreciated that the passage which we are now going -to quote out of the dialogue between Buridan and the Court official -is meant deliberately, not as a mere piece of impudence but in all -earnestness. - - BURIDAN. But can you adduce anything out of my writings - which hasn't for its ultimate object to glorify and - represent artistically that eternal justice before which - we all bend the knee with all humility? - - DR. PRANTL. What do you mean by eternal justice? - - BURIDAN. I understand by eternal justice the same thing - as that which John the Evangelist called the Logos. I - understand by it the same thing as that which the whole - of Christendom worships as the Holy Ghost. In no one - of my works have I put forward the good as bad or the - bad as good. I have never falsified the consequences - which accrue to a man as the result of his actions. I - have simply portrayed those consequences in all their - inexorable necessity. - -In a somewhat different vein is the weird trilogy, _In Allen Satteln -Gerecht_ (_Ready for Everything_), _Mit Allen Hüden Gehetzt_ (_Up -to Everything_), and _In Allen Wassern Gewaschen_, which have -been recently published together, under the title of _Schloss von -Wetterstein._ In these three plays the lascivious and the intellectual, -the monstrous and the real, the comic and the tragic, are linked -together in a union which, though to some extent burlesque, is on -the whole successful. The dialogue, in particular, in this hybrid -of tragedy and extravaganza, with its ingenious twists, its lusty -thwackings, its shrewd, violent thrusts, not merely home, but, as it -were, right through the body, is in its own way packed with genius. -Effie, in particular, with her insatiable appetite in the erotic -sphere, is the greatest _enfant terrible_ in the whole of modern -European literature. And truly tragic is her dismay when she discovers -that that _Unersättlichkeit in Liebe_, on which she has built her whole -philosophy of life, is simply to be attributed to chronic indigestion, -and that the instantaneous effect which she produces upon males is -simply due to a diseased liver. - -More serious, though with the usual Wedekindian sardonic undercurrent, -is _Musik_. This play consists of four "pictures" from the life of -a young singing student, Klara Hûhnerwadel, studying her art in the -household of a professor who is married to another woman. Events take -their normal course, but there is a great uproar owing to the arrest -and trial of the woman, through whose illegal assistance Klara had -successfully escaped the natural corollary of her rash romanticism. -Klara is consequently packed off across the frontier to avoid arrest -herself. She returns, however, is duly arrested, and the second -"picture" shows her in prison. In the third "picture," she is once -more back at the professor's house, and once more does history repeat -itself, though in this case the legal ordinances are not infringed. In -the fourth "picture," Klara has given birth to a son, of whom she is -devotedly fond. With true Wedekindian irony, however, the child dies on -the stage. Such is the skeleton of the plot, squalid, though no doubt -highly plausible. But the play must be read itself to appreciate the -sheer force of its sinister realism. The characters in this piece are -among the most convincing that ever walked the boards of a Wedekind -play, painted too in colours far more sober than those fantastic -luridities with which this author is accustomed to disport himself. -It is, in fact, if we may draw a slightly startling analogy, a "slice -of life" play of the Galsworthian genre. Before passing from _Musik_, -we would like to quote the passage describing the child's death as -typically characteristic of the author's brutal pathos. - - ELSE. The bath will do him good (_with her bare arm in - the water_)--it's all cooking salt--the salt won't hurt - him, will it, doctor? - - DR. SCHWARZKOPF (_by the cot, dully_). There is nothing - more to be done. The child is dead. - - KLARA (_gives an agonised shriek_). - - [_The_ Landlady _picks up the tub of water from the - floor and carries it out_. - -In _Franziska_ (1912), Wedekind has given fresh rein to his fantastic -exuberance. This weird drama deals with the experiences of an -ultra-modern Mademoiselle de Maupin, who, having sold herself to the -devil in the shape of an impresario, who holds her strictly to her -bargain, proceeds to see life like a veritable twentieth-century female -Faust. And life, forsooth, she sees with a vengeance, playing the smart -"blood" in a gay _Weinstube_; marrying a rich heiress, so naïve and -so unsophisticated as to put everything down to sheer frigidity on -the part of her imagined husband; successfully masquerading in silk -knee-breeches to a silly old monarch as a genuine spirit, only finally, -like a contemporary - - "In veterem Cæneus revoluta figuram," - -to subside both purified and enlightened byher kaleidoscopic -experiences into the healthy bliss of the quasi-domestic life with a -new, honest, and well-meaning lover. - -The wild, rollicking humour of this play will perhaps appeal in vain -to the more stolid of our English minds. Some help may perhaps be -found for the due appreciation of this, and, indeed, of all Wedekind's -plays, if it be borne in mind that for a modern woman to live her own -life in Southern Germany (_sich auszuleben_, to employ the technical -and official phrase) is not revolutionary but elementary, and is far -more of a cliché than a new departure. Further, the play claims to be -treated not by the standards of the ordinary drama, but as a problem -farce, an Aristophanic modernity, a philosophic extravaganza, a -dramatic anomaly, very much _sui generis_, and consequently requiring -very special critical standards. Judging it by these standards, it is -impossible not to be swept away by the high spirits of this strange -piece of art. Who, too, can gainsay the practical up-to-dateness of a -play where maidens insure against children, wives against infidelity, -monarchs against madness? And who will not admire the almost morbid -conscientiousness of Franziska, who, having had one lover of the -name of Veit, and another lover of the name of Ralph, and becoming -subsequently a mother, determines, out of comprehensive precaution -and sheer sense of fairness, to call the little boy by the impartial -designation of Veitralph? It is, however, only fair to state, as we -have already hinted, that the play finishes up on a note of genuine -pathos and semi-conjugal affection. - -What, then, is Wedekind's final claim? As a play-wright in the ordinary -sense of the word, his pretensions are negligible. One of the most -marked features, however, of the last decade and a half has been the -evolution of fresh species in the genus drama. Thus, apart from the -drama or play of action, with its orthodox _dénouement_ and climax, we -have the "idea" play, as in Mr. Shaw; the "slice of life" play, as in -Mr. Galsworthy; or the "æsthetic atmosphere" play, as in Maeterlinck. -Whether we call such work drama, or quasi-drama, is as immaterial -from the larger standpoint as the surname we choose to give to the -individual who did, or who did not, write _Hamlet_. Even, however, -with this extended classification, it is difficult to docket into any -definite pigeon-hole so idiosyncratic a temperament. If we have to -commit ourselves, we would say that the Wedekind play is the lyric play -of irony--irony both comic and tragic. Even making all due allowances -for defects, for the superfluous thickness with which sometimes he -places his harsh and violent colours, or for occasional amorphous -construction, as in _Frühlingserwachen_, as a master of irony he is -indisputably a genius. No _soeva indignatio_, it is true, lends its -ethical sanction, no Hellenic [Greek: _eironeia_] its delicate grace: -it is for his own fiendish delectation that he plies his knout on that -world of abnormalities called into existence for this express purpose, -and writhing prettily in the most ingenious of dances. Yet with what -art and dexterity does he operate, finding with unerring aim the raw -place of his victims, and drawing from these apparent grotesques the -blood of genuine humanity. Your specialist will no doubt diagnose him a -decadent, yet he is tense with a frenzied virility. It is, as we have -said before, the very exuberance and violence of his energy that leads -him plumb the abyss. He has himself well expressed his whole outlook -on life, and indeed the whole Nietzschean standpoint, in the following -lines: - - "For them your kind and gracious face, - For me the sword smiles sweet, - For me the savage bear's embrace, - For them old Bruin's meat. - The brutal foe's own strife I choose, - They the humanities of truce." - - -[Footnote 1: _Cf._ the lines of Ricarda Huch to life: "Denn du bist -suss in deinen Bitternessen."] - -[Footnote 2: It is curious to notice that almost identical words were -used in _Irene Wycherley_.] - -[Footnote 3: "Volksfiend" (sic); German is "Volksfeind", Norwegian is -"Folkefiende"--transcriber's note--M.D.] - - - - -ARTHUR SCHNITZLER - - - "My dear friend, as far as that grotesque realism is - concerned, which considers it its duty to get along - without stage management or prompter, that realism in - which a fifth act frequently fails to be reached because - a tile has fallen upon the hero's head in the second - act--I am not interested. As for myself, I let the - curtain go up when it begins to be amusing, and I let it - go down at the moment which I consider fit." - - -In these words, touched with a delicate flippancy which is thoroughly -characteristic, Arthur Schnitzler endeavours to summarise that -technique which, though it has lifted him to the summit of the Austrian -drama, is as yet comparatively unknown to the English public, if one -excepts the recent performance by the Stage Society of _The Green -Cockatoo_ and _Countess Mizzi_, and the production of _Anatol_ at the -Palace Music Hall. - -It is, in fact, because Schnitzler's plays combining, and on the whole -combining efficiently, the psychological interest of pure "problem" -with the emotional interest of pure "drama," afford specimens of a -type novel to, at any rate, the majority of our theatre-goers, that -they provoke something more than a cursory examination, not only of -themselves, but of the standpoint and method of the man who wrote -them. Above all is this the case in a country like England, where -the problem play is hampered by so many handicaps. The exaggerated -officialdom of our English propriety, beneficial though it may be -from the moral aspect, produces artistically unfortunate results. -Many first-class problem plays are exiled from the stage, but that is -not where the mischief ends. Even when they are produced, it is only -to be looked on with suspicion as eccentric symptoms of dangerous, -not to say anarchistic tendencies. When, however, official and -"respectable" dramatists (_i.e._ dramatists of the stamp of Mr. Pinero -or of Mr. Sutro) produce so-called problem plays before official and -"respectable" audiences (_i.e._ audiences of a calibre other than -that of those who patronise the Little Theatre and Stage Society -performances), it will be usually found (if, indeed, the play is not -an innocuous family drama, or simply a comedy of intrigue, for in many -cases the word "problem" has degenerated into a mere euphemism for some -slight forgetfulness of the Seventh Commandment) that the dramatist -has sacrificed the duty of working out his problems logically and -artistically to the still more paramount duty of appeasing the moral -consciousness of his audience. - -Further, it is one of the precepts of our dramatic technique, most -honoured in the observance, that the action should take place among -people of high social position; as, however, it so happens that it is -rather among the more intellectual and introspective of the middle -classes that genuine problems tend to arise, the scope of the dramatist -becomes automatically narrowed. Of course we have our dramatic left -wing, Mr. Shaw, Mr. Galsworthy, Mr. Barker, our ultra-modern exponents -of the drama of ideas and the drama of psychology. But here, again, -our revolutionaries overshoot the mark in their reaction from the -orthodox. Mr. Shaw will bombard us with ideas till we can hardly -stand. When, however, we have recovered our balance, we observe that, -however indisputable may be his pre-eminence as a thaumaturgic apostle -of a successfully dechristianised Christianity, his characters are -marked by comparatively few traits of individual psychology, and -participate in comparatively little dramatic action. It is, indeed, -with profound appreciation of his weakness that "talking" is set by -Mr. Shaw as a final seal on the _Superman_. Mr. Galsworthy and Mr. -Barker, it is true, do give us not only elaborate discussion of social -problems (though not infrequently an airy discussion of things in -general is dragged in forcibly with no, or little, reference to the -action of the play), but also refined and delicate delineations of -individual character. But with the possible exception of the grandiose -and monstrous _Waste_ and the statuesque thesis and antithesis of the -sociological _Strife_, their plays are not dramatic. To express it with -almost childish implicity, their plays are not "exciting." With a few -exceptions, they are charged with no atmosphere and abut at no climax. - -Mere ideas, however, will not make the dramatic world go round, and -mere psychology often only makes it go flat. Few words are mouthed with -such fluent irresponsibility as "technique," but it may be said--and -said, we think, truly, and without affectation--that no play can be -a success without a certain minimum of "technique"; that is to say, -either one continuous thread of dramatic interest on which successive -acts are strung, or some particular arch-effect to which (especially if -a one-acter) the whole play abuts, and to the atmosphere of which all -the elements are harmoniously toned. - -The vice of the English drama, then, is this: plays of good technical -mechanism possess little or no "problem" interest; plays of "problem" -or psychological interest possess little or no technical mechanism. - -Let us, consequently, glancing first at his plays, and perhaps later -at those short stories which stand in the most intimate relation -to his one-acters, ascertain to what extent Schnitzler has solved -successfully the great "problem of the problem." - -_Liebelei_, which was produced first in 1895, is an excellent example -both of Schnitzler's powers and of Schnitzler's limitations. The -_motif_ of the play is the problem of the refined middle-class girl, -who stands, if we may borrow the terminology of popular melodrama, at -the cross-roads. Which turning is it better for her to take--the right -turning, or the wrong turning? - -Fritz, a sentimental young Viennese student, is discussing in his rooms -the affairs of his heart with the saner and more practical Theodor. -Fritz is melancholy. He has been sustaining a grand passion for a -married woman, but the looming shadow of the husband obsesses him. Are -his nerves playing him tricks, or has the husband ascertained? - -Theodor advises him to sail in shallower and less troubled waters. "You -must go for your happiness where I did--and found it, too--where there -are no great scenes, no dangers, and no tragic developments, where -the first steps are not particularly hard and the last, again, are -not painful, where one receives the first kiss with a smile and parts -finally with the softest feeling." - -Scruples are out of place on the principle, "Better myself than someone -else, and the someone else is as inevitable as Fate." - -Theodor, moreover, has not only prescribed the cure, but has ordered -the medicine. Enter Mizzi, the actual "happiness" of Theodor, -and Christine, the prospective "happiness" of Fritz. Mizzi the -practical prepares supper, while the sweet _naïveté_ of the genuinely -unsophisticated Christine captivates the jaded soul of our _fin de -siècle_ romantic. There ensues a scene of the most delicate gaiety -and camaraderie. All is health and goodwill. Even Mizzi the prosaic -shows her passion for the picturesque on learning that Fritz is in the -Dragoons: - - MIZZI. Are you in the yellow or the black? - - FRITZ. I'm in the yellow. - - MIZZI. (_dreamily_). In the yellow. - -Could there be a more subtle probing into the soul of the -novelette-reading shopgirl? - -Then, at the zenith of the feast, when glasses are clinking and souls -are flowing, enter the skeleton. The company is packed into the next -room, and Fritz is left to arrange a duel with the man whom he has -wronged. Exit the skeleton, re-enter the revellers; yet the shadow of -the looming death casts a gloom even over the unconscious minds of -the others. The girls bid a gay farewell to the young men, but the -aftermath of the old love is already poisoning the sweets of the new. - -The next scene is in the lodgings of Christine on the eve of that duel -of which the love-stricken girl is in blissful ignorance. Christine, -_bien entendu_, in contradistinction to the casual and heart-whole -Mizzi, is taking her love-affair with the maximum of seriousness. -Katherine, a benevolent busybody of a neighbour, puts Weiring, the -musician father of Christine, on his guard. Weiring, however, having -been the uncomplaisant brother of his sister, is determined, on the -strength of his experience, to be the complaisant father of his -daughter. - - WEIRING. I became, Heaven knows, proud, and gloried in - my conduct--and then, little by little, the grey hairs - came and the wrinkles, and one day went by another - till her whole youth was gone--and gradually, so that - one could scarcely notice it, the young girl became an - old maid, and then I first began to suspect what I had - really done. - - KATHERINE. But, Herr Weiring.... - - WEIRING. I can see how she often used to sit with me in - the evening by this lamp in this room, with her silent - smile, with a strange kind of devotion, as if she still - wished to thank me for something, and I--the one thing - I wanted most to do was to throw myself on my knees and - ask for her forgiveness for guarding her so well from - all dangers and from all happiness. - -The act ends with a love-scene between Christine and Fritz, poignant in -its irony. He is all-in-all to her, she is just something to him; but -he goes off to fight a duel on account of another woman without so much -as bidding her a real farewell. - -In the third act the news of Fritz's death is broken to Christine, -and here comes the most subtle and delicate touch of all. Poignant as -is her grief at his death, her grief at the casual flippancy of his -treatment is even more poignant. Our _fin de siècle_ Ophelia rushes -madly out of the house to commit suicide in the nearest brook, or -perhaps more probably under the nearest train, to point the philosophic -moral, "_A bas la grande passion! Vive l'Amourette!_" - -The play, however, should be read or seen to obtain an adequate -appreciation of the precision with which each character is drawn, the -spontaneity with which the dialogue flows, and the lyric pathos with -which the whole is invested. The limitations, such as they are, simply -lie in the fact that each act is self-complete in itself. However -good they may be, three consecutive one-acters never made a drama. -To compare great things with low, each act of a drama, like each -instalment of a _feuilleton_, should leave, as it were, the hanging -tag of some vital interrogation. The dramatic banquet should not only -regale the mind of the spectator during, but titillate it with the -aftermath between the acts. - -As we shall see later, when he comes to dramatise on the larger -scale, Schnitzler not infrequently exhibits the defects of those very -qualities which make him so supreme in the sphere of the one-acter. - -In _Märchen_ (the Fairy Tale), on the other hand, the problem is -brought more officially into the foreground of the play, while each -act is more closely connected with those which follow or precede it. -Fedor Denner, a romantic young journalist (nearly all Schnitzler's -young men are highly romantic), is in love with Fanny, a young actress -on the threshold of theatrical success, and of those dangers which -follow so closely in the wake of theatrical success. Fedor, moreover, -is not only romantic, he is modern--ultra-modern. And so, in the -inspiring atmosphere of Fanny's home circle, where the mother bustles -about with the refreshments and the "good" piano-teacher of a sister -discourses music for the edification of the journalists, painters, and -students who frequent the house, he gives an impassioned little lecture -on the "Fairy Tale of the Fallen Woman" and on the "washed-out views -and dead-beat ideas" of which the fairy tale is composed. The little -lecture, however, goes off just a little too successfully. In a climax, -marvellous in its tacit concentration, Fanny takes an opportunity -of kissing his hand. Fedor is revolted, however, by the revelation -implied in this pathetic gratitude. He had contemplated marriage, but -now----. For the time being he nurses in solitary misery all the pangs -of retrospective jealousy. Then Fanny, unable to bear the separation, -rushes headlong into his arms. Then comes the great act of the play. We -are back once more in the house of Fanny's mother. The young actress, -having scored a brilliant success on the Vienna stage, has been offered -a splendid contract in St. Petersburg by Moritzki, the agent. If, -however, she goes to St. Petersburg, she will have to face the pains -and pleasures of life unsheltered by the respectability of a family. -The problem is acute. Fanny, however, places the Fate of her life on -the knees of--Fedor. And Fedor shuffles and vacillates. - - FANNY. Come, and you--what do you say yourself? - - FEDOR. After you have received Herr Moritzki at the - house you can scarcely seriously mean to refuse him. - - FANNY. Herr Denner, I consider you an exceptionally - shrewd man, I ask you for your advice. - - FEDOR. Yes, I think ... I would accept. - - Fanny. Good! [_To_ Moritzki.] Herr Moritzki. - -Woman-like, however, having signed the contract, she craves time to -reconsider. Fedor looks at it again. - - FANNY. Fedor--you gave me the contract back. - - FEDOR. Well, yes. - - FANNY. You should have torn it up, dear. Why didn't you - do it? - - FEDOR. You should not have signed it, Fanny. - - FANNY. Fedor! It is unbearable--you're driving me out of - my senses. - - FEDOR. But you yourself don't quite know your own mind. - There's something in you which craves for adventures. - - FANNY. Fedor--if you would only put me to the test--I - will do anything you want--only tell me. - -And then, eventually, Fedor owns up. - - FEDOR. Would I not still have to kiss away from your - lips the kisses of other men? - -And so Fanny forsakes the life of domesticity for the life of the -actress. - -The chief defect, however, in this play is that, in spite of all its -dramatic compound of psychology, pathos, and problem, the problem is -not fairly presented, in that Fanny, being of inferior social status -to Fedor, the question of whether he shall marry her must inevitably -be influenced by purely snobbish considerations. It is only when the -woman is of equal, if not slightly superior, rank to the man that the -real problem of her ante-nuptial chastity can be discussed with real -sociological fairness. - -In _Die Vermächtniss_ (produced in Berlin in 1898), the problem which -our dramatist has made the centre of his play is the relation to the -family of the mistress and child of the dead son of the house. The -dashing young cavalry officer is brought home fatally wounded from -a fall from his horse. Realising his approaching death, he informs -his parents of his responsibilities. Death raises the home circle to -a pitch of more than ordinary humanity. In spite of their poignant -jealousy at the existence of other affections and another home life, -they send for their son's household, and accede to his dying request to -incorporate it into the family. - -Act II shows the mistress installed in the bosom of her lover's family. -Modernity, however, though satisfying to the heroic pose, has its -penalties. Our ultra-modern family finds itself confronted with social -ostracism. Still, they love their grandchild, and the mother of the -grandchild is the price that they must pay. But the grandchild dies. -The semi-official daughter-in-law consequently becomes a somewhat -unprofitable luxury, and in the final act is given her _congé_. Even -more than in _Liebelei_, however, the claim to merit lies almost -exclusively in the precision with which each successive phase of -the problem is portrayed. As a series of family pictures, the play -succeeds, and succeeds brilliantly; as a drama of continuous interest, -it fails, and fails hopelessly. - -The next play of Schnitzler is _The Veil of Beatrice._ This "tragedy -of sensualism" has qualities too arresting to be lightly disregarded. -The dramatist has forsaken his problems to portray how the fatal -temperament of a young girl of the Italian Renaissance works out its -own destruction. - -In the first act, we are shown the garden of Filippo, a poet of -Bologna, which is on the eve of being plundered by the enemy. The -heads on Bolognese shoulders are worth little purchase, and who leaves -not the town to-night will never leave the town at all. The Duke -invites Filippo to the palace to recite his poems. Filippo refuses, -so that he may leave the city of doom with his beloved Beatrice, -a daughter of the people. On learning, however, that Beatrice has -dreamt of the Duke, he spurns her in an egoistic paroxysm of refined -jealousy, typical in its subtlety more of the twentieth century than -the Renaissance. - - "So much I give thee, more than thou canst dream, - So much that to be worthy of my love, - Loathing should fasten on thee at the thought - This earth is trod by other men than I." - -Beatrice leaves him with the vague intimation-- - - "Feel I that without thee I cannot live - And have desire for death, I come again - To take thee with me." - -In the second act, Beatrice is on the point of marrying her legitimate -suitor, Vittorino, and escaping from the town, when the Duke appears -and proposes to exercise the _jus ultimæ nodis_. Owing to the -remonstrances of her brother Francesco, he generously offers to -relinquish his intentions. Beatrice is bidden to go on her way, but -stands riveted to the spot by a fatalistic impulse to realise her -dream. And what is more, she insists on being the wife of the Duke. -Her wish is granted. The nuptials are celebrated by a gigantic _fête_ -in the palace, whose doors are thrown open to rich and poor. Beatrice, -however, with the placid _naïveté_ of her will-less temperament, flies -to Filippo. - - "What boots it, - Were I this eve an empress to whom worlds - Bowed, or the callat of a fool? For I - Am with thee now to die by thine own side." - -Filippo pretends to poison both her and himself, and on her discovering -the ruse, commits suicide in earnest. Beatrice rushes back to the -palace, but discovering that she has left behind that priceless veil -which was the wedding-gift of her husband, leads back the Duke to the -chamber of love and death. The living is confronted with the dead -rival, and the indignant Francesco slays his sister. - -The power of this tragedy, however, lies not so much in the actual -plot or even in the marvellous delineation of Beatrice, gracefully and -innocently childish in the very irresponsibility of her fated sin, -as in the rich tints of the picture and the gorgeous frame in which -the picture is set. All the multicoloured elements of the Renaissance -take their place in the vivid scheme--poets, sculptors, courtiers, -courtesans, soldiers, and populace. Annihilation and vitality grow each -more grandiose from their mutual juxtaposition, and the red blood of -life flows but the quicker and the warmer beneath the black shadow of -doom. Few more eloquent tragedies have been written on the great twin -themes: "In the midst of life we are in death; in the midst of death we -are in life." - -Reverting back to prose, we come to _Der Einsame Weg_ (_The Lonely -Way_, 1903). If, however, the tendency to import the methods of -the short story and the long novel were apparent in _Liebelei_ and -_Vermächtniss_, it is even more marked in this play. A son, finding -a sire in the shape of the middle-aged lover of his now dead mother, -repudiates the natural for the putative father; a neurotic and -over-sexed young girl, finding that her lover, unknown to himself, is -suffering from an incurable disease, dies by her own act. These are the -two _motifs_, knit together by no shred of logical connection, which -form the threads on which the drama is hung. Yet, if here we have -Schnitzler at his worst, the many excellences even of this play attest -by implication the merits of Schnitzler at his best. The scene between -father and son is a sheer masterpiece. How delicately does the father -intimate that "mothers also have their destinies like other women." And -how complete is his rejection. - - JULIAN. It is now absolutely impossible for you to - forget that you are my son. - - FELIX. Your son--it is nothing but a word--it is a mere - empty sound--I know it, but I don't realise it. - - JULIAN. Felix! - - FELIX. You are further away from me since I know it. - -Interesting, again, is the Nietzschean sanction for intrigue: "One has -the right to exploit to the completest extent all one's life with all -the ecstasy and all the shame which is involved." - -Far superior, however, to _Der Einsame Weg_, with its heavy Ibsenite -atmosphere, is _Zwischenspiel_ (1905), where that problem of the -quadrangle, compared to which that of the triangle is from the more -advanced standpoint but _vieux jeu_, is treated with the most delicate -and biting raillery. Victor Amadeus, the pianist, and his wife -Cecilie, the singer, love each other with as much genuine constancy -as can be expected from normal persons of the artistic temperament. -Victor Amadeus, however, philanders with a countess, and his wife -with a prince. Mutual jealousy! Too civilised, however, to interfere -by any display of primitive emotion with the sacred love of the -new modernity, they grant each other, on general principles, _carte -blanche_. And so, at the end of Act I, they separate for their mutual -holiday. Henceforward the husband and wife are to be the most Platonic -of comrades. The necessities of their professional engagements, -however, bring about their meeting in their old home. But the -affair with the countess is dead, and the affair with the prince has -apparently not yet matured. Then do Victor Amadeus and Cecilie forget -the ultra-modern theories which they are bound in duty to exemplify, -and only realise that they are man and woman. Bursting with his new -humanity, Victor Amadeus begins in the third act to be quite jealous -of the prince. His astonishment can consequently be imagined when his -Serene Highness presents himself to ask the husband formally for the -hand of the wife. On the situation being explained to him, the prince -gracefully retires, gallant gentleman that he is. But the reunited pair -cannot live happily ever after. Cecilie, it is true, had been faithful, -but faithful, she explains, by the narrowest of margins. She cannot -guarantee the future; and does not history repeat itself? True, they -had loved each other, but what love can be proof against the theories -of the newer sexual ethics? - -"If we had only before," says Cecilie, "shrieked into each other's -faces our rage, our bitterness, our despair, instead of posing as -superior people who never lost their heads, then we should have been -true to ourselves--and that we never were." - -And so that parting, taking place, as it does, when all barriers but -their two selves have disappeared, rings down the curtain on this most -brilliant of satires on the ultra-modern. - -On almost as high a level is _Freiwild_[1], a piece which gains an -added interest from the fact that it has not only been censored because -an army officer is given a box on the ears, but that the actors on one -occasion refused to play it till solemnly assured by the author that -the apparent realism of the portrayal of the _procurer-impresario_ -was, after all, merely poetic licence. The play is a vehement satire -on the duel. In a scene marvellous in its ingenious stagecraft -and airy atmosphere, we are shown the picturesque gardens of an -Austrian pleasure resort. Close by is the local theatre, where -musical comedy is performed for the entertainment of officers. One -of the actresses, however, Anna, shocks all orthodox traditions by -refusing to participate in that social life which, according to the -manager, is the sacred duty of the efficient chorus girl. For Anna, -Paul Rohring, an analytical painter, entertains feelings which are -quixotic, and Karinski, a heavy bully of a fire-eater, feelings typical -of a less exalted Don. But the overtures of Karinski are rebuffed -ignominiously. Rohring[2] cannot repress the smile of sarcastic -triumph. The discomfited lady-killer, aspersing the name of Anna -with an insolent _gaucherie_, has his ears boxed for his pains. The -inevitable challenge is brought to Rohring by one Poldi, the complete -exponent of punctilious aristocracy, the past-master in all the -intricacies of the _duelli codex_, the super-gentleman. But Rohring, -who is anxious to marry Anna and live a long and happy life, rejects -the inevitable challenge. Genuine consternation on the part of Poldi, -who explains that the unpurged shame of the box on the ears spells -ruin to Karinski's military career. Poldi proposes a compromise--the -solemn farce of a bloodless duel. Rohring, however, disdains playing -dummy parts in solemn farces. It is all madness. It is in vain that the -incarnation of military honour expostulates. - -"For you it is madness, but others have grown up in this madness; what -is madness to you is for others the very element in which they live." - -Finally, Rohring is given to understand that, unless he flees, the -outraged Karinski will shoot him at sight. But with a somewhat human -perversity our heroic painter refuses to run away. An encounter _à -l'Américaine_ takes place in the gardens, but Rohring, drawing just -a second too late, is shot dead. And now, as orthodox applause to the -red-handed, cold-blooded murderer, comes from the mouth of Karinski's -own friend in six words the indictment of the duel, irrevocably damning -in the cold subtlety of its satire: "And now you have won back your -honour." - -If, however, in this play Schnitzler proved his ability to write a -problem drama which should be something more than a mere series of -isolated phases, we find again in his next play, _The Call of Life_, in -spite of its many excellences, the old taint of the one-acter. - -The _motif_ of the play is the claim of the desire for life to ride -rough-shod over all other claims. A beautiful daughter is wasting the -best years of her life in the care of a querulous father, incurably -ill, but never dying. The little garrison town is agog with the -excitement of a newly declared war. This war, moreover, has a special -interest, in that the local regiment, the Blue Cuirassiers, had in -the last war, by ignominious flight, branded itself with shame. -Though this episode took place over thirty years ago and none of the -actual renegades are now in the regiment, the Blue Hussars, with that -inflated idea of honour only found in Teutonic countries, resolve -to purge the disgrace by dying gloriously in the front of the fray. -Among the officers is Lieutenant Max, who has cast on Marie, the -beautiful daughter, eyes of admiration. Irony, moreover, sharpens the -situation when the bedridden father, who was once a member of the Blue -Cuirassiers, explains he himself was responsible for the historic -flight. - - "What was the good of it? Who would have thanked me? - They would have put me in a grave with a thousand others - and piled the earth on top, and that would have been the - end of it. And I wouldn't have it. I wanted to live--to - live like others. I wanted to have a wife and children - and live. And so I rushed from the field; and so it has - happened that the young men whom I don't know are going - to their death and that I still live on at seventy-nine - and will survive them all--all--all." - -The old soldier, however, is unduly sanguine as to the protraction of -his life, for the same call of life which ordered him from the battle -orders his daughter to pour poison into the water for which he now -craves. - -It is outside the purpose of this essay to argue the ethics of this -precipitation of the inevitable. Suffice it that it constitutes a most -efficient curtain--a curtain, however, so efficient that there seems no -compelling necessity for a continuation of the play. A continuation, -however, there is, and in the rooms of Max, which are visited at night -by Marie, who ensconces herself behind a curtain. She sees the major's -wife come to urge a vain prayer that he should desert the army and -elope with her. They are discovered by the major, who, shooting the -wife, spares the lover. It is, however, when the major leaves that we -understand the intense hypertrophy of life evoked by imminent death. -Marie, knowing all, yet presents herself. Max can only realise that -his life has but a few remaining hours, and that these remaining hours -stand now before him. Another curtain, strong, if slightly crude, yet -followed by a third act, which is nothing but an epilogue. - -This somewhat exaggerated scorn, however, of such of the more -complicated effects of theatricalism as are manifested in the ingenious -concatenation of the plot, or the representation of sensational -incidents which have no justification but their own inherent dramatic -force, fails absolutely to affect Schnitzler's position as a writer of -one-act plays. Indeed, it is his subordination of plot to atmosphere -that constitutes in this sphere his paramount excellence. As, moreover, -Mr. Henry James in his _Embarrassments and Terminations_ wrote short -stories independent in themselves yet harmonising with some permeating -_motif_, so has Schnitzler in his _Anatol_, _Marionetten_, and -_Lebendigen Stunden_ given us symmetrical one-act sequences. - -Let us deal first with the Anatol-Cyclus, a series of one-acters -portraying the amoristic vicissitudes of a _fin de siècle_ -sentimentalist, flitting prettily from heart to heart, till he is -eventually encompassed by the matrimonial net. Little action weighs -down these delicate pieces. Anatol and the flame of the moment -participate in a dialogue, or Anatol appeals to the worldly wisdom of -his friend Max to rescue him from some dilemma in which he has been -landed by his own weakness or his own folly. That is all. Yet each -piece sheds a little more light upon the holy of holies of Anatol's -heart, and illumines with equal clarity and colour the charm and -individuality of each successive priestess of the temple. Though -no doubt the chief effect of the cycle lies in its accumulative -force, some idea of the general airiness and brilliance may perhaps -be obtained by a short sketch of two of the most striking. In _The -Question to Fate_ Anatol confides to Max his anxiety. Does the flame -of the moment burn true and for him alone? By hypnotism he proposes -to extract from his unconscious love that answer which will make him -either the happiest or the most miserable of mankind. Cora enters, and -is duly soothed into a hypnotic trance. Anatol, however, insists on -being left alone with her at this critical moment of his fate, so Max -retires into the adjoining room. And now, when the helpless girl is -ready to answer every question, and, what is more, to answer it with -automatic accuracy, and the book of truth lies ready in his trembling -hand, the seeker of knowledge has not the courage to know. Waking her -up with a kiss, he expresses complete reassurance to the re-entering -Max. Cora, however, manifests a perhaps intelligible anxiety as to the -nature of her answers. - -In the _Farewell Supper_, the scene of which is laid in the _cabinet -particulier_ of a Viennese restaurant, Anatol describes to Max the -ineffable woes of being on with the new love before he is off with the -old. What a strain it is, moreover, to be compelled to eat two suppers -every night! However, he and Anna (the old love) had at the initiation -of their romance arranged to confide to each other the first symptom -of approaching _ennui_. To-night at this supper he will tactfully -intimate that she is no longer indispensable to his soul's happiness. -He implores Max to stay as the helpful buffer in an inevitable scene. -Enter Anna, fresh from the stage and hungry for oysters. The pangs of -starvation temporarily appeased, Anna announces that she has something -important to communicate. She has grown tired of Anatol and fallen in -love with another. She hopes he will not mind, but better she should -tell him now than when it was too late. Collapse of Max into uproarious -laughter. With pique mingling with his relief, Anatol rises to the -occasion, professing the righteous indignation of a wounded spirit. To -vindicate his _amour-propre_, he contemptuously informs her that he -too has fallen in love with another, but as far as he is concerned his -confession does come too late. "Only a man could be so brutal," retorts -Anna; "a woman would never be so tactless as to say anything so crude." -And so the comedy ends with the girl carrying off the remains of the -supper to her cavalier round the corner. - -The whole cycle, however, should be read to appreciate the racy ripple -of the dialogue, the subtle malice of the characterisation, and the -general verve and irony of these most sparkling of comedies. - -Perhaps at this moment it may be convenient just to mention the -audacious psychology of the super-Boccacian _Reigen_. English decorum, -no doubt, for-bids anything but the most casual allusion to this -sequence of duologues, where all the members of the social hierarchy -are linked together by participation in the same eternal plot. - -Yet in its way, this book, written originally for a select circle -and subsequently published by universal request, is one of the most -refined feats of intellectualism which Schnitzler has ever performed. -For the delicacy of the style is in inverse ratio to the delicacy -of the subject-matter, and the various nuances of social technique -are described and differentiated with the masterly touch of combined -experience and intuition. Scarcely suited, no doubt, as a Sunday School -prize, the book will, none the less, well repay perusal by modern men -and women of the modern world. - -The series _Marionetten_, to which allusion has already been made, has -for its _motif_ the ironic tragedy of those who essay to manipulate -the lives of others. The best of three plays is _The Puppet-player_. -To the happy fireside of Eduard and Anna there is introduced an old -friend, George Merklin, whom the husband had casually encountered. -Merklin is a picturesque, if battered, Bohemian who encircles himself -somewhat showily with a halo of alleged mysticism. The whole art of -the dramatist, however, in this little piece is devoted to creating -an atmosphere of light melancholy, in which the poetic isolation of -the second-rate genius, Merklin, stands in vivid contrast to the -prosaic happiness of his less gifted friend. The climax comes when it -transpires that Merklin had loved Anna in the past and had brought the -two together by way of a psychological experiment at a Bohemian supper. - - "The little girl who was so nice to you simply did what - I wished. You two were the puppets in my hand. I pulled - the strings. It was arranged that she should pretend to - be in love with you. For you always roused my sympathy, - my dear Eduard; I wanted to awake in you the illusion - of happiness, so that you should be ready for true - happiness when you found it." - -And so this shoddy superman goes out into this lonely world, having -played with the fates of others only to have played away his own life's -happiness. - -Perhaps, however, Schnitzler's most characteristic series of one-acters -is the one headed _Lebendige Stunden_. Life should be weighed as -much by quality as by quantity. One man can traverse more life in a -few seconds than another in whole years. It is typical, however, of -Schnitzler's method that he essays not merely to lead up to a violent -climax by artifices of calculated stagecraft, but to set the vivid hour -in an harmonious and poetic frame. The most striking of the series is -the extraordinary fantasia, _The Woman with the Dagger_. - -Leonhardt, a seriously romantic youth, in apparently the full flush of -his first grand passion, meets the wife of a dramatic author in the -Renaissance saloon of a picture gallery. Pre-eminent among the pictures -on the wall is that of a woman robed in white, holding a dagger in her -uplifted hand, and gazing at the floor as if there lay someone whom -she had murdered. It is then in this atmosphere that our gallant urges -his suit to the unresponsive Pauline, who coolly informs him that she -has confessed to her husband that she is in danger, and that they are -travelling away to-morrow. And then, as she is on the point of saying -farewell, she stands before the picture. - - PAULINE (_looking closer_). Who lies there in the shadow? - - LEONHARDT. Where? - - PAULINE. Do you not see? - - LEONHARDT. I see nothing. - - PAULINE. It is you. - - LEONHARDT. I? Pauline, what an extraordinary jest! - -And then, as they look and look, they fall into an hypnotic trance and -the clock of the world goes back some five hundred years. Pauline has -become Paola, and Leonhardt, Lionardo, while the racy Viennese idiom is -turned to classical blank verse. It is early dawn in the studio of the -Master Remigio, and Remigio is away on his travels. Lionardo arrogates -the claims of love on the strength of the favours which he has just -enjoyed. Paola spurns him as the mere mechanical toy of her passion. -She loves and has always loved her husband. That this is no mere pose -is apparent from the fact that on the sudden entrance of the husband -she immediately elucidates the situation. Remigio, however, with a -sublime tolerance, perhaps more typical of the husband in Mr. Shaw's -_Irrational Knot_ than of a hot-blooded Italian, pardons Paola on the -general principles of twentieth-century philosophy. Lionardo, however, -piqued and insulted as being regarded as - - "The glass, the poor mean glass - From which a child drank a forbidden draught, - The merest pitiful tool of a chance and fate," - -vows vengeance on Remigio. Paola anticipates this vengeance by killing -Lionardo on the spot with a dagger, thus exemplifying the pose of the -picture. Remigio rises to the occasion and seizes on this splendidly -tragic attitude to complete an unfinished portrait of this loyalest of -wives. - -And then they awaken from their trance. But the magnet of destiny draws -them inexorably. Pauline grants the assignation, with an air, however, -of mystic fatality, which shows only too well with what precision the -present must once again mirror the past. - -But perhaps the most sustained and elaborated specimen of our author's -method is the ironic tragedy of the French Revolution, _The Green -Cockatoo._ The "Green Cockatoo" is an underground tavern where -brilliant, if disreputable, actors give, for the edification of their -aristocratic audiences, impromptu representations of crime and vice. - -Henri, the star-man, moreover, has just married the actress Léocadie, -not for the sake of paradox, but in all seriousness. When his turn -comes, he rushes on to the stage shouting out that he found his wife, -Léocadie, with her lover the duke, and killed her. Such a calamity -being not apparently _primâ facie_ improbable, even the manager is -almost as alarmed as the audience, till he realises that the whole -thing is but an histrionic _tour de force_. And then, as the play -progresses, the atmosphere becomes more and more lurid with impending -gloom. Jest and reality intermingle in the subtlest of ironies. It is -part of the entertainment that the ragamuffins should lavish on their -patrons the freest of insults. But is there not a paradox within the -paradox, when one remembers that the Bastille has fallen that very -day? The various types, moreover, of an aristocracy exhibiting the -levity of people who are shortly going to be hanged are delightfully -portrayed--the _viveur_, "for whom every day is lost in which he -has not captured a woman or killed a man," the pretty young noble -whose corrupt flirtation is so deftly adumbrated, and the lascivious -_grande dame_, who, in spite of her husband's anxiety, is very far -from shocked at these spectacular novelties. And then Henri snaps -up the truth from the demeanour of the manager and his colleagues. -The Duke comes on to the stage and the actor then gives yet another -representation of the avenging husband--and this time he surpasses -himself, for he is but acting the truth. - -Less sensational, but of equal psychological grimness, is the play -_The Mate_, which is in the same series as the _Green Cockatoo_. The -theme is the pathetic irony of the illusion of a middle-aged professor, -who gives an almost paternal benediction to what he fondly imagines -to be the grand passion of his young and temperamental wife. When, -consequently, his wife dies suddenly, the husband is prepared quite -honestly to condole with the lover, for after all has he not a right to -be pitied even more than himself? When, therefore, he learns from his -young colleague that he has just become engaged to another girl with -whom he has been in love for some time his righteous indignation is -unbounded. - - "I would have raised you from the ground if you had - been broken by grief. I would have gone with you to her - grave, if the woman who is lying over there had been - your love; but you have turned her into your wanton, - and you have filled this house with lies and foulness - right up to the roof till it makes me sick--and that's - why--that's why, yes, that's why I'm going to kick you - out." - -But there is an anti-climax within an anti-climax, for the man learns -from a mutual woman friend of the dead woman and of himself, that the -imagined _grande passion_ had been even from the standpoint of the lady -nothing more or less than a miserable trumpery adventure. - -Reverting now to Schnitzler's longer plays, some mention should be -made of _Komtesse Mizzi_, _Der Junge Medardus_, and, above all, _Das -Weites Land_. - -_Komtesse Mizzi_, entitled, appropriately enough, "A Family Day" is in -form a one-acter, though of sufficient length and substance to have -obtained separate publication. There is little, if any, action. The -play is based on character, dialogue, and situation. Yet it possesses -distinct psychological titillation in its presentation of a daughter -who takes a filial interest in her father's "actress-mistress," and who -is sensible enough, aristocrat though she is, to meet the lady herself -with all friendliness, and chat with her as woman to woman without the -slightest affectation. This feminine freemasonry, however, is perhaps -explained by the fact that the countess herself has lived her own -life, to such good effect that she is the mother of a grown-up boy by -her father's best friend, Prince Egon. When, consequently, the prince -introduces the boy as his own natural child by an unknown mother, the -atmosphere becomes somewhat rare. At first highly irritated, she treats -with frigid indifference the frank exuberant youth, who divines the -truth with instinctive intuition, only, however, shortly afterwards to -consent to marry the prince, and thus become the official stepmother -of her own long-lost child. The racy worldly optimism of this play is -particularly characteristic of the essentially benevolent malice of the -Schnitzlerian cynicism. - -Of a totally different order is _Der Junge Medardus_, a long play -of historical patriotism, specially written for the respectable and -official Burg Theater of Vienna. It might seem indeed at first sight -that Schnitzler, the refined, ultra-modern analyst, would be somewhat -out of his element amid all the blood and thunder of the Napoleonic -campaigns, which _primâ facie_ offer but small scope for psychological -subtleties. The _tour de force_ consequently becomes all the more -creditable when the author, in spite of all his trappings of patriotic -melodrama, manages successfully to execute his own favourite tricks. -The canvas on which this drama is portrayed is so vast as to render -any synopsis necessarily inadequate. The idyll, however, and double -suicide of the young French prince Franz and the bourgeois girl Agatha, -is one of the purest and sweetest love episodes which Schnitzler -has ever written. But it is Agatha's brother, the young, brave, and -picturesque Medardus, who provides the most precious examples of -recherche psychology. The suicide of the dead couple, Agatha and Franz, -had been occasioned by the refusal of Franz's family to consent to -the marriage. When, consequently, Franz's sister, Helene (a character -somewhat analogous to Mathilde de la Môle in Stendhal's _Le Rouge et le -Noir_) wishes to put flowers on the graves of the dead pair, Medardus -refuses to allow her. Helene has him challenged by her suitor, but -Medardus emerges triumphantly from the duel. Anxious to carry the -war into the enemy's camp, and to redress the balance of the family -account, he succeeds, by the dashing conquest of the most perilous -difficulties, in becoming the lover of Helene, with the eventual object -of rousing the whole household and flaunting to her own family the -haughty girl's dishonour. Helene, however, is erratic in her favours. -Medardus, like Julien, is scorched by his own fire. The ending, -moreover, of the play, though extremely effective theatrically, strikes -us from the psychological standpoint as distinctly false. Helene and -Medardus both plot to assassinate Napoleon. Hearing that Helene is -Napoleon's mistress, Medardus kills her instead of Napoleon. So far, -so good. But when our quixotic hero, when offered a free pardon on the -sole condition that he undertakes to make no further attempt against -Napoleon's life, obstinately refuses to give the required word, one can -only say that he is observing the etiquette neither of melodrama nor -even of life, but solely of patriotic tragedy. - -But of all the longer plays of Schnitzler, the best and most -distinctive in that erotic "General Post" entitled _Das Weite -Land_ (The Wide Country). This drama, which is the only full-dress -drawing-room comedy which Schnitzler has written, belongs to what we -have already designated as the "slice of life" school. It depends for -its convincingness neither on any particularly drastic situation nor -on the disproportionate merit of any individual act. The author simply -takes a group of representative modern people, rich, intellectual, and -energetic, and shows the respective crossings and intertwinings of -their various lives. The complexity of the intrigue is overwhelming, -not to say bewildering, for practically every character, from the -prolific Aigon to the virginal Erna, and from the active business man -Friedrich to his polyandrous wife Genia, is subject to one or more -erotic moods, with whose more or less simultaneous conjugation in the -past, present, and future tenses the play specifically deals. Though, -too, all the characters lead emotional lives, they deserve credit in -that they none of them wear their souls upon their sleeves, or carry -their temperaments in their pockets with the ostentatious affectation -of those Sudermannic personages who never for a moment lose the -consciousness that they are living in an atmosphere of "high problem." -For the people with whom we have now to deal are so occupied with the -concrete acts of their actual lives that they have little time to waste -in mere airy generalities. When consequently they do philosophise, -shortly, crisply, and in the light of personal experience, they are for -that very reason all the more convincing. The whole _motif_ of this -play, where the spirits of Congreve and Henry James seem to amalgamate -in so strange but yet so harmonious a compound, is well crystallised -in the following quotation: "Love and deception--faithfulness and -unfaithfulness--adoration for one woman and desire for another woman or -several others, yes, my good Hofreiter, the soul is a wide country." - -As can be seen from these tolerant words, which have all the greater -force in that the man who speaks them is at any rate temporarily more -or less in love with his friend's wife, the mood in which the problem -of promiscuity is treated is less one of indignant satire than of -an ironic charity, which, while finding the complications at once -comic and tragic, yet assigns to every phase of love from the kiss -Friedrich gave to Erna three thousand metres above the sea, to Otto's -nocturnal escalades of Genia's room, its own specific emotional value, -even though the final verdict is to be found in the words of the -middle-aged Friedrich, refusing to elope with the twenty-year-old Erna: -"Everything's an illusion!" - -From the point of view, also, of concentrated crispness of dialogue -and characterisation, Schnitzler has never achieved anything better -than this play. How telling in particular is the dialogue between -the mutually unfaithful spouses, Genia and Friedrich. The husband is -interrogating his wife about a young Russian virtuoso who had just -blown out his brains. - - GENIA. He was not my lover. I'm sorry to say he was not - my lover. Is that enough for you! - -Or take again the passage between Friedrich and Genia after Friedrich -has just fought a fatal duel with the twenty-five year old naval -officer, Otto. - - GENIA. But why? If you cared the least bit about - me--if it had been a case of hate--if it had been - jealousy--love-- - - FRED. No--I feel at any rate damned little of all that. - But no man likes to be made an ass of. - -In his new asexual play, _Professor Bernhardi_, Schnitzler strikes -out an entirely new line, leaves that light, airy sphere which he had -made so peculiarly his own, and embarks into the grim realms of pure -problem. The play is an avowed and deliberate tract in the manner of -Granville Barker, Galsworthy, or Brieux. Yet however devoid it may be -of those qualities which one is accustomed to label Schnitzlerian, it -is the most earnest, the most ethical, the most convincing of all his -plays. - -Put shortly, the piece deals with an "affaire Dreyfus" in the medical -profession. Professor Bernhardi, a great Jewish doctor, has in the -face of numerous obstacles succeeded in building up the prosperity of -a new hospital, the Elisabethinum, treating mainly Catholic patients, -but supported mainly by Jewish funds. A substantial percentage of -the staff are Jewish, and it is instructive to observe how almost -instinctively the Jews and Catholics range themselves into two camps. -In the first act a Catholic girl is dying of septic poisoning as the -result of some outside doctor's clumsy attempt to help her to escape -the consequences of her own indiscretion. The patient herself, however, -in a state of blissful delirium, confident of recovery, and expecting -the speedy advent of her lover, is deriving the maximum of enjoyment -out of the few minutes she has yet to live. Under these circumstances -there arrives a Catholic priest, sent for, not by the girl but by a -nurse, with the object of administering the last sacrament. Out of -sheer humanity and medical conscientiousness, Professor Bernhardi is -reluctant to have his patient's last hours marred by the realisation of -her death and the shattering of her happy dream. The Catholic priest -is insistent. The Professor is politely firm. There is an animated -dialogue in the course of which the Professor touches the priest very -lightly on the shoulder, though there is nothing in the nature of an -assault. In the meanwhile the patient dies comfortably. The Clerical -and Anti-semitic parties exploit the incident with inaccurate though -artistic journalistic embellishments. There is a tremendous uproar. -The Governors of the hospital threaten to resign. Under pressure -from his friends, the Professor is willing to tender, not indeed an -abject apology, but a polite explanation. The Clerical party thereupon -blackmail him by threatening to raise the question in Parliament, if he -does not secure the election to a vacant post on the hospital staff of -a Catholic candidate who is on the one hand the protégé of the cousin -of their leader, and on the other hand incompetent. Refusing to be a -party to the job, Bernhardi secures the election to the post of a man -who is both competent and a Jew. Bernhardi, moreover, relies on the -personal assurance of Flint, the Minister for Education and Public -Worship, that he will help him by his support in Parliament. When, -however, matters came to a head, Flint, scenting in the middle of his -speech with the divine flair of the true politician the actual state -of public opinion, throws Bernhardi to the wolves and himself suggests -a prosecution for sacrilege. The Executive Board of the hospital are -divided as to what course they shall pursue. Shall they pass a vote of -confidence in their chief, or, on the other hand, suspend him until the -determination of the proceedings. By a fine stroke of irony Bernhardi -realises that he will be in a minority through the vote of the very -Jew through the conscientious insistence on whose election to the -Board he had lost the proffered opportunity of bribing the Clericals -and squaring the whole matter. He consequently resigns from the Board. -The trial takes place. The priest himself denies that there was any -assault. Bernhardi, however, is defended by a converted Jew, who, -sinking the advocate in the Catholic, conducts the case so lukewarmly -that Bernhardi is convicted on the perjured evidence of a vindictive -colleague and a hysterical lay sister. During the trial the priest -is convinced that Bernhardi was morally right in the course which he -adopted, but, as he feels subsequently driven as a matter of conscience -to inform him, refrained out of sheer religious duty from telling the -truth. Bernhardi serves his term and becomes, much to his disgust, -a political hero and a popular martyr. The hysterical lay sister -eventually confesses her perjury and Bernhardi is finally righted, -though the final note in the play is that Bernhardi was really rather -a fool to have involved himself in such grave consequences for the -mere sake of a quixotic principle. Some portion possibly of the effect -produced by this play depends on the full appreciation of its personal -allusions and some knowledge of the circumstances on which it was -substantially founded. Nevertheless, present symptoms would appear to -indicate that this play will have especial interest, not only to Jews -and Anti-Semites, but to impartial students of ethics and sociology. -Though, moreover, "pure problem" and studded with long didactical -speeches, the dramatic interest is well sustained, at any rate up -to the fourth Act, while the different characters are distinguished -with the sharpest precision. We would refer in particular to Flint, -that delightfully bland opportunist, that benevolently unscrupulous -politician, that perfectly conscientious hypocrite who honestly -believes that there is a higher and larger duty both in politics and -in life than the observance of one's own principles and the keeping of -one's given word. - -Schnitzler, moreover, is not only a dramatist, but a writer of short -stories and novels, which stand on practically as high a level as -his plays. Like De Maupassant, Schnitzler has only one real _motif_. -Unlike De Maupassant, however, it is the psychological complications in -which he is chiefly interested. In further contrast, his short stories -lack that inevitable precision of climax which is the chief mark of -the French author. Yet perhaps it is for this very reason that, with -their picturesque atmosphere and pathetic simplicity, they obtain an -added reality. In the almost clinical minuteness of his psychology, -explicable from the fact that he was once a doctor, he is reminiscent -of Mr. Henry James, of a Mr. James, however, who writes without -preciosity about individuals linked with ordinary human beings by very -much more than just some shred of normality. Among his earlier short -stories we would mention in particular _Die Frau der Weisen, Das neue -Lied_, and the hypnotic fantasia at the beginning of _Dämmerseelen_. - -The more recent series, _Masken und Wunder_, also possesses a -well-merited claim to recognition for its series of studies, some -modern, some symbolical, yet all written with that almost intangible -softness, combined at the same time with a certain neat strength, -which is the essential mark of Schnitzler's literary style. One of the -most striking is the telepathic romance, _Redegonda's Diary_; but in -our view the best short story in the whole book is that Maupassantian -_Death of the Bachelor_ where the three intimate friends of a dead man -are summoned to his bedside, only to find their friend dead and to read -in a letter addressed to them all, of the three separate yet identical -domestic reasons which were responsible for their participation in this -superb piece of posthumous buffoonery. - -Far more significant than any of his short stories is Schnitzler's -comparatively recent novel, _Der Weg ins Freie_ (The Road to the Open), -a novel which both by its actual success and its intrinsic merit, -stands out conspicuously among modern German literature. This book is -an admirable example of what one can perhaps call the "slice of life" -novel. Actual plot in the stereotyped sense of the term it has none. -Georg von Wergenthin, a young aristocratic Viennese dilettante, has, -in the course of an active emotional life, a fairly serious _liaison_ -with Anna Rosner, a music-mistress belonging to a good Jewish set. -The child to which Anna and Georg had both been looking forward, -though in somewhat varying degrees, dies. Georg accepts a post of -conductor in a German town. Anna reassumes the normal tenor of her -spinster life. Finis. Neither conventional marriage nor even more -conventional suicide, but just life, a slice of sheer probable real -convincing life. But the book is far more than the history of Anna, -and far more than the history of Georg, even though it would appear at -first sight that the enumeration of Georg's emotions tends somewhat -to swamp the four hundred and sixty pages of this novel which yet -reads so shortly. For Georg's soul is a mirror which reflects not only -itself but a considerable number of the more interesting characters -of a specific modern Viennese set. And the lives of Anna and Georg -touch the lives of numerous other persons, persons too who, at any -rate, give the impression of being no mere characters in novels, but -of having been honourably plagiarised, and without suffering either -caricature or idealisation in the process, from the pages of the -book of life itself. And all these various lives are followed up and -adumbrated and described at greater or lesser detail. Of course they -have nothing to do with the story of Georg von Wergenthin. But they -play an important part in the life of Georg von Wergenthin, just as he -plays a more or less important part in their existence. And though of -course Georg is the nominal hero of the book, it is the modern Jewish -set with, of course, its Gentile appanages which constitutes the real -subject-matter. And how vivid and interesting on their merits are all -these characters--old Ehrenberg, the Jewish millionaire, with his -delightful habit of talking Yiddish before smart company, specially -to annoy his snobbish son Oskar; Oskar himself, who, on being caught -by his father in the flagrant act of posing as a Catholic in front -of a church and given a box on the ears by way of reproof, makes an -abortive attempt to commit hara-kiri with a revolver; Else Ehrenberg, -the temperamental, but unmarried sister of Oskar; Heinrich Bermann, the -brilliant self-centred author, with his grand passion for his faithless -actress in the foreign town; Leo Golowski, the enthusiastic Zionist; -Therese Golowski, the Socialist agitatress, with her temporary trip -with that fascinating hussar-officer, Demeter Stanzides; Winternitz, -the poet, with his not very _soigné_ hands and his naïf mania for -reciting his own erotic verses; Dr. Stauber, the benevolent modern of -the last generation; Anna herself, with her soft wistfulness and her -essential dignity; Sissy Wyner, with her high wanton spirits and pretty -English accent; and of course Georg himself, Georg the aristocrat, -Georg the _grand amoureux_, Georg the composer, Georg the dilettante, -Georg the drifter, Georg the ineffectual. - -In the technique of this novel Schnitzler marks what we suggest to be a -new departure, by the insertion of substantial slabs of past life into -the analysis of his hero's thoughts, a process which by a tremendous -economy of space and time thus describes simultaneously the inner -workings of Georg's mind, and simultaneously narrates important pieces -of antecedent history which have no place in the official action of the -novel. - -Some tribute, also, must be paid to the style, which is at times -soft and sweet, at times light and crisp, yet always lucid, always -individual, and always possessed of that gracefulness which is so rare -a quality in German prose literature. - -To revert to Schnitzler the dramatist, what are his chief claims, his -chief excellences, his chief defects? It seems to us that the essence -of his merit lies in the fact that, speaking broadly, he handles -problems neither as ends in themselves, as do the more advanced of our -own dramatists, nor yet, like Sudermann, as mere pegs on which to hang -violently theatrical stage effects. Some problem may constitute the -centre of most of his plays; yet, with a few exceptions, this problem -is not presented too nakedly or without sufficient relief. Each problem -is bathed in an artistic atmosphere, and each character in the picture -limned with the most subtle psychology. It is true that, as has already -been pointed out, many of the acts in his early longer dramas exhibit -too strong a tendency to form self-independent pictures; yet it is this -defect which forms the chief charm of his one-acters. It is true that -nearly all his characters are Bohemian--artists, flâneurs, actresses, -journalists, doctors, painters--yet each author creates, as of right, -the population of his own individual world; and is it not rather a -claim to glory to have attained such heights of dramatic celebrity -without having written more than one single play specifically devoted -to fashionable life? It is true that the ethics of these plays, with -their chronic and inevitable intrigues, may strike the English mind as -somewhat unusual; yet Schnitzler enjoys the reputation of being the -most brilliant and accurate portrayer of contemporary Viennese life. -It is, moreover, in the nature of all problem plays that they should -be pieces of special pleading, where the other side is allowed just so -much of a hearing as will not permit of its convincing. After all, from -the standpoint of dramatic art, that which counts is not the ethics, -but the presentation of the problem. - -Yet, with all his subtlety and all his problems, he is never heavy. -Vienna stands intellectually nearer to Paris than to Berlin, so that -the Teutonic introspection and sentimentalism are touched with a Gallic -sprightliness and a Gallic grace. No dramatist has written tragedy with -so light a hand, or comedy with so ironically pathetic a smile, as has -Arthur Schnitzler. - - -[Footnote 1: "Der Freiwild" (sic); correct title is -"Freiwild"--transcriber's note (M.D.)] - -[Footnote 2: "Rohring" is "Rönning" in the original play--transcriber's -note (M.D.)] - - - - -ÉMILE VERHAEREN - - - "Mais les plus exaltés se dirent dans leur coeur, - 'Partons quand même avec notre âme inassouvie - Puisque la force et que la vie - Sont au delà des vérités et des erreurs.'" - - "Vivre c'est prendre et donner avec liesse. - Toute la vie est dans l'essor." - - -The above principles, prefixed to the _Forces Tumultueuses_ of Émile -Verhaeren, are well fitted to supply the key to a man who both in -thought and in technique is indisputably the most modern and the -most massive force in the whole of contemporary European poetry. -For Verhaeren is no narrow specialist with an outlook limited to -some particular sphere. He is the singer of the whole fulness of -modern European life as a whole, with its clashes, its complexities, -its agonies and its tensions, its deserted country-sides and its -pullulating metropoles, its armaments and its Armageddons, its -brothels, cathedrals, laboratories and Stock Exchanges, its sciences -and its sensualities, its arts, philosophies and aspirations. His muse -is no serene nymph piping delicately on some Parnassian slope, but -an extremely tumultuous Amazon, at once primeval, and ultra-modern, -chanting the pæan of battle, steeped in the wine of victory, and -suckling the supermen of the future on her universal breasts. No muse -in the whole of literature is more highly charged with vitality, and -no reader is qualified to enjoy her unless he, too, is charged to the -maximum with "the red tonic liquor of a harsh and formidable reality." - -Let us then glance first at the early _milieu_ of a man who -combines the exultant fury of the lyric with the wide outlook of the -cosmopolitan sociologist, and who can incidentally beat both Baudelaire -and Wordsworth at their own respective game. - -Verhaeren was born on the 21st May 1855 at St. Amand in Belgium, one -of the most strenuous countries in the modern world, which, it is -interesting to remember, holds the European record for sensualism, -alcoholism, and clericalism. St. Amand is situated on the broad plains -of the Scheldt, and it is not unimportant to lay some stress on the -Flemish ancestry and environment of a man who, though he wrote in the -French language, is more Germanic than Gallic in his temperament, and -who represents in the sphere of verse perhaps the nearest analogue -to the crass majesty and red sensuality of Rubens. His early country -upbringing, moreover, is responsible for that _joie de vivre_ in -the fields, and, above all, the wind, the symbolisation of fury and -rebellion which was to inspire those nature lyrics, many of which are -nearly as great, though by no means as interesting, as his cosmic and -metropolitan poems. - -Verhaeren was originally intended for the priest-hood, and was -educated at the Jesuit school of St. Barbe in Ghent, where he had -for his schoolfellows such men as Maeterlinck, Van Lenbergh, and -Rodenbach. Leaving school, he went to Brussels, where he felt "his -multiplied heart grow and become exalted" with the roaring intensity -of metropolitan life. All thoughts of a holy life were now abandoned, -and in 1881 the poet was called to the Bar. His chief interests, -however, were literature, Socialism, and Brussels life. Joining the -Young Belgian group under the leadership of Edmond Picard, he became -a frequent contributor to _L'Art Moderne_ and _La Jeune Belgique_. -Politically he was a Socialist, associated himself with the Socialist -leader Vandervelde, and was one of the founders of the philanthropic -_Maison des Peuples_. - -But it was in the poetic representation of "the monstrous scenery of -the crass Flemish Kermesses" (_Les Flamands_, 1883) that Verhaeren gave -the first vent to his violent virility. In this work a Rubensesque and -Rabelaisian subject-matter is treated with poetic exaltation by a man -who found in the great national festivals of past and present Flanders, -with - - "Des chocs de corps, des heurts de chair et des bourrades, - Des lèchements subis dans un etreignement," - -the same patriotic inspiration which Mr. G. K. Chesterton has -discovered in that beer; into which he has, as it were, so successfully -transubstantiated the whole national spirit of our English -body-politic. Thus our poet wallows defiantly in the black roughness of -his Flemish peasants: - - "Les voici noirs, grossiers, bestiaux--ils sont tels," - -or casts regretful glances towards the healthier grossness of the -artists of old Flanders: - - "Vos pinceaux ignoraient le fard, - Les indécences, les malices, - Et les sous-entendus de vice - Qui clignent l'oeil dans notre art, - Vos femmes suaient la santé, - Rouge de sang blanche de graisse, - Elles menaient les ruts en laisse - Avec des airs de royauté." - -But these poems are far more than mere erotic or gastronomic -diversions. Somewhat turgid, no doubt, with red health, they yet -possess the same sweep and the same impetus with which Aristophanes -himself once gave expression to the riotous fecundity of the earth and -the Dionysian forces of nature. - -In _Les Moines_ (_The Monks_, 1886), Verhaeren treats a subject-matter -which _primâ facie_ would seem to denote the abandonment of the cult of -the flesh for the cult of the spirit. Yet such veneration as the poet -may ever have possessed for the Catholic creed was æsthetic rather than -religious. He penetrates, it is true, into the "enormous shrine where -the Middle Ages slumber," but it is less to worship than to describe -in a rigid, but majestic prosody "the grand survivors of the Christian -world"--the - - "Moines venus vers nous des horizons gothiques - Mais dont l'âme mais dont l'esprit meurt de demain." - -Psychologically the interesting feature of this work is that, so far -from being in any way obsessed by any Chestertonian nostalgia for a -dead and mediæval past, the poet anticipates with all apparent serenity -the day when "the final blasphemy will have transpierced God like to -an immense sword." Even, moreover, in these, as it were, antiquarian -descriptions the poet emphasizes the contrast between the visionary -life of the cloister (a life, albeit, where occasionally - - "Un repas colossal souffle fourneaux béants - Éructant vers l'azur sa flamme et sa fumée") - -and the real life of the outside world, and seems by no means -unsympathetic to the rebellious monk who requires - - "Le ciel torride et le désert et l'air des monts - Et les tentations en rut des vieux demons - Agaçant de leurs doigts la chair enflée des gouges - En lui brûlant la lèvre avec de grands seins rouges." - -Yet both _Les Flamands_ and _Les Moines_ seem quite innocent and -playful in comparison with the great black trinity of _Les Soirs, Les -Débâcles_, and _Les Flambeaux Noirs_ (1887-1891), in which Verhaeren -gave expression to the mental and physical crisis which for a time -seemed to imperil both his life and his reason. In these poems, many of -which were written in London and its - - "Gares de suie et de fumée ou du gaz pleure - Ses spleens d'argent lointain vers des chemins d'éclair, - Où des bêtes d'ennui baillent à l'heure - Dolente immensément qui tinte à Westminster," - -Verhaeren leaves the objective mood of his earlier poems to clothe his -soul in the Nessian shirt of the most poisonous subjectivity. But true -tragic dignity stalks in the very extremity of his agony. Compared, -indeed, with the gigantic bass of this unhappiness, black, definite, -drastic, what is the grey wistfulness of Verlaine but the hysterical -falsetto of a whining child? Verhaeren, on the other hand, with the -ecstatic defiance of a kind of Nietzschean Prometheus sets himself to -plumb the lowest abysses of despair, and himself eggs on the eagles -of torment to devour every shred of his own soul. With "brutal teeth -of fire and madness he bites and outrages his own heart within him," -lashes himself in his thought and in his blood, in his effort, in his -hope, in his blasphemy: - - "Et quand lève le soir son calice de lie - Je me le verse à boire insatiablement." - -Or take again the sinister gusto of the passage: - - "Aurai-j'enfin l'atroce joie - De voir nuits après nuits comme une proie - La démence attaquer mon cerveau, - Et détraque, malade, sorti de la prison - Et des travaux forcés de sa raison - D'appareiller vers un lointain nouveau?" - -The technique of these poems is worthy of some study. Having little use -for the orthodox alexandrine (except in a few instances like _Le Gel_, -where the icy massiveness of the blocked couplets faithfully mirrors -the polar desolation of his own soul), he fashions his own metres to -incarnate his own moods. Such a refrain as "Ce minuit dallé d'ennui" -will boom out again and again the dull monotonous clank of his own -weary spirit. At other times the grinding engines of a disorganised -mind whirr and jar with spasmodic feverishness: - - "C'est l'heure où les hallucinés, - Les gueux, et les déracinés - Dressent leur orgueil dans la vie." - -Note, too, the ghastly effectiveness of the internal rhymes. Is not, -for instance, such a line as - - "Les chiens du noir espoir out aboyé ce soir" - -a triple series, as it were, of metrical mirrors, where the bitten mind -barks savagely back at its own mad image. Or listen to the Titanic thud -of such a line as - - "La Mer choque ses blocs de flots contre les rocs," - -or the silent smash of - - "Dites suis-je seul avec mon âme, - Mon âme hélas maison d'ébène - Où s'est fendu sans bruit un soir - Le grand miroir de mon espoir?" - -At times transcending the blank negativity of despair, the poet will -coquet positively with his own madness, as he wanders "hallucinated -in the forest of numbers," or wishes to march towards "madness and -her suns, her white suns of moonlight in the great weird noon, and -her distant echoes bitten by dins and barkings and full of vermilion -hounds." Or abandoning the more specific formulation of his own -emotions, he will give vent to his feelings by letting his brain dance -upon the lurid boards of some _macabre_ theme. The little poem, _La -Tête_, is dank with all the smooth bloodiness of the guillotine, -while the _Dame en Noir_, with the ghastly rhymes and assurances of -its refrain, is swathed in a black pathos, in comparison with which -the most lurid horrors of Baudelaire appear the mere artificial -extravagances of a perverse mind. - -As we have already seen, the blackness of the trilogy which we have -just considered was no mere dabbling in morbidity, but the genuine -expression of a genuine unhappiness. In, however, _Les Apparus dans -Mes Chemins, Les Vignes de Ma Muraille_ the storm gradually exhausts -itself, and is replaced by a more serene and confident mood. Contrast, -for instance, with the drastic violence of _Les Débâcles_ the jaded -weariness of such a lyric as _Celui de la Fatigue_, where the poet -sings of an "ardour broken on the whirling staircase of the infinite," -or of such a passage as - - "Je m'habille des loques de mes jours - Et le bâton de mon orgueil il plie, - Mes pieds dites comme ils sont lourds - De me porter de me trainer toujours - Au long de siècle de ma vie." - -And as a complete antithesis, again, to the black bloodiness of such -poems as _La Tête_ or _Un Meurtre,_ take the white suavity of _St. -Georges_: - - "Il vient un bel ambassadeur - Du pays blanc illuminé de marbres - Où dans les pares au bords des mers sur l'arbre - De la bonté suavement croit la douceur." - -But this serenity marked rather a respite in Verhaeren's development -than a real abatement of his poetic fury. With the furnaces of his mind -recharged to their maximum capacity with blazing health, he starts to -race his muse over the main lines of the modern civilisation, which -lead from _The Hallucinated Country-sides_ to _The Tentacular Towns_. -Though written at different times, these two sets of poems constitute -the contrasting halves of a complete whole, and were published together -in 1895 with two prologues, _La Ville_ and _La Plaine_. The prologues, -in particular, well illustrate the new rushing irregular prosody, -specially forged for the purpose of hammering out that white-hot -steel of the modern civilisation which enmeshes in its fabric all the -helpless flotsam of the agricultural economy. The academic harmony -of the alexandrine is here abandoned. The rhymes crash out at lesser -and greater intervals as they march along on feet that range from the -quick spasm of some dissyllabic line to the spondaic emphasis of a -full-length alexandrine. - -In _Les Campagnes Hallucinés_ itself the prosody is no doubt simpler, -as the poet describes the ruined and pestilential country with its -fevers, its sins, its beggars, its pilgrims, its diseases, insanities -and débauchés, and the immense monotony of its interminable plains. - - "C'est la plaine, la plaine blême - Interminablement toujours la même, - Par au-dessus, souvent - Rage si forte le vent, - Que l'on dirait le ciel fendu - Au coup de boxe - De l'équinoxe; - Novembre hurle ainsi qu'un loup - Lamentable par le soir fou." - -Perhaps, however, the most sinister poems in _Les Campagnes_ are the -_Chansons de Fou_, with their naïf absurdities and their intuitive -reason, where the rhymes laugh and clatter like rows of grinning teeth, -and the almost Dureresque _Le Fléau_, from its exordium, - - "La Mort a bu du sang - Au cabaret des Trois Cercueils - La Mort a mis sur le comptoir - Un écu noir, - 'C'est pour les cierges, pour les deuils,'" - -down to its ghastly climax, - - "Et les foules suivaient vers n'importent où, - Le grand squelette aimable et soûl - Qui trimballait sur son cheval bonhomme - L'épouvante de sa personne, - Jusqu'aux lointains de peur et de panique, - Sans éprouver l'horreur de son odeur, - Ni voir danser, sous un repli de sa tunique, - Le trousseau de vers blancs qui lui têtaient le coeur." - -The final significance of _Les Campagnes_ lies in its last poem, _Le -Départ_, describing the desertion by the whole country-side of that -dead mournful plain which is being eaten up by the town. - - "Tandis qu'au loin là-bas - Sous les cieux lourds fuligineux et gras, - Avec son front comme un Thabor, - Avec ses sugoirs noirs et ses rouges haleines - Hallucinant et attirant les gens des plaines, - C'est la ville que le jour plombe et que la nuit éclaire - La ville en plâtre, en stuc, en bois, en marbre, en fer, en or-- - Tentaculaire." - -It is, however, in _Les Villes Tentaculaires_, where the fever and -indefatigable aspiration of the town are described with a Zolaesque -exaltation, that the originality of the departure initiated by -Verhaeren is more specifically manifested. For he now boldly stalks -forward as the pioneer realist in European poetry. Disregarding alike -the orthodox subject-matter and the orthodox terminology of official -poesy, he seeks and finds his inspiration in the vast forces at work -in actual modern life. The realism of Verhaeren, in somewhat pointed -contrast to the realism of some of our own patriotic or fashionable -poets, even though such expressions as "cabs" and "steamers" are to be -found in his work in the original English, depends for its æsthetic -value neither on the swing of its slang nor the egregiousness of -its expletives. The hot blast of his sincerity sweeps away at once -any impeachment of mere dabbling in the ultra-modern. His diction -is frequently brusque, and even red, if we may borrow his favourite -colour, if not his favourite adjective; yet it never loses the dignity -of authentic poetry. For the poet would seem to have been personally -susceptible, in the highest degree, to that peculiar multiplication of -vitality and intensification of emotion which is the essential effect -produced by big metropoles upon certain temperaments. And this cerebral -ecstasy is increased by the consciousness of being on the threshold of -a new age, "for the ancient dream is dead, and the new one is now being -forged." Thus the poet will wander into _The Cathedrals_, take pity on -the multitudinous misery of the praying hordes, and boom out again and -again the refrain: - - "Ô ces foules, ces foules - Et la misère et la détresse qui les foulent." - -But note the sociological symbolism of the climax: - - "Et les vitraux grands de siècles agenouillés - Devant le Christ avec leurs papes immobiles - Et leurs martyrs et leurs héros semblent trembler - Au bruit d'un train lointain qui roule sur la ville." - -For refusing to bear the cross of Gothic ideas, the poet plunges -deliberately into the inferno of modern life. And each fresh circle but -kindles his ardour and inflames his Muse. For he will pass with growing -exaltation from the muscled teeming life of the port to the garish -ballet of a music hall where - - "Des bataillons de chair et de cuisses en marche - Grouillent sur des rampes ou sous des arches, - Jambes, hanches, gorges, maillots, jupes, dentelles," - -and then, as midnight strikes and the crowd ebbs away, he will stalk -into the "brilliant chemical atmosphere" where - - "Au long de promenoirs qui s'ouvrent sur la nuit - --Balcons de fleurs, rampes de flammes-- - Des femmes en deuil de leur âme - Entrecroisent leurs pas sans bruit." - -Nor does the poet disdain the grinding factories where - - "Entre des murs de fer et pierre - Soudainement se lève altière - La force en rut de la matière," - -or even the Bourse itself, where he sings in feverish staccato rhythm -the - - "Langues sèches, regards aigus, gestes inverses, - Et cervelles qu'en tourbillons les millions traversent." - -But it is typical of Verhaeren's essential optimism that after -describing with Zolaesque detail both a strike and a "shop of luxury," -he should find the ransom of the future in - - "La maison de la science au loin dardée - Obstinément par à travers les faits jusqu'aux idées." - -In _Les Heures Claires_ (1896) the drastic violence of _Les Villes -Tentaculaires_ abates for the time being into a mood of resigned, but -yet robust melancholy, which immortalises the sweetness, deepness, and -softness of the poet's love for his wife. - -In _Les Forces Tumultueuses_, however, the poet has got once again -into the full swing of his drastic stride. The mood is to some extent -the same as that of _Les Villes Tentaculaires_, though the Zolaesque -concreteness of detail is merged in the broadness of a genuine -Lucretian sweep. The book consists of a series of lyrical poems, -lyrical, albeit, in the sense rather of Pindar than of Herrick, which -exalt the various phases of human energy. Thus in the poem, _L'Art,_ -Verhaeren soars upwards with a tremendous rush: - - "D'un bond - Son pied cassant le sol profond - Son double aile dans la lumière - Le cou tendu, le feu sous les paupières - Partit, vers le soleil et vers l'extase, - Ce dévoreur d'espace et de splendeur Pégase." - -In _Les Maîtres_ the poet describes the various types of superman, from -"the monk" of the Middle Ages to the banker of the twentieth century, -who dominates the world as he "binds sinister destiny to his bourgeois -will," and sows in the distance his winged gold. - - "Son or aile qui s'enivre d'espace, - Son or planant, son or rapace, - Son or vivant, - Son or dont s'éclairent et rayonnent les vents, - Son or qui boit la terre - Par les pores de son misère - Son or ardent, son or furtif, son or retors. - Morceau d'espoir et de soleil--son or!" - - -Some mention must also be made of the poem, _Les Femmes_, which, -subdivided into _L'Éternelle, L'Amante,_ _L'Amazone_, ranks in our view -as the greatest sex poem of the century. In contrast, for instance, -with Swinburne, who treats sex rather as a thing of beauty and of -pleasure than as an underlying world-force, and who has both the -advantage and the disadvantage of the specifically classical conception -of life, Verhaeren, whether he rings his changes in _L'Amante_ on the -soft refrain, "Mon rêve est embarqué dans une île flottante," shows in -_L'Amazone_ that the New Woman can be something considerably more poetic -than a Strindbergian monstrosity, or sings in _L'Éternelle_ her "who -thinks she encloses the whole world within her flesh," will boom out -again and again the cosmic and universal peal. The verse throughout is -as beautiful as can be desired. But it has something more than beauty; -it has stature, majesty, speed, force, that exaltation of reality which -is the essence of the highest poetry. - -In the poems, _La Science_, _L'Erreur, La Folie_, _Les Cultes_, -Verhaeren proceeds to formulate his own philosophy of life, and his -prophetic enthusiasm for the new modern truths, under whose clear feet -the old texts have crumbled, as he expounds - - "Comment la vie est une à travers tous les êtres - Qu'ils soient matière instruit esprit ou volonté - Forêt myriadaire et rouge où s'enchevêtrent - Les débordements fous de la fécondité." - -Put shortly, his philosophy is a compound of those of Nietzsche and -of Bergson. His soul, no doubt, swings in unison with the universal -rhythm of the world, but, like Nietzsche, he finds in force and life -realities transcending all errors, and after a historic survey of the -more popular deities of humanity from Gog to Jehovah, and from Satan -to Christ, enunciates his belief in humanity in stanzas of sublime -blasphemy, far more truly religious than the ambiguous scrolls and -rubrics of any antiquarian creed: - - "L'homme respire et sur la terre il marche, seul. - Il vit pour s'exalter du monde et de lui-même, - Sa langue oublie et la prière et le blasphême; - Ses pieds foulent le drap de son ancien linceul. - Il est l'heureuse audace au lieu d'être la crainte; - Tout l'infini ne retentit que de ses bonds - Vers l'avenir plus doux, plus clair et plus féconds - Dont s'aggrave le chant et s'alentit la plainte. - Penser, chercher, et découvrir sont ses exploits. - Il emplit jusqu'aux bords son existence brêve; - Il n'enfle aucun espoir, il ne fausse aucun rêve, - Et s'il lui faut des Dieux encore--qu'il les soit!" - -In _La Multiple Splendeur_ and _Les Visages de la Vie_ the same -insatiable gusto for an infinitude of life darts again and again its -red tongue. It is impossible by mere quotation to do justice to the -full vastness of Verhaeren's lyric sweep. We would, however, at any -rate, refer to the majesty of _Le Monde_ with its combined crash and -concord of incessant life and the Cyclopean weight of the adamantine -line which buttresses at either end the flaming rivers of its verse, - - "Le monde est fait avec des astres et des hommes," - -or to the sublimity of _Les Penseurs_ in which the poet tells how - - "Autour de la terre obsédée - Circule au fond des nuits, au coeur des jours - Toujours - L'orage amoncelé des idées," - -and how - - "Descartes et Spinoza, Leibniz, Kant et Hegel" - -"fixed the highest pinnacles of inaccessible problems for the goal of -their silver arrows, and carried within themselves the grand obstinate -dream of one day, imprisoning eternity in the white ice of immobile -truth." - -The very names, too, of some of the poems may possibly reflect some -of the facets of their multiplied splendour: _Le Verbe, Les Vieux -Empires, La Louange du Corps Humain, A la Gloire des Cieux, A la Gloire -du Vent, Les Rêves, L'Europe, La Conquête, Les Souffrances, La Joie, -La Ferveur, Les Idées, La Vie, L'Effort, L'Action, Plus Loin que les -Gares, Le Soir_. And again and again rings out in various keys the true -Nietzschean note. For "vast hopes come from the unknown" has displaced -the ancient balance whereof souls are now tired. But the only reality -is life: - - "La vie en cris ou en silence, - La vie en lutte ou en accord - Avec la vie avec la mort - La vie âpre, la vie intense, - Elle est ici dans la fureur ou dans la haine - De l'ascendant et rouge ardeur humaine." - -It is fine proof also of the vast vitality of Verhaeren that even in so -recent a work as _Les Rhythmes Souveraines_ the muscled majesty of his -verse, though possibly a trifle less violent, shows no abatement of its -essential strength. We would mention in particular the poems _Michel -Ange, Chant d'Hercule, Les Barbares_ with the swift crispness of its -one-foot lines, and above all _Le Paradis_ with its almost Miltonic -picture of - - "L'archange endormant Ève au creux de sa grande aile." - -But does not Verhaeren transcend Milton in the wideness of his humanity -when he describes not with regret but with the maximum of exalted -exultation how - - "Ève bondit soudain hors de son aile immense, - Oh l'heureuse subite et féconde démence, - Que l'ange avec son coeur trop pur ne comprit pas." - -In his latest volume, _Les Blés Mouvants_, Verhaeren sinks back no -doubt to a quieter and serener mood, but who shall say that these -eclogues do not simply represent the sage crouch for another leonine -spring? - -We do not propose to make more than a passing reference to Verhaeren's -plays, for it is the lyric rather than the drama which is his true -medium of expression. - -_Hélène de Sparte_, with all its graceful Alexandrines, is inferior -to any play by D'Annunzio, and even the socialist drama _Les Aubes_ -is, notwithstanding the fine verses with which it is sown, simply -stiff and heavy when compared with Hauptmann's _Weavers_. It is by -his lyrics that Verhaeren lives, and will continue to live beyond his -mere death whenever it comes, as the greatest and most essentially -European poet of our new age. For his lyrics are equally great, both -in their message and the method of their expression. Disdaining alike -the cowardice and the perversity of those who, refusing to face the red -realities of the present century, fly for their comfort to the pale -shadows of the Middle Ages, Verhaeren has plunged boldly into the very -brazier of our modern existence. He affirms, he combats, he prophesies, -but he rarely, if ever, rests. He hymns every phase of life, from the -human brain to the human body, and from the winds and seas of nature -to the towns and marts of man. And no message is more virile, more -tonic, more essentially healthy, for is not his message the phoenix -of a new humanitarian faith soaring aloft on its fiery wings out of -the corpses of the decomposing dogmas? And his prosody has the supreme -excellence that it is not a mere æsthetic end in itself, but a drastic -instrument of expression. Your pure æsthete, no doubt, may cavil at -his ruggedness. For he is the Rodin of poetical rhyme, the veritable -Vulcan of verse, or rather a Siegfried forging the sword of the future -on the anvil of the present, as he drives in the stubborn nails of his -nouns with the hissing hammers of his adjectives. His lines no doubt -at times will growl, grind and boom, hit the reader in the face with -all the force of a clenched fist, and palpitate with a full-bloodedness -somewhat overpowering for the jaded and the anæmic. But is not this the -very seal of success in a man who specifically sets himself to sing -not the mere beauty of beauty, but the beauty of force, the beauty of -life, "life violent, prodigious, unsatiated, the universal spasm of all -things"? - - - - -THE FUTURE OF FUTURISM - - - "Repose-toi!... Repose-toi!... il n'est doux que dormir!..." - - "Non, la vie est à brûler comme un falot de paille, - Il faut l'ingurgiter d'une lampe hardie, - Tels ces jongleurs de foire qui vont mangeant du feu - D'un coup de langue, escamotant la Mort dans l'estomac." - - -The above quotation from M. Marinetti's poem, _Le Démon de la Vitesse_, -is well adapted to give some idea of the feverish but sustained energy -of those pictures whose recent exhibition in the Sackville Gallery so -successfully scandalised not only the _doyens_ of the Royal Academy but -even the official champions of all that is new and progressive in our -modern English art. But for a correct appreciation even of the Futurist -pictures themselves, it is essential to realise that, so far from -being the mere isolated extravagances and _tours de force_ of a new -technique, they constitute an integral part of a living scheme, which -with all its lavish use of the most ostentatious hyperbolism, has yet -claims to be seriously considered as a substantial movement, artistic, -literary, economic, sociological, and above all human. - -Let us then make some scrutiny of this "Rising City" of Futurism, as -it rears with such vehement exaltation from out the trampled debris -of a superseded and dishonoured past. For this purpose, having first -examined those conditions of contemporary Italy which more immediately -provoked this "Red Rebellion," we shall proceed to some analysis of -the general character of the movement and of the aggressive and -sensational works of M. Marinetti himself, the audacious Mercury of -this new message. - -The direct cause of the Futurist movement is to be found in the fact -that that modern current of electric energy, which has been galvanising -the states of Northern and Central Europe to a more and more strenuous -and a more and more complicated activity has, so far as Italy is -concerned, not succeeded in flowing further south than Milan. In this -connection it is not without its significance that, while Milan is -indubitably the vital and commercial capital of the peninsula, the -official capital should be merely Rome, aureoled with its hybrid halo -of majesty and malaria, the centre of the tourist, the archæologist, -and the Papacy, that august shadow of a once living empire. - -Even, moreover, the great heroes of the _Risorgimento Italiano_, -the euphonious title by which Italians designate the unification of -their country, suffered from an undue obsession with the democratic -ideals of a mediæval past. Dissipating their energy in rushing reams -of republican rhetoric or the purple pomp of patriotic platitudes, -they remained sublimely oblivious to the crying economic needs of -a country which, with all its natural richness and all its natural -genius, still, so far as general material and intellectual progress -is concerned, lags no inconsiderable distance behind the increasingly -quick march of the European civilisation. Nor did matters improve -when the régime of the naïf idealists was succeeded by that of the -opportunist bureaucracy which has since governed Italy. A vast portion -of the country still remains unforested, uncultivated, unirrigated, -and above all uneducated. The taint of malaria still infects wide -tracts of land, which with proper treatment might have been profitably -developed by those masses of sturdy labourers who have emigrated to -America with an almost Irish eagerness. Indeed with all respect to -M. Marinetti, who has himself fought in the Tripolitan trenches, the -Italo-Turkish war was occasioned (if we can rely on one of the most -brilliant and responsible of the Parisian reviews) not so much by a -_bonâ fide_ desire to find a place in the sun for the not yet surplus -population of a not yet fully developed country, as by an indisputably -authentic ambition to find a lucrative outlet for the money of the -clique of clerical capitalists who control the Bank of Rome. So far, -however, as no inconsiderable portion of Italy itself is concerned, -we are confronted with a country of museums, ruins, and ciceroni -which, exploiting the _Fremdenindustrie_ after the manner of some -more perverse and inexcusable Switzerland, prostitutes with venal -ostentation the faded beauties of its undoubtedly glorious past to the -complete ruin of its only potentially splendid present. - -A certain pseudo-Nietzscheanism has no doubt been introduced into Italy -beneath the auspices of D'Annunzio. Yet, with all his fanfaronnade of -tense and exuberant virility, the atmosphere of D'Annunzio is, speaking -broadly, moistly rank and exotically enervating. With the possible -exception of his latest novel, his heroes are languidly feverish -dilettantes whose lives are principally devoted to the literary and -æsthetic cultivation of all the neurotic luxuriance of their own erotic -morbidities. This brings us to the important sociological fact of that -rigid obsession with sex, as the one paramount emotional, artistic, -and vital value which, sapping the manhood not only of Italy but also -indeed of France, tends to corrupt the whole social, political, and -economic life of the two nations. - -It is this exaggerated preoccupation with the sexual aspect of life -which has produced, by way of a vehement but deliberate _riposte_, the -important Futurist maxim, "Méprisez la femme." With an enthusiasm in -fact almost worthy of our own Young Men's Christian Association, these -comparative Hippolyti of a young mother-country, only recently wedded -in the bonds of political union, flaunt themselves as the unscrupulous -iconoclasts of such firmly established national ideals as "the glorious -conception of Don Juan and the grotesque conception of the cocu." -Thus the Futurists would banish the nude from painting and adultery -from the novel, so that they may be able to substitute the sublime -male fury of creation of artistic and scientific masterpieces for all -the sterile embraces of hedonistic eroticism, and, like some gallant -band of twentieth-century Hercules, cleanse the Augean stables of the -Latin civilisation of its vast surplus of malignant mud vomited forth -by that stewing and pestiferous swamp of sex. As an antidote to that -virulent plague of luxurious and diseased sexuality, which it is their -self-imposed mission to eradicate, they pen the drastic prescription -of "patriotism and war, the only hygiene of the world." So hot indeed -is the ardour of these militant apostles of a new Latin civilisation, -that they once incurred the displeasure of established authority by -insisting on a war with Austria with such a maxim of vehemence that -an Austrian journal actually demanded the intervention of the Italian -Government. - -And whether this policy indicates the mere tetanic spasms of a -delirious Chauvinism, or the lucid vision of an inspired if heretical -diplomacy, it is certainly symptomatic of a tense, combative, and -drastic energy which is, in the deepest sense of the word, essentially -Nietzschean. In this connection the attitude of the Futurists towards -Nietzsche is instructive. They have read his books, thrilled to his -magic, and yet they repudiate him. For they cavil, and not altogether -unreasonably, at the bigoted and hidebound dualism of Nietzsche's -political philosophy, and his obstinate and obsolete division of the -political world into the divine spirit of a few strong geniuses and the -brute matter of a weak and numerous proletariate. - -Yet, taking the matter in its broad lines, M. Marinetti's programme -for "the indefinite physiological and intellectual progress of man" -expresses admirably the whole theory of the Nietzschean Superman. -Nietzschean also are such phrases as, "the type inhuman, mechanical, -cruel, omniscient and combative," or "the multiplied man who mingles -with iron, nourishes himself on electricity, and only appreciates the -delight of the danger and of the heroism of every single day." The -real distinction lies in the fact that the Futurist Superman is more -practical, more concrete, more up-to-date, and, above all, infinitely -less dreamy than his elder and more pedantic brother. - -And in spite of M. Marinetti's analysis of Nietzscheanism as nothing -but the artificial resurrection of a dead and past antiquity, the two -ideals are harmonious in their denunciation of the facile and automatic -reverence for "the good old days," and their savage exhortation to -"sweep away the grey cinders of the Past with the incandescent lava of -the Future." - -This announcement of a virile desire to improve and improve and -improve, not only on the past but also on the present, constitutes -the principal mark in the Futurist platform. Hence the leaders of -the movement have coined the two words _passéisme_, the object of -their onslaught, and _Futurism_, the watch-word of their faith. And -truculently pushing their theories to the extreme limit of extravagant -logic, M. Marinetti and his brothers in arms exhorted the assembled -Venetians, in the 200,000 multicoloured manifestos which on a certain -memorable day they flung down into the Piazza San Marco, "to cure -and cicatrize this rotting town, magnificent wound of the Past, and -to hasten to fill its small foetid canals with the ruins of its -tumbling, leprous palaces." But the remedy is constructive as well as -destructive. - -"Burn the gondolas, those swings for fools, and erect up to the sky -the rigid geometry of large metallic bridges and factories with waving -hair of smoke; abolish everywhere the languishing curve of the old -architecture." - -We see at once how, in this more than Wellsian enthusiasm for all the -romantic possibilities of a scientific civilisation, they declare -the most sanguinary war _à l'outrance_ with that Ruskinian and -Pre-Raphaelite sentimentalism which, sublimely burying its mediæval -head in the immemorial sands of a crumbling past, is somewhat -ill-adapted to confront the onrushing simoon of an increasingly -definite and formidable future. And with the deliberate object of -emphasizing his point with the maximum of provocative aggressiveness, -the Futurist will fling at his enemies the insolent paradox that a -motor-car in motion has a higher æsthetic value than the Victory of -Samothrace, or announce with theatrical solemnity that the pain of -a man is just about as interesting in their eyes as the pain of an -electric lamp, suffering in convulsive spasms and crying out with the -most agonising effects of colour. - -Yet if we strip this new "beauty of mechanism" and "æsthetic of speed" -of its loud garb of ostentatious extravagance, the intrinsic theories -themselves strike us as neither monstrous nor unreasonable. For if -we may presume to put our own unauthorised gloss on M. Marinetti's -vividly illuminated manuscript, what the Futurist really wishes is to -break down the conventional divorce that is so often thought to exist -between ideal Art and actual Life, so as to bring the two elements -into the most drastic and immediate contact. Art, in fact, should not -be an escape _from_ but an exaltation _of_ the red impetus of life. -Art's function is not merely to titillate the dispassionate æsthetic -feeling of the dilettante or connoisseur, but to thrill with a keen -vital emotion the actual experiencer of life. Form is not an end in -itself, its sole function is to extract the whole emotional quality -of its content. And when confronted with the problem of what content -is best fitted to be the proper subject of artistic representation, -your Futurist would promptly retort that, inasmuch as the tumultuous -twentieth-century emotions of "steel, pride, fever, and speed" are -those to which the twentieth-century civilisation will naturally -vibrate with the most authentic sympathy, those emotions and those -alone are the proper subject-matter for twentieth-century art. - -Having thus obtained some rough idea of the broad lines of the new -Futurism, let us proceed to examine its manifestation in the spheres -of painting and literature. So far as their painting is concerned, the -primary principle of the Futurists is their subordination of intrinsic -æsthetic form to emotional content. This principle, though carried to a -pitch far transcending anything which had ever been previously essayed, -is by no means without its exemplifications, in the history both of -past and contemporary art. Even indeed in the eighteenth century Blake -had transferred on to the painted canvas his highly abstract ideas of -esoteric mysticism. The content of the pictures of Blake is of course -diametrically opposed to the content of the Futurists, yet an authentic -analogy lies in the fact that a content at all should have been -specifically painted. With a similar qualification we can remember with -advantage how Rossetti and Burne-Jones, as indisputably modern in the -fact that they had the courage to paint a content at all, as they were -indisputably reactionary in the actual content which they felt inspired -to portray, gave pictorial representation to the Pre-Raphaelite -nostalgia for a præ-mediæval past. More analogous are the canvases of -Franz von Stuck, the Munich Secessionist, who also sets out to paint -ideas and to give æsthetic form to psychological contents. Thus his -_Krieg_, with its grimly triumphant rider, steadfastly pursuing the -goal of an ideal, future over the wallowing corpses of a transcended -present, expresses perfectly in the sphere of paint the whole spirit of -the Nietzschean Superman. - -Even better examples of the growing predominance of the content in the -sphere of art are to be found in Rodin, who moulds even in immobile -statuary something of the tumultuous sweep of the present age, or in -Max Klinger the creator in concrete form of the most abstract and -impalpable ideas. - -So also modern music, as represented at any rate by the tense -restlessness of Richard Strauss with all his fine shades of crouching -fear and exultant cruelty, or the mystical sensuousness of Debussy, -ceases to be a mere meaningless euphony of pleasing melody, devoid of -any vital significance except its own æsthetic beauty, sets itself more -and more to travel, in the sphere of sound, over the whole vibrant -gamut of the human emotions. - -To achieve the presentation of a content with the maximum of drastic -effect, the Futurists have invented a new technique. Without embarking -oh any elaborate technical discussion, we would say that their chief -principle in the painting of apparently even the most objective -phenomena is that it should be the aim of the artist to reproduce no -mere picturesque copy of some stationary pose, but that whole sensorial -or emotional quality inherent in all dynamic life which radiates to -the mind of the spectator, or which again may be simply flashed into -dynamic life by the mind of the spectator himself. - -And as, according to our latest and most fashionable metaphysical -authority, the ego, whether of a man, an insect, or a cosmos, is merely -a movement, it should not strike us as altogether unreasonable if -the dynamic idea of movement should enter very prominently into the -Futurist paintings. For, realising fully that consciousness is a stream -and not a pond, and that both cerebral memories and visual impressions -are but, as it were, the flying nets hastily created and re-created -to catch a world that is perpetually on the run, the Futurists make -boldly ingenious efforts to capture the jumping chameleon of truth, by -portraying not one but several phases of the unending series of the -human cinematograph. - -Thus in Severini's picture of the "Pan-Pan dance at the Monico," the -artist sets himself to paint the whole moving, multicoloured soul of -this by no means spiritual Montmartre tavern, with all its various -subdivisions of male and female customers engaged in their mutual -revels and their mutual dances, the deviltry of its _rigolo_ music, and -all the hustling clash and clatter of its insolent carouse.-- - -It is also significant of their general _Weltanschauung_ that the -Futurists should frequently find their inspiration in the speed, -stress, and creativity of a glorious modernity. Thus Russolo's -"Rebellion," angular, aggressive, rampant, reproduces the whole red -energy of an insurgent proletariate, while the same painter's "Train" -essays, and not unsuccessfully, to paint the very lights and ridges of -velocity itself. - -The feats of the new culture in the realm of literature are quite as -impressive and as sensational as in that of painting. This brings us -to some consideration of M. Marinetti himself, both the real and the -official, chief of the new movement. - -To comprehend the true essence of this man, who certainly constitutes -a European portent which, whether hated or loved, can scarcely be -ignored, it is necessary to realise that while a poet he is above all a -man of the world and of action. While, also, as would appear from his -visit to the _Morning Post_ correspondent in Tripoli, he is a gentleman -inflamed by a genuine if no doubt slightly truculent patriotism, he -has all the advantages of being an almost perfect cosmopolitan. Born -in Egypt of Italian parents, educated in France, and now directing the -Futurist movement from Milan, M. Marinetti combines all the heat of an -African temperament with all the mercurial dash and aggressiveness of -the modern Latin civilisation. At present only in the early thirties, -M. Marinetti founded in the years 1904--1905 his international review -_Poesia_. To this journal he endeavoured to attract all that was -strenuous, aspiring, and daring in the artistic youth of the Latin -civilisation. Eventually the various tentative ideals and ideas which -he and his colleagues entertained became crystallised in the word -_Futurism_, which grew more and more a definite creed with a more and -more definite catechism of literature, music, painting, politics, and -life. Since the publication of the first Futurist manifesto in the -_Figaro_ in 1909, M. Marinetti has devoted himself to waging with -all his militant energy of tongue, sword, and pen the campaign of -Futurism. Meeting after meeting, demonstration after demonstration has -he addressed in Italy, and, carrying the war into the enemy's country, -he has even had the audacity to hurl his defiance from Trieste itself. -And if the deliberate provocativeness at which he has pitched his -propaganda has brought upon him the venomous hatred of both numerous -and powerful enemies, it has merely served to give but an additional -fillip to the fury of his impetus. - -It is indeed not only amusing, but also an indication of the man's -verve and defiance, to remember that when he had been hissed for -a whole hour on end in the Theatre Mercadante of Naples, where he -was delivering a lecture, and an apparently quite edible orange was -eventually thrown at him, he should with fine _bravura_ take out -his penknife and both peel and eat the orange. In Italy, at any -rate, Futurism has swept the universities, and the disciples of the -new faith number 50,000. Endeavouring to give to the campaign a -cosmopolitan significance, the Futurists have carried their pictures, -their manifestos, and their books to Madrid, to Berlin, to Paris -(where they were enthusiastically toasted by the "Association Générale -des Etudiants," the Parisian equivalent of the Oxford and Cambridge -Unions), and even to England itself, which, with a surprising lack of -its usual insularity, would actually appear to be taking an intelligent -interest in a new movement without waiting, as was the case with -Nietzscheanism, until it has first become the respectable if _passée_ -object of the devotion of Continental academicism. - -Before we proceed on our short survey of the chief works of M. -Marinetti, which have been written in French and only subsequently -translated into Italian, it is necessary to make some brief mention -of the new technique which he employs. This new technique is Free -Verse, first introduced into French literature in the _Palais Nomades_ -of M. Gustave Kahn. It should be remembered, of course, that French -Free Verse is an article totally distinct from that mixture of rolling -dithyramb and conversational slap-dash which characterises the work of -Walt Whitman. - -So far indeed as M. Gustave Kahn is concerned, the innovation -simply consisted not in any repudiation of rhyme in itself, but in -the emancipation of French verse from the strait-waistcoat of the -Alexandrine and the strict disciplinary rules of academic composition. - -M. Marinetti, on the other hand, in the three volumes which it is now -proposed to consider, viz. _La Conquête des Étoiles_ (Sansot, 1902), -_Destruction_ (Vanier, 1904), _La Ville Charnelle_ (Sansot, 1908), -carries the metrical revolution considerably further. For while the -essence of classicism itself when compared with the polyphonic though -at times majestic ebullitions of Walt Whitman, they subserve no -specific rule. Metre, genuine metre, is invariably present, but the -precise shape which it happens to take is determined by the exigencies -not of the particular metre in which the poet happens to be writing, -but of the particular mood or emotion which clamours for expression -in the form most specifically appropriate to its own particular -idiosyncrasies. If, in fact, we may endeavour to crystallise the theory -of this verse, which though free from mechanical restraint is always -subordinate to the command of its own dynamic soul, we should say that -it is simply the principle of onomatopoeia carried from the sphere of -words to the sphere of metre. - -In the _Conquête des Étoiles_ the twenty-four-year-old Marinetti, -with the characteristic verve of audacious adolescence, essays to open -the oyster of the poetical world with the sword of a romantic epic. -Bearing evidence at times, in its grandiose anthropomorphism of natural -phenomena, of the influence of "his old masters the French Symbolists," -the poem of this future champion of a concrete modernity challenges, -at any rate in the gigantic massing of its imagery, that grandiose -if somewhat bourgeois romantic Victor Hugo. For here poetic Pelion -is piled upon poetic Ossa with the most drastic vengeance. For the -Sovereign Sea, chanting her inaugural battle-cry, - - "Hola-hé! Hola-ho! Stridionla, Stridionla, Stridionla! - Stridionlaire!" - -to her ancient waves, puissant warriors with venerable beards of foam, -lashes them to conquer Space and mount to the assault of the grinning -Stars. And missiles are there in her Reservoir of Death--"petrified -bodies, bodies of steel, embers and gold, harder than the diamond, -the suicides whose courage failed beneath the weight of their heart, -that furnace of stars, those who died for that they stoked within -their blood the fire of the Ideal, the great flame of the Absolute -that encompassed them." And for an army has she the legions of her -amazon cavalry, the veterans of the Sea, the great waves, the riotous, -prancing narwhals with their scaly rings, the typhoons, the cyclones -and the haughty trombes (water-spouts), "draping around their loins -their fuliginous veils, or lifting masses of darkness in their great -open arms." And so this feud of the elements proceeds from climax to -climax, from crescendo to crescendo, till the astral fortresses succumb -to the shock of an infernal charge, and the last star expires "with her -pupils of grey shadow imploring the Unknown, oh how sweetly." - -No doubt the poem almost reels at times as though intoxicated with -the excesses of its own imagery. Yet making all due discount for this -healthy turgidity of adolescence, it is impossible to dispute the -authentic poetical value of this brilliant epic. - -By so masterly a grasp is the metre handled that the reader, quite -oblivious of the immaterial question of whether he is perusing verse -or prose, is only conscious of the ideas and emotions themselves. -The following passage is typical not only of the poem's potency of -expression, but of the intimate union which is effected between the -meaning and the form. - - "C'est ainsi que passe le Simoun, - aiguillonant sa furie de désert en désert, - avec son escorte caracolante - de sables soulevés tout ruisselants de feu; - c'est ainsi que le Simoun galope - sur l'océan figé des sables, - en balangant son torse géant d'idole barbare - sur des fuyantes croupes d'onagres affolés." - -In the series of poems, however, known as _Destruction_, - - "Since there is only splendour in this word of terror - And of crushing force like a Cyclopæan hammer," - -that boyish robustness which we have seen playing so naïvely in the -romantic limbo, has attained the solidity of manhood. Finding it no -longer necessary to have recourse for his subject-matter to some set -theme of an Elemental War, the author reproduces the experiences of -his own inner life in a new lyrical language, whose rhythm vibrates -responsively to every thrill of its creator's spirit, and takes -faithfully every colour of his chameleon soul. - -For the poet is now reverential: - - "Tu es infinie et divine, o Mer, et je le sais - de par le jurement de tes lèvres, écumantes - de par ton jurement que répercutent de plage en plage - les echos attentifs ainsi que des guetteurs." - -now jocund: - - "O Mer, mon âme est puerile et demande un jouet"; - -now, almost sensually, adoring: - - "O toi ballerina orientale au ventre sursautant, - dont les seins sont rouges par le sang des naufrages"; - -now sunk in the abject ecstasies of opium: - - "Derrière des vitres rouges des voix rauques criaient - 'De la moelle et du sang pour les lampdes d'oubli - C'est le prix des beaux rêves!... c'est le prix....' - Et j'entrais avec eux au bouge de ma chair"; - -now gentle: - - "C'est pour nous que le Vent las de voyages eternels, - désabusé de sa vitesse de fantôme, - froissant d'une main lasse, au tréfonds de l'espace, - les velours somptueux d'un grand oreiller d'ombre - tout diamantés de larmes siddrales"; - -now bitterly conscious of the ironic raillery of the sea: - - "Vos caresses brûlantes, vos savantes caresses, - sont pareilles à des tâtonnements d'aveugles - qui vont ramant par les couloirs d'un labyrinthe! - Vos baisers out toujours l'acharnement infatigable - d'un dialogue enragé entre deux sourds - emprisonnés au fond d'un cachot noir." - -Even more characteristic of the feverish, but not unhealthy ardour of -the book is that series of ten poems entitled _Le Démon de la Vitesse_, -a kind of railway journey of the modern soul. For now the poet, stoking -the engines of his pounding brain with the monstrous coals of his own -energy, drives his train of Æschylean images (well equipped with all -the latest modern inventions) with all the record-breaking rapidity of -some Trans-American express, from the "vermilion terraces of love," -across "Hindu evenings," "tyrannical rivers," "avenging forests," -"milleniar torrents," and "the dusky corpulence of mountains," to -traverse "the delirium of Space," and "the supreme plateaux of an -absurd Ideal," to end finally in the grinding shock of a collision and -all the agony of a shipwrecked vessel. It is in this series of poems -that the author's wealth of imagery, always superabundant, lavishes its -most profound and incessant exuberance. - -For such phrases as "the drunken fulness of streaming stars in the -great bed of heaven," "oh, folly, my folly, oh, Eternal Juggler," "O -wind, crucified beneath the nails of the stars," "the flesh scorched in -the burning tunic of a terrible desire," "the sad towns crucified on -the great crossed arms of thewhite road" are not mere isolated flashes -of poetical riches, but casual samples of an opulence displaying -itself on this same grandiose scale throughout every line of every -poem. Note, also, that the poet has completely fused himself with the -whole scientific universe. He will thus portray a man in the terms of -some dynamic entity of mechanical science, which as likely as not will -itself be represented in terms of humanity. Contrast, for instance, -such phrases as-- - - "Les géantes pneumatiques de l'Orgueil," or "train - fougueux de mon âme," - -with-- - - "Colonnes de fumée, immenses bras de nègre, - annelés d'étincelles et de rubis sanglants." - -To sum up the essential character of _Destruction,_ we would say that -releasing poetry from the shackles of the conventional subject-matter, -the conventional language, and the conventional metres to which it -had been so long confined, it lays the hitherto untravelled lines of -the speed and beauty of the whole of modern civilisation, with its -all-unexplored scientific and psychological regions, as it sings the -rushing rhapsody of the whole spirit of the twentieth century. - - "I bid ye pant your fury and your spleen, - I reck not the long roarings of your wrath, - O galloping Simoons of my ambition, - Who heavily the city's threshold paw, - Nor ever shall ye cross her sensual walls, - Ye neigh in vain in my stopped ears, already - With rosy murmurs steeped and stupefied - (And subterranean voices of the deep), - Like spells of freshness full of the sea's song." - -The above quotation may perhaps give such readers as have not the -luxury of the French language some faint shadow of the warm charm of -_La Ville Charnelle_, which, at any rate from the conventional standard -of ordinary æsthetic beauty, represents the zenith of M. Marinetti's -poetical achievement. For in his second volume of verse, our author -abandons the furious pace of his rushing modernity to sing the almost -sensual beauty of a tropical town, with "the silky murmur of its -African sea," its pointed "mosques of desire," and its "hills moulded -like the knees of women, and swathed in the linen billows of its -dazzling chalk." The swift piston rhythm of _Destruction_ is exchanged -for a measure which, though untrammelled by any tight convention, is -often clad in the Turkish trousers of some languorous rhyme, or slides -with the voluptuous swish of some blank alexandrine. But if the flood -of images has abated its turbulence to a serener beauty, it has not -thereby suffered any loss of volume, as is evidenced by such phrases -as "les molles éméraudes de prairies infinies," "la bouche éclatée des -horizons engloutisseurs," or "jusqu'au volant trapeze de ce grand vent -gymnaste." - -Or take the following passage from _The Banjoes of Despair and of -Adventure_: - - "Elles chantent, les benjohs hystériques et sauvages, - comme des chattes énervées par l'odeur de l'orage. - Ce sont des nègres qui les tiennent - empoignées violemment, comme on tient - une amarre que secoue la bourrasque. - Elles miaulent, les benjohs, sous leurs doigts frénétiques, - et la mer, en bombant son dos d'hippopotame, - acclame leurs chansons par des flic-flacs sonores - et des renaclements." - -More aery and fantastic in their radiance are the _Little Dramas of -Light_, which in the same volume play outside the walls of _La Ville -Charnelle_. For pushing the pathetic fallacy to the extreme limit of -pantheism, or anthropomorphism, as one cares to put it, our author -constructs his miniature scenes out of the interplay of plants, -elements, and the very fabrics of human invention, all participating in -something of the mingled dash, despair, and desire which go to weave -the somewhat complex tissue of our ultra-modern humanity. - -Even the titles of a few of these delicate poems give some idea of -their darting beauty--"The Foolish Vines and the Greyhound of the -Firmament" (the Moon), "The Life of the Sails," "The Death of the -Fortresses," "The Folly of the Little Houses," "The Dying Vessels," -"The Japanese Dawn," "The Courtesans of Gold" (the Stars). - -Observe, also, the eminently twentieth-century temperament of the -"coquettish vessels," who, "half-clothed in their ragged sails, and -playing like urchins with the incandescent ball of the sun," have yet -experienced "amid the disillusioned smile of the autumn evenings" the -desire for a fuller and more tumultuous life than is afforded by the -"ventriloquist soliloquies of the gurgling waters of the quays." - - "C'est ainsi, c'est ainsi que les jeunes Navires - implorent affolées délivrance, - en s'esclaffant de tous leurs linges bariolés, - claquant au vent comme les lèvres brulées de fièvre. - Leurs drisses et leurs haubans se raidissent - tels des nerfs trop tendus qui grincent de désir, - car ils veulent partir et s'en aller - vers la tristesse affreuse (qu'importe?) inconsolable - et (qu'importe?) infinie - d'avoir tout savouré et tout maudit (qu'importe?)." - -We can perhaps best formulate the dynamic _élan de vie_, which pulses -through every line of M. Marinetti's poems, by indulging in the -perversion of the great line of Baudelaire, so that we can give to our -poet for his motto: - - "Je haïs la ligne qui tue le mouvement." - -M. Marinetti's activity, however, is not limited to the sphere of -verse. In 1905 he published _Le Roi Bombance_ (_Mercure de France_), -a satyric tragedy, compound of the scarcely harmonious temperaments -of Rabelais and Maeterlinck, a wild extravaganza of anthropophagy and -resurrection, which satirises the prominent figures in contemporary -Italian politics, including the recently dead Crispi, Ferri, and -Tenatri, and contains withal a profound undercurrent of sociological -truth. _Poupées Electriques_ (Sansot) followed in 1909, a play which, -with all its brilliance and originality, somehow just misses the real -dramatic pitch. - -Far more significant are the _belles lettres_ of _Les Dieux s'en vont -D'Annunzio reste_ (Sansot, 1908), with its steely dash of style and its -criticism at once singularly acute and delightfully malicious of the -official protagonist of all Italian culture, and the recently published -_Futurisme_ (Sansot, 1911). - -But of all the works of M. Marinetti, the most impressive is the great -prose epic, _Mafarka Le Futuriste_. It is in the three hundred pages -of this novel, which describes the destructive and creative exploits -of a militant and intellectual African prince, that the Futurist -leader has given the most complete expression to the vehement surge -of his genius. In this book, the spirits of the East and of the West -strangely combine. The gross heat of an African sun beats incessantly -down upon these torrid pages, yet even the most oriental passages have -such a Homeric freshness of epic sweep as to render them immeasurably -cleaner than the sniggering indecencies of not a few of even the more -fashionable and respectable of our lady novelists. Incident follows -on incident, adventure on adventure, with the magic bewilderment of -some Arabian Night, an Arabian night illumined by the galvanic current -of some twentieth-century genie, as it flashes image after image on -the multicoloured sheet of some dancing cinematograph. The style -bounds with a lithe male crispness, in comparison with which even the -luxuriant and self-complacent flowers of D'Annunzio himself seem at -times to offer but rank and androgynous beauties. - -How admirable, for instance, is such a passage as-- - - "And Mafarka-el-Bey bounded forward, with great elastic - steps, sliding on the voluptuous springs of the wind and - rolling--like a word of victory--in the very mouth of - God"; - -or such a perfect Homeric simile as-- - - "All the beloved sweetness of his vanished youth mounted - in his throat, even as from the courtyard of schools - there mount the joyous cries of children towards their - old masters, leaning over the parapet of the terrace - from which they see the flight of the vessels upon the - sea"; - -or such a perfect description as-- - - "Et d'en haut descendaient les rayons des étoiles des - milliers de chainettes dorées tintinabulantes, qui - balançaient au ras de l'eau leurs tremblants reflets, - innombrables veilleuses." - -But the wondrous story of how Mafarka-el-Bey exhorted to the work of -war the thousands of his wallowing soldiers from the putrescent bed -of that dried-up lake; of how, disguising himself as an aged beggar, -he visited the camp of the negroes; of the monstrous tale which he -there told his Ethiopian foes; of the stratagem by which he drew the -two pursuing wings of the infatuated army to the stupendous shock of -an internecine collision; of how he annihilated the maddened hordes of -the Hounds of the Sun with the stones flung by the mechanical Giraffes -of War; of the Neronian banquet in the grotto of the Whale's Belly; of -the agonised hydrophobic death of his brother Magamal, the light of his -eyes; of the nocturnal journey in which he conveyed across the sea his -brother's body in a sack to the land of the Hypogeans; of the Futurist -Discourse which he there held; of his passing encounter with the -fellahin Habbi and Luba; of how, disdaining the more banal method of -filial creation, he compelled the weavers of Lagahourso and the smiths -of Milmillah to make the body of that Airgod Gazourmeh, whose spirit he -had fashioned out of the glory of his own unaided brain; and of how he -died exultantly, brushed away beneath the gigantic wings of his son, as -it flew like some hilarious parricide into the clear infinitude, is it -not all written in the pages of _Mafarka Le Futuriste_? (E. Sansot & -Cie, Paris, 3 fr. 50 c.) - -Note, also, the religious exultation of martial and intellectual -energy, whose hoarse prayer is uttered on almost every page. For -Mafarka is the prophet of that "new voluptuousness which shall have -rid the world of love when he shall have founded the religion of the -concrete will and of the heroism of every single day." - -And to still further exemplify his new religion of war and energy, -and inspired, too, no doubt by the airy message of the Arab bullets, -M. Marinetti finished on the 29th November 1911 in the trenches of -Sidi-Missri, near Tripoli, the great free-verse epic of three hundred -and fifty pages, entitled _The Popes Monoplane_. The function of this -poem, which is certainly the most original epic known to literary -history, is to serve as an anti-clerical, an anti-pacifist, and -anti-Austrian polemic. And this function it accomplishes by a technique -which in its successful audacity transcends even itself. For nowhere -is the free verse of Marinetti more free. New harmonies and even new -dissonances are conjured up according to the emotion to be expressed -and the object to be described, while the terminology of mechanics -and physiology is judiciously mingled with just a trace of the old -romanticism. The whole epic quite literally flies with inordinate -swiftness. For the poet is, on his monoplane, careering over the heart -of Italy. He takes counsel of his father the volcano, and, flying back -to Rome, fishes up by means of an iron chain with a spring-trap the -great polished Seal, or, as he exultantly describes it, - - "Un pape, un vrai pape, le saint Pontif lui-même." - -And on he flies on his missionary career, with the miserable Vicar of -God dangling helplessly beneath him, now present at the debates of -_Les Moucherons Politiciens_, now assisting at the tumultuous congress -of _Les Syndicate Pacifistes_, now side by side with the moon, now -exhorting the Italian youth to shake off their execrable lethargy, -and, finally, participating in the eventual overthrow of the Austrian -enemy. This poem marks an immense advance on the earlier epic, _La -Conquête des Étoiles_, to which we have already referred. It pullulates -with an equal energy, but this energy is tenser and far less turgid. It -is an energy, moreover, whose impetus is expended not on imaginative -abstractions, but on the drastic attack of concrete political problems. -As a sheer piece, too, of description, Marinetti's description of the -_Battle of Monfalcone_ is in our view superior to any of the military -verse even of Kipling himself. _The Pope's Monoplane_ is, of course, an -aggressively specific example of realism in poetry. But it is a realism -which, so far from clipping the wings of Pegasus, rather spurs him to -higher and more strenuous flights. We may perhaps conclude our survey -of this work by an endeavour to render into English a characteristic -passage from the dialogue between the Poet and the Volcano. - - - THE VOLCANO - - Ne'er have I slept; I labour endlessly, - Enriching space with many a masterpiece - That lives and dies in a day. - Over the baking of the chiselled rocks - Upon the vitrefaction of the many-coloured sands - I keep my watch - So well that the clay 'neath my fingers - Will metamorphose - To a porcelain of perfect rose, - Which I shatter with the buffets of my steam. - - My accomplice is the Strait of Messina - Which dozes in the dawn, couching white and glossy - As an Angora cat... - My accomplice is the Strait of Messina - Lolling like a cushion of lazy turquoise silk, - With soft Arabian words embroidered by the wake - Of clouds and languorous sails, - Words woven silently methinks - With a fair silver thread upon the ocean's robe. - - The perfidious moon is my accomplice, - The arch-courtesan of the painted stars, - For nowhere are the moon's cajoleries - So luring and persuasive. - - And nowhere does the moon cast such assiduous eyes - To seduce the hard red funnels of the steamers, - Those surly strollers South - With a fat cigar in their mouth - Whose smoke they spit against the azure sky. - - And nowhere does the moon throw such a tender shower - Of soft and violet ashes, - As that which lulls to sleep the lava petrified - On the black houses hanging on my flanks. - And nowhere has the moon such poignancy - Of inundations of light and ecstasy, - As on the gashed paths - Carved by my surgical fire. - - But woe to those who follow the bleating light of the moon, - And the plaintive bells of the flocks, - And the bitter flutes of the shepherds whose world-weary notes - Are long, long threads that vanish in the blue! - Woe to those who refuse to make their galloping blood - Keep step with the gallop of the blood of my devastation! - - And woe to those who wish to root their heads, - To root their feet and houses - In a craven hope of eternity! - A truce to building, for ye must encamp! - Nay, am I not shaped even as a tent - Whose truncated top fanneth my wrath? - I only love the acrobatic stars - Who balance on the rolling balls of smoke - Wherewith I juggle! - - - MYSELF - I can dance to them, and juggle in mid air, - And shower my song on the reverberations - Of thy storms that breed - In subterranean depths!... - And I descend - To hear the diapasons of thy voice. - So make a pause - In the electrical discharges of thy tubes - That tear from thy base the underlying rocks. - Enjoin to silence all thy babbling grottoes, - That all a-flutter quiver ceaselessly. - Gag with thick cinders - The basaltic echoes whose chorus rings thy praise. - - What good are thy volcanic bombs - That serve as punctuations for the growlings of thy speech? - And what care I for the ruddy jets - Of thine aggressive foam? - Thy deluges of mud have soiled my wings of white, - But check me not, for proof against thine avalanche - Of scoria I descend, gilded and aureoled - By all the powdery shower of thy dumbfounded gold. - -It is also relevant to mention that M. Marinetti has been recently -formulating new rules and principles for his new literary code. Among -the more drastic phases of this stylistic revolution we would mention -the employment of mathematical signs and symbols, the rebellion from -too rigid and pedantic a syntax, the minimum use of the adjective and -the infinitive, the opening up of new fields of images and metaphors, -and the freer and more increased use of onomatopoeia. These ideas -are succinctly, though no doubt extravagantly, set out in the two -manifestos entitled _Wireless Imagination and Words at Liberty_ and -_The Futurist Anti-Tradition_. - -Space vetoes more than the enumeration of the other Futurist -poets--Luccini, Palazzescho, Folgore, and Altomare--though we may -perhaps mention the recently published _Poesie Electrichie_ of Govoni, -and the _A Claude Debussy_ of Paolo Buzzi, which won the first prize of -the first international competition of "Poesia," and which transfers -into a marvellously fluid Italian verse the at once ethereal and -faunish emotions of the composer's music. - -But if, finally, we may speculate on the Future of Futurism, its real -prospects and its real significance are to be found in the fact that, -though extravagant and aggressive, it is in essence a concentrated -manifestation of the whole vital impetus of the twentieth century. Its -relationship to Nietzscheanism we have already examined. Almost equally -close is its affinity to the standpoints of such representative spirits -of the real genius of this particular age as Verhaeren and Mr. Wells; -Verhaeren, the gazer on the _Multiple Splendour_ of the _Tumultuous -Forces_ of the _Visages of Life_, with his motto, "Life is to be -mounted and not to be descended; the whole of life is in the soaring -upwards," who expresses in the strenuous majesty of his verse the whole -raging complex of our psychological and material civilisation; Mr. -Wells, too, the glorifier of all the new machinery of our scientific -fabric; Mr. Wells, who, with all his intoxication for the "gigantic -syntheses of life," expresses himself most effectually by the maxim, -"The world exists for and by initiative, and the method of initiative -is individuality." - -Even if we go to more concrete and more topical manifestations, there -is not wanting evidence that the fiery blast of the Futurists is fanned -by the huge bellows of our own labouring _Zeitgeist_. - -If indeed we may meddle with the very latest metaphysical terminology, -we would suggest that it is by a singularly brilliant and apposite -stroke of intuition on the part of, the newly discovered _élan de vie_ -that, at a time which is moving at an unprecedented rapidity, at a time -when the two great brother nations of the Teutonic race are preparing -their rival sacrifices for the God of War with all the mocking and -drastic fraternity of a Cain and of an Abel; when the air is thick -with the wings of a new and regenerated France; when the militant -mænads of both the West and the East, under the inspiration of their -dashing and elusive Pythoness, are waging with foaming fanaticism a -Holy War of Sex; when even one of the most responsible of our lawyers -is coquetting dangerously with both the theory and the practice of the -superior ethical value of Active Resistance; when the most venerable -of our Lord Justices recently interpolated a homily on the Law of -Change into the middle of an otherwise purely legal judgment; when -the two young, but patriotic _condottieri_ of either political party -are fast leaping into a more and more aggressive prominence; when the -insurgent masses of our industrial proletariat have made a vehement and -not entirely unsuccessful charge against existing economic fabric of -the country; when Mr. Thomas Hardy has attended, in the pages of even -the _Fortnightly Review_, the funeral of the old God of pity, and when -Bergsonism, judiciously advertised in the masquerade of a religious -revival, has replaced the old Eternal Absolute with the creative -activity of an endless Movement, the Futurists should now exalt the -sublime vehemence of war, and the aggressive fury of youth, while M. -Marinetti chants the strident hallelujahs of the new God of sweat and -agony and tension, and Signor Russolo and his _confrères_ exhibit to us -in the actual canvases of the Sackville Galleries the rampant hordes of -rebellion and the painting of Movement itself. - - - -INDEX - - - Abel, 237 - _Advent_, 110 - Æschylus (_cf_. Corelli), 115 - Alcibiades, 61 - _Almansor_, 32 - _Alroy_, 55 - Altomare, 236 - _Amour, De l'_, 13, 14 - _Anatol_, 161, 176-9 - _Anne Veronica_, 120 - Anti-Semite, 115, 190 - Anti-Semitism, 115 - Antoine, 98 - _Aphrodite_, 129 - _Arabian Nights_, 144 - _Ardath_, 114, 115 - Aristotle, 74 - _Armance_, 15-16 - Athanasius, 89 - Attila, 117 - _Aubes, Les_, 210 - Austria, 215 - _Awkward Age, The_, 153 - - BALFOUR, Mr., 123 - Balzac, 38, 201 - _Banti, Consultation de_, 9 - Barker, 162 - Barrie, J. M., 132 - _Baths of Lucca_, 35 - Baudelaire, 121, 144, 154 - Beaconsfield. _See_ Disraeli - Beardsley, 144 - Belgium, 197 - Bergson, 208 - Bergsonism, 238 - Berlioz, 38, 44 - Beyle. _See_ Stendhal - _Beyond the Rocks_, 128 - Bible, 89, 120 - Bigillon, 5 - Birrell, 64 - Björnsen, 98 - _Black Flags_, 95, 100, 111-13 - Blake, 219 - Blatchford, Robert, 132 - _Blés Mouvants, Les_, 210 - Bohair, 38 - _Bond, The_, 104 - _Book of Songs_, 30, 31, 35, 36, 49 - Borgia, 86 - Borne, 38, 39 - Bottomley, Horatio, 119 - Bourget, 24 - _Bovary, Madame_, 16 - _Boy_, 115 - Brandes, 71 - Brieux, 188 - Browning, 63 - Brummel, 61 - Bryce, 60 - _Büchse von Pandora_, 138, 145, 149, 150, 155 - Buddhism, 72 - Burne-Jones, 219 - Buzzi, 236 - Byron, 30, 52, 93 - - CAIN, 81, 237 - _Call of Life_, 175-6 - _Campagnes Hallucinés_, 202-4 - Carlyle, 44, 66 - Carpani, 11 - Casanova, 64 - Catholicism, 39, 110 - Cervantes, 30 - Chant, Mrs. Ormiston, 133 - _Chartreuse de Parme_, 20, 21 - Chateaubriand, 6 - Chauvinism, 215 - Chesterton, G. K., 119, 198 - Christ, 71, 110, 118, 208 - _Childe Harold_, 52 - Christianity, 71, 72, 73, 76, 78, 79, 80, 88, 93; - Electric Principle of, 114 - _Comédie Humaine_, 16 - _Confession of a Fool_, 95, 97, 105-8 - Congreve, 187 - _Conquête des Étoiles_, 223-5 - _Conrad_, 52 - Conservatism, 67 - _Contarini Fleming_, 55, 62 - Corelli, Miss Marie, 114-33 - _Countess Mizzi_, 161, 184 - Court Theatre, 139 - Craigie, Mrs., 69 - _Creditor, The_, 103 - Crispi, 230 - Crowley, Aleister, 114 - _Crown Bride_, ill - - - _Damascus, To_, 110 - _Dämmerseelen_, 191 - D'Annunzio, 210, 214, 231 - Daru, 3, 4, 9, 12, 18 - Darwin, 84, 136 - _Death Dance_, 97, 110-11 - _Débâcles, Les_, 199 - Debussy, 219 - Dembowska, Countess, 12 - Democracy, 67 - _Démon de la Vitesse_, 212, 226 - _De Profundis_, 140 - _Destruction_, 223, 225 - _Deutschland_, 40 - Disraeli, 50-69 - Disraeli, Mrs., 62, 63, 68 - Don Juan, 19, 50, 97, 215 - _Dorian Gray_, 132 - D'Orsay, 61 - Dowie, Dr., 117 - _Dream Pictures_, 30, 32 - Drury Lane, 122 - Dugazon, 7 - Dumas, 38 - - _Easter_, 110 - _Ehre, Die_, 136 - _Einsame Weg, Der_, 171, 172 - Eldon, 67 - _Elizabeth's Visits to America_, 128 - _Embarrassments_, 177 - _Endymion_, 52 - _Erdgeist_, 134, 135, 145-9 - Essen, Siri von, 95 - _Esther Waters_, 129 - Eugenics, 154 - - FAGUET, 24 - Fakredeen, 52 - _Father, The_, 101, 102 - Faust, 158 - Ferri, 230 - _Feuerwerk_, 154 - Fichte, 74 - - _Flamands, Les_, 198, 199 - _Flambeaux Noirs_, 199-202 - _Fleurs du Mal_, 121 - Foote, G. W., 119 - _Forces Tumultueuses_, 196 - _Foundations of Belief_, 123 - France, 214, 237 - _Franziska_, 155, 157-9 - _Frau Margit_, 95 - Free Love, 139, 154 - _Free Opinions_, 119 - Free Verse, 223 - _Freiwild_, 173-5 - Froude, 51 - _Frühlingserwachen_, 135, 145, 150-3, 159 - Futurism, 212-38 - - GALSWORTHY, 157, 159, 162, 163 - Gambetta, 67 - Garvice, Charles, 116 - Gautier, 38 - _Geheimniss der Gilde_, 95 - _Genealogy of Morals_, 70-90 - Genesis, 119 - Germany, 72, 135-9 - Gladstone, 53, 54, 61, 65, 66, 68 - _Gluckspeter_, 95 - Glyn, Elinor, 126-30 - _God's Good Man_, 122 - Goethe, 74, 144 - Gog, 208 - Govoni, 236 - _Green Cockatoo_, 161, 182-3 - Guilbert, Mélanie, 7 - Gull, Ranger, 115 - - HALEVY, Jehudah, 43 - _Hallucinated Country-sides_, 202-4 - _Hannele_, 137 - Hardy, 238 - Hart, Julius, 137 - _Harzreise_, 34 - Hauptmann, 137, 210 - _Haydn and Mozart, Lives of_, 11 - _Heimkehr_, 34 - Heine, 26-49, 60, 77, 89 - Heine, Amalie, 31, 32 - Heine, Samson, 29 - Heine, Solomon, 30 - _Hélène de Sparte_, 210 - Heliogabalus, 121 - Hermant, Abel, 122 - _Hidalla_, 154 - Higher Criticism (Corelli), 119 - _His Hour_, 128 - _History of Painting in Italy_, 12 - Hitchman, 50 - Hobbes, 83 - Hofmann, 28 - Hogarth, 150 - Holy Alliance, 27 - _Holy Orders_, 121 - Hugo, 38, 224 - Humboldt, 38 - - IBSEN, 153 - Idealists, 87 - Ihering, 85 - _In Allen Satteln Gerecht_, 156 - _In Allen Wassern Gewaschen_, 156 - _Inferno_, 109 - Ingersoll, 119 - _Intoxication_, 110 - Isaiah, 72, 133 - Israel, 71, 78 - _Italian Travels_, 11 - _Italy_, 35, 213 - - JACK the Ripper, 149 - James, Henry, 137, 153, 177, 187 - Jeremiah, 72 - Jesuits, 118 - Jesus, 71, 72 - Jew-Millionaires, 121 - Jews, 118 - Jezebels, Upper-Ten, 121, 127 - Job, 111 - _Johannes_, 137 - Josepha, 30 - _Journal, Le_, 24 - Judæa, 78 - _Julien_, 17-20 - _Junge Leiden_, 35 - Juvenal, 133 - - KABLY, Mdlle., 3 - Kahn, Gustave, 223 - _Kammersänger, Der_, 140-142 - Kant, 40, 87 - Karl Moor, 19 - Key, Ellen, 88, 96 - Kipling, 110, 234 - Klinger, 219 - - LAFAYETTE, 38 - _Lamiel_, 22-23 - _Lebendige Stunden_, 177, 180-182 - _Legends_, 109 - _Les Dieux s'en vont D'Annunzio reste_, 230 - Lesbos, 131 - _Liebelei_, 164-166, 169 - _Liebestrank, Der_, 153 - Life Force, 145 - "Little Mary," 132 - Longfellow, 153 - Louason, 7, 8 - Louis XVI, 2 - Louis Philippe, 21 - Louÿs, 115, 129 - Loyola, 117 - Luccini, 236 - _Lucien Leuwen_, 21-22 - _Lyrisches Intermezzo_, 32, 35, 36 - - MADONNA, 96, 97 - Maeterlinck, 197, 230 - _Mafarka le Futuriste_, 129, 231, 232 - Maine, 81, 84 - _Märchen, Das_, 167, 168 - Marinetti, 129, 212-238 - _Marionetten_, 177, 179 - _Marius the Epicurean_, 124 - _Marquis von Keith_, 153 - _Marriage_, 98-100 - _Masken und Wunder_, 191 - _Mate, The_, 183 - Maupassant, 98, 191 - Maupin, Mademoiselle de, 157 - Meade, L. T., 116 - _Medardus, Der Junge_, 184-186 - Meissner, 38 - _Meister Olof_, 94 - _Meister, Wilhelm_, 55 - Melville, Walter, 115 - _Mighty Atom, The_, 115 - Milan, 4, 12, 13, 213 - Milton, 210 - _Minnehaha_, 153 - Mirbeau, Octave, 122 - Mirat, Matilde, 41 - _Miss Julie_, 102, 103 - _Mit Allen Hünden Gehetzt_, 156 - _Moines, Les_, 199 - Molière, 3, 121 - _Monna Vanna_, 140 - Moore, George, 106 - _Motherly Love_, 104 - Mouche, La, 48 - _Multiple Splendeur, Le_, 208-209 - _Murder of Delicia_, 115 - _Musik_, 155, 156, 157 - - NAPOLEON, 29, 30, 69 - Nerval, Gérard de, 38 - New England, 67, 153 - _New Machiavelli_, 105, 120 - New Woman Movement, 96 - Nietzsche, 24, 70-90, 136, 144, 208, 216 - Nirvana, 73 - Nonconformity, 119 - _Nordsee Cyklus_, 33, 34 - Northcliffe, 86 - _Nouvelle Héloïse_, 3 - - _Oaha_, 154 - O'Connell, 57 - O'Connor, T. P., 50 - _Open Sea, The_, 100, 108 - Opportunism, 67 - Orestes, 81 - Ovid, 144 - - PALAZZESCHO, 236 - Papacy, 213 - Peel, 64 - Péladan, 131 - Pietragrua, Countess, 4, 10, 12 - Pinero, 145 - _Plain Dealer, The_, 141 - _Playing with Fire_, 97, 104-105 - Poe, 154 - _Poesia_, 221, 236 - _Poetische Nachlese_, 35, 47 - _Pope's Monoplane, The_, 233-236 - _Professor Bernhardi_, 188-190 - Przybyszewski, 109 - _Puppet-player_, 179-180 - - QUEUX, Le, 116 - - _Racine and Shakespeare_, 14, 15 - _Ratcliff_, 32 - _Raymond, Jack_, 119 - Realism, 138 - _Red Room_, 95 - _Reigen_, 179 - _Reisebilder_, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 49 - René, 19 - Restoration, French, 17 - Revolution, French, 27, 28, 53 - _Revolutionary Epicke_, 67 - _Rhythmes Souveraines, Les_, 210 - Richter, 38 - _Risorgimento Italiano_, 213 - _Road to the Open, The_, 192-194 - Robespierre, 40 - Rockefeller, 86 - Rodenbach, 197, - Rodin, 211 - _Romance of Two Worlds_, 114 - _Romantic School, The_, 40 - Romanticism, 14, 27, 28, 138 - _Romanzero_, 35, 47, 48 - Rome, 79, 213 - _Rome, Naples, and Florence_, 11 - Roosevelt, President, 116 - Rossetti, 219 - _Rossini, Life of_, 15 - _Rouge et le Noir, Le_, 9, 16, 17-20, 56, 185 - Rousseau, 46, 83 - Rubens, 197 - Russolo, 220, 238 - - _Salome_, 140 - Sand, 38 - Sappho, 131 - Satan, 208 - _Satan, Sorrows of_, 114 - Schiller, 144 - Schlegel, 38 - _Schloss von Wetterstein_, 155, 156 - Schnitzler, 161-195 - Schopenhauer, 72, 73, 74, 144 - Secessionists, 140 - Secessionsbühne, 137 - Sefchen, 30 - Selden, Camille, 48 - Self-and-Sex Series, 130 - Semites, 125 - _Serialese, Manual of_, 133 - Severini, 220 - Shaw, G. B., 126, 135, 155, 159, 162, 163 - Sichel, 51 - Sidonia, 52 - Smiles, Samuel, 115 - Smith, Adam, 7 - Socialists, 88 - Sorel, Julien, 16-20 - _Souvenirs d'Egotisme_, 24 - Spencer, 77 - _Spring's Awakening_, 115. See - _Frühlingserwachen_ - St. Amand, 197 - St. Barbe, 197 - St. Beuve, 24 - Staël, Mme. de, 40 - Stage Society, 139, 161, 162 - Stendhal, 1-25, 74, 185 - Sterne, 30 - Stratford-on-Avon, 131 - Strauss, 219 - _Strife_, 163 - Strindberg, 91-113 - Stuck, 219 - Sudermann, 88, 137 - Suffragette, 96 - Superman, 75, 80 85, 87, 136, 163 - Sutro, 162 - Swan, Annie, 116 - _Swan White_, 111 - Sweden, 96 - Swedenborgianism, 110 - _Swedish Destinies_, 98 - _Swedish Miniatures_, 111 - Swift, 30, 44 - _Swiss Tales_, 100 - Switzerland, 215 - Symbolists, 224 - - TAINE, 20, 24, 136 - Tamerlane, 86 - _Tancred_, 55, 60, 65 - Tanner, John, 97 - _Tartuffe_, 121 - Technique, 163 - _Temporal Power_, 120, 124 - Tenatri, 230 - - _Tentacular Towns_, 202-205 - _Terminations_, 177 - _Thelma_, 119, 124 - Thorne, Guy, 115 - _Three Weeks_, 127, 130 - Thucydides, 132 - Tolstoi, 76, 126 - Tories, 65, 66, 67 - Torquemada, 117 - _Totentanz_, 126, 135, 142-4 - Tracy, 7 - _Turn of the Screw_, 137 - - UHL, Frida, 109 - Ultramontanes, 21 - Ultramontanism, 115 - - VAN Lenburgh, 197 - _Veil of Beatrice_, 169-171 - _Vendetta_, 115 - _Venetia_, 56 - Verhaeren, 196-211, 237 - Verlaine, 154, 200 - _Vermächtniss, Die_, 169 - _Versunkene Glocke, Die_, 137 - _Vie de Henri Brulard, La_, 24 - _Vier Jahrzeiten, Die_, 154 - _Ville Charnelle La_, 223, 228-230 - _Villes Tentaculaires, Les_, 202-205 - _Visages de la Vie_, _Les_, 208 - _Vivian Grey_, 19, 52, 55, 56, 59 - Voltaire, 42, 46, 77, 89 - Voynich, Mrs., 119 - - WAGNER, 73 - Ward, Mrs., 126 - _Waste_, 163 - _Weber, Die_, 136, 210 - Wedekind, 98, 126, 134-160 - _Weg ins Freie, Der_, 192-194 - _Weites Land, Das_, 184, 186-188 - Wells, 237 - Werther, 19 - Westermarck, 84 - Whigs, 65, 66, 67 - Whitman, Walt, 223 - Wilde, 89, 139, 140 - Will to Live, 73 - Williams, Mrs. Brydges, 63 - _Woman with the Dagger_, 180-182 - Women atheists, 118 - _Wormwood_, 115 - Wycherley, 141 - - YOUNG Men's Christian Association, 215 - - _Zarathustra_, 70, 80-3, 88 - _Zensur_, 155, 156 - _Zwischenspiel_, 172, 173 - Zola, 118, 136, 145 - - - -***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MODERNITIES*** - - -******* This file should be named 44916-8.txt or 44916-8.zip ******* - - -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: -http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/4/4/9/1/44916 - - - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions -will be renamed. - -Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no -one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation -(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without -permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or -re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included -with this eBook or online at <a -href="http://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a></p> -<p>Title: Modernities</p> -<p>Author: Horace Barnett Samuel</p> -<p>Release Date: February 15, 2014 [eBook #44916]</p> -<p>Language: English</p> -<p>Character set encoding: UTF-8</p> -<p>***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MODERNITIES***</p> <p> </p> -<h4>E-text prepared by Marc D'Hooghe<br /> - (<a href="http://www.freeliterature.org">http://www.freeliterature.org</a>)<br /> - from page images generously made available by<br /> - HathiTrust Digital Library<br /> - (<a href="http://www.hathitrust.org/digital_library">http://www.hathitrust.org/digital_library</a>)</h4> <p> </p> <table border="0" style="background-color: #ccccff;margin: 0 auto;" cellpadding="10"> <tr> @@ -8506,360 +8491,6 @@ Zola, <a href='#Page_118'>118</a>, <a href='#Page_136'>136</a>, <a href='#Page_1 <p> </p> <p> </p> -<hr class="pg" /> -<p>***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MODERNITIES***</p> -<p>******* This file should be named 44916-h.txt or 44916-h.zip *******</p> -<p>This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:<br /> -<a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/4/4/9/1/44916">http://www.gutenberg.org/4/4/9/1/44916</a></p> -<p> -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions -will be renamed.</p> - -<p> -Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no -one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation -(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without -permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or -re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included -with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org - - - - - -Title: Modernities - - -Author: Horace Barnett Samuel - - - -Release Date: February 15, 2014 [eBook #44916] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII) - - -***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MODERNITIES*** - - -E-text prepared by Marc D'Hooghe (http://www.freeliterature.org) from page -images generously made available by HathiTrust Digital Library -(http://www.hathitrust.org/digital_library) - - - -Note: Images of the original pages are available through - HathiTrust Digital Library. See - http://hdl.handle.net/2027/uc2.ark:/13960/t9d50kh4d - - - - - -MODERNITIES - -by - -HORACE B. SAMUEL - -Author of "The Land and Yourself," "The Insurance Act -and Yourself," etc. - - - - - - - -New York -E. P. Dutton and Co. -681, Fifth Avenue -1914 - - - - -DEDICATED - -TO - -MRS. GEORGE JOSEPH - - - - -PREFACE - - -The ten studies which constitute this volume are devoted to individuals -who are held out as being reasonably characteristic of that modern -movement of the last and present century which started with the French -Revolution. At any rate, they were all modern once. For the spirit of -modernity enjoys, like the priest-god of the ancient grove, only a -temporary reign, and is speedily killed by its inevitable successor. - -It is somewhat difficult to find any common denominator for the -subjects of these studies. The essays must be left largely to speak for -themselves. If, however, an attempt were to be made to pronounce of -what the spirit of modernity really consists, one might suggest that it -is a spirit of energy, of fearlessness in analysis, whose sole _raison -d'etre_ and whose sole ideal is actual life itself. - -The studies on Miss Marie Corelli and Herr Wedekind are here published -for the first time. Those on Disraeli, Heine, Stendhal, Schnitzler, -Strindberg, the Futurists, and Verhaeren have appeared as articles in -the _Fortnightly Review_; while the essay on Nietzsche's "Genealogy -of Morals" was first published in the _English Review_. I have -consequently pleasure in expressing my thanks and acknowledgments -to Mr. W. L. Courtney and Mr. Austin Harrison for their courtesy in -allowing these articles to be reproduced in their present form. I have -also to thank the editor of the _New Statesman_ for permission to -republish my translation from Marinetti's, "The Pope's Monoplane." - -I have made additions to the essays on Schnitzler and the Futurists -with a view to incorporating some reference to the more recent works of -Dr. Schnitzler and M. Marinetti. - - HORACE B. SAMUEL. - - Temple, _October_ 1913. - - - -CONTENTS - - STENDHAL: THE COMPLEAT INTELLECTUAL - HEINRICH HEINE - THE PSYCHOLOGY OF DISRAELI - NIETZSCHE'S "GENEALOGY OF MORALS" - AUGUST STRINDBERG - THE WELTANSCHAUUNG OF MISS MARIE CORELLI - FRANK WEDEKIND - ARTHUR SCHNITZLER - EMILE VERHAEREN - THE FUTURE OF FUTURISM - - INDEX - - - - -MODERNITIES - -STENDHAL - -THE COMPLEAT INTELLECTUAL - - -"I only write for a hundred readers, and of those unhappy, amiable, -charming creatures without either hypocrisy or morality whom I should -like to please, I only know one or two." - -On the assumption that with the natural growth of the population, "the -happy few" for whom Stendhal wrote have sufficiently multiplied in this -country to render it likely that a reasonable number of readers will -possess these requisite qualifications, it becomes relevant to give -both some analysis and some appreciation of a man who is perhaps the -most perfect type of the "intellectual" that Europe has yet produced. - -For Stendhal was an intellectual in the fullest sense of the term. -Neither a recluse scholar nor a rabid doctrinaire, but a man of the -world and of action, of brain, heart, and sensibility, he sought and to -a large extent found in the intellect an energetic servant, by whose -faithful escort he could sally forth on that "hunt of happiness," which -led him in his variegated career from the field of battle to the bowers -of love, and from the high plateaux of reverie to the meticulous _terre -a terre_ observations of psychological science. - -Henri Beyle was born in 1783, in Grenoble in Dauphine, a town whose -hidebound provincialism he hated consistently from his childhood to his -death. - -"His childhood," to quote from his own autobiography, "was a continual -period of unhappiness and of hate and of the sweets of a vengeance -which was always helpless." Loving his mother, according to his -somewhat pathetic boast, with a man's passion, he lost her at the age -of seven. On being told that God had taken her away, he conceived -with immediate logic an implacable hatred against that Deity who had -deprived him of the being whom he loved most in the world, a hatred -which, turning into momentary gratitude on the occasion of the death -of his _bete noire_, his Aunt Seraphie, was finally merged in the -chilly negation of the honest atheist. Inasmuch as to the quality -of logic Stendhal added those of rebelliousness and imagination, it -is not surprising that even in childhood his relations should have -been inharmonious with his father, a royalist lawyer situated on the -borderland between the bourgeoisie and the gentry. The royalism of -his father immediately sufficed to turn Henri into the reddest of -republicans. The execution of Louis XVI filled his childish heart with -holy glee, and the guillotining of two royalist priests at Grenoble -affected him with an elation which, if solitary, was for that very -reason all the more genuine. So hot indeed was his republican ardour -that he even forged an official order requiring his enlistment in a -body of cadets. But although he was unappreciative of his father, -whom he would refer to in his diaries and letters by the almost -equally offensive synonyms of "bastard" and "Jesuit," he none the -less manifested the deepest affection for his maternal grandfather, -M. Gagnon, a Voltairean doctor of lively intellect and genial -disposition, and for the cook and the butler of the paternal house. - -The child soon began to stimulate by books his naturally precocious -imagination, stealing in his thirst for knowledge those volumes which -the solicitude or conventionalism of his father deemed it inexpedient -for him to read. From _La Nouvelle Heloise_ in particular he would -appear to have derived imaginative transports far transcending the -joys of a prosaic reality. But he had conceived an early aversion to -poetry by reason of an awful poem by some Jesuit about a fly that got -drowned in a cup of milk. The reading of Moliere, however, dispelled -the unpleasant association, and his early ambition became crystallised -into going to Paris and writing a comedy. For apart from the magnetic -attraction of the metropolis itself, Grenoble exacerbated his nerves. -Unappreciated at home, he found himself, with the exception of one or -two genuine friendships, solitary and unpopular at school among those -masters and schoolfellows whom he already despised. It is interesting -to remember, parenthetically, that even when a schoolboy he fought a -duel, and boldly faced the fire of what subsequently turned out to -have been an unloaded pistol by concentrating his gaze on a distant -rock. His intellectual ability carried all before him, and he found in -mathematics a loophole of escape from his provincial prison. Coming out -top in the examinations he obtained a bourse at the Ecole Polytechnique -at the age of sixteen, and was sent to Paris with instructions to place -himself under the protection of M. Daru, a relative of the family -and the holder of a ministerial appointment. By this time his erotic -ambitions were beginning to formulate themselves with comparative -definiteness. He had already experienced a passion for a Mdlle. Kably, -a local actress, which while never attaining a more advanced stage -than that of inquiring the way to her lodgings, was none the less -violent. Anyway, when the boy went to Paris he had finally decided to -live up to the best of his ability to the Don Juan ideal. - -His first sojourn at Paris, however, surprised both himself and -his parents. With considerable obstinacy he refused to attend the -Polytechnique and set himself to study privately in his own rooms. But -the first essay at the single life proved a fiasco. No dashing romances -coloured his solitary existence, while he was either too nervous or -too refined to sully his soul with mere mercenary pleasure. He became -dreamy and ill, and was eventually taken charge of by the Darus. In the -pompous officialdom of this family his health recovered, but his spirit -rebelled. He complains bitterly that he not only had to sleep in the -house but also to dine with the family. He none the less knit a firm -friendship with his cousin Martial Daru, a brainless and amiable youth -who subsequently at Milan and at Brunswick taught him the elementary -rules of amoristic etiquette. - -The Marengo campaign gave him an opportunity of practising that -Napoleonic worship which was his one and only religion. The influence -of the Darus procured him a commission, and the passage of the St. -Bernard was one of the landmarks of his life. He drank to the full -the intoxication of victory which attended the entry into Milan of -the youthful army, and conceived for the Countess Angela Pietragrua, -"a sublime wanton a la Lucrezia Borgia," a passion which ten years -subsequently was duly rewarded. The Milan period was, according to that -epitaph which he penned himself, "the finest in his life." "He adored -music and literary renown, set great store by the art of giving a good -blow with the sabre and was wounded in the foot by a thrust received -in a duel. He was aide-de-camp to Lieutenant-General Michaud. He -distinguished himself. He was the happiest and probably the maddest of -men when on the conclusion of the peace the minister of war ordered the -subaltern aides-de-camp to return to their regiments." - -Returning to Grenoble on furlough, he fell in love with Mdlle. -Victorine Bigillon, the sister of one of his best friends, whom he -suddenly followed to Paris, although his leave would appear to have -been limited to Grenoble. Reprimanded by the authorities he sent in -his resignation, and "madder than ever started to study with the view -of becoming a great man." His experiences, subjective and objective, -during this period are described in his journal with a detail, a -lucidity, an honesty which are worthy of some mention. For we see now -officially scheduled and officially annotated all those heterogeneous -qualities which made up the sum of this man's psychology; his rigid -intellectualism, his sentimentality, his ambition, his artistic -enthusiasm, his constant flow of analytical energy (directed now -against the external world, now against himself, yet scarcely for -a single moment losing itself in a complete abandon), his love of -witty conversation, whether his own or that of others, the sweep of -his intellectual ideals, his intolerance of bores and fools, that -apprehensive self-consciousness which so often made him the dupe of the -fear of being duped, his exuberant _joie de vivre_, and "that love of -glory and sensibility which are only for the _intimes_ friends." - -And extraordinarily stimulating are the reflections, charmingly -interspersed with English phrases, in this breviary of intellectual -egoism, where the _I_ and the _Me_ enter into a Holy Alliance in their -heroic conspiracy against the rest of the world. It was mainly this -self-consciousness which induced Beyle deliberately to set himself to -become a psychologist. "Nearly all the misfortunes of life," writes -our twenty-year-old philosopher, "come from the false notions we have -concerning that which happens to us. Must know men thoroughly." And how -he scolds himself when he fails to live up to his ideal, and when "his -accursed mania for being brilliant results in his being more occupied -in making a deep impression than in guessing others." And so it is that -he reflects, "what a fool I am not to have the knack of drawing out -each man to tell his story, which might prove so useful to me," and -that the man, who was subsequently to style himself by profession "an -observer of the human heart" developed that "universal desire to know -all that passes within a man." Though, however, his love of psychology -was thus, as we have seen, to some extent a case of reaction from his -own nervousness and of externalised introspection, it is impossible to -deny the purity of his intellectual enthusiasm. At an age when even the -chastest of prose writers may well be pardoned for wallowing in the -debauchery of purple patches, he inscribes in his journal that the sole -quality in style is lucidity. It was this deeply rooted abhorrence of -floridity and ostentation that on a subsequent occasion nearly induced -him to fight a duel with a man who had praised unduly the well known -"la cime indeterminable des arbres" of Chateaubriand, that _bete noire_ -of Stendhal's of whom he prophesies in English, "This man shall not -outlive his century." In the sphere of philosophy, characteristically -enough his logical and mathematical turn of mind embraced with natural -love and facility the materialism of the French sceptics. - -"Helvetius opened wide to him the doors of the world," and he became -on terms of affectionate friendship with the aged philosopher Destutt -Tracy. So radical indeed was Stendhal's philosophic bias, that on one -occasion, feeling presumably more studious than amorous, he neglects -an assignation with the lady whom he was pursuing, to plunge with even -greater gusto into a hundred pages of Adam Smith. Though, too, he -habitually worked twelve hours a day, he would appear to have cut a -frequent figure in both those formal and Bohemian sets of the capital -which offered such refreshing contrasts and facilities to artistic -young men. - -His love for Victorine proved unreciprocated. There followed innocuous -passages with a respectable demi-vierge, referred to in the journal as -Adele of the Gate. But Stendhal found his chief distraction in that -society of authors, men of the world, and actresses whom he met at the -house of Dugazon, a celebrated teacher of theatrical elocution. In this -variegated set, where the mutual relations and complications of the -various members provided a chronic source of interest and speculation, -Stendhal met a young mother, named Melanie Guilbert (the Louason of -the journal), "a charming actress who had the most refined sentiments -and to whom I never gave a son." To this lady Stendhal set himself to -lay a siege, which was eventually successful after a quite unnecessary -duration. - -The demeanour of Stendhal in society is highly instructive. A man of -such abnormal sensitiveness that "the least thing moved him and made -the tears come to his eyes," he encased himself in an "irony which -was imperceptible to the vulgar," and, posing with marked success as -both a cynic and a roue, notes with interest "the terrifying effect -which his particular kind of wit produced on society." But if his -deliberate brilliancies won him respect rather than popularity, they -certainly consolidated his own selfestimation. "Maximum of wit in my -life--Je me suis toujours vu aller mais sans gene pour cela," runs -one of these honest confidences which he made to himself, "without -lying, without deceiving himself, with pleasure, like a letter to -a friend." He needed, however, the audience of a salon to put him -on his mettle, and would appear, at any rate during this period, to -have been somewhat ineffective in _tete-a-tete_. His journal records -a lamentable succession of muddled opportunities, of occasions when -he was too natural to observe his companion with sufficient acumen, -and of occasions when he was not natural enough. It was the latter -characteristic, however, which predominated, and even though the -emotion of his love was genuine, its expression was a bookish and -theatrical formulation of an already rehearsed ideal, directed quite -as much to the critical approbation of his own consciousness as to -the actual object of his wooing. Yet the full gusto of a rich _joie -de vivre_ palpitates in this incessant cerebration. Time after time -do we come upon the entry that such and such a day was the happiest -in his life. And if at times "his only distraction was to observe his -own state, it was none the less a great one." His very sensibility -becomes a source of gratification, and he will congratulate himself -that he has perhaps lived more in a day than many of his more stolid -friends will live in the whole of their life. The financial problem -pressed irksomely upon him at this period, and, combining business -and sentiment, he obtained a position in a house at Marseilles, in -which town Louason had obtained an engagement. Whether however because -of parental pressure or because the distractions of business had -cured him of his passion, he soon left Marseilles for Grenoble, and -subsequently returned to Paris. - -The campaigns of 1806 to 1809 offered new scope to the ambition of -Beyle, who always rose successfully to practical emergencies and was, -as he tells us himself, "most simple and most natural in the greatest -dangers." He was present at the battle of Jena, came several times into -personal contact with Napoleon, and discharged with singular efficiency -the fiscal administration of the state of Brunswick. - -The next landmark in his life, however, is his passion for the wife of -his relative, the punctilious but aged M. Daru, a passion the various -nuances of which are faithfully recorded in those sections of his -journal headed "The Life and Sentiments of Silencious Harry," "Memoirs -of my life during my amour for the Graefin P----y," the narrative of -the intrigue between Julien and Mathilde in _Le Rouge et le Noir,_ -and the posthumous fragment entitled "Le Consultation de Banti," a -piece of methodical deliberation on the pressing question, "_Dois-je -ou ne dois-je pas avoir la duchesse?_" which, it is believed, is quite -unparalleled in the whole history of eroticism. For with his peculiar -faculty of driving his intellect and his heart in double harness, -he analyses the pros and cons of the erotic and ethical situation, -the qualifications and defects of the lady with all the documentary -coldness of a Government report. His diary during this period is so -delightfully honest as to justify quotations: "Tuesday, 18th April -1810, 1st day of Longchamps. On the whole I think that I love the -Countess P----y a little." "10th August, I have proved by an evidence -the truth of my principles about rousing love in the heart of a woman." -"The 4th August. I was reading the excellent essay of Hume upon the -feudal government from two till half-past four o'clock; during this -time she wanted my presence; _au retour_ she cannot say a word without -speaking of me or to me. J'eus le tort de ne pas hasarder quelque -entreprise. Mais je le repete j'ai trop de sensibility pour avoir -jamais du talent dans l'art de Lovelace!" - -Stendhal would appear to have treated this particular liaison rather -as a polite routine of social amenities than as a serious passion. How -refreshing is his account of the tedium of the relationship: "At Paris -I have no time for working to Letellier [a mediocre comedy in verse -which was never finished], I have here nothing but my passion for C. -Palfy; 'tis a month that I reproach to myself the money that I spent -without pleasure of mind into those walls." - -Towards the autumn of 1811 Stendhal journeyed to Milan, his favourite -town in Europe whose citizenship he arrogated in his self-written -epitaph. Renewing his acquaintance with the Countess Pietragrua, for -whom he had languished in dumb nervousness on his first visit to -Milan ten years past, he took an especial joy in compensating for his -previous clumsiness by displaying the easy brilliancy of the man of -the world. And then on the eve of his departure from Milan he writes -in English--"I was, I believe, in love." "Apres un combat moral fort -serieux ou j'ai joue le malheur et jusque le desespoir, elle est a -moi onze heures et demi. Je pars de Milan a une heure et demie le 22 -septembre 1811." - -In 1812 Beyle served in the Moscow campaign, having obtained a position -in the commissariat department. It is characteristic that he should -have kept his nerve during the whole of that panic-stricken retreat, -shaving every day, and repelling with considerable sangfroid and -bravery an attack by the enemy on a hospital of wounded. Disgusted by -the Restoration, he settled in Milan in 1814, resumed his relationship -with Mme. Angelina Pietragrua, who would appear to have systematically -deceived him, and lived generally the life of the dilettante and the -man of letters. - -In 1814 he published his first work, _The Lives of Haydn and Mozart_ -par Louis Alexander Bombet. This pseudonym is partly due to Beyle's -habitual mania for anonymity and partly to the consciousness that -the substantial portion of the work had been coolly plagiarised from -Carpani. Nor do any morbid pangs of conscience appear to have ruffled -the serenity of the author, who found a precedent for his action in the -plagiarisms of Moliere and a subsequent justification in the money that -he obtained. Emboldened indeed by his success he published in London, -in 1817, a series of travel sketches, _Rome, Naples, and Florence_, -which owed in some places an unacknowledged debt to the _Italian -Travels_ of Goethe. Yet even so, viewed as a whole the book possesses a -richness of material, a raciness of observation, a joy of journeying, -a spontaneity of verve which give it a high rank among travel -literature and make it eminently readable even at the present day. -Less a guide-book than a personal narrative, it describes the actual -life of the period as actually lived by a man who plumed himself at -thirty on still retaining all the folly of his youth. The author was an -enthusiast for the theatre, a devotee of the ballet, and a keen wagerer -of those exquisite ices which formed one of the chief allurements of -the Scala Theatre. An enthusiastic anti-clerical and an eager reader -of forbidden political plays at midnight coteries, he yet feels on -visiting the Church of the Jesuits "a little of that respect which even -the most criminal power inspires when it has done great things." And -how simply natural is the following confession of a traveller's faith: -"I experience a sensation of happiness on my journeys which I have -found nowhere else, even in the most happy days of my ambition." In the -same year, 1817, Stendhal published his _History of Painting in Italy_. -This book is remarkable, not so much by its purely aesthetic criticism -as by the application to the sphere of artistic criticism of those -theories of heredity, climate, and environment which were afterwards to -be so brilliantly exploited at the hands of Taine. Some mention should -also be made of that simplicity of lyric fervour which distinguishes -the extremely fine dedication to Napoleon. - -In 1821 much to his disgust, Stendhal, accused, and apparently quite -unjustly, of being a French spy, was forced to leave Milan. This exile -was all the more irksome as Stendhal's amoristic history had now -reached its great climax. If Louason had constituted the initiation -of his youth, Mme. Daru the acme of his social achievement, and the -Countess Pietragrua the incarnate realisation of his adventurous search -for ideal beauty, it was in Methilde, Countess Dembowska, that his -mature heart found a passion which though always ungratified remained -none the less grand. It is instructive to observe how honest was the -love, how deep the devotion of this official rake for "une femme -que j'adorais, qui m'aimait et qui ne s'est jamais donnee a moi." -Particularly significant is it that this man, whose cynicism had gained -for him the sobriquet of Don Juan, should have condemned himself to a -three years' fidelity that thereby he might become more worthy of that -"ame angelique cachee dans un si beau corps qui quittait la vie en -1825." But it is even more interesting to notice how there mingles with -this perfectly genuine attachment the most morbid self-consciousness -and fear of ridicule: - - "Le pire des malheurs, m'ecriais-je, serait que ces - hommes si secs, mes amis au milieu desquels je vais - vivre, devinissent ma passion pour une femme que je n'ai - pas eue. Cette peur mille fois repetee a ete dans le - fait la principe dirigeante de ma vie pendant dix ans. - C'est par la que je suis venu a avoir de l'esprit, chose - qui etait la butte de mes mepris a Milan en 1818 quand - j'aimais Methilde." - -In 1822 Stendhal published in Paris that book _De l'Amour_ which he had -composed at odd moments during his sojourn at Milan. Thought by the -author to be his most important work, and deemed worthy by the public -of a total purchase of seventeen copies, the work possesses even at the -present day considerable claims upon the attention. For it possesses -the unique characteristic of being a treatise on the sexual emotion -written by an author who was at the same time an acute psychologist -and a brilliant man of the world, who could test abstract theories by -concrete practice, and could co-ordinate what he had felt in himself -and observed in others into broad general principles. While we do not -propose to enter into a detailed analysis of this work, which occupies -more than four hundred pages of close print, we may perhaps mention the -author's fourfold division of love into "amour-passion, amour-gout, -amour physique, amour de vanite." - -We would also refer to just a few of the innumerable maxims with which -the book is studded, as typical of that naively subtle simplicity which -is so characteristic of our author: - -"L'amour c'est avoir du plaisir a voir, toucher, sentir par tous -les sens et d'aussi pres que possible un objet aimable et qui nous -aime"--"l'amant erre sans cesse entre ces idees: 1. Elle a toutes les -perfections. 2. Elle m'aime. 3. Comment faire pour obtenir d'elle la -plus grande preuve d'amour possible?" "Tout l'art d'aimer se reduit, -ca me semble, a dire exactement a quels degres d'ivresse le moment -comporte, c'est-a-dire en d'autres termes a ecouter son ame." - -And how curious is the following phrase where the point of view of -this cynical roue seems for once quite in accord with that of the more -ladylike of our lady novelists: "Le plus grand bonheur qui puisse -donner l'amour c'est le premier serrement de main d'une femme qu'on -aime." - -But the philosophical breadth of the author is perhaps best manifested -by that spirit of comparative erotology, which induces him to analyse -the various nuances of love all over the world from Boston to -Constantinople, while he traces the connection between each particular -variation and the climate of the country and the character of the -people. - -With the habitual cleverness of his tongue exacerbated by the -misfortune of his love affair, Stendhal became a distinguished but -unpopular figure with the Parisians. Most in his element "in a salon -of eight or ten persons where all the women have had lovers, where the -conversation is gay and flavoured with anecdote, and when light punch -is served at half-past twelve," he was merciless to the philistine and -the bore, would rally with tactless truth a highly respectable lady -on her liaison with the Archbishop of Paris, and would snub unwelcome -declarations with artistic repartee. - -Plunging vigorously into the controversy between the Classicism and -the Romanticists, Stendhal published in 1825 his celebrated pamphlet -_Racine and Shakespeare_, which denounced the Alexandrine as a -_cache-sottise_ and vindicated the live modernity of a present age -against the dead orthodoxy of a past generation. This little work, -rushed off in a few hours, is one of Stendhal's happiest efforts. The -style is bright with a lucid enthusiasm and sharp with a malicious -logic. How crisp for instance is the truth of the following: - -"Le Viellard--'Continuons.'" - -"Le jeune Homme--'Examinons.'" - -"Voila tout le dix-neuvieme siecle." - -_Shakespeare and Racine_ was followed by the _Life of Rossini_, whom -Stendhal had known personally at Milan, and by _Armance_ (1827), the -first of that series of novels on which the literary fame of Stendhal -substantially rests. This work possesses all the essential Stendhalian -qualities; the vein of Byronism, the contempt for the bourgeois, the -lucid style, and above all the detailed description of what takes place -in the interior of the mind. The plot consists of the sentimental -complications resultant on the consciousness of the hero, who is one of -those souls made to feel with energy, of his natural disqualification -for efficient marriage. Yet with a subtlety which is Jamesian in -everything but the clearness of the style, the actual difficulty is -never explicitly mentioned, though every nuance of sensitiveness is -delicately delineated. And with what delicate simplicity does Stendhal -narrate the suicide of Octave, who has simply married his adored cousin -in order to leave her the prestige of a rich and honourable widowhood. -Shortly after the marriage Octave has left his wife and set sail for -Greece. - -"Never had Octave been so under the spell of the most tender love as -in this supreme moment. He granted to himself the luxury of telling -everything to Armance except the nature of his death. A cabin boy from -the top of the mast cried out 'land.' It was the soil of Greece and -the mountains of the Morea which were to be perceived on the horizon. -A fresh wind carried on the vessel rapidly. The name of Greece -reawakened the courage of Octave. I salute you, he said to himself, -oh land of heroes. And at midnight on the third of March, as the moon -was rising behind Mount Kalos, a self-prepared mixture of opium and -digitalis softly delivered Octave from that life of his which had been -so agitated. He was found at dawn motionless on the bridge, resting on -some cordage. A smile was on his lips, and his rare beauty struck even -the sailors charged with his burial." - -Stendhal's next work was the well-known _Promenades en Rome_, an -admirable book entirely free from the taint of the conscientious -sightseer, but replete with the original observations of an acute -cosmopolitan who never shrinks from following his fancy along some -amiable digression. It was however in _Le Rouge et le Noir_, 1830, -that Stendhal gave to the world his real masterpiece. This work, which -has become since the end of the last century the revered object of the -cult of the Rougistes, among whom it is a point of honour to know the -whole book by heart, and which occupies an equal rank with that of the -_Comedie Humaine_ or _Madame Bovary_, is remarkable both by reason of -the intrinsic character of the hero and the psychological technique -with which the story is told. - -The hero, like Stendhal himself, possesses a subjective and sensitive -mind, rendered tough and virile by the savage energy of the Revolution. -In fact some previous knowledge both of Stendhal's life and Stendhal's -character are requisite for the full appreciation of a book which, -in spite of the fact that the hero is not only a seducer but also an -attempted murderer, has yet some claim to be regarded as the dignified -confession of a robust faith. - -Julien Sorel is the son of a carpenter in a small provincial town. -Proved guilty from his infancy of the unpardonable crime of being -different from the average child, he is harshly treated by his father. -The Napoleonic legend inflames his imagination, but he lives in the -time of the Restoration, when it is the Church and not the Army which -opens a career to the ambitious parvenu. By a stroke of fortune Julien -obtains when nineteen the post of tutor to the children of the local -mayor, M. de Renal. Feeling acutely the degradation of his menial -position, he violently rebels against his own sensitiveness, as he -deliberately forges the natural softness of his heart into the most -brutal iron. Formulating the ideals of pride and success, he determines -to live up to them at whatever cost either to himself or others. When -consequently the charming though ordinary Mme. de Renal begins to -manifest towards him a somewhat personal interest, he sets himself -to force the pace, as a matter neither of sensuality nor even of -politeness, but of sheer self-respect. What for instance are Julien's -feelings during the first assignation? - -"Instead of being attentive to the transports which he was bringing -into existence, and to those feelings of remorse which somewhat dulled -their vivacity, the idea of his duty never ceased to be present -to his eyes. He was afraid of an awful remorse and of an eternal -stultification if he should deviate from that ideal model which he -proposed to follow." From being, however, the mere instrument of his -ethical self-discipline, Mme. de Renal becomes the sincere object of -his romantic devotion. But the intrigue is discovered and Julien is -packed off to a theological seminary. Though a devout freethinker, -he sacrifices his beliefs to his ambition. His deviation from the -mediocre pattern renders him unpopular, but his very unpopularity -only serves to stiffen his perverse obstinacy for success. After -an agonising struggle he succeeds in winning the due of abilities, -and goes to Paris to become secretary to the Marquis de la Mole, an -influential nobleman, drawn after the model of the author's relative, -Comte Daru. He gains the confidence of his employer, which he rewards -by an intrigue with his daughter Mathilde (Mme. Daru). Here again it -is stern devotion to principle, not natural love, which is the motive. -It is in fact on purely ethical and idealistic considerations that he -goes to the nocturnal rendezvous in the same spirit that a soldier -goes to the field of battle or a martyr to the stake. And as Banti in -that variation of Hamlet's soliloquy of "To be or not to be," which we -have already considered, clinched the question by the consideration -that if he did not embrace the opportunity he would regret it all his -life, so did Julien exclaim: "Au fond il y a de la lachete a ne pas y -aller, ce mot decide tout." Note also the masterly delineation of the -girl herself, who, yielding originally by reason neither of her love -nor her weakness, but simply through her romantic desire to emulate -an illustrious ancestress, falls completely in love and manifests a -courage which in spite of some affectation is none the less genuine. -The Marquis de la Mole is compelled to promise to recognise Julien as -his son-in-law and procures for him a commission in the army. But now -just when the hero's ambitions are beginning to realise themselves, -Mme. de Renal writes, under priestly instigation, a slanderous letter -to his prospective father-in-law, who withdraws his consent to the -marriage. Julien in a fit of rage shoots at Mme. de Renal, gives -himself up, and dies "poetically" on the scaffold. - -It is not surprising that in view of these facts critics lacking -in subtlety have found the character of Julien the wildest of -impossibilities, the most monstrous of distortions. It is, however, a -reasonably safe maxim to assume that those characters in novels which -are thought to be too bizarre to exist are taken from actual life. In -this case the actual framework of fact is drawn from the history of -a young student of Besancon named Berthet, while as we have already -seen his mental attitude is that of Stendhal himself. While no doubt a -villain from the ethical standpoint of a modern serial, Julien is none -the less, viewed more deeply, the Nietzschean knight-errant of energy -and efficiency, the successful pursuer of a subjective ideal, and a -perfect example of the Aristotelian virtue of [Greek: _engkrateia_]. -Of all the discontented young idealists of the literature of the late -eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, who find themselves thrown -into collision with conventional society, the Werthers, the Renes, the -Don Juans, the Karl Moors, and the Vivian Greys, Julien Sorel is by far -the most interesting and intellectually by far the most respectable. He -has no hysterical and visionary aspirations, no mawkish Weltschmerz. -A phenomenal power of analysis renders his aim direct and simple. -He proposes to open the oyster of the world with the sword of his -intellect. _Le Rouge et le Noir_ is the tragedy of energy and ambition, -the epic of the struggle for existence. - -Reverting from the emotional content of the book to its more technical -characteristics, it may be claimed that it was the first novel in the -history of European literature to portray with successful consistency -a series of characters alternately complex and simple, in a style -which, whatever might be the personal sympathies and aversions of the -author, subordinated all picturesque flourishes to his cardinal aim -of psychological truth. For on the principle that the external life -is but the mere mechanical expression of the life carried on within -the mind, Stendhal portrays his characters by describing their mental -processes. This method is of course most palpable in Julien, who lives -in a chronic state of soliloquy which fails, however, to blunt the edge -of his drastic action, and who keeps inside his brain a register which -tickets every process with the most copious annotations. But even such -comparatively simple characters as M. Renal, the purse-proud mayor of -a petty provincial town; Mme. de Renal, the conventionally adulterous -wife; abbe Pirard, the Jansenist priest, all think too according to -their dimmer lights and their limited intelligences, and their thoughts -also are duly recorded with scientific precision. - -The same year in which _Le Rouge et le Noir_ was published, Stendhal -wrote his other great work _La Chartreuse de Parme_, which while -thought by Taine and Balzac, though not by Goethe, to have been his -masterpiece, certainly lacks the original outlook and concentrated -force of the earlier work. In this book, which describes all the -ramifying intrigues of that Italian court life which Stendhal knew and -loved so well, the rich tapestry of romance is successfully embroidered -by the needle of the psychologist. The rapid succession of adventure -is not an end in itself, but simply a means to the setting in motion -of this numerous array of characters whose cerebral interiors are so -faithfully portrayed; Fabrice del Dougo, the hero, no Ishmael of the -intellect like Julien, but a _jeune premier_ with a soul, who runs a -wild career of military ardour, amoristic extravagance, justifiable -homicide, and political persecution, only finally to fall in love with -his gaoler's daughter and die in the self-chosen exile of a Trappist -monastery; the Duchess of Sanseverina (a reincarnation of Stendhal's -mistress, Countess Pietragrua), his dashing and magnanimous aunt who -loves him with an ardour which the reader thinks must at any rate have -needed a papal dispensation; Count Mosca, the hardened minister and -man of the world who is yet capable of all the devotion of a grand -passion; his enemy, the grotesque and plebeian Raversi; the loyal -and sonneteering coachman, Ludovici; the pretty and amiable little -actress Marietta with her obstreperous lover and her avaricious duenna; -Ranuce Ernest of Parma studiously living up to his majestic role; and -most romantic if not most interesting of all, Clelia Conti, with her -pathetic clash of amoristic devotion and filial duty. - -In 1830 the monetary embarrassments of Stendhal forced him to leave -Paris and take up the post of consul at Trieste. The Ultramontanes, -however, with a not unnatural desire to be revenged on a man whose -attitude to the Church is well crystallised in the phrase that "the -priests were the true enemies of all civilisation," drove him from -his position, and he was transferred to Civita Vecchia where he -remained till 1835, solacing his ennui by the compilation of his -autobiography and thinking seriously of marriage with the rich and -highly respectable daughter of his laundress. Returning to Paris, -Stendhal completed _Lucien Leuwen_, that long posthumous romance of the -financial, literary, and political life of the age of Louis Philippe, -a work which, though lacking something of the high vital quality of -_La Chartreuse_ and _Le Rouge et le Noir_, does ample justice to the -encyclopaedic powers of the author's observation. For here too we -trace the personal Stendhalian characteristics, the sympathy with -the isolated intellectual, the contempt for the bourgeois and the -philistine, the idealisation of an efficiency that is not always -achieved. We may perhaps give a quotation which well illustrates the -friendly malice with which this detached novelist treats even his most -favoured heroes: - -"He talked for the sake of talking, he bandied the pro and the con, he -exaggerated and altered the circumstances of every story which he told, -and he told a great many and at great length. In a word he talked like -a young man of parts from the provinces; and consequently his success -was immense." - -And how neat in the subtle simplicity of its irony is the following: - -"He was received in this house with that stiffness resulting from -baulked hopes of matrimony which has the knack of making itself felt in -such a variety of ways and in so amiable a manner in a family composed -of six young ladies who are particularly pretty." - -Returning to Paris, Stendhal commenced in 1838 the last of his novels, -the posthumous and unfinished _Lamiel_. Influenced, though by no means -discouraged by the lack of success of his other novels, he determined -to write "in a wittier style on a more intelligible subject," and -with regard to each incident to ask himself the question, "Should it -be described philosophically or described narratively according to -the doctrine of Ariosto?" Hence Lamiel, the most fascinating feminine -character in the whole of the Stendhalian literature. For Lamiel is a -young woman possessed simultaneously of a brisk intellectual honesty, -a lively humour, a charming _naivete,_ and a Nietzschean outlook on -a tumultuous world. "Her character was based on a profound disgust -for pusillanimity," and "where there was no danger there she found no -pleasure." The whole book is crisp with the true comic spirit. The -scene in particular in which Lamiel purchases her first lesson in the -essential element of human knowledge, as a mere matter of intellectual -curiosity, is a masterpiece of racy delicacy. Yet acuteness of -psychology is never sacrificed to airiness of style. Sansfin the -malicious hump-backed doctor, Comte D'Aubigne Nerwinde the snob, "a -serious, prudent, and melancholy paragon always preoccupied with public -opinion," the plebeian parents of Lamiel, the pompous duchess, the -conventional young lord, are all portrayed with a delightful malice -whose satire is never too extravagant to be otherwise than convincing. - -But it is Lamiel herself who dominates the book, Lamiel with that -mixture of high flippancy and deep seriousness which is so essentially -attractive, ever developing fresh phases in response to her repeated -change of environment, yet ever retaining a fundamental consistency -with her original character. It can only be regretted that Stendhal -should have left unfinished what might well have been possibly the -greatest, and certainly the most amusing of all his novels, and that -having traced the adventures of his heroine from her plebeian origin to -the aristocratic chateau, and from the aristocratic chateau to Paris, -he should finally leave her floating jauntily amid all the rich welter -of Parisian life with only a synopsis of those subsequent experiences -which if undergone would have entitled her to rank as one of the most -truly romantic characters in the whole of fiction. - -In 1842, Stendhal, with his physical and intellectual faculties still -unimpaired, died suddenly at the age of fifty-nine. Like his hero -Julien, he was "game" to the last, and "I have struck nothingness" was -his self-given substitute for the more orthodox viaticum. - -In endeavouring to adjudicate finally the value of Stendhal, it is -difficult not to yield to the fascination of his cock-sure prophecy of -his eventual fame. For as Stendhal the man, in his autobiographical -writings, _La Vie de Henri Brulard, Le Journal_, and _Souvenirs -d'Egotisme_, would project his ego some years forward and as it -were shake hands with himself across the gulf of time, so, one can -almost say, Stendhal, the incarnation of the early nineteenth-century -Zeitgeist, with his genial greeting, "Je serai compris vers 1880," -shakes hands with those modern men of the world who rightly or wrongly -have imagined themselves to be incarnations of the Zeitgeist of the -late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, as they look back with -appreciative camaraderie at this earlier manifestation of their own -selves. And this no doubt is why Stendhal, viewed of course with a not -unnatural Ultramontane frigidity by such critics as Sainte-Beuve or -Emile Faguet, has become the spoilt darling of Nietzsche, Taine, and -Bourget, and indeed all the more intellectual spirits in modern French -and German literature. - -The life of Stendhal no doubt may not have been as ideally satisfactory -as his theories may have warranted. A man, who professed to find his -chief interest in life in the erotic emotion, he played as often as -not the role of the unhappy lover. His spasmodic fits of political and -military ambition spluttered out in the self-complacent consciousness -of their own intensity. He suffered throughout his life from being a -dilettante with a financial competence. Yet it is no small achievement -to have chased happiness so consistently and with so male an energy, to -have kept unjaded to the last his intellectual gusto and the appetite -of his _joie de vivre_, and to have been the first man in European -literature to have put into efficient practice, without thereby in -any way detracting from the clearness of his own personal note, the -important principle that the elaborate delineation of character is even -more the function of the novel than adventurous action or picturesque -description. And so it is that we entitle Stendhal the patentee of -psychology, the inventor of introspection, and take our leave of him -with his own epitaph: - - Qui giace - ARRIGO BEYLE MILANESE - isse, scrisse, amo. - - - - -HEINRICH HEINE - - -Heine seems, viewed superficially, the most baffling, elusive, and -inconsistent of all writers, the veritable Proteus of poetry. He has -so many shapes, that at the first blush it seems almost impossible to -grasp finally and definitely the one genuine Heine. What is really -this man who is now a gamin and now an angel, whose face seems almost -simultaneously to wear the sardonic grin of a Mephistopheles and the -wistful smile of a Christ, this flaunting Bohemian who has written -some of the tenderest love songs in literature, this cosmopolitan who -cherished the deepest feelings for his fatherland, this incarnate -paradox who almost at one and the same moment is swashbuckler and -martyr, French and German, Hebrew and Greek, revolutionary and -aristocrat, optimist and pessimist, idealist and mocker, believer and -infidel? - -Yet it is even because of this surface inconsistency, this -psychological many-sidedness that Heine is a great poet and the one -who, mirroring in his own mind the complexity that he saw without, is -typically representative of the varied phases of the early nineteenth -century. Heine looks at life from every conceivable aspect: he sees -the gladness of life and rejoices therein; he sees the tears of life -and weeps; he sees the tragedy of life and cannot control his sobs; he -sees the farce of life and finds equal difficulty in controlling his -laughter. "Ah, dear reader," says Heine, "if you want to complain that -the poet is torn both ways, complain rather that the world is torn in -two. The poet's heart is the core of the world, and in this present -time it must of necessity be grievously rent. The great world-rift -clove right through my heart, and even thereby do I know that the great -gods have given me of their grace and preference and deemed me worthy -of the poet's martyrdom." - -The first half of the nineteenth century, in fact, in which Heine -lived, is, like any transition period, disturbed, unsettled, -paradoxical. The most diverse tendencies boil and bubble together -in the crucible; the Revolution and the Reaction, Romanticism and -Hellenism, materialism and mysticism, democracy and aristocracy, poetry -and science, all ferment apace in the psychological Witches' Cauldron -of the age. - -Heine simply represented the illusions and disillusions of this age, or -to put it with greater precision, he represented the clash and contrast -between these illusions and disillusions. To arrive then at a correct -appreciation of Heine it will be necessary to glance first at the main -currents of the contemporary events, the political movements of the -Revolution and the Reaction, and the literary movements of Romanticism -and Aestheticism. - -All these currents flow either directly or indirectly from the French -Revolution. To the more sanguine and poetical minds of the time the -Revolution had manifested itself as a species of Armageddon, a gigantic -cataclysm, which, sweeping away all existing institutions with one -great shock, was to leave to mankind an untrammelled existence of -natural and idyllic perfection. These dreamers were destined to be -rudely disappointed. The Holy Alliance temporarily suppressed the -Revolution at Waterloo, and an efficient Reaction reigned both in -France and in Germany. A great religious revival set in in Prussia, -culminating in the Concordat with the Pope in 1821. The Press was -gagged by a rigid censorship, while the students at the universities -were subjected to the most rigorous police espionage. From the point of -view of the German idealists who hoped for liberty and progress, the -Revolution had ended in the most dismal of fiascos. - -Parallel with the Revolution ran Romanticism, which eventually -merged in orthodoxy, or, to put it more accurately, in a mystical -Catholicism. The cardinal characteristic of Romanticism was the -revolt of the individual against the stereotyped prosaic life of the -classical eighteenth century. This revolt manifested itself in the -most untrammelled freedom of the ego, which either took to rioting in -an elaborate self-analysis, as did Hofmann and Jean Paul Richter, or -else simply abandoning ordinary life gave itself up to the cult of -the bizarre, the mystic, the mediaeval, and the exotic, and fell in -love with the Infinite, or, to use the terminology of the school, the -Blue Flower. Though, however, Heine was in his poetic youth largely -influenced by the Romanticists (he was, in fact, dubbed by a Frenchman -with tolerable reason an "unfrocked Romantic"), the essence of his -maturer outlook on life is far from being romantic. The life-outlook of -the Romanticists consisted in a vague yearning for the ideal without -any reference to this earthly life; the life-outlook of Heine on the -other hand was made up largely of the almost brutal contrast between -the ideal and the real, between life as it was dreamed and life as it -actually was. - -Another current of thought which it is necessary to mention, though -of course it exercised rather less influence on Heine than did -Romanticism, was the aesthetic neo-Hellenic movement represented by -Winckelmann, Lessing, and to a certain extent by Goethe. - -Heine, however, though a lover of the beautiful, lacked almost entirely -the plastic genius and marble serenity of Hellas, and is, as will be -shown later, only a Greek in the exuberance of his _joie de vivre._ -To summarise then the main tendencies of the age in which Heine was -born, we can see these four distinct currents--the glorious ideals of -the French Revolution, the official reaction against these ideals, the -cult of the bizarre and the infinite yearning of Romanticism, and the -Hellenism of the aesthetic movement. Let us now turn to the poet's life, -and examine the part played by environment, race, and parentage in -moulding his character. - -Heine was born in Duesseldorf on December 1797, and not as is currently -supposed in 1799. - -The Catholic Rhineland, in which Duesseldorf is situated, rebelled more -than almost any other district in Germany against the despotism of the -Prussian bureaucracy; it possessed an almost southern _joie de vivre_, -and only naturally exhibited a distinct inclination to the Catholicism -of the Romanticists, all of which characteristics in a greater or less -degree are to be found in Heine. - -Further, Heine was a Jew, possessing, in consequence, an hereditary -tendency to gravitate to the extreme left wing both of thought and of -politics, while the inborn _Judenschmerz_ in his heart was aggravated -by the anti-Semitic reaction which followed the benevolent tolerance of -Napoleon. - -The poet's father, Samson Heine, was an easy-going, aesthetic nonentity -in moderate circumstances, who does not appear to have exercised any -serious influence on the child's development. This was accomplished by -the mother, _nee_ von Geldern, a cultured and strong-minded woman, and -a Voltairean by belief, who did her best to foster and stimulate her -son's youthful intelligence. The favourite authors of the young Heine -were Cervantes, Sterne, and Swift. Of contemporaries, the two men who -exercised any real influence were the Emperor Napoleon, and Byron, "the -kingly man" and the aristocratic revolutionary. Napoleon in particular -was the god of his boyish adoration. This Napoleonic enthusiasm was -largely fostered by Heine's friendship with a grenadier drummer of the -French army named Le Grand, while it reached its climax when he beheld -with his own eyes the beatific vision of the Emperor himself riding on -his beautiful white palfrey through the Hofgarten Allee at Duesseldorf, -in splendid defiance of the police regulations, which forbade such -riding under a penalty of five thalers. - -This worship of the Emperor, moreover, resulted in the wonderful poem -called "The Grenadiers," written at the age of eighteen. The swing and -power of the poem have made it classic, especially the great final -stanza beginning: - - "Denn reitet mein Kaiser wohl ueber mein Grab." - -Heine received his early education at a Jesuit monastery. The first -event of any moment in his life, however, is his calf-love for Josepha, -or Sefchen, the executioner's daughter, a weird fantastic beauty of -fifteen, with large dark eyes and blood-red hair. Josepha was the -inspiration of the juvenile _Dream Pictures_ incorporated subsequently -in the _Book of Songs_, and exhibiting a genuine power and an even more -genuine promise. - -In 1816 Heine was sent into the office of Solomon Heine, his -millionaire uncle of Hamburg. - -He seems to have been singularly destitute of the financial genius of -his race, and the business career proved from the outset a fiasco. The -real key, however, to the three years spent in Hamburg is supplied not -by Money, but by Love. Having served his apprenticeship in Duesseldorf -with his calf-attachment to the executioner's daughter, Heine proceeded -straightway to a _grande passion_ for his uncle's pretty daughter -Amalie. His love was not reciprocated, and in 1821 the beauteous Amalie -married a wealthy landowner of Koenigsberg. This Amalie incident was one -of the most important in Heine's life, and is largely responsible for -his early cynicism. He was disillusioned with a vengeance, and could -now with his own eyes inspect the flimsy material of which "Love's -Young Dream" is wove. Though, however, a great personal blow, this -abortive passion is also to be regarded as an invaluable aesthetic -asset. The poet of necessity is bound to write of his own personal -impressions and experiences; and it is obvious that the intenser are -these experiences, the more vital will be his poetry. If Heine's love -for Amalie was the accursed flame that seared his soul, it was also the -sacred fire that kindled his inspiration, and it is to Amalie that we -owe not only a great part of the _Book of Songs_, but also much which -is characteristic of Heine's subsequent life-outlook. - -In 1819, probably because Heine had given convincing proofs of his -business inefficiency, it was decided that he should go to Bonn to -study law. He neglected his studies, and it was not long before he fell -foul of the authorities, owing to his anticipation in the proceedings -of the Burschenschaften or student political unions. - -In 1820 Heine left Bonn for Goettingen. At Goettingen his career was -brief but thrilling, and he was rusticated after a few months on -account of a proposed duel with an impertinent _junker_. - -Transferring his quarters to Berlin, he now spent by far the most -enjoyable period of his university career. The intellectual atmosphere -of Berlin was quicker and less pedantic than that of Goettingen, and he -plunged into his studies with considerable energy. - -In 1821 Heine published the first volume of his poems, containing the -_Dream Pictures_, some miscellaneous juvenile poems, and the _Lyrisches -Intermezzo,_ which was inspired by the banker's, in the same way that -the _Dream Pictures_ had been inspired by the executioner's, daughter. - -The book was an immediate success, how great may be gauged by the -numerous parodies and imitations which it almost instantaneously -evoked. It was at this period that he wrote the two romantic tragedies -of _Ratcliff_ and _Almansor_. Both failures and devoid of much merit, -they served none the less useful purpose of advertising his fame. - -In 1823 we see an echo of his passion for Amalie in his love for his -younger cousin Therese, who seems in many respects to have been a -replica of her elder sister. Therese, however, refused to be anything -more than a cousin to him, and his heart was still further embittered -as is shown by the poem: - - "Wer zum erstenmale liebt - Sei's auch gluecklos ist ein Gott - Aber wer zum zweitenmale - Gluecklos liebt, er ist ein Narr - Ich, ein solcher Narr, ich liebe - Wieder ohne Gegenliebe; - Sonne, Mond und Sterne lachen - Und ich lache mit und sterbe." - -In 1824 he decided to prosecute his studies for his doctorial degree -with greater seriousness, and leaving behind him the distractions -of the capital, went back once more to the more staid and prosaic -Gottingen. - -Heine intended not merely to take a degree for the sake of ornament, -but also to practise seriously as a lawyer. How serious were these -intentions may be seen from the fact that he went to the length of -paying in advance the heavy entrance fee which the legal profession -then exacted from Jews, and became baptized "as a Protestant and a -Lutheran to boot" on June 28, 1825. - -Heine's conversion has frequently been criticised with superfluous -harshness. Let him, however, explain his position for himself: - - "At that time I myself was still a god, and none of the - positive religions had more value for me than another; I - could only wear their uniforms as a matter of courtesy, - on the same principle that the Emperor of Russia dresses - himself up as an officer of the Prussian Guard when he - honours his imperial cousin with a visit to Potsdam." - -After all, his apostasy brought with it its own punishment, not only -in its deep-felt shame, but in the fact that he eventually threw up -law for literature, and thus rendered so great a sacrifice of racial -loyalty and his own self-respect consummately futile. After selling -his birthright he found that he had absolutely no use for the mess of -pottage which he had purchased. - -In the summer of 1825, Heine, having just succeeded in passing his -degree, proceeded to the little island of Norderney, off the coast of -Holland, to recuperate. Living ardently the simple life and indulging -to the full his passion for the sea, he now wrote not only the second -part of the _Reisebilder,_ entitled _Norderney_, but the far greater -_Nordsee Cyklus,_ which in its irregular swinging metre expresses with -such marvellous efficiency the whole roar and grandeur of the ocean. -Speaking generally, of course, Heine was too subjective to be a real -nature poet. No writer, it is true, fills up so freely and with so -fantastic an elegance the blank cheques of nightingales and violets, -lilies and roses, stars and moonshine, yet none the less these rather -served to grace his measure than as his real flame. His one genuine -love was the sea. With the sea he felt a deep psychological affinity. -The sea was the symbol of his own infinite restlessness, of his own -divine discontent, and mirrored in the sea's ever-changing waters he -beheld the incessant smiles and storms of his own soul. - - "I love the sea, even as my own soul," he writes. "Often - do I fancy that the sea is in truth my very soul; and - as in the sea there are hidden water-plants that only - swim up to the surface at the moment of their bloom and - sink down again at the moment of their decay, even so - do wondrous flower-pictures swim up out of the depths - of my soul, spread their light and fragrance, and again - vanish." - -In 1826 Heine published the _Heimkehr_, the _Nordsee Cyklus_, the airy -and sparkling _Harzreise_, and the first part of the _Reisebilder_. - -From Norderney Heine moved to Hamburg, avowedly to practise, though -it does not appear that he took his profession with much seriousness. -At any rate, until 1831, when he migrated to Paris, his career is -excessively erratic. At one moment he is paying a flying visit to -England, "the land of roast beef and Yorkshire plum-pudding, where -the machines behave like men and the men like machines"; at another -he is on the staff of the _Allgemeinen Politischen Annalen_ and the -_Morgenblatt_ of Munich; he is now in Hamburg, now in Frankfurt, and -now in Italy, where his sojourn inspired the racy and brilliant _Italy_ -and _Baths of Lucca_, both of which works obtained the gratuitous and -well-merited state advertisement of prohibition, and achieved a most -undeniable _succes de scandale_. - -The departure to Paris marks an entirely new epoch in Heine's life, and -offers a convenient stopping-place at which to give some account of his -early poetry and prose, as exemplified in the _Book of Songs_, which -was published in 1827, and the _Reisebilder_, the last part of which, -the _Baths of Lucca_, was published in 1831. - -Though neither the _Book of Songs_ nor the _Reisebilder_ is as great -or as characteristic as the _Romanzero_ and _Poetische Nachlese_ on -the one hand, or the _Salon_ on the other, they are yet by far the -most popular of his works and contain some of his most delightful -writing. One of the first traits that strikes us in the _Book of -Songs_ is the Romantic tendency to bizarre and exotic themes. In the -_Junge Leiden_ and _Lyrisches Intermezzo_ in particular we move in a -ghostly atmosphere of apparitions, sea-maidens, skeletons, and midnight -churchyards. Another interesting characteristic of these poems is his -deep love of the East, a love which is to be probably ascribed more to -the general eastward gravitation of the Romantic school than to the -poet's Oriental blood. This tendency is responsible for two of the most -charming poems in the book, the exquisite lyric starting: - - "Auf Fluegeln des Gesanges - Herzliebchen trag ich dich fort - Fort nach den Fluren des Ganges - Dort weiss ich den schoensten Ort." - - "Dort liegt ein rotbluehender Garten - Im stillen Mondenschein; - Die Lotosblumen erwarten - Ihr trautes Schwesterlein." - -And-- - - "Ein Fichtenbaum steht einsam - Im Norden auf kabler Hoeh', - Ihn schlaefert; mit weisser Decke - Umhuellen ihn Eis und Schnee. - Er traumt von einer Palme, - Die fern im Morgenland - Einsam und schweigend trauert - Auf brennender Felsenwand." - -This latter poem in particular illustrates admirably the vague melting, -infinite yearning which Heine at first experienced as deeply as did any -of the Romanticists. There are not wanting, however, and especially -towards the end of the book, examples of his later manner, of that note -of rebellion which he was afterwards to strike with such inimitable -precision. Occasionally his wistful pessimism suddenly changes into -cynicism, and in reaction from his morbid sensitiveness he derives a -sardonic satisfaction from probing his own wounds as in the already -quoted "Wer zum erstenmale liebt," while in the mock-heroic _Donna -Clara_ and in the _Frieden_ we see that artistic use of the anti-climax -of which he was afterwards to acquire an even greater mastery. Even in -the comparatively early _Lyrisches Intermezzo_ we see him constantly -playing on that contrast between the Real and the Ideal, between Dream -Life and Waking Life, which formed so integral a part of his subsequent -life-outlook. Speaking generally, however, the _Book of Songs_ exhibits -the sentimental rather than the cynical side of Heine's mind. It -possesses moreover those qualities which remained in Heine throughout -his life, the light, airy touch, the intimate personal note, the -delicate lyric sweetness, and that concision which is found in poetry -with such extreme rarity. - -Let us turn now to the _Reisebilder_. Its most dominant characteristics -are its inimitable swing and the absolute irresponsibility of its -transitions. The grave, the gay; the lively, the severe; the sublime, -the ridiculous; the reverent, the frivolous; the refined, the crude; -the poetic, the obscene, all jostle pell-mell against each other -in this most fascinating of literary kaleidoscopes. It is no mere -guide-book, this record of his wanderings in the Harz, in Norderney, in -England, and in Italy, but rather a description of those reflections -on men and things which were suggested by his various adventures. In -style the _Reisebilder_ marks a new epoch in German prose, or, as has -been said, showed for the first time since Lessing and Goethe that such -a thing as German prose really did exist. Heine was the first to show -convincingly that a Gallic grace and flexibility could be imparted into -the cumbrous and heavy-footed Teutonic language. - -Psychologically the most interesting part of the _Reisebilder_ is the -fervent Napoleonic worship which, combined with his love of liberty and -revolt against reaction, largely contributed to mould his life. The -general tone, moreover, of political, sexual, and religious freedom -that characterises the latter part of the _Reisebilder_ rendered -Heine not a little obnoxious to official Germany, not only because of -the intrinsic heresy of the sentiments themselves, but of the joyous -rollicking insolence with which they were paraded. - -It is small wonder, then, that the Paris July Revolution of 1830 made -the poet feel "as if he could set the whole ocean up to the very North -Pole on fire with the red-heat of enthusiasm and mad joy that worked in -him," and that in the spring of 1831 he migrated finally and definitely -from Germany to Paris. - -This migration to Paris marks the turning-point in Heine's life. His -career in Germany had throughout been erratic, unsatisfactory, and -hampered by political restrictions. In Paris he settled down, felt -that now at last he was in a congenial element, and--found himself. -It was at Paris that he wrote his most brilliant prose and found -inspiration for his highest poetry, that he experienced his wildest -joys and his intensest sufferings. The first ten years of his sojourn -were probably the happiest in his life. His increased literary and -journalistic earnings helped to solve the financial problem, while -socially he was, as always, a pronounced success. He soon found his -way into the centre of the artistic set of the capital, and was on a -footing of intimacy with such writers as Lafayette, Balzac, Victor -Hugo, Georges Sand, Theophile Gautier, Michelet, Dumas, Gerard de -Nerval, Hector Berlioz, Ludwig Borne, Schlegel, and Humboldt. In -social life Heine's most characteristic feature was wit--a wit so -irrepressible as to burst forth impartially on practically all -occasions, and to resemble that of the Romans of the early Empire, -who preferred to lose their heads rather than their epigrams. Yet -in private life he was a devoted son and brother, an ideal husband. -The correspondence which he maintained up to his death with his -sister Lotte and his mother show conclusively what stores of German -_Gemut_ he treasured in his heart. Particularly significant is the -fact that during the whole eight years in which he languished in his -mattress-grave he assiduously concealed from his mother the real state -of his health. Yet none the less "he could hate deeply and grimly -with an energy which I have never yet met in any other man, but only -because he could love with equal intensity," writes the poet's friend, -Meissner. Heine disapproved on principle of swallowing an injury; when -he was hit, he hit back. Not infrequently, as in his rather scandalous -attack on Boerne, he would _riposte_ with somewhat superfluous -efficiency, though according to his own theories it must have been -after all only a mistake on the safe side. - -"Yes," writes Heine, "one must forgive one's enemies, but not until -they have been hanged." - -Heine's quarrel with Boerne originally arose out of the abomination with -which Boerne, who was Radical to the point of fanaticism, regarded the -somewhat poetic and elastic Liberalism of his fellow-Jew, and it is -instructive to enter into an examination of the depth and strength of -those views which supplied the real motive power which drove him from -Germany to France. There can be no doubt that Heine himself took his -Liberalism with perfect seriousness. "In truth I know not," he writes, -"if I merit that my coffin should be decorated with a laurel wreath. -However much I loved Poesy, she was ever to me only a holy toy or a -consecrated means for heavenly ends. It is rather a sword that they -should lay on my coffin, for I was a brave soldier in the Liberation -War of Humanity." It should be observed, however, that this Liberal had -the most aristocratic contempt for the uncultured [Greek: _deimos_], -as is shown by passages such as the following: "The horny hands of the -Socialists who will unpityingly break all the marble statues which are -so dear to my heart"; and, "If Democracy really triumphs, it is all up -with poetry." - -Yet there can be no gainsaying that Heine's political orthodoxy was -perfectly unimpeachable on that anti-clericalism which has always been -one of the most cardinal points of Continental Liberalism. - -He is rarely tired of tilting at Catholicism, and while he regarded -ascetic mediaeval Catholicism as the vampire which sucked the blood -and light out of the hearts of men, he dubbed the modern Catholic -reactionaries in Germany "the Party of lies, the ruffians of -Despotism, the restorers of all the folly and abomination of the Past." - -Yet, if his beliefs were too wide to admit of the narrowness of a -consistent partisanship, his enthusiasm was deep and sincere for the -joy, light, and liberty of a new era that was to sweep away all the -unhealthy and plaguy humours of that blind, delirious, and anaemic -mediaevaldom, which, to use his own phrase, has spread over the -countries like an infectious disease, till Europe was but one huge -hospital. Politically, in fine, Heine is a brilliant freelance, who, -too proud to wear the uniform of party, none the less fought valiantly -for the army of Progress and Humanity, a forlorn outpost in the War of -Freedom.[1] - -Heine's polemical modernity manifested itself most efficiently in -the _Deutschland_, which, together with its sequel, _The Romantic -School_, was issued as a counter-blast to Madame de Stael's work of the -same name. This history of the religion, literature, and philosophy -of Germany is the masterpiece of Heine's extant prose. An academic -philosophic treatise, of course, it neither is nor professes to be. -As a description half-serious, half-flippant, however, of the main -currents of modern and mediaeval Germany by a writer who sees life from -the bird's-eye view of the combined poet, journalist, thinker, and man -of the world, it is unrivalled. It contains some of Heine's loftiest -and most sublime flights, some of his most brilliant and trenchant -epigrams. - -Particularly happy is the comparison drawn between the furious -onslaughts made by the French Revolutionists under Robespierre and the -German philosophers under Kant on respectively the divine rights of -kings and the divine rights of God. - -How delicious is the conclusion of the parallel between the two men: -"Each eminently represents the ideal middle-class type--Nature had -decreed that they should weigh out coffee and sugar, but Fate willed -that they should weigh out other things, and in the scales of the one -did she lay a King and in the scales of the other a God.... - -"And they both gave exact weight." - -As, however, has been previously pointed out, Heine's chief -characteristic as a prose writer is that marvellous elasticity which -can rebound from the frivolous to the sublime with the most consummate -ease and celerity. Interspersed with the bright flash-light of the -epigrammatic pyrotechnics lie really great passages, and pieces in -particular like those on Luther and Goethe possess the clear golden -ring of the grand style. - -Heine's political ideals were subjected to the inevitable -disillusionment. The Revolution of July, which he had fondly hoped -would complete the work of the great movement of 1793, merely resulted -in the anti-climax of the establishment of a bourgeois constitution -under a bourgeois monarch. He tended to become generally embittered. -Money matters, too, began to irritate him, and his health to give -him trouble, and though he found a devoted sick-nurse in Matilde -Crescenzia Mirat, a grisette whom he married in 1841, the lady with -whom "he quarrelled daily for six years in that life-long duel at -the termination of which only one of the combatants would be left -alive," yet none the less his condition began to deteriorate. "The -damp cold days and black long nights of his exile" oppressed him, and -he began to yearn for the old German soil. He gratified his _Heimweh_ -by a flying and surreptitious visit to Germany that inspired the -well-known _Germany_ or a _Winter Tale_, which, together with the -somewhat similar _Atta Troll_, constitutes his most sustained poetic -achievement. These two poems are about as characteristic as anything -which he wrote. They represent admirably his wild classic Dionysiac -fantasy, his sudden dips from the most extravagant Romanticism to the -harsh, crude facts of reality, the marvellous swing and sweep of his -Aristophanic humour. - -Very typical is the following satire on the intimate relation between -anthropo- and arctomorphism. - - "Up above in star-pavilion, - On his golden throne of lordship, - Ruling worlds with sway majestic, - Sits a Polar bear colossal." - - "Stainless, snow-white shines the glamour - Of his skin, his head is wreathed - With a diadem of diamonds, - Flashing light through all the heavens." - - "Harmony rests in his visage, - And the silent deeds of thought, - Just a whit he bends his sceptre, - And the spheres they ring and sing." - -The above quotation shows excellently the essentially poetic quality -by which Heine's wit is illumined. A satirist as keen and vivid as -Voltaire, he possesses all the logical aptness of the Frenchman without -his dryness. His chief characteristic, in fact, is the method by which -in his imaginative flights he combines the maximum of this logical -aptness with the maximum of humorous incongruity. No humorist dives -for his metaphors into stranger water or brings up from the deep more -bizarre and fantastic gems. A charming example of Heinean humour is -the following passage from one of his prefaces: "A pious Quaker once -sacrificed his whole fortune in buying up the most beautiful of the -mythological pictures of Giulio Romano in order to consign them to the -flames--verily he merits thereby to go to heaven and be whipped with -birches regularly every day." - -One of the most cardinal traits of Heine's wit and humour is a -phenomenal freedom of tone and language, a freedom that is occasionally -not always in the most unimpeachable taste. Heine, in fact, is a -writer who admits the public gratis to his psychological toilette, -where he exposes with studied recklessness his most private thoughts. -This question cuts too deep into Heine's life-outlook to be lightly -passed over, and necessitates some examination. In the first place -even Heine's most enthusiastic admirer will admit that a great deal of -this licence is sheer gaminerie; Heine is the mischievous schoolboy -of literature who thoroughly revels in being naughty, grimacing by an -almost mechanical instinct, so soon as he catches a glimpse of the -sacred figures of religion and sex. Like Baudelaire, he loves, almost -indeed as a matter of conscientious principle, to make the hairs of -the philistines stand on end. His one excuse, however, is that even -when he causes the hairs of the philistines almost to spring from their -roots, as indeed he does not infrequently, he conducts the operation -with so light a touch, so exquisite a grace, that the offence is almost -redeemed. Let him speak in his own defence, in the lines from the great -Jewish poem, "Jehudah Halevy": - - "As in Life so too in poetry - Grace is aye Man's highest Good; - Who has grace, he never sinneth - Not in verse nor e'en in prose." - - "And by God's grace such a poet - Genius we do entitle, - King supreme and uncontrolled - In the great desmesne of thought." - -Not unnaturally his coarseness grew apace with the virulence of his -disease, and he himself explains his cause to his friend "La Mouche": -"Vois-tu c'est la faute de la mort qui arrive a grands pas, et quand -je la sens ainsi tout pres de moi comme a present j'ai besoin de me -cramponner la vie ne fut ce par une poutre pourrie." This final phase -in fact was simply a reaction against his fate, and is not altogether -without analogy to that same psychological principle which dictated -much of the crude buffoonery of Swift and Carlyle by way of an heroic -protest against their own helplessness. - -Far more important, however, is the fact that this particular trait -of Heine is profoundly symbolic of his outlook on life, especially -where an obscene jest marks the climax of a genuinely poetical flight. -Circumstance turned him into a cynic, who saw frequently in Liberty but -the uprising of a squalid proletariate, who heard in the "sweet lies -of the nightingale, the flatterer of spring," merely the "harbingers -of the decay of its queenliness," and who beheld in love but a mere -illusion of the senses that vanishes so soon as the beloved one utters -a syllable. Held fast in the grip of the great World-paradox, Heine -is forced to look at life as a glaring phantasmagoria of blacks and -whites, in which the sublime and the ridiculous, the pathetic and the -grotesque, the refined and the crude, dance along hand in hand till -they become so confused that it is impossible for the observer to -distinguish the individual partners, and he is reduced to describing, -in pairs, the giddy, whirling couples that make up the fantastic medley. - -This incessant antithesis makes Heine one of the most complete of -modern writers. - -The poet's world is composed of two hemispheres: one is the abode of -the beautiful, the grand, the tragic; the other of the ugly, the petty, -the comic. Most poets confine their efforts to only a small portion -of one of these hemispheres. Heine, however, is the Atlas of poetry, -who supports both of the half-spheres of the world, and who, by way of -proving how easily his burden sits upon him, suddenly turns juggler, -and after showing his audience one side of the magic globe, will, _hey -presto_! whisk the whole world round, and before they know where they -are smilingly confront them with the other. - -In 1848 the spinal affection from which he suffered became so acute -that Heine was compelled to take to that mattress-grave where, -paralytic and half-blind and racked intermittently by the most -agonising spasms, he dragged out the eight most ghastly years of his -life. At first the death-chamber was one of the favourite rendezvous -of fashionable Paris, but as the novelty wore off, his circle of -friends grew narrower and narrower, until eventually a visit from -Berlioz seemed only the crowning proof of the musician's inveterate -eccentricity. - -Heine, however, rose manfully to the occasion, and did all that -he could under the circumstances. Always a passionate lover of -the paradoxical, he now began to appreciate with an intense and -unprecedented relish the infinite humour of the great Life-farce, one -of the most effective scenes of which was even now being enacted in the -person of the poet of _joie de vivre_, who, enduring all the agonies of -the damned, lay dying in La Rue d'Amsterdam to the quick music of the -piano on the story underneath, while only a few feet away shone all the -glow and glitter of Parisian life. - -The chief occupation and solace of the dying man was the writing of his -Memoirs, the great _Apologia pro vita sua_ which was to square his -accounts with the world, and win for him the future as his own. - -Yet at times the greatness of his sufferings would soften his heart. -He would find in the Bible the magic book which had power to dispel -his earthly torments; the "_Heimweh_ for heaven" would fall upon him, -and again would he know his God. It would seem, however, that Heine's -death-bed reconversion is simply to be regarded as one of the numerous -instances of the Prince of Darkness exhibiting monastic proclivities -under the stress of severe physical _malaise_. For eight years Heine -lay a-dying, and with the skeleton of Death assiduously serving the -few bitter crumbs that yet remained of his feast of life, he was, as a -simple matter of pathology, almost bound to believe once more, even if -he had been the most hardened infidel in existence. Heine, however, was -no cynical atheist. The current religions, it is true, he considered -pretty poetry, but bad logic, yet none the less he was genuinely imbued -with the ethical idea. - -"I am too proud," he writes, "to be influenced by greed for the -heavenly wages of virtue or by fear of hellish torments. I strive after -the good because it is beautiful and attracts me irresistibly, and I -abominate the bad because it is hateful and repugnant to me." - -What, in fact, served Heine in the stead of a theology was his fervid -enthusiasm for Progress and Humanity. His real religion was the -religion of Freedom, the religion of the poor people, the new creed -of which Jean Rousseau was the John the Baptist and Voltaire the -chief apostle; Heine's Madonna was the red goddess of Revolution, who -exacted from her worshippers innumerable hecatombs of human victims; -the Man-god whom he revered as the Saviour of Society was Napoleon, -the Son of the Revolution, the drastic reorganiser of the world, who, -unappreciated by the pharisees and reactionaries of his time, and -finding his Golgotha on the "martyr-cliffs of St. Helena," endured for -more than five years all the agonies of a moral crucifixion; while to -complete our version of the Heinesque theology, his _Heilige Geist_ -was the Holy Spirit of the Human Intellect which he says "is seen in -its greatest glory in Light and Laughter," and the Revelation which -inspired him most deeply was, to use once more his own phrase, "the -sacred mystic Revelation that we name poesy." - -It is interesting to trace the influence of these last ghastly years -on Heine's writings. His almost complete physical prostration brought -with it its own compensation in the shape of a marvellous psychic -exaltation, and the _Romanzero_ and the _Poetische Nachlese_ contain -some of his greatest and most moving poems. Nowhere do we see more -clearly his most characteristic excellences, his delicacy, his power of -antithesis, his concision. - -It is Heine's compression, in fact, which is one of the most pronounced -features of his poetic style. The whole quintessence of joy and pain, -of love and sorrow, is frequently distilled into one short poem. This -Heinesque condensation is a variant of the same theory that can be -traced in the old Impressionist school of painters which is concerned -with the outline and the proper light and shading of the outline to the -exclusion of minor details, and in the journalistic cult of the "story" -in which the ideal aimed at is "the point, the whole point, and nothing -but the point." Heine, in fact, is unique among the poets for narrating -a tale with the minimum of space and the maximum of effect, for -narrating it in such a way that each line serves to heighten the level -of intensity, till at length the edifice is crowned by the climax. This -feature of his style is well illustrated by the end of the frequently -quoted poem, "The Asra," in the _Romanzero_: - - "And the slave spake, I am called - Mohammed, I am from Yemen, - And my stock is from those Asras, - _They who die whene'er they love_." - -Though, moreover, he protested to the last against his fate, his tone -in the _Romanzero_ and the earlier _Poetische Nachlese_ is more mellow -than in his earlier writings. His cry from the heart is not the cry -of defiance but rather of the pathetic wistfulness of impotence. Yet -before the candle of his life became extinguished it leapt up in one -final flicker, the most marvellous of all. A characteristic caprice -of fate made him acquainted during the last months of his life with -his one true soul-affinity, the charming woman who is known under the -pseudonym of Camille Selden or La Mouche. - -Is it then to be wondered at that when the rich feast of a perfect -love, for which he had craved Tantalus-like all his life, was offered -to him almost at the very minute that his lips were being sealed -by the cold kiss of death, the whole soul of the man should leap -up in indignant protest, and that such poems as "Lass die heiligen -Parabolen," and the even more wonderful series of stanzas with the -refrain, "O schoene Welt du bist abscheulich," should exhibit the cold -insolent shrug of the man convinced of the righteousness of his plea -that of all the places in the universe this human earth "where the just -man drags himself along beneath the blood-stained burden of his cross, -while the wicked man rides in triumph on his high steed," is the most -iniquitous? - -Heine died at four o'clock in the morning of February 17, 1856. He was -buried by his own directions in Montmartre, "in order to avoid being -disturbed by the crowd and bustle of Pere Lachaise." - -His writings form an incessant stream of paradoxes, but his life is the -greatest paradox of all. The prophet of the new religion of liberty, he -was repudiated by his country, and his happiest days were spent in the -land of exile; throughout his life he sought for love, to live years -of the most healthy prosaic domesticity with his mistress, and to find -his one true romance on his death-bed; he imagined that he was a great -political force, but it is rather as a poet that he survives; as a poet -his chief theme was the Joy and Light of Life, and he drew his truest -inspiration from the darkest depths of his agony; even as a great -writer he has been chiefly known by the comparatively inferior _Book -of Songs_ and _Reisebilder,_ while his masterpiece, the _Memoirs_, the -great highly barbed Parthian arrow shot from the grave to transfix his -enemies for all eternity, lay mouldering for many years amid the dusty -archives of the Vienna Library. - -His message, too, the core and kernel of his philosophy, is again -a paradox. To the sphinx-like riddle with which every thinker is -confronted, "Is Life poetry or prose, tragedy or farce?" Heine made -answer that the pathos and poetry of life were contained in the fact -that life was so essentially grim and unpoetical, and that the real -tragedy of the world lay in the ghastly farce of it all. - - -[Footnote 1: _Cf._ the poem "Enfant perdu," beginning "Verlorner Posten -in dem Freiheits Kriege."] - - - - -THE PSYCHOLOGY OF DISRAELI - - -The recent centenary of the birth of Benjamin Disraeli renewed our -interest in the most striking figure in the English history of the last -century. Throughout his life Disraeli made it an important part of his -_metier_ to be interesting, and it is certainly a convincing proof -both of his great natural fascination and of the adroitness with which -he worked his pose, that even beyond the grave his character should -still exercise our curiosity and blind us with the various facets of -its brilliancy. He fairly bristles with paradoxes, this cynic, who -was also a sentimentalist, this Oriental mystic, who was one of the -most finished dandies in London, this shameless adventurer, with his -pathetic and chivalrous devotion to his sovereign, this political -Don Juan, who provided a classic example of conjugal affection. -Many have essayed to solve the riddle of the "Primrose Sphinx"; but -the best testimony to their almost universal failure is that nearly -every biographer has produced a completely different version of his -character. Mr. Hitchman, "one of the helpless, somnambulised cattle -whom he led by the nose," to use Carlyle's phrase, portrays him -(in _The Public Life of the late Lord Beaconsfield_) with charming -_naivete_ as the "disinterested and patriotic statesman." Mr. T. P. -O'Connor, on the other hand, who, when still sowing his literary -wild oats, painted Disraeli even blacker than the Prince of Darkness -himself, in a book unworthy of any serious biographer, simply -overshoots the mark. Froude, in his _Life_, comes nearer to the truth, -but is hampered by being forced to compress the history of a crowded -life and the psychology of a complex character into a narrow and -inadequate compass. Both Froude, however, and Mr. Sichel, who has given -us an interesting volume on Disraeli's personality, lay too much stress -on his imaginative and idealistic features. - -The reason for this inability to comprehend a character, in many -respects singularly typical of his age, lies not so much in the -alleged inadequacy of the materials as in the incapacity of most -English writers for handling general ideas. The English mind is too -concrete for social psychology; it delights in the almost mechanical -work of classifying animals, but fails to produce any classification -of characters worth the name. The Disraeli problem is admittedly -difficult; the secrecy which until recently kept us from all knowledge -of the greater portion of his papers and correspondence is undoubtedly -a handicap, but the difficulty is by no means insuperable, nor the -material so scanty as is usually supposed. Let us take Disraeli in -relation to his age, his environment, his ancestry, then what would -otherwise have struck us as strange, not to say impossible, stands out -clear and inevitable. Another valuable source of information is to be -found in his novels, though it is always difficult to discriminate -between what is and what is not autobiographical in these works. - -A vigorous and imaginative mind, when writing about its own history, -will naturally not stint itself in its licences; it will abandon -itself to all kinds of hypotheses; it will take a certain phase of -itself, frame circumstances to suit its development, and proceed on the -fictitious assumption; it will indulge freely both in caricature and -idealisation. In _Vivian Grey_, for instance, Disraeli has slightly -exaggerated the more cynical side of his nature; _Sidonia_, on the -other hand, is an idealised version of Disraeli; it is Disraeli raised -to a higher power; it is what he would have liked to have been, but -was not, any more than the actual Byron was as brave, as romantic, and -as fascinating as the ideal Byron who is portrayed in _Conrad, Childe -Harold_, and _Don Juan_. - -Yet, none the less, _Sidonia, Fakredeen, Vivian Grey,_ and _Contarini -Fleming_ possess a strong family likeness, and strike a genuine -autobiographical note. With regard to the two latter, Mr. Sichel, in -his study of Disraeli, is unwarranted in his attempted depreciation of -their evidence, on the theory that they represent merely a distorted -and transient phase of Disraeli's development, to be ascribed to -ill-health and immaturity. On the contrary, the contortions of great -men in adolescence are peculiarly instructive. It is then that the -very elements of the future man are fermenting in the crucible; and -is not growth more significant than maturity? It is not a paradox, -but a fundamental truth, to say that a man is never more himself than -when he is not himself; it is in periods of violent upheaval that the -conventional superstructure is destroyed and the innermost foundations -of character are laid bare. It is far easier to tone down than to touch -up, and the unrestrained sincerity of these early novels, written under -the impetus of intense emotion, throws far more light on Disraeli's -real character than a book like _Endymion_, the official pronouncement -of his maturer years. A prudent use, then, of the novels, and an -examination of his relations to his age, environment, and ancestry -should enable us to construct a psychology of Disraeli that should be -at once convincing and consistent, and adequate to shed light on many -of the obscure points of his character. - -The _Sturm und Drang_ age of the Revolution in which Disraeli was -born marked the passing of Europe from childhood to manhood, from -mediaevalism to modernity. Like all transition periods, it was -peculiarly complex; the tendencies being so varied, and were so -frequently accompanied by the reactions against themselves, that it -requires considerable care to disentangle the principal threads. - -It was an age of progress where reaction was frequently to be seen at -work; it was an age significant for a violent outburst of scientific -materialism, and the consequently inevitable mysticism of a religious -revival. It was an age at once scientific and romantic, individual -and cosmopolitan. It was an age where circumstances produced strange -mixtures, so that in England we are brought face to face with the -paradox that Gladstone, the founder of democratic idealism, obtained -his seat under the old system of close boroughs, while Disraeli, the -most brilliant example of the new democratic theory of _la carriere -ouverte aux talentes_, found his way to power as the head of the -aristocratic and conservative party. The predominant note, however, was -one of democratic individualism. With the French Revolution the yoke -of responsibility, political and religious, was violently thrown off; -new and wide fields had been opened out to commerce by the extended -communications and the new mechanical inventions. A quickened life -broke in upon the lethargy of the previous century. The struggle for -existence entered on a sharper and intenser phase. Ambitious men -vehemently dashed themselves against the social barrier, which day by -day became more easy to climb. In every department it was the age of -the clever and ambitious parvenu. In war and in politics Napoleon, in -poetry Burns, in fiction Balzac, give convincing testimony to the power -of the new regime. It was the age of the French Revolution and of the -Holy Alliance, of Condillac and of Chateaubriand, of Laplace and of -Shelley, of Godwin and of Tom Paine. - -But equality is a medal with two faces: on the one side is written, -"I am as good as, if not better than, everyone else"; on the other, -"Everyone else is as good as, if not better than, myself." The first -was the motto of the rampant individualism and vigorous national -policy of Disraeli, the latter of the hesitating Christian spirit -and sentimental cosmopolitanism of Gladstone. Gladstone, indeed, is -such an excellent foil to Disraeli that we may well be permitted the -following quotations, where the rift in Gladstone's lute, between -the churchman and the politician, stands in pointed contrast to the -unity of purpose that from his earliest years actuated his rival. -Gladstone, torn between his missionary impulse and yearning for -apostolic destination on the one hand, and healthy ambition on the -other, writes to his father: "I am willing to persuade myself that in -spite of other longings, which I often feel, my heart is prepared to -yield other hopes and other desires for this: of being permitted to -be the humblest of those who may be commissioned to set before the -eyes of man the magnanimity and glory of Christian truth. Politics are -fascinating to me, perhaps too fascinating. My temper is so excitable -that I should fear giving up my mind to other subjects, which have ever -proved sufficiently alluring to me, and which I fear would make my life -a series of unsatisfied longings and expectations." Disraeli is less -undecided, as is clear from the following quotation from _Contarini -Fleming_: "I should have killed myself if I had not been supported by -my ambition, which now each day became more quickening, so that the -desire of distinction and of astounding action raged in my soul, and -when I realised that so many years must elapse before I could realise -my ideal, I gnashed my teeth in silent rage and cursed my existence," -Disraeli will give up anything rather than his chance of being a great -man. At a time when most clever young men of his age were thinking of a -scholarship he had finally decided to go in for a premiership. He has -planned his campaign, he will fool the world to the top of its bent. -When yet a boy Disraeli says, as Vivian Grey: "We must mix with the -herd, we must sympathise with the sorrow that we do not feel and share -the merriment of fools. To rule men we must be men, to prove that we -are strong we must be weak. Our wisdom must be concealed under folly, -our constancy under caprice." - -None the less, Disraeli had too vivid an imagination, too keen a -sense of the picturesque, not to be affected to a certain extent -by the current Romanticism. We see this in the Eastern novels of -_Tancred_ and _Alroy_, also in _Contarini Fleming_, the English -Wilhelm Meister, which exhibits the weaker and more morbid side of the -author's character, and is a useful supplement to Vivian Grey. But it -is the latter, however, who represents most accurately the ideals and -aspirations of the young Disraeli, and, taken generally, is a broad -adumbration of his subsequent career. But the Disraeli of Vivian Grey -was not so unique as is usually considered, and an analogy between -him and the celebrated Frenchman, who wrote a novel about the same -period, and one, moreover, singularly typical of his age, proves -instructive. Benjamin Disraeli and Henri Beyle were in all superficial -details so absolutely different that one might well hesitate before -making the comparison, yet they were radically similar in many of their -larger outlines, and in particular their characters, as revealed in -the heroes of two novels, _Vivian Grey_ and _Le Rouge et le Noir_, -show an extraordinary resemblance. Both Julien Sorel and Vivian Grey -are impelled by a violent and overwhelming ambition; both, originally -excluded by their status from participation in the great prizes of the -world, set out undaunted to conquer, the one as a priest, the other as -a politician. Cynical, with that extreme and savage species of cynicism -which is the reaction from intense sensitiveness, they both wage war -on society in their passion for success, while the nobler and more -generous instincts with which nature had endowed them perish in the -struggle. - -But this Time-Spirit of individualism was no mere cold-blooded -philosophy of egoism. It was, after all, an age of genuine poetry, of -fresh ideals. The halo of romance played around the most abandoned -sinners. Individualism found, in addition, an aesthetic sanction, as -was seen in the prodigious vogue of Byron, where the picturesque pose -of the one man pitted against society appealed strongly to the popular -imagination. How deeply Disraeli was imbued with Byronism is evidenced -not only by the whole tone and manner of his early life, but by his -resuscitation of the Byronic legend in _Venetia_. - -This spirit of combined idealism and intense practical energy is met -with again in Disraeli's race and ancestry. The Jewish race is a -compound of materialism and idealism. The Jew is the dreamer in action, -combining fluid imagination with adamantine purpose. These two phases -of the Jewish character are seen excellently in Disraeli's father and -paternal grandfather. The latter, an Italian Jew, came over to England -about the middle of the eighteenth century, and quickly made a fortune -by dint of his shrewd business talent and fixity. His son Isaac was -gifted with an unfortunate superfluity of the poetic temperament. His -youth was erratic and unhappy, but when close on thirty he found a -secure refuge in the quiet waters of literature. To his Semitic blood -is also to be traced Disraeli's prodigious tenacity of purpose. He -came of a stiff-necked people, so that opposition stimulated him, and -his early failures served but to render sweeter his eventual success. -He had, too, the calculating foresight of the Jew, and could pierce -the future, if not with prophetic vision, at any rate, with marvellous -intuition. His Oriental strain of mysticism served him in good stead. -He never forgot that he was a scion of the Chosen People, and came of -a race which had never sullied its purity of lineage by changing its -blood. Was he not the chosen man of the chosen race? Could he not read -his future, if not in the stars, "which are the brain of heaven," yet -in his own brilliant and meteoric brain? He had a full measure of the -pride of race, and plumed himself to the last on what he may well have -called "the Oriental ichor in his veins." If his enemies dubbed him a -parvenu he would fling the wretched taunt back in their faces, bidding -them realise that they came from a parvenu and hybrid race, while he -himself was sprung from the purest blood in Europe. How keen was this -genealogical Judaism we can see from the classic letter to O'Connell, -where he wrote that "the hereditary bondsman had forgotten the clank of -his fetters," and from his masterpiece of character-drawing, Sidonia, -who, with wealth, intellect, and power at his command, yet found his -chief "source of interest in his descent and in the fortunes of his -race." Disraeli's Judaism, however, did not extend to the religious -tenets of the creed. Few, no doubt, are the instances of a converted -Jew proving a genuine Christian, but Disraeli had too much of the -mystic in him to be an atheist, and if we take into account the -elasticity of his imagination, there is little reason to doubt that he -was at any rate reasonably sincere in his belief that Christianity was -merely completed Judaism, Calvary but the logical corollary of Sinai; -he would also, no doubt, find a malicious joy in reminding those who -taunted him with his origin, that "one half of Christendom worships -a Jew and the other half a Jewess." Anyway, the Christian religion -played nothing approaching an integral part in his life; while an -amiable acquiescence in its dogmas was, at the best, as it has been -with so many, but an intellectual habit. His Jewish origin helped him, -moreover, in that he approached the problems of politics with a mind -free from conventional British prejudices. He was never a thorough -Englishman, and was proud of the fact, instead of thanking God "that he -was born an Englishman," as do many of his race, who betray in their -every word and action their Jewish nationality. His admirable expert -knowledge of the English character was throughout professional, not -sympathetic. - -When we turn to Disraeli's early environment, we find that it was one -calculated to foster both ambition and a literary imagination. He -breathed from his earliest days the atmosphere of books, and almost -from the cradle imbibed avidly the many volumes of Voltaire. Nothing -is so stimulating to the youthful mind as the unchecked run of a -library, with its delightful excursions into the unexplored country of -literature. His natural sensitiveness was hardened by his experiences -at school, where his nationality and cleverness rendered him unpopular. -The reaction intensified his already precocious ambition, and gave him -that consciousness of semi-isolation which formed one of the chief -parts of his strength. His ambition was further heightened by the smart -literary set which he met constantly at his father's house, and his -early glimpses of the great world. Disraeli is palpably exaggerating -when he says, _apropos_ of Vivian Grey, that "he was a tender plant in -a moral hot-house," but the following passage is significant: - - "He became habituated to the idea that everything could - be achieved by dexterity, that there was no test of - conduct except success; to be ready to advance any - opinion, to possess none; to look upon every man as a - tool, and never to do anything which had not a definite - though circuitous purpose." - -It is this trait of doing things with an object which supplied the true -clue to Disraeli as a man of letters. We admit, of course, the _verve_ -and brilliancy of the novels, their claim to rank as classic, but it is -impossible to arrive at a correct appreciation of them unless they be -taken in the closest conjunction with their author's political career. -_Vivian Grey_, for instance, no doubt afforded an excellent outlet for -the fermenting passion of Disraeli's youth; it was itself one of the -best society novels ever written, but it was something more. Before -that time the future Premier had been hiding his light. How could -he obtain a free field for the exercise of his gifts? His father's -Bohemian clique scarcely answered his purpose. How could he burst open -the doors of society? The bombshell was supplied by _Vivian Grey_. It -was a case of self-advertisement raised to the level of a fine art, and -Disraeli introduced himself to the public with a bow of most elaborate -flourishes. _Contarini Fleming_ strikes a slightly different note, -exhibiting the more poetic side of its author's character; but we must -not forget that at the time when it was published Disraeli's long -absence in the East had temporarily obscured his fame in London, and -that it was the success of _Contarini Fleming_ which secured for him -once more the _entree_ into society. Similarly, _Coningsby, Sybil_, -and _Tancred_ were, in the main, but the gospels in which, in the role -of a political saviour, he propagated the new creed of Young England. -_Lothair_ and _Endymion_ were partly written to replenish his empty -exchequer. The protagonists, moreover, in all his chief novels were -fashioned in the image of himself, and even Lord Cadurcis in _Venetia_, -who is theoretically Byron, is portrayed with the physical features of -the author, so as to ensure a vivid impression on the public mind of -his own personality. Not that Disraeli did not experience a genuine -joy in the wielding of the pen. He could soar high in his flights of -mysticism and romance; could describe the picturesque and the beautiful -in passages of inspired rhetoric, though it was in the dash and -brilliancy of his satire which at its best equalled that of Heine, or -Voltaire, or Byron, that he was most himself. His style is redolent of -his race. It possesses the genuine Oriental glamour, the Oriental love -of gorgeous and grandiose magnificence, the Oriental lack of symmetry -and proportion. His prodigious genius for sarcasm was also Semitic, -if we are to believe Mr. Bryce, who considers that gift a peculiar -property of the race, instancing, as examples, Lucian and Heine, the -greatest satirists of ancient and modern times. - -This same combination of temperament and policy which explains -Disraeli, the man of letters, explains Disraeli, the dandy. Living -as he did in an age which revolted, under the leadership of Count -D'Orsay, against the chaste and classic traditions of Brummel, -and which offered in the elaborate picturesqueness of its dress an -excellent medium for the expression of personality, is it to be -wondered at that so ambitious a nature as Disraeli's should, apart -from other reasons, enter gaily into the sartorial arena? These early -years remind us of Alcibiades, who, in his youth, his genius, his -precocious political ambitions, his aristocratic lineage and superb -insolence, his extravagance and irresponsibility, offers a fairly close -analogy. Disraeli, however, was an Alcibiades with ballast, and his -most erratic phases were governed by a consistent purpose. He had, -it is true, the regular Hebrew love for the picturesque, the racial -craving for flamboyant display; but the unique characteristic of the -man was the ingenious method by which he exploited even his weaknesses -to advance his purpose. Realising that nothing was more fatal to his -career than the indifference of the public, that to be hated was better -than to be ignored, and that notoriety was a passable substitute for -fame, he was determined to bulk largely in the public eye. Living, -fortunately, in an age when dandyism, if not an art, was at any rate -a career, and when "wild, melancholy men" were still the rage among -the ladies, he manipulated the dandy and Byronic pose with phenomenal -success. But his social career was not all pose. Though political -ambition was to him always the main point of existence, he was far too -healthy to lose sight of the small change of life. He had, moreover, -a genuine love of society. His remark _apropos_ of Gladstone, "What -can we do with a leader who is not even in society?" was sincere in -spite of being an epigram, and the hosts of great ladies who crowd his -novels attest conclusively to his social fastidiousness. But the most -convincing proof of this lighter side of his nature is to be found in -his correspondence with his sister. Those letters, dashed off hurriedly -to his "dearest Sa," written with that complete lack of ceremony which -is the sign of a perfect intimacy, show with what zest he frequented -balls and water-parties, dinners and _soirees_. Yet his ambition is -never far in the background. He goes to the House of Commons, hears the -big man speak, and then writes to his sister, "But between ourselves I -could floor them all." His genius for conversation is historic, and we -are not surprised that he considered that the one unforgivable sin was -to be a bore. He had not, it is true, Gladstone's habit of unburdening -himself freely to the most casual of acquaintances. How many, indeed, -were there of his intimates who had penetrated into the secret places -of his heart? But over-much sincerity is a hindrance to the art of -conversation; and many of his most brilliant paradoxes were thrown off -as an evasive retort to an impertinent question. When, however, we come -to Disraeli's social and private life, the most interesting question -that presents itself is that of his relation to his wife. Even though -he had discoursed in _Contarini Fleming_ of the grand passion with all -the high-flown sentimentalism of the age, it was obviously impossible -for him, considering the disparity of their ages, to be seriously in -love with Mrs. Disraeli; and it must have seemed that he had been -forced to exchange the poetry of the mistress for the prose of the -wife. Had he not, about ten years before his marriage, written to his -sister, "How would you like Lady B---- for a sister-in-law? Clever, -L25,000, and domestic. As for love, all my friends who have married for -love either beat their wives or live apart from them. This is literally -true. I may commit many follies, but never that of marrying for love, -which, I am convinced, cannot but be a guarantee of infelicity." Yet -this union, based originally on mere policy and camaraderie, was -eventually crowned with the most faithful of loves. It was his wife's -absorbing interest in his career that supplied the link. He has himself -written that the most exquisite moment in a man's life was when he -surprised his lady-love reading the manuscript of his first speech, and -the sympathy of Mrs. Disraeli in his successes may well have given them -a yet further charm. The situation is well expressed in the remark of -Mrs. Disraeli's: "You know you married me for money, and I know that if -you had to do it again you would do it for love." - -In fact the warm and constant affection Disraeli lavished on his wife -during her lifetime, and the poignant grief that he evinced at her -death, furnish a more than sufficient refutation to those who persist -in regarding him as a mere cynical fortune-hunter. Disraeli, like -Browning, had - - "Two soul sides, one to face the world with, - One to show a woman when he loves her." - -In the other departments of private life he was likewise exemplary. -His hardness was limited to politics; he was the most dutiful of sons, -the most affectionate of brothers, the most faithful of friends. His -debts, for the most part, were incurred by backing the bills of other -men. His touching and romantic friendship for Mrs. Brydges Williams, -the eccentric old Cornish lady who gave him pecuniary assistance at a -critical period of his career, is well known. The story, again, of the -Premier and his wife dancing a Highland jig in their night apparel on -hearing of the success of an old friend, shows how little the bitter -struggles of politics had hardened his heart. Particularly touching, -also, is the mutual affection between him and the Queen, that -sweetened his last years. She was, as we read in a letter of Disraeli's -to the Marchioness of Ely, "the best friend he had in the world." - -But Disraeli, though he fulfilled himself in many ways, was first -of all a politician, and it is Disraeli the politician rather than -Disraeli the man of letters, the dandy, or the human being, that -principally provokes our interest. What were his real views on -politics? How far can we distinguish between the official edition of -himself which he displayed for public inspection and the original that -he alone could read? Given his policy, how far was it justifiable, how -far rational? The view of his most devoted, but yet in reality, quite -unappreciative, admirers, that throughout a political career of over -half a century he remained consistently and absolutely faithful to his -original ideals, and that he introduced into politics an integrity and -disinterestedness that Parliament had rarely witnessed, is even more -absurd than the opinion of his blind and malignant enemies that he -was a mere charlatan who juggled with parties and the people without -possessing a single genuine political faith of his own. Disraeli, as -was inevitable in a man of so detached and unprejudiced a nature, -simply took the then party system at its true worth, and, of course, -realised from the outset that before he could do anything worth -doing he must first obtain that power which alone could give him the -opportunity of doing it. His attack on Peel was, _prima facie_, an -occasion that it would have been the depth of folly to have missed, and -Mr. Birrell's statement that Disraeli "ate his peck of dirt," and his -comparison of him to Casanova, is mere petulance. For these preliminary -stages of the higher politics Disraeli was admirably fitted, and the -following autobiographic passages from _Tancred_ show how congenial -were his Herculean labours: "To be the centre of a maze of manoeuvres -was his empyrean, and while he recognised in them the best means of -success he found in their exercise a means of constant delight"; and -again, "'Intrigue,' cried the young prince, using, as was his custom, a -superfluity of expression both of voice and hand and eyes, 'intrigue, -it is life, it is the only thing. If you wish to produce a result -you must make a combination, and you call combination intrigue.'" -Disraeli viewed party politics from the dispassionate standpoint of -a chess-player, "playing off the proud peers like pawns," skilfully -manoeuvring his knights and bishops beneath the shadow of the old -mediaeval castles, though it was "in his masterly manipulation of his -queen" that he really surpassed himself. What a contrast to Gladstone's -youthful frame of mind, who entered politics because he felt a strong -moral duty to defend that Church which he was afterwards partly to -disestablish against the insidious attacks of philosophic Radicalism. -But Disraeli's point of view was, after all, merely that which was -obvious and rational. It is well known that in Disraeli's day the whole -efficiency of the party system as a means of carrying on the government -was based on that sagacious inconsistency, so characteristic of this -country, which, cheerfully accommodating the most untractable of facts -to the most docile of theories, drew between the two parties no clear -dividing line either of principle or of class. Those genuine lines -of cleavage both of policy and interest that now tend to become more -and more clearly marked did not then exist. The only vital political -distinction then existing in England was that between the Ins and the -Outs. Whigs and Tories were, in their origin, merely the names for the -two rival organisations for the pursuit of political power into which -the oligarchy of the time had divided itself, and the party catch-words -then indicated as much essential difference as the badges by which the -two sides of a "scratch" game symbolise a fictitious distinction. - -Particularly interesting is the following quotation from a letter of -Gladstone, written comparatively early in his career, which shows -convincingly that the subsequent democratic idealist fully realised -the intrinsic farce of the then party system: "Each of them, the Whig -and the Tory Party, comprises within itself far greater divergencies -than can be noticed as dividing the more moderate portion of the one -from the more moderate portion of the other. The great English parties -differ no more in their general outlines than by a somewhat different -distribution of the same elements in each." It is impossible for -the opportunist position to be more cogently stated. It is, indeed, -a strange paradox that political integrity should be traditionally -associated with the name of Gladstone, who accomplished more than any -other of our statesmen in changing statesmanship into demagogy. His -pronouncedly religious temperament, however, led to extraordinary -results, and his psychological condition was best expressed in the -well-known epigram that "he followed his conscience in the same manner -that the driver of a gig follows the horse." It was not that he was -deliberately insincere. He could deceive himself as well as others -with his ingenious sophisms. His sincerity was merely so elastic, -his enthusiasm so adaptable, that he found it easy to be sincere and -enthusiastic, _inter alia_, about those things which coincided with his -interests. - -Carlyle hits the mark in dubbing Gladstone a deeper and unconscious -juggler as contrasted with Disraeli, the clever, conscious juggler. The -latter, at any rate, played the game straight with himself. He did not, -like his rival, have recourse to super-natural inspiration for every -argument that dropped from his specious lips, or degrade his deity into -a veritable _deus ex machina_, whose function it was to sanction the -most elementary dictates of Parliamentary tactics. - -Yet, though he exhibited a prudent elasticity in his handling of the -minor details of party politics, in the main outlines of his policy -he remained consistent and true to himself throughout his career. The -romantic strain in his temperament rendered him congenitally opposed to -the cut and dried utilitarianism of the Whigs. The renovated Toryism -of New England, for which he was largely responsible, though to a -great extent merely a move in the game, is deeply stamped with the -impress of his own nature. That his bias was naturally aristocratic no -one can doubt who has read the passage in _The Revolutionary Epicke_ -on Equality, or has appreciated the tone of personal superiority -and contempt for the mediocre that pervades all his writings. His -Conservatism, however, was not the orthodox Conservatism of the Eldon -school, "the barren mule of politics which engenders nothing," to -use his own phrase, but a more picturesque and practical policy. He -poured successfully the new wine of Democracy into the old bottles -of Toryism, and thus, while no doubt indulging the more romantic -side of his nature, placed, his party on a more modern and workable -basis. Disraeli's policy, in fact, was always one of sane and rational -opportunism. In the same way that Gambetta, the exponent of French -Opportunism, opposed "a policy of results to the policy of chimeras" -of the reactionaries, Disraeli opposed to Gladstone's dangerous and -visionary ideals a policy that was at once feasible and salutary. -Disraeli invariably treated England as a definite country with a -definite personality of its own, requiring individual attention and -delicate handling, while Gladstone regarded her as a mere _tabula rasa_ -on which the latest new-fangled doctrines could be easily imprinted. -Precisely the same spirit induced Gladstone to treat the Queen as a -department of State and Disraeli to treat her as a woman. In home -politics he has grasped well that transition from feudal to federal -principles which was the keynote of the last century politics. His -detractors object that no great measures stand identified with his -name; but here the fates were against him. It was a cruel paradox -that when at last he obtained an untrammelled power he was too old -and jaded to initiate any new creative measure in domestic affairs. -I quote Mrs. Disraeli: "You don't know my Dizzy; what great plans he -has long matured for the good and greatness of England. But they have -made him wait and drudge so long, and now time is against him." In his -foreign policy, however, he displayed his characteristic combination -of practical and imaginative strength. In the same spirit in which -he himself had obtained the foremost place in England, he desired -that England should acquire the foremost rank among the nations; -while, as is shown by his Imperial policy, he infused something of -his own picturesqueness into the policy of the most prosaic Power in -Europe. His Indian policy, in particular, proves with what practical -imagination he had divined how much lay in a name, and that to the -feudatory princes it meant all the difference whether they paid their -allegiance to the Queen of England or to the Empress of India. - -Disraeli's master-passion was ambition. But he was no monomaniac like -Napoleon. In the same way that Sidonia, the complete and perfect man, -according to Disraeli, played with a master-hand on the whole gamut -of life, so did Disraeli, though in a lesser scale, live largely and -fully. He lived in the solitudes of the Arabian deserts and in the -crowded drawing-rooms of St. James's; in the halls of Westminster and -the shady quietude of Bradenham; in the privacy of his own study, and -in the historic chambers of Downing Street. To few men has it been -given to express themselves in so many different ways. What matter if -his feats of statesmanship were restricted by the limitations of the -Parliamentary system and the handicap of his own failing health? To -such a nature the joy of life lay rather in the winning than in the -using of the prize. It is the romance and character of the man that -perpetuate his memory rather than his political achievements. He lives -as a great career. When yet a boy he had mapped out his future, and he -realised his ambition in every detail. By sheer force of intellect and -determination he lifted himself from the Ghetto to the highest position -in England. As he himself said, in one of Mrs. Craigie's novels: "Many -men have talent; few have genius; fewer still have character." - - - - -THE GENEALOGY OF MORALS - - -I - -_The Genealogy of Morals: a Polemic_! Nietzsche was well advised to -append the word "polemic" to his title, for it supplies the key to -his whole position. To some extent, no doubt, the "Genealogy" may be -the expression in more philosophic language of those ideas, which -find in Zarathustra their poetic and almost biblical formulation. Yet -philosopher though he may be, Nietzsche is no abstract thinker sitting -down stolidly on some icy height to solve the riddle of the universe, -whatever it may be, by the rigid rules of abstract logic, so that he -may placidly present the solution to such members of the public as -happen to be interested in metaphysics. On the contrary his mind, and -even more truly his temperament, are made up from the outset. Certain -ideas grip him so tensely, and for him, at any rate, constitute so -fiery and omnipresent a reality, as to be from his standpoint things -transcending the mere cavillings of logicians and scientists. - -"You ask me why," says Zarathustra, "but I say unto you I am not one of -those whom one may ask their why." - -The same idea is more technically expressed in the preface to the -Genealogy--"that new immoral, or at least, 'amoral' _a priori_, and -that 'categorical imperative,' which was its voice (but, oh I how -hostile to the Kantian article, and how pregnant with problems), to -which since then I have given more and more obedience (and, indeed, -what is more than obedience)." For, startling though it may seem to -the orthodox, albeit acceptable enough to the acolytes of the new -faith, the fact stands out irresistibly, that all the later writings of -Nietzsche are saturated through and through with the religious spirit. - -For Nietzsche was inspired with as supreme a consciousness of the -infallibility and paramount necessity of his message, as rigid a belief -in exclusive salvation through his own teachings, as has overwhelmed -the brain of any prophet or Messiah known to human history. "I have -given mankind the deepest book it possesses," writes Nietzsche to -Brandes, and means it quite deliberately and quite literally. The -content, indeed, of the religion of this converse Christ may be -diametrically opposed to that of the original, but the machinery is the -same. With the same exalted spirit in which Jesus preached the kingdom -of heaven, so did Nietzsche preach the kingdom of this earth, while it -may be noted incidentally that both kingdoms were the perquisites of -a select few; and as the spurned god of Israel taught self-abasement -to the weak with an intensity that, rightly or wrongly, seems a little -extravagant to our modern taste, so does Nietzsche, and with every whit -as honest a fanaticism, thunder forth to the strong the sublime dogma -of self-expression and self-glorification. Turn, in fact, the doctrines -of Christianity upside down, but leave constant the missionary -enthusiasm of its founder, his chronic fits of extreme depression and -extreme exaltation, and you have the quintessence of Nietzsche. - -As, however, it is the boast of all religions that they are beyond the -realms of exact logic and empirical science, it would be as unfair -to look in our prophet's polemic for the mathematical accuracy of a -Euclidian proposition, as it would be to search for such accuracy amid -the many grandiose and tragic thoughts that loom over the invectives of -Isaiah, Jesus, and Jeremiah. - -Not, indeed, but what there are many new, swift, and illuminating -truths in our philosopher's gospel, just as there were in the -pronouncements of his afore-said Hebrew brethren. But the essence, the -_raison d'etre_ of the whole book is purely polemical. Nietzsche is out -to kill, and so long as his weapons effectually subserve that object, -he is, and quite logically, indifferent to aught else. - -Before, however, we analyse in detail the philosophy of this book, it -is advisable to adjust our sights to those particular targets on which -Nietzsche trained his gigantic and murderous artillery. We shall also -have a better prospect of getting really into touch with "the very -inner pulse of the machine," the real core of this philosophy, if we -take a necessarily short, but it is to be hoped none the less vivid, -glance at those reasons which induced Nietzsche to envisage the objects -of his attack with so tense and implacable a hatred. - -Now Nietzsche found his intellectual jumping-off ground in that -hybrid of Christianity and Buddhism stuck on a pedestal of sex, which -constituted the philosophy of Schopenhauer and the essence of the -fashionable pessimism of mid-century Germany. To endeavour to condense -one of the most brilliant and elaborate systems of the last century -into a few words is at best a delicate and hazardous task, yet perhaps -we may adumbrate tentatively the radical elements which spurred -Nietzsche to so sanguinary a revolt. - -Life according to Schopenhauer was a sorry failure, a thing not worth -living on its merits, but kept going by the driving impetus of a blind -life-force and knit with a mutual pity. Life then being intrinsically -evil, the remedy for the evil was to live as little as possible--"Draw -your desire back from the world so that there may be an end of that -phenomenal life which is nothing but grief." Apart from general -asceticism, there were two specific anodynes prescribed by Schopenhauer -for the disease called life--art which transcended life, and lifted -the spectator or listener on to another plane, and philosophy which, -as it were, blunted the sting of life by the contemplation of the -essentially unreal nature of the phenomenal universe. But the greatest -good was Nirvana, a kind of Pantheistic Absolute of negativity, into -which one eventually merged, to enjoy the supreme paradox of a peaceful -self-consciousness of one's own nothingness. - -It is easy for us to sneer, nowadays, at this bilious and suicidal -system, and to explain the whole theory of the Will to Live by the -keen and chronic tyranny which the sexual instinct exercised over -the philosopher himself; the fact remained, Schopenhauer was the -dominant influence of the day--how dominant, can be seen from the -fact that the whole of later Wagnerian music is merely a translation -of his philosophy into the language of sound. It is easy to see the -extent to which Schopenhauer and Wagner were saturated with the whole -spirit of primitive and mediaeval Christianity. Human life, forsooth, -is essentially bad and essentially unreal; salvation only lies in -the mortification and annihilation of the self. Apart, however, -from philosophical and theological technicalities, the profound -psychological import of this nihilistic pessimism and neo-Christian -romanticism is patent. Man looks at man's life on earth, and gives it -up as a bad job, or at best makes some fantastic effort to create a -new world to redress the balance of the old. "They wanted to run away -from their misery, and the stars were too far away. Then they sighed, -Oh, that there were heavenly ways, forsooth, to slink into another -Being and Happiness." - -It has, in fact, been well put that, as the motto of Goethe was -"_Memento vivere_," so was the motto of Schopenhauer, "_Memento mori_." - -Now, Nietzsche voiced the revolt of those temperaments whose ears -were attuned rather to "_Memento vivere_" than "_Memento mori_." We -must remember, moreover, that that Christian romanticism which finds -its best metaphysical formulation in Schopenhauer was in itself but -a reaction from the real spirit of the century, that ebullience and -exuberance of the human ego of which Stendhal is perhaps the most -typical manifestation. It might well indeed be instructive to trace the -intellectual descent of Nietzsche from Stendhal, and, applying again -the sociological method, to speculate as to how far he derived some of -the impetus for his philosophy of egoism from the aggressive wars of -Prussia, as exemplified in the Sadowa campaign and the Franco-German -war. It is time, however, that we came to the temperament of the -philosopher himself. It is indeed a platitude, that as man makes his -gods in his own image, so does the philosopher create his systems. -What is Aristotle's ideal of the _bios theokritikos_, and -his conception of the self-contemplative god but the erection into -a universal norm of the thinker's natural philosophic idiosyncrasy? -What is the elaborate "I and Me" of the cosmology of Fichte but the -attribution to the universe of the personal idiosyncrasies of Fichte, -the self-conscious Doppelgaenger? And how Schopenhauer promoted sex -into the devil, whose heat animates this earthly hell, we have -already seen. What, then, was the impetus which impelled Nietzsche -to batter down the walls of the contemporary moral and philosophic -universe? The theory of an innate _joie de vivre_, a system highly if -not over-charged with vitality, supplies but half the answer. The real -explanation lies in the stiffening of this natural exuberance beneath -the tension of a grim incessant struggle with a nervous malady. - -It is not actually necessary to go as far as the Swedish writer, -M. Bjerre, who finds in Nietzsche's deliberate and revolutionary -transvaluation of values that break up of the cerebral system from -its previous condition which signalises the earlier stages of general -paralysis. Yet Nietzsche's own writings, particularly his letters, -reveal how potent was the stimulus exercised on his ego by those -nervous headaches which hounded him over the Continent. To prevent -defeat his will had to be perpetually strained to the maximum pitch of -tension. The sweets of comfort being denied him, the only alternative -left was to find a kind of super-happiness in the ecstasies and -exultations of that Titanic contest which was perpetually fought on -the battlefield of his own person. Let him speak for himself: "I made -of my wish to get well, to live, my philosophy--it should, in fact, be -noted--the years when my vitality descended to its minimum were those -when I ceased to be a pessimist." - -We have not, however, at this juncture space to elaborate further -the theory of the superman. Let it be enough to say that it is the -raising to the _n_th power of the spirit of struggling and aggressive -efficiency, and the venting of an over-full vitality by the creation of -new values out of the wealth of the individual ego. As, however, the -glorification of strength involves, and logically so, the degradation -of weakness, and "to build up a sanctuary it is necessary for a -sanctuary to be destroyed," it is not surprising that Nietzsche should -clear the ground for his new creations by a ferocious bombardment of -the crumbling ruins that still encumbered the site. Schopenhauer, -who had been the fount from which Nietzsche's philosophic youth had -drawn its inspiration before, as it were, he had found him out, is -always treated with a certain amount of respect. But the arch-enemy -was the, to him, poisonous system of altruism, self-annihilation, and -world-renouncement which was called Christianity. - -The cynical may smile at the inordinate and concentrated frenzy of this -attack. "Is not your wildly militant prophet simply wasting his powder -and shot? Who in his senses ever heard of Christianity being taken _au -pied de la lettre_, even by the most orthodox of modern bishops? What -is it, to use another metaphor, but flogging a dead horse?" To which -Nietzsche's answer would be that it is by removing the foundations -that you remove also the superstructure, or to translate our metaphor, -"Let me kill Christianity, and I kill at the same time all that system -of altruism for altruism's sake, of abstract truth for the sake of -abstract truth, which is built on that hateful foundation." It may also -be observed that, even apart from the poetic and prophetic licence to -which a man writing under such circumstances would be legitimately -entitled, there are even now not wanting people who do in point of fact -take Christianity with all the implicit seriousness of the mediaeval -monks or the early Fathers. It is, indeed, a phenomenon not without a -certain intrinsic humour, that almost at the very moment when Tolstoi -was making his pathetic efforts to resuscitate literal Christianity -with the abortive tears of pity, Nietzsche should swing along to -flagellate the semi-inanimate ghost of the bleeding God, in no monkish -spirit, forsooth, but with all the grim and scientific energy of the -most enthusiastic of executioners, compared to whom Voltaire was but -the most urbane of wits, and Heine the most innocuous of schoolboys. -Having thus taken a brief view of the targets, and of the implacable -and very serious spirit that animates the assailant, let us glance -briefly at the chief lines of attack. - - -II - -The first essay of the Genealogy consists of an essay on "Good and -Evil, Good and Bad." The line of attack is double, being first -etymological, and secondly historical. - -Without going into philological exactitudes, it is, we think, fairly -safe to follow Nietzsche in his theory that the word "good" and its -analogues were originally applied to designate those qualities which -were peculiar to the governing aristocratic classes, albeit qualities -by no means susceptible of the title of "ethical" goodness. Physical -valour being in primitive times the most valuable asset of the -community, it is not unnatural that that quality should be held in -universal esteem. We would remark, however, in passing, that though -Nietzsche professes to make a flying expedition into the domain of -early Greek ethics, which would appear, according to his teachings, to -be represented as an ideal system worthy of modern imitation, he is -apparently oblivious to the fact that the spirit of cunning prudence, -of which he so emphatically disapproves, was one of the most admired -qualities of primitive Greece. - -On the general question, however, we may perhaps supplement Nietzsche's -by Spencer's argument on the meaning of the English word "good," -which, as is notorious, has the double meaning of "ethical" and -"efficient." Instructive, however, though this argument is, it cannot -be said to clinch the question, since, even in the times of ancient -Greece, there were not wanting words such as [Greek: _kalos, aichros, -osios_ to denote, albeit mostly in aesthetic terminology, that ethical -meaning, of which the word _agathos_] fell so signally short. -In other words, to use Nietzschean terminology, the ethical taint even -then existed, though in a less virulent form. - -The other line of attack, however, is more serious, and penetrates to -the very core of the modern moral system with its savage onslaught on -Christianity. What is Christianity, says Nietzsche, but the revolt -of the slaves in the sphere of morals? Our philosopher's suggestion, -of course, that Christianity was a deliberate stratagem on the part -of a revengeful Israel to square accounts with the conqueror, has, -on the face of it, no claim to serious consideration as anything -but a poetic thought. The fact, however, that Christianity from its -beginning catered avowedly for the poor, the weak, the oppressed, the -inefficient, is admittedly true, whatever disputes may range as to the -inferences to be drawn from this fact. And that the accusation of being -a slave-morality is something more than empty abuse, is substantiated -by the numerous slaves who did, in fact, subscribe to the infant -creed. It is, moreover, not without its interest to watch nowadays a -recurrence of the same phenomenon. Just, indeed, as at present the -proletariate are _ipso facto_ ready to believe, quite apart from any -question of any economic justification of the doctrine, in the genuine -iniquity of the rich capitalist, so in the early Christian era the -proletariate were not reluctant to put their faith in the saying, that, -"it was as easy for a camel to go through the eye of a needle as for -a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven." The difference, however, -between modern and ancient Christianity stands out clearly from the -fact that though this identical creed is invoked with something -approaching equal facility on the sides both of the angels and the -devils, it is, on the whole, now identified with the richer and more -prosperous classes. - -It must, however, be frankly admitted that Nietzsche somewhat -overshoots the mark, both in dubbing the history of the world a -conflict between the two ideals, of Rome and Judaea, the egoistic and -altruistic ideals, and in asseverating that the primitive "beast of -prey prowling avidly after booty and victory" was the only type of the -human species worthy of admiration, and that the tamed modern species -is but a diseased distortion. We will deal later with the lacuna -caused in Nietzsche's philosophy by his refusal to recognise the true -significance of the Aristotelian doctrine that man is a [Greek: _zoon -politikon_] when we show that even from his own standpoint the modern -state of man is preferable to the primal. Suffice it for the present -to say that, however large a part of the truth Nietzsche captured with -this potent theory, there remains a not inconsiderable part which still -eluded him. - - -III - -Having endeavoured thus to dispose of the "ethically good" and -"ethically bad" by the theory that such ideas are merely distortions -of the ideas of "practically good and practically bad," Nietzsche in -the second essay of the Genealogy makes a similar effort to take the -sting out of the ideas of "Schuld" (guilt, debt), and "schlechtes -Gewissen" (bad conscience). But here, again, difficulties beset our -revolutionary. He approves of responsibility and the sacredness of the -promise, but disapproves of the bad conscience by which the individual -would enforce these things on himself. He blesses justice, but damns -the social system. We shall find it hard to follow him in his attempted -reconciliation of these divergent standpoints. When, for instance, -he alludes with almost paternal approbation to the savage mnemonics -by which the "conscience" (_per se_) was produced, and then proceeds -to an envenomed, if none the less brilliant polemic against the "bad -conscience," we see that in reality it is not so much the existence of -a conscience _qua_ conscience, to which he objects, but the existence -of a conscience functioning on what he conceives to be a vicious -basis. Indeed, even the most faithful of our prophet's disciples would -admit that the Nietzschean teaching lays down as thorny and toilsome -a path for the "bold, bad man," or _uebermensch_, as Christianity ever -decreed for the good man or weakling. The only difference, in fact, -between Nietzschean and Christian ethics is that between excessive -self-affirmation and excessive self-negation. But one has only to read -_Zarathustra_ to realise immediately that this self-affirmation is no -heedless hedonism, but a tense and chronic struggle of the ego against -the world, subject to as rigid rules and braving as intense martyrdoms -as does the Christian struggle of the spirit against the flesh. We may -say, in fact, that on an officially Nietzschean basis the "bad" man who -fails in being thoroughly and perfectly bad is, and apparently properly -so, subject to as poignant pangs as is the "good" man who fails in -being thoroughly and perfectly good. - -Granted, however, that it is the content of the bad conscience rather -than the existence of a bad conscience _per se_, which provokes his -righteous indignation, let us make some attempt to see how far -Nietzsche is logical in condemning, as he does, existing ethics as the -bastard child of contract and revenge, thriving amid a civilisation -which has no real right to exist. Nietzsche starts off in fine -feather to prove that the word "Schuld" (guilt) is the same as the -word "Schuld" (debt), as though that momentous piece of philological -research crushed all ethics once and for all. We do not for a moment -dispute the philology. Moreover, as far as the general principle is -concerned, it had been previously pointed out by Maine that all crimes -were in their origin torts--that is to say, private wrongs against the -individual (though doubts as to how far this theory is to be carried -are raised by the universal execration which even in the most primitive -societies was visited on murderers like Cain or Orestes). - -It may, moreover, be true that in many cases the local god is simply -a deceased ancestor promoted to a heavenly status, who requires -payment for protecting his descendants. But such arguments can at the -best merely have effect on the theological conception of morality -as a divine ordinance descending immediately from heaven. From the -sociological standpoint, indeed, to derive "ethics" from "contract" -is simply to consolidate one phase of the social instinct by deriving -it from another. As, however, has been hinted before, it was the -theological conception that was Nietzsche's main objective. So long -as he could kill that, he was indifferent to the price, if, indeed, -his morbidly classic and aristocratic standpoint did not hold that -the taint of the bourgeois and the [Greek: _banausos_] attached -automatically to everything commercial. - -The shifts, however, to which Nietzsche is driven are well illustrated -when we come to that further stage in his evolution of the moral idea, -which consists in deriving modern ethics or the "bad conscience" from -the principle of "resentment" or "revenge," which is alleged to be -a totally distinct thing from the "active feeling" by which Justice -enforces its sanctions. But with all due respect to Nietzsche and his -official expounders, we find it hard to appreciate any real difference -in principle between the various drastic measures by which the social -organism enforces its decree. The punishment for murder, we suggest, -would be equally death both in a Nietzschean and in a non-Nietzschean -state, and how anything more than the merest verbal distinction is -achieved by labelling one sanction the "active emotion of justice" and -the other "the principle of resentment" we are frankly at a loss to -conceive. We can only say that the basing of the "bad conscience" on -the spirit of revenge is true in the sense that from one aspect the -function of the social organism is to protect the many against the few -by the enforcements of drastic punishments against its transgressors. -That, moreover, the strong are unduly restricted to pamper the weak is -an arguable proposition, how arguable, can be seen from the present -volubility of the financially strong when menaced nowadays with -taxation for the benefit of the financially weak. But to go to the -length of saying that the whole social fabric is a morbid distortion, -a thing intrinsically bad, a kind of quasi-theological fall from an -ideal state of primitive anarchy, is, at the most charitable estimate, -a mere piece of poetic extravagance. Yet to this length Nietzsche goes -when he pictures his blonde primaeval beast swung into "new situations -and conditions of existence"; in other words, into the "pale of society -with a spring and rush." The apparent suddenness of the transition -strikes us, indeed, as naif as the philosophy of Rousseau or of Hobbes, -who actually conceived the social contract as a specific bargain -entered into at a specific time. - -One of the most interesting parts, however, of the whole essay is -Nietzsche's explanation of the "bad conscience" as the result of -the primitive energy of the savage venting itself in psychological -self-torture when debarred from its natural outlet of physical -violence. "All instincts which do not vent themselves without vent -themselves within," so runs the dictum of the prophet, a dictum -no doubt of great psychological truth, and capable of concrete -illustration when applied to nuns, monks, and other ascetics, or to -definite cases of neurotic introspection, but clearly not deserving to -be treated as the key to the whole social fabric. - -We have already remarked that the real weakness of the Nietzschean -philosophy lay in the neglect of the Aristotelian theory that man was a -_zoon politikon_ or a social animal. Let us resume this line -of inquiry. Nietzsche does, it is true, refer to the "herd instinct" -of the weak, but only to exhibit his very palpable contempt against -the weak who herd together so as to be able effectually to combat the -strong. A yet further proof of Nietzsche's bitter hatred of the social -organism is supplied by the celebrated phrases in _Zarathustra_, "as -little state as possible," and "the slow suicide which we call the -state." In our view, however, the real test of Nietzsche's position -is touched when we come to the position of the aristocratic strong -man. "Are they," one wonders, "tainted or untainted with the herd -instinct?" Nietzsche's answer to this question seems to be that, so -far as concerns the vast bulk of the herd, they are inimical to the -social instinct, but that none the less they find social organisation -(apparently that identical state which we have seen spoken of as -"slow suicide") necessary, not only for keeping the herd in proper -order, but for the purpose of "their own fight with other complexes -of power." Viewed impartially, however, it does not seem to us that -Nietzsche pays sufficient importance to the universality and value of -the social instinct. Perhaps the root of the whole matter lies in the -fact that Nietzsche fixes apparently the human unit as the individual, -whereas, in point of fact, it is that state in miniature, the family. -The origin of the family may no doubt be found in the primaeval -instincts of sex and parentship. None the less, it is an indisputed -sociological fact that the family, or its larger manifestation the -tribe, is, as is evident from the slightest perusal of the works of -Darwin, Maine, or Westermarck, the primitive form of human life. It -would obviously be outside the scope of this preface to go in detail -into the whole question of the origin of society, but it would also -appear an indisputable platitude that man, _qua_ man, thrives by -co-operation and association. In economical terminology this truth is -known as the division of labour, in sociology by our frequently quoted -Aristotelian dictum that man is a social animal. Nietzsche, it is -true, tries to evade, or at any rate minimise, the force of this fact -by treating law as the concrete exemplification of might is right. -This, of course, is true as far as it goes, but it is only one side -of the medal. All law is based on sovereignty, and all sovereignty is -in the last resort based on force. It is possible, no doubt, for this -force, this ultimate sanction to be exercised on approved Nietzschean -principles by the few against the many. To quote the words of Ihering, -the great Austrian jurist: "And so force, when it allies itself with -insight and self-control, produces law. It is the origin of law out -of the power of the stronger who stands in opposition to another, -of which we now begin to get a glimpse." Yet, even though for the -moment we confine ourselves to this aspect, it is obvious that while -such a law subjugates the weak to the strong, it also regulates and -curtails the rights of the strong among themselves, creating, as it -were, a state within a state, or, to use once again the language of -Ihering, "the self-limitation of force in its own interest." Equally -important, however, is the obverse side of the medal, on which appears -the exercise of the ultimate sanction by the many against the few. -To quote Ihering for the last time: "The crucial point in the whole -organisation of law is the preponderance of the common interests of -all over the particular interests of the individuals." The vice, then, -of Nietzsche's theory is that he bisects law into its two constituent -phases, ignores one phase and confines himself to the other, apparently -in blissful oblivion of the fact that even in the most aristocratic of -aristocracies there exists, even though in miniature, the "slow suicide -of the state." - -There is a further criticism which seems to arise properly out of -Nietzsche's vehement denunciation of civilisation. The state and -civilisation are bad according to Nietzsche, because they take the -sting out of this struggle for existence, and cut the fangs of the -superman. But, according to Nietzschean principles, are they not -equally good in so far as they enable the superman to refine and -elaborate his scale of combat? It is, indeed, obvious that the -intellectualisation of the blonde beast of primitive times into the -newspaper proprietor, American financier, or revolutionary philosopher -of modernity would have been impossible but for the intervention of -a very highly developed social organism. Yet even the most confirmed -Nietzschean would admit that Mr. Rockefeller is, in spite of his -evangelistic proclivities, a more highly developed specimen of the -superman than Tamerlane, and Lord Northcliffe than, say, Caesar Borgia. - -One final observation: according to Nietzsche the test of merit is -efficiency and the test of efficiency is success. Supposing, however, -that a large number of individuals comparatively weak overpower through -sheer force of combination a small number of individuals comparatively -strong. Are not the weak changed into the strong, and conversely? We do -not say that this is necessarily so: we merely adduce the argument to -show how easily Nietzschean principles lend themselves to exploitation -at the hands of the Socialists. - -Nietzsche's philosophy, however, was above all didactic, missionary. -He analysed contemporary morality, not by way of an academic or -scientific exercise, but with a view to striking, and striking hard, -at that aspect of it which he quite honestly believed to be vicious -and deleterious. Hence it is that having in his first two essays -dealt with the etymological and legal aspects of the question, he now -goes straight to the root of the whole matter. What is the practical -application of all these tendencies which he has analysed? The ascetic -ideal--and against this ideal our teacher proceeds to deliver as -tense and concentrated a sermon as ever fell from the lips of any -denouncer of the luxurious or non-ascetic ideal. We have not space, -unfortunately, to follow Nietzsche through his elaborate analysis both -of the ascetic ideal in its origin and in its eventual distortion and -corruption at the hands of the ascetic priest. We will only observe -that to grasp properly Nietzsche's position, stress should be laid -on the fact that in the same way in which it was not the conscience -_per se_, but the current content of the conscience, so it was not -asceticism _per se_, but the current content of asceticism to which -Nietzsche objected. - -As he explains in drastic and elaborate style, the philosopher, like -the jockey or the athlete, would, through the simple exigencies of his -_metier_, live the ascetic life. In such cases asceticism is simply the -mechanical condition precedent of complete concentration. Similarly, -the _uebermensch_ (superman) would no doubt be compelled to live the -ascetic life in his strenuous struggle with subsisting values. The -asceticism, however, to which Nietzsche in fact did object, was the -asceticism which was not like the philosopher's asceticism, a means to -creating or promoting actual human life, but was a means to destroying -and minimising actual human life, the asceticism which denied the right -to happiness, and which found in sin the solution to the riddle of the -human world. - -Indeed, it is thoroughly characteristic of Nietzsche's whole attitude -that he demurs vigorously to almost any solution of the riddle of the -world. According to his reasoning, the need for any solution at all, -whether transcendental, after the pattern of Kant and the Idealists, or -quasi-transcendental, after the pattern of the pseudo-metaphysics of -the scientists, argues an inability to take life on its own merits and -on its own valuation. - -Let us finally glance briefly at the practical application of the -Nietzschean philosophy, a course thoroughly consistent with the -intensely practical spirit of our prophet. We are at first almost -overwhelmed by the heterogeneous character of those who profess to be -the true disciples of the great master, a character so heterogeneous, -forsooth, that Nietzsche seems occasionally to be nothing but a -catch-word mouthed by every conceivable school of thought with -the rankest impunity. The Socialists, conveniently forgetting the -opprobrious designation by the sage as "spiders," and their apostolic -"Man is not equal," which he had thundered forth, find a bond of -sympathy in their common disapproval of Christianity, though even -here their standpoints are radically different, since while the -"tarantulae" rebelled against it as being too narrow a prison, Nietzsche -scorns it as being too comfortable a lounge. Zarathustra, moreover, -showed himself truly Persian in his repudiation of the claims of -the child-bearing machine called woman to equal rights with the -warrior-man: "When thou goest with women," quoth the prophet, "forget -not the whip." Nothing daunted, however, the shrieking hordes of -the ultra-modern sisterhood, from the "Free Lover" to the "Ethical -Lifer," find in Nietzsche the most emphatic justification for alike -their theories and their practices. Does not _Es Lebe das Leben_, the -well-known drama of Sudermann, portray the philosophical dogma of -self-expression leading to highly unphilosophic applications? Does not -the Scandinavian writer and woman with a mission, Ella[1] Key, start -her book _Personality and Beauty_ with the following quotations from -Nietzsche: "Follow after thyself--what says thy conscience?--thou shalt -be that which thou art--let the highest self-expression be thy highest -expression." Truly the Nietzschean aphorisms seem caps guaranteed -to fit the most diverse heads so, but they show the slightest -disposition to tumidity. Young men and nations in a hurry, Socialists -and aristocrats, aesthetes and "woman's righters," all combine in a -cacophonous chorus well calculated to make the shade of Zarathustra, -should he visit Europe, hasten back in disgust to the mountain peaks of -his solitude. - -Yet, however susceptible to abuse the Nietzschean philosophy may be, -such a multifarious exploitation, though repudiated from the official -standpoint, does not strike us as necessarily illogical. The doctrine -of the superman, indeed, has in Nietzsche two distinct meanings--the -evolution of generic man to his extreme limit, as exemplified in the -aphorism, "Man is a bridge between beast and superman," and secondly -the idealisation of the clash between the individual and society, the -apotheosis of the aggressive combatant element in man, the [Greek: -_to thumoeides_] of the Platonic trinity. Yet, whatever meaning may -be chosen, it is well-nigh impossible to prevent individuals from -cherishing the honest and sincere belief that in developing themselves -(whether with or without the rigid discipline incumbent upon the -orthodox superman), they are either helping the development of the -race, or providing a picturesque expression of a considerably altered, -but still authentic, "Athanasius contra mundum." With the present boom -no doubt Nietzscheanism may become a craze (in Germany, of course, it -is already _passe_ and has become academic and respectable), like the -aestheticism of the Wilde period and grown liable to equal if dissimilar -perversions. - -Yet none the less, if taken very broadly and very sanely, Nietzsche -is capable of constituting a valuable modern bible for the -twentieth-century man who proposes to live vastly and to play for grand -stakes. It may no doubt be true that while Heine and Voltaire merely -shot poisoned arrows at Christianity, Nietzsche blew it clean away with -the giant salvos of his artillery; yet on the tremendous space that he -cleared he built a temple to Energy and Efficiency. And note, that he -worships these deities not for any ulterior advantage, but for their -own sake solely. His frenzy for life precludes him at once from being -a pessimist; it does not follow, however, that he is an optimist (in -the hedonistic sense of the word), for neither in his own life, nor in -his conception of that of others, do we find it clearly expressed that -the pleasures of life outweigh the pains. More accurate is it to say -that he is a philosophy transcending optimism. "On! On!! On!!! Live! -Live!! Live!!! whatever the result and whatever your fate. Fight life -and chance everything, for the fight's the thing rather than the mere -trumpery guerdon." So we would venture to phrase the true Nietzschean -spirit, or if an actual quotation is required, "_I say unto you it is -not the good cause which sanctifies the war, but the good war which -sanctifies the cause_." - -The most marvellous thing, however, about this grim lust of life is -that it is absolutely insatiate, absolutely infinite. According to -the theory of the Eternal Return, the events of this life will repeat -and repeat with the tireless inevitability of a recurring decimal. -Taken literally, no doubt this theory is simply the mystical dance -of a Titanic mind striving to scale infinity. But the psychological -significance is none the less profound. Is it not turning the tables -with a vengeance on the Christian idea of a prospective non-earthly -existence, compared with which this existence is a mere shadowy -preparation, to pile future life on future life on future life, and -every one of them a repetition of man's life on earth? It is impossible -for the affirmation of human existence to be carried further. And -this human existence, what is its solution, None, or rather itself! -Existence is its own sanction, its own _raison d'etre_, and he who -coldly ravishes the sphinx of life has found a drastic solution far -excelling that of any Oedipus. - - -[Footnote 1: transcriber's note: "Ella" (sic). Should be "Ellen" Key. -(M.D.)] - - - - -AUGUST STRINDBERG - - "I seek God and find the Devil." - - "My hate is boundless as the wastes, burning as the sun, - and stronger than my love." - - -The above quotations give some idea of that black pessimism which is, -at any rate, the most patent characteristic of Strindberg. Yet neither -quotation, motto, nor catch-word can do justice to the multifarious -life and character of this man. For Strindberg, more than any other -European author of our age, has boxed the whole compass of our -modernity with its tumults, its aspirations, its perversities; its -glaring searchlights of science, its pallid flames of mysticism, and -its needle ever pointing to the two opposite though connected poles -of sex. He is in turns the most rabid of atheists, the most devout of -Catholics, the most esoteric of occultists; now the most Utopian of -Socialists, now the most uncompromising of individualists. Running the -gauntlet of three unhappy and dissolved marriages, he has become the -European specialist in conjugal infelicity, to say nothing of being -credited with innumerable conquests, which he himself would doubtless -have designated as captures. His novels, his autobiographies, and his -equally subjective dramas all exhale the most sulphurous hate against -the distorted anomaly of the new woman, yet he is an Orpheus who, -scorning the prosaic joys of some normal and uninteresting Eurydice, -surrenders himself with almost pathological gusto to be torn to -pieces by the monstrous maenads of modernity. The paroxysms of his hate -alternate with moods of the most sentimental idealism, and the harsh -impetus of his onslaught is only equalled by the, at times, abject -meekness of his romantic devotion. - -Before, consequently, we embark on some slight survey of Strindberg's -life and of the more characteristic of his numerous works, let us -endeavour to lay hold of the clues of one or two primary features -which will serve as a guide in the, at first sight, extremely tangled -labyrinth of his psychology. - -Now the dominant emotion in Strindberg's temperament is fear. It is -this fear which, at times assuming the dimensions of _paranoia_ or -systematised delusion and persecution mania, largely supplies the -explanation to his whole attitude towards Man, Woman, and God. He -possessed also a vehemently explosive egoism and a gigantic intellect, -at times dominating his fear and functioning with the most powerful -precision, but as often as not interpreting the whole external world in -the terms of some preconceived subjective emotion. Add also a morbidly -hypertrophied sexual sensibility, together with a distinct strain of -genuine idealism, and one may perhaps be able to envisage with some -accuracy the cardinal points of our author's brain. - -August Strindberg was born in 1849, the son of a _mesalliance_ between -a shipping agent and a servant girl. The circumstances of his childhood -tended to magnify that morbid sense of fear which, according to our -most eminent psychologists, is always innate and never altogether -acquired. The two parents, the seven children, and the two servants -lived in two rooms, and the family always appeared to him like "a -prison in which two prisoners watched each other, a place where -children were tortured and maids brawled." His mother died when he was -thirteen, to be succeeded by the inevitable stepmother. His school life -also was unhappy, but his description of it, though no doubt perfectly -consistent with actual hardship, exhibits at the same time the -reactions of a morbid sensibility to the hard facts of external life. -"Life was a penitentiary for crimes which one had committed before one -was born, so that the child always went about with a bad conscience." - -Note also, at the same time, the presence of the combative aggressive -element in the boy who would lose nearly every game of chess by the -inconsidered vehemence of his attack, or would break open chests of -drawers in the fury of his desire to obtain their contents. And observe -the early manifestations of that fundamental emotion which was to -obtain throughout his life alternative outlets in the two parallel -channels of religion and sex. Thus, like Byron, he experienced a -violent passion for a girl before the age of puberty. So far, again, -as religion was concerned, he had a great horror of darkness and the -unknown, and his deity would appear to have been a god rather of fear -than of love. And though Scandinavians as a race take Christianity far -more seriously than the inhabitants of any other European country, he -would appear to have possessed, even for a Scandinavian, the religious -temperament to an unusual degree. Thus, he said his prayers on his way -to school, and evinced a precocious desire to become a priest. But -the religious element became dormant amid the chequered vicissitudes -which signalised his youth and his adolescence. He started to study -medicine at the University of Upsala, but his lack of funds broke into -his college career and compelled him to earn his own living. He is by -turns telegraph clerk, editor of an insurance paper (for which purpose -he specially learns the higher mathematics), tutor in the family of a -rich Jewish physician, actor in the Karl Moor of Schiller's _Robbers_, -journalist on a daily paper (where the drastic offensiveness of his -criticisms made his position on the staff intolerable), and librarian -in the Royal Library of Stockholm (when he specially learns Chinese -for the purpose of compiling a catalogue). His struggles were bitter -and continued, and the acuteness of his privations manifests itself in -a deep consciousness of class hatred against the prosperous and not -infrequently dishonest philistinism of the day. - -Note, also, the occurrence of combined religious and persecution mania -in the crises of his illness and despondency. For at such times he -takes the Devil himself as seriously as the Deity, believes in an -"Evil God to whom the Creator had handed over the world," and "has the -consciousness of being personally persecuted by personal powers of -evil." These emotional outbursts are all the more interesting because -intellectually he had become the most fanatical of freethinkers, had -read with profit Buckle's _History of Civilisation in England_, and -was a fervent disciple of the new naturalism. During this period he -had already begun to write dramas, none of which, however, have any -substantial significance with the possible exception of the historical -drama _Meister Olof_, which was unsuccessfully performed in 1877-8, and -into which the already misogynous author had introduced the character -of the prostitute, "in order to show that the difference between her -and the ordinary woman is not so enormously great." - -In 1879, however, Strindberg achieved a _succes de scandale_ with -his novel _The Red Room_. The satire of this book (written, it will -be remembered, during his freethought years), may, no doubt, be the -milk of Christian charity when compared with the concentrated vitriol -of the _Black Flags_ of his Catholic period, and the various scenes -and pictures may, no doubt, strike the critic as episodic and lacking -in systematic cohesion, yet the work has some claim to recognition -by reason of the vivid force of its description of contemporaneous -life. The naively idealistic hero, the shady actress passing from -seduction to seduction with all the facility of the experienced -_ingenue_, the respectable director of the shoddy insurance company, -the insidious Jewish financial broker, the cynical journalist, the -grim but benevolent doctor, are all portrayed in a style which at once -shines and chills with all the brightness of the coldest steel. Viewed -psychologically, the book is significant as exhibiting the Socialistic -fury of an embittered man "whose class-hatred lay in his blood and in -his nerves," and who revenges himself on the system which had conspired -against him, by exposing with sinister precision its most repulsive -truths. - -The cynicism of _The Red Room_ was succeeded by the Utopian -romanticism of the dramas, _Das Geheimniss der Gilde_, _Frau Margit_, -_Gluckspeter_. The change in mood is probably to be ascribed to the -vogue of _The Red Room_, and to the initial success of his alliance -with his first wife, Siri von Essen, the actress, whom he had married -in 1878, and who was subsequently to enjoy the ambiguous blessing of -being officially immortalised in _The Confession of a Fool_. - -This mood, in its turn, was soon replaced by a concentrated and -fanatical misogynism which was to dominate practically every book -which Strindberg was subsequently to write. The fundamental cause -was, no doubt, the morbidly irritable and suspicious nature of the -man himself. Strindberg's whole attitude towards woman, however, is -only fully understood by some appreciation of the New Woman Movement, -which under the auspices of Ellen Key flourished vigorously in Sweden -in the "eighties." Like, for instance, our own Suffragette agitation, -or indeed, any popular craze, however intrinsically meritorious, this -movement, which was, above all, a crusade for sexual equality, was -attended by wild and perverse extravagances. Not merely the genuinely -masculine woman, but every little doll of a woman in every little -doll's house, became obsessed with the imperative necessity of the -emancipation of her own body and the self-development of her own soul. -A holy war of the sexes was proclaimed, and the sacred shibboleth of -the New Thought, the New Ethics, and the New Love was soon in the mouth -of every woman possessed of the true feminine _esprit de corps._ And -with the praiseworthy object of adjusting the balance of nature, and of -arriving so far as possible at the ideal harmony of an almost perfect -equation, in some cases even the little boys would be brought up as -girls, while, conversely, the little girls would be educated as boys. - -But the misogynism of Strindberg was something far more than a merely -intellectual appreciation of the Anti-Feminist standpoint. Even making -allowance for the considerable impetus doubtless given to his attack -by reason of his personal matrimonial complications, the cause lay far -more deeply ingrained in his own constitution. For the arrogation by -the female of equal rights to the male would of itself tend to provoke -the violent apprehensiveness of a man always morbidly alarmed at the -slightest suggestion of any interference with his own personal rights, -and always scenting a grievance with all the superhuman _flair_ of -the true maniac of persecution. Strindberg's hatred of woman is thus -to a large extent the hatred self-begotten of fear out of its own -spirit, and without the superfluous aid of a concrete reality. If, -too, we identify Strindberg himself with some of his men characters -(_e.g._ Kurt in _The Death Dance_, Axel in _Playing with Fire_, or the -narrator of _The Confession of a Fool_), who render to the objects -of their passion acts of the most abject servility, and who kiss the -feet of women almost as frequently as their lips, we would hazard the -suggestion that he himself (who owns to having found in his reverence -for woman a substitute for his reverence for God) would in certain -moods welcome with morbid alacrity this new feminine domination, while -his reaction from this inverted attitude would but lash his misogynism -to even more hysterical paroxysms. - -These considerations may perhaps explain why in so many of his works -the Strindberg woman and the Strindberg man are so highly specialised. -The typical Strindberg woman is a fiend with the physique of a Madonna -and the soul of a vampire, who sucks dry the life-blood of her heroic -victim. The typical Strindberg man is a Samson shorn of his strength, -writhing in the toils of some Delilah, protesting vociferously, and -yet taking a morbid delight in his own bondage. English readers -will remember the not altogether unanalogous case of John Tanner, -that converse Don Juan of Mr. Shaw, who, with all his fanfaronnade -of masculine independence, is, as he has from the beginning feared, -anticipated and desired, successfully hunted down by his sly and -dashing _Donna Juana_. - -After the publication of _The Red Room_, Strindberg visited both -Switzerland and Paris, where he was invited to meet Bjornsen, entered -into relations with the Theatre Libre of M. Antoine, had one or two of -his plays produced, and meditated an unfortunately written satire on -the French capital. In 1883 he produced _Swedish Destinies_, a volume -of essays on contemporary problems, whose romantic masquerade would -seem to have effectively concealed its underlying satire. - -The most significant work, however, which he published at this period -was the volume of twelve (subsequently expanded to twenty) short -stories, entitled _Marriage_. These tales all treat of the various -phases, economic, social, psychological, and physiological, of the -sexual problem, which he observed either in his own life or in the -couples whom he saw in a Swiss _pension._ The characteristic of this -work is its extraordinary seriousness. For to Strindberg the sexual -problem provides neither the excuse for the philosophic flippancy -of the cynic, nor for the priggish modernity of the ethical or -intellectual snob, but is the one obsessing reality of actual life. - -Compared with the black pessimism of this work (relieved though it may -be at times by a ray of tender sentiment or deep paternal feeling), the -grimmest stories of Wedekind are benignly jovial and the most scabrous -tales of De Maupassant but innocently sportive. Neither smile, nor -even leer, ever breaks the set visage of this stern irony, which seems -indistinguishable from life itself. There are no artificial climaxes -or ostentatious flourishes of style to prick the senses of the reader. -Described in a language of the most brutal phlegm and the most forceful -simplicity, the facts of reality do their own unaided work. Each story -is no mere dexterously elaborated incident, but a condensed life. How -powerful, for instance, is such a story as _Asra,_ the history of the -pious youth afflicted with anaemia by reason of his own continence, -and dying two years after his marriage with that superabundantly -healthy ethical worker who subsequently married twice again, had eight -children, and wrote articles on over-population and immorality. And how -genuinely awful is _Autumn_, that frigid anti-climax of a stale and -re-hashed honeymoon: - - "And she sang, 'What is the name of the land in which - my darling dwells?' But, alas, the voice was thin and - sharp. It was at times like a shriek from the depths of - the soul that fears that the noon is passed, and that - the evening is approaching. When the song was over, she - did not at first dare to turn round, as though she was - expecting that he would come to her and say something. - But he did not come; and there was silence in the room. - When at last she turned round on her chair, he sat on - the sofa and cried. She wanted to get up, take his head - in her hands, and kiss him as before; but she remained - seated, motionless, with her gaze turned to the floor.... - - "They drank coffee, and spoke about the coolness of the - summer weather, and where they would spend the summer - next year. But the conversation began to dry up; and - they repeated themselves. At last he said, after a long, - undisguised yawn, 'I'm going to bed now.' 'So will I,' - she said, and got up, 'but I will go first and have a - look on the balcony.' - - "When she came back, she remained standing and listening - at the door of the bedroom. All was quiet inside, and - the boots were outside the door. She knocked, but there - was no answer. Then she opened the door, and went in. He - slept! He slept!" - -Though, moreover, the characters in _Marriage_ are more normal and -average than in any other of Strindberg's works, the author airs again -and again his pet sexual grievances. _Corinna_, in particular, and -_The Duel_, are savage attacks respectively on the ethical amazon and -the womanly woman who makes her very womanliness an engine of tyranny, -while the _Breadwinner_ narrates how an apparently quite impeccable -husband and father, writing himself to death to support his family, -was driven to suicide by the naggings and exactions of a querulous and -discontented wife. - -_Marriage_ was succeeded by the Utopian _Swiss Tales_; but the -strenuous economic struggles to which Strindberg was now subjected -forced him to discard as insipid the vague compromise of free-thought -and to drink the bracing tonic of a Nietzschean and self-reliant -atheism. "God, Heaven, and Eternity had to be thrown overboard if the -ship was to be kept afloat; and it had to be kept afloat because I was -not alone ... I became an atheist as a matter of duty and necessity." - -Yet it is interesting to observe that, taking the solution of the -World-Riddle as a matter of acute personal importance, he studies the -whole history of mankind to satisfy himself that he is right in his -conclusion, and that the element of superstition is still so strong -that when his child is ill he prays, atheist that he is, with all the -fervour of a Christian Scientist. To the period of his atheism are to -be ascribed, with the exception of _Black Flags_, his most powerful, -most drastic work, his two packed volumes of one-act plays, the -autobiographic _Confession of a Fool_, and the Nietzschean novel, _The -Open Sea_. - -Note also that his matrimonial misery and his divorce from his first -wife had given an additional poison to a sting which was always -morbidly eager to inject its venom. - -The plays of Strindberg belong to the naturalistic school of -problem-play which was in full vogue during the period of their -composition. Technically their originality lies in the intensity of -their concentration. Though many of them are one-acters and they nearly -all observe the unity of place, they resemble less the ordinary -curtain-raiser than the one solitary act round which the ordinary -modern play is usually written. Each play is nothing but climax. Though -in some cases they are nearly as long as ordinary drama, it is rare -that they have any subsidiary characters. Even the protagonists are too -occupied with the urgencies of their own immediate crises, and with -exposing the nakedness of their own souls, to have time for either the -artificial jewels of the Pinerovian epigram or the flying rockets of -the Shavian dialectic. The problem is stuck too deep into their lives -to require any artificial flourishing. Observe, too, that nearly every -play is a variation on one theme, the mutual hate, fear, and war of a -malevolent humanity. Their very love but sharpens their enmity, and -they draw blood with nearly every word. - -The three-act play, _The Father_, ventilates the author's chronic -grievance of the ruin of the man by the woman. The plot is cruel -in its simplicity. The husband, though in a state of acute nervous -disorder, is not certifiable. The wife, anxious for a freer life, -smuggles a doctor into the house, plays adroitly on the man's pet -mania that he is not the father of his own daughter, forges in his -handwriting a letter branded with insanity, goads him into throwing -a burning lamp at her, and with the aid of his old nurse gets him by -a ruse into a strait-jacket, in which he succumbs to a stroke. Yet -with all its concentrated sensationalism, and work though it may be -of a constitutional maniac of persecution, the play is too deep, too -sincere, too fundamentally convincing to be ever near that line which -separates the realm of tragedy from the pandemonium of melodrama. With -what ghastly irony does the daughter innocently prick the sensitive -sore in her father's brain: - - [Rittmeister _sits huddled up on the settee_. - - BERTHA. Do you know what you've done? Do you know you've - thrown the lamp at Mamma? - - RITTMEISTER. Have I? - - BERTHA. Yes, you have. Just think if she'd been hurt? - - RITTMEISTER. What would that have mattered? - - BERTHA. You are not my father if you can talk like that. - - Rittmeister (_gets up_). What do you say? Am I not your - father? How do you know that? Who told you so? And who - is your father, then? Who? - -But of all Strindberg's plays, indisputably the most powerful is _Miss -Julie_, that gripping tragedy of the over-sexed young woman who on an -oppressive mid-summer evening insists on being seduced by her father's -butler. The girl is of noble birth, and the duel of sex is intensified -by the duel of class. In the fifty pages of this play, with its three -characters of the woman, the butler, and the cook, which observes -rigorously the Aristotelian unities, every element of the highest -and gravest tragedy is introduced with the most accurate and natural -psychology--the exaggerated dancing of the daughter of the house, who -competes with her own cook for the favours of her own butler-lover; the -ribald grins and songs of the servants; the mingled insolence, common -sense, and respectfulness of the domestic; the hysterical reaction -of the _declassee_ and dishonoured girl. The following passages may -perhaps give some faint idea of this work's sustained and infernal -power: - - [John _opens the cupboard, takes a bottle of wine out, - and fills two used glasses_. - - THE YOUNG LADY. Where do you get the wine from? - - JOHN. From the cellar. - - THE YOUNG LADY. My father's burgundy. - - JOHN. Ain't it good enough for his son-in-law? - - THE WOMAN. Thief! - - JOHN. Are you going to blab? - - THE LADY. Oh--oh--the accomplice of a thief.... - - JOHN. You hate men-folk, miss? - - THE LADY. Yes, as a rule!... But at times, when I feel - weak--ugh! - - JOHN. You hate me, too? - - THE LADY. Infinitely! I could have killed you like an - animal.... - -And how clutching is the climax, when the girl, a simultaneous prey -to nausea with life and to fear of death, persuades her domestic to -hypnotise her into suicide at almost the precise minute when her father -is ringing for his boots: - - THE YOUNG LADY. Have you never been in a theatre and - seen the mesmerist? He says to the subject: "Take the - broom"; he takes it. He says "Sweep"; and he sweeps.... - - JOHN (_takes his razor and puts it into her hand_). Here - is the broom--go now where there's plenty of light--into - the barn--and--(_whispers into her ear_). - -_Miss Julie_ is remarkable as being the only one of Strindberg's -works in which the man comes off victorious with the exception of the -four-act _Comrades,_ that sombre comedy of Parisian artist life, where -the crowing wife bullies her self-sacrificing husband on the score of -having ousted him from the Salon by her own successful picture, only -to be told that he had simply changed the numbers, and to be finally -ejected from her perverted home by that reasserted man whose efficiency -she had despised and exploited, but whose virile despotism she now -begins to love. - -In _The Creditor_, Strindberg treats again his favourite theme of the -vampire woman and the spoliated man. Thekla, the usual worthless, -demoniac female, having dissolved her marriage with the schoolmaster -Gustav, has married the artist Adolph. The scene is the sea-side. -Thekla has gone off on some jaunt. Her new husband, who is apparently -even more miserable without than with his wife, is a nervous wreck. -He makes the acquaintance of the old husband, who presents himself -incognito to readjust the balance of his matrimonial account. Gustav -plays with masterly hypnotism on the suggestibility of his colleague, -making him doubt himself, his vocation, his health, and at last his -wife. And then when his wife returns, and the enfeebled husband has -made an abortive attempt at asserting his theoretic virile superiority, -he makes love to the wife, is detected by the visitors, and goes -back to his own solitary misery, to leave his wife stranded and his -new confrere dead. Note, too, that here again the human triangle is -complete in itself, and that the agony is protracted to the last shred -of its passion without ever flagging for one single moment. - -Space prohibits any complete discussion of the remaining plays in -the cycle of Strindberg's _Eleven One-acters_. Yet we would mention -_Motherly Love,_ a variation on the theme of Mrs. Warren. The -_souteneuse_ mother, with all her loathsome affectation of wounded -parental feeling, plays judiciously on the morbidly filial conscience -of a clean-minded but weak-willed actress-daughter, prevents her from -obtaining respectable friends or advancement on the stage, in order to -preserve for herself her sole professional stock-in-trade. - -Equally impressive is _The Bond_, which expresses in one divorce-court -scene the whole mordant tragedy of wrangling matrimony and authentic -parental affection. - -In a lighter vein is _Playing with Fire_, the one real comedy which -Strindberg ever wrote. In this the delightful _menage_ of a young son, -a young wife, a young friend of the family, a young charity cousin, -and a philistine but by no means senile father, everybody is flirting -with everybody else. Particularly admirable in its mixture of the comic -and the ironic is the character and attitude of the conceited and -ultra-modern artist-husband, genuinely jealous of that friend and of -that wife whom he loves so sincerely, and yet throwing them into each -other's arms in a compounded mood of priggish bravado and authentic -affection. The friend, apprehensive lest he may have a bad conscience, -is anxious to take a room in the village. - - THE WIFE. Why don't you stay with us? Out with it. - - THE FRIEND. I don't know. I think you ought to be left - quiet. Besides it might happen that we should get fed up - with each other. - - THE WIFE. Are you fed up with us already? I tell you, it - won't do. I tell you that if you stay out there in the - village, people will begin to talk. - - THE FRIEND. Talk? What will they talk about? - - THE WIFE. Oh, you know perfectly well how stories get - put together. - - THE SON. You stay here--there's an end of it. Let them - talk. If you stay here, it goes without saying that - you're my wife's lover, and if you stay in the village, - it goes without saying that you've broken with each - other, or that I've kicked you out. Consequently, I - think it more honourable for you to be regarded as her - lover--eh, what? - - THE FRIEND. You certainly express yourself with - considerable lucidity; but in a case like this, I'd - rather prefer to consider which is honourable for you - two. - -As we have already hinted, an additional bitterness had been introduced -into Strindberg's misogynism by the unhappiness of his own first -marriage, which was dissolved in 1889. It is this marriage which -Strindberg celebrates in that phenomenal piece of official sexual -autobiography, _The Confession of a Fool_, which has successfully -scandalised the whole Continent of Europe. In comparison with this book -the _New Machiavelli_ is but the tamest Sunday-school reading, and -the romantic confessions of Mr. George Moore the merest healthy pranks -of robustious youth. This work throughout has the real spontaneity of -the genuine diary rather than the studied frankness of the elaborate -literary artificer. The young librarian is in Stockholm. A young lady -makes advances to him. "She has an adventurous appearance, hovering -between the artist, the blue-stocking, the daughter of the house, -the _fille de joie_, the new woman, and the coquette." She presses -her suit, looks at him in an unambiguous manner, and "he only owes -his virtue to her extraordinary ugliness." He is introduced to her -friends, the Baron and Baroness X. He becomes the _ami de famille_. -But the demon of sex is at work, and simply through keeping step with -her in walking he will experience a unification of their whole nervous -systems. Honourable man that he is, he runs away from danger, starts -for Paris in a steamship, and is seen off amid the combined tears -of the married pair. The ship sails. His nerves break down; and in -an hysterical paroxysm he insists on being disembarked, is attended -by a priest and doctor at a small hotel, and returns post-haste to -Stockholm. The Baroness runs away to a watering-place. But matters only -progress with even greater rapidity on her return. The Baron is largely -occupied with a cousin; and an official declaration takes place between -the wife and the lover. With ultra-modern honesty they immediately -apprise the husband, who while giving them the widest margin within -which to exercise their platonic affections, yet reposes implicit trust -in their combined honour. A financial crash, however, disposes of the -Baron; and the gentleman is landed with his lady. There ensue all the -joys and agonies of a ten-years' union. The couple are linked in the -burning bonds of a mutual love and a mutual hate. The author has to -sacrifice his own well-being and career to push forward his wife in -her amateurish efforts in journalism and acting. From that time "legal -prostitution enters into the marriage...." She belongs to the public, -she makes up and dresses for the public, and she consequently becomes -"a prostitute who will finally send in her bill for such and such -services." - -The moods alternate with the regularity of a pendulum. If at one moment -"the nest of love has become transformed into a dog-kennel," and the -author is morbidly jealous of nearly every man and every woman with -whom his wife has the slightest acquaintance, strikes his wife, and -endeavours to drown her; it is only subsequently, in the last stages of -servile uxoriousness, to idolise her again as a martyr and as a saint. -Six times does he leave her (expending on one occasion in debauchery -the proceeds of his pawned wedding-ring), and six times does he return, -only to draw up at last this monstrous dossier of his conjugal life: -"The story is at an end, my beloved one; I have revenged myself; the -account is squared." - -Not altogether inexplicably, Strindberg has been much attacked on the -score of this book. He has been charged with wickedly defaming an -innocent and deserving woman. Yet even though the book be objectively -false, it is subjectively true. It is impossible to doubt its -prodigious sincerity, even though this merely be the implicit sincerity -of persecution mania. Every single nuance of the emotions of a man who -honestly thinks that he is being unscrupulously exploited is faithfully -described. The book may shock by its vehement coldness, its abnormal -callousness, its matter-of-fact explicitness; yet from the literary -standpoint, its entire absence of affectation, the drastic ease of -its simplicity, the swift naturalness of its diction, cannot fail to -convince. It stands out from the whole of European literature as the -superlative masterpiece of suspicious love and monstrous morbid hate. - -In the great novel, _By the Open Sea_ (1890), Strindberg's Nietzschean -mood achieves its grand zenith. The hero, Axel Borg (whom we may -already remember from _The Red Room_), "instead of, like the weak -Christians, embracing a God outside himself, took what he could seize -with his own hands and in his own self, and sought to make his own -personality into a complete type of humanity." Borg, who combines with -the ideals of the superman the hyper-sensitiveness of the neurotic, -lives the single life as an inspector of fishery in a little village on -the Swedish coast, where the sea "frightens not like the forest with -its dark mystery, but brings quietude like an open great big true eye." -He is pursued and caught by an over-sexed young woman, realises her -worthlessness, and sails out to commit suicide. - - "Out toward the new Star of Christmas, ran his voyage, - out over the Sea, the All-Mother, from whose bosom the - first spark of life was kindled, the inexhaustible - source of fertility and love, life's origin and life's - foe." - -This book, with its splendid nature-descriptions, the tragic dignity -of its hero, and the azure swiftness of its limpid style, is one -of Strindberg's most impressive feats. Yet even here the author's -characteristic traits can be distinctly traced. The noble male is -ruined by a despicable woman; while here, too, the cosmic mysticism of -the professed atheist (whose mood can perhaps be best expressed by the -worn _cliche_ of "being in tune with the infinite"), reveals only too -clearly the emotional bias of a fundamentally religious temperament. - -This temperament was soon to manifest itself in the most tragic form. -Jaded with literature, and unhappy again in his second marriage with -the Austrian authoress, Frida Uhl, in 1893, Strindberg embarked on -the study of chemistry, took rooms in the Latin quarter, attended the -Sorbonne laboratories, and imagined that he had revolutionised science -by the discovery of a new element in sulphur. He had by now attained -the, to him, crucial period of the late "forties," and the chronic -excesses of his emotionalism now assumed a religious form, to the -accompaniment of the most acute mania of persecution. - -His experiences in these years, 1895-8, are described in the _Inferno_ -and the _Legends_, works which the mystic and the psychologist can read -with equal if heterogeneous edification. In these books, which are -based on Strindberg's diaries during the actual time, the aberrations -of a disorganised brain are set out with the most unconscious literary -art. His delusions became systematised with all the ingenuity of the -_paranoiac_. Every casual suggestion thrown up by his memory, or the -events and associations of every-day life, every bit of science that -he had ever studied or of mysticism that he had ever felt, are all -utilised to build the infernal scheme of his mania. He is "the innocent -sacrifice of an unjust persecution," the prey of unknown powers, the -conducting-point of electrical streams from unknown agencies. He asks -for a miracle and sees in the heavens the ten commandments and the name -of Jehovah. His friend Popoffski (in point of fact, the Polish-German -novelist Przybeszewski) has come to Paris; it is with the sole object -of killing him by poison. His usual seat at his usual cafe is occupied; -he is the victim of a universal conspiracy. Eventually the hells of -his torment burn themselves out in an abject ecstasy of atonement, in -Catholicism, Swedenborgianism, and the bastard hybrid of a scientific -occultism. - -From this time the religious obsession sits upon most, if not -all, of his subsequent work. To this mood are due the officially -religious dramas _To Damascus, Midsummer_, the extremely weak -_Advent and Easter_, his new-found theory of _The Conscious Will in -the World-History_, his historical dramas (where the characters, -particularly Luther, were too subjectively conceived to be historically -convincing), and his _Dream-Play_ (where telephones, lawyers, theatres, -enchanted woods, Indra's daughter, military officers, married -couples, casinos, poets, and ballet-dancers all combine to weave the -filmy phantasmagoria of a Buddhistic reality). We may also mention -in this connection the _Blue Books_, the official synthesis of his -life (a series of miniature essays on such apparently heterogeneous -subjects as, _inter alia_, Troy, Christ, electro-chemistry, botany, -surds, Assyriology, optics, geology, Hammurabi, astrology, morphium, -Swedenborgianism, spermatozoic analysis, mystic numbers, Kipling, and -Jehovah). - -Although, speaking generally, Strindberg achieved his masterpieces -during the period of his atheism, many of his later works have -indisputable value. The play _Intoxication_ (1900), for instance -(though the killing through sheer unconscious force of will, by the -hero, of the child of one mistress, in order to gratify the caprice of -another, may strike the unimaginative critic as slightly melodramatic, -and his eventual retirement into a Catholic monastery as somewhat of an -anti-climax), is a work of extraordinary power. - -So also is the _Death Dance_ (1900), in which the middle-aged captain -and his _passee_ wife grind each other to ruin and despair beneath -the mutual mill-stones of their hate, "that most unreasonable hate, -without ground, without object, but also without end." Does not the -author plumb the extreme depths of human malevolence in the passage in -which the wife in company with her cousin is expecting her paralytic -husband to fall down dead? - - KARL. What are you looking at over there, dear, by the - wall? - - ALICE. I'm seeing if he's tumbled down. - - KARL. Has he tumbled down? - - ALICE. NO, more's the pity. He deceives me in everything. - -We would also mention the Maeterlinckian beauty of the _Crown Bride_ -and _Swan White_ (1900), the heroine of which is an idealisation of -the author's third wife, the actress, Harriet Bosse; the delicate -fantasy of _Tales_ (1908); and the _Swedish Miniatures_, of which the -_Sacrifice Dance_ in particular is a positive masterpiece of swift -bloodiness. - -Cruelty, moreover, is an integral element in at any rate primitive -religion. This may conceivably explain why, faithfully fulfilling -what he personally professed to have found a joyless duty, Strindberg -successfully performed in _Black Flags_, his celebrated _roman a clef,_ -the intellectual flaying and dismemberment of all Stockholm Bohemia. -It is amusing to remember that he successfully consulted the oracle -of the Book of Job before he published the work in 1905, to face the -protesting shrieks of his victims with all the devout conscience of -some early priest of Thor who gravely officiates at some blood-stained -human sacrifice. - -It is outside the purpose of this essay to discuss whether these -descriptions of the intellectual and sexual clique of the Swedish -capital constitute a fair portrait or a monstrous defamation, or -whether, for instance, Hanna Paj is a malignant travesty or a -euphemistic delineation of that lady whom all who have the slightest -acquaintance with the Continental Feminist Movement will immediately -recognise. - -As a sheer piece of satire the book waves its black flag unchallenged -amid all the fluttering multicoloured pennons of modern European -literature. What matter if the characterisation be true or false? So -far, at any rate, as the non-Swedish reader is concerned, the illusion -is complete. Kilo, "the little bookseller, with the suffering eyes -of a sick dog"; Falkenstrom, the idealist, whose wife is induced by -her bosom friend to join some alleged monstrous cosmopolitan masonic -sisterhood; Hanna Paj, the feminist lecturer, the fury with the flag -of hate on which was written the device, "Revenge on Man"; Smartman, -the debonair intriguing editor with his two sets of rooms--all these -pictures of "the galley-slaves of ambition linked together in the -fetters of interest, these murderers and thieves who steal each other's -thoughts, addresses, friends, and personalities," are perfectly -convincing. Above all there stands out the delineation of Lars Peter -Zachrisson, "the intellectual cannibal," the "broker of literature, the -promoter of mutual admiration societies, the speculator in reputations, -the founder of syndicates for the manufacture of celebrities," the -morphia maniac, the tippler "who laughs humorously in his moustache and -weeps tears of whisky from his eyes," the father of "that resurrected -corpse, that wandering shame, whose face was known to all, and who was -branded with his own name." And how devilish is the description of this -domestic hell of human hate, where he mocks his wife on her failing -charms and encourages her gluttony with the specific object of spoiling -her figure, where the mother in her turn brings up her children like a -breed of dachshunds whom she sets to bait their father, and where the -two spouses yet feel some inexplicable need of being together in the -same room for the purpose of that mutual nagging and mutual reviling -which constituted the chief interest in their miserable existence. - -To sum up, we have seen how throughout his life the persecution mania -of Strindberg expressed itself in his attitude to sex, religion, and -society, as like at once some veritable Rhadamanthine recorder, and -some cowering victim of divine vengeance, he dispenses and fears those -words of doom in his black adamant of diction. Yet it is impossible -casually to brush the man aside as some mere _paranoiac_. The very -torments of his soul fructified in the stupendous genius of his -intellectual production. With all his perversities, with all his -aberrations, Strindberg remains the blackest, and in his own particular -spheres the most drastic, intelligence in the whole of our European -literature. - - - - -THE WELTANSCHAUUNG OF MISS MARIE CORELLI - - - "By my faith I would as soon listen to the gabbling of - geese in a farmyard as to the silly glibness of such - inflated twaddling, such mawkish sentiment, such turgid - garrulity, such ranting verbosity." - - "Clearness of thought, brilliancy of style, beauty of - diction, all these were hers united to consummate ease - of expression and artistic skill." - - -The above quotations, extracted from _Ardath_ and from the -autobiographical if unofficial description of Mavis Clair in _The -Sorrows of Satan_, are well adapted to express the two extreme views -concerning the merits and the demerits of the lady who, rightly or -wrongly, certainly occupies the most conspicuous position among our -English women-novelists. It is not surprising that such divergent views -should be provoked by a character who, however simple she may be in her -own personal psychology, is from the literary standpoint essentially -complex. - -In _The Romance of Two Worlds_, for instance, the first fruits of -her literary genius, the novelist's theory of the "Soul Germ" and -her conception of the "Electric Principle of Christianity" running -through the whole cosmology would seem unmistakably to foreshadow the -Bergsonian theory of the _elan de vie,_ while the subtly delineated -character of the twentieth-century Chaldaean magician, Heliobas, "who -never promises to effect a cure unless he sees that the person who -comes to be cured has a certain connection with himself," bears a -distinct analogy to the cabalistic mysticism of Mr. Aleister Crowley. -On the other hand, that grim tragedy entitled _Vendetta_ is in almost -equal degrees reminiscent of the stark inexorableness of Aeschylus, -and of the human, all-too-human, humanity of Mr. Walter Melville. In -_Ardathy_ that "tale of beauty, of horror, and of extraordinary amours" -(if we may quote from the authorised biography of our novelist), a -subject-matter that might well have emanated from the pen of a Pierre -Louys, is handled with the unimpeachable correctness of a Samuel -Smiles. So, too, the great _Tendenzroman_ "Wormwood" is a dexterous -combination of the _macabre_ phantasy of Mr. Ranger Gull and the -ethical "uplift" of Mr. Guy Thorne. She is, moreover, an authoress who -is keenly alive to the social problems of the day, treating in _Boy_ -and _The Mighty Atom_ of the Wedekindian problem of the influence -of free-thought on the mind of puberty (though it must be confessed -that her solution of that exceedingly thorny problem is by no means -identical with that of the slightly cynical author of _Spring's -Awakening_), and handling in _The Murder of Delicia_ the almost equally -delicate subject of the modern _maquereau_. - -While, too, Miss Corelli has enriched the literature of Anti-Semitism -with such novel and crushing phrases as "Jew-speculator," -"Jew-proprietor of a stock-jobbing newspaper," "the fat Jew-spider -of several newspaper webs," her denunciation of certain phases of -Continental Christianity as "the sickening and barbarous superstition -everywhere offered as the representation of sublime Deity" indicates -some cleavage between her own Protestant theology and that rigid -Ultramontanism which would appear nowadays to be one of the essential -qualifications for the really full-fledged Anti-Semite. And if at -times with the thyrsus of her ecstatic style she is frequently the -Juvenalian flagellant of that "brilliant fashionable dress-loving crowd -of women who spend most of their time in caring for their complexions -and counting their lovers," her features exhibit not so much the sadic -grin of the maenad as the seraphic loving-kindness of some mediaeval -saint dumped down by a caprice of a fantastic Providence amid all the -howling welter of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. While too -such phrases as "retrospective and introspective repentance" show -an almost Jamesian preciosity in the fine-drawn distinction between -the repentance for the sins that have been already committed in the -past and for those which are about to be committed in the future, -and between the repentance which takes place within the four corners -of the human soul, and that which occurs within some other sphere of -psychological activity, our lady's entire lack, generally speaking, of -all the affectations of our ultra-modern subtlety are more reminiscent -of the downright horse-sense of President Roosevelt or the transparent -but by no means necessarily shallow simplicity of such writers as Mrs. -L. T. Meade, Mrs. Annie Swan, Mr. Charles Garvice, and Mr. William Le -Queux. - -It is then in view of the fundamentally complex problem constituted by -Miss Corelli that, disregarding alike the convention of her admirers -that she is above criticism, and the convention of her detractors that -she is beneath it, we propose to examine our authoress with the maximum -of seriousness at our command, and to await with sanguine interest the -result of what from the point of view at any rate of the critic is so -revolutionary a procedure. The contents of at any rate the majority of -the volumes of Miss Corelli being necessarily familiar to all readers -of culture, we propose to confine our analysis to a survey of the -cardinal points in our lady's _Weltanschauung_. Strange though it may -seem to "the fashionable atheism of the day" (if we may quote one -of our authoress's favourite and most persistent phrases), it is the -religious instinct which supplies the key of the Corellian psychology. -In this connection it is interesting to remember parenthetically the -pretty anecdote of how when the future novelist, then quite a little -girl, was rejoicing in the sobriquet of "The Rosebud," she would always -have the nocturnal consciousness that angels were present in her -bedroom, and that Dr. Mackay, the mid-Victorian litterateur who had -adopted the child at the early age of three months, is reported to have -made the gentle but not inapposite remark, "Never mind, Dearie! It is -there, you may be sure, and if you behave just as if you saw it, you -will certainly see it some day." - -It was perhaps a few years later that the little girl dreamt of -founding a new religious order, and that an education at a French -convent left on her virgin soul that white cachet which even the -corruptness of Edwardian society, "when the infidelity of wives is -most unhappily becoming common--far too common for the peace and good -repute of society," has signally failed to in any way pollute (if as -a mere matter of grammatical conviviality we may venture to split an -infinitive with our distinguished _consoeur_). When, however, Miss -Corelli attained the ripeness of complete womanhood, the voice of the -angels would appear to have whispered in her ear the great injunction -"to leave the world a little better than she found it," and the -sacred odour of her exceedingly important mission is to be detected -practically in every work that has issued from her pen. Holding, -like Torquemada, Mr. Torrie, Attila, Loyola, and the late Dr. Elijah -Dowie and many other great religious enthusiasts of all epochs, that -conversion is the most efficient method of spiritual improvement, she -concentrates her fire with especial vehemence on the "women-atheists, -who had voluntarily crushed out the sweetness of the sex within them, -the unnatural product of an unnatural age," who have "as haughty a -scorn of Christ and His teaching as any unbelieving Jew," and on -"the common boor who, reading his penny Radical paper, thinks he can -dispense with God and talks of the carpenter's son of Judaea with the -same easy flippancy and scant reverence as his companion in sin." - -Thus it comes that Miss Corelli, with her full share of that -intolerance which is the classical concomitant of all true religion, -would close the harbour of England to the exiled Jesuits of France, -and exclude the Jews from their prominent position in contemporary -society and finance. So far from shedding a single tear over the -tragic death of Zola, she gloats with righteous gusto over his -asphyxiation, which she ascribes to a specific piece of theological -revengefulness on the part of an orthodox and insulted Providence. At -times her strictures come nearer home, and more frequently perhaps -than any other woman-novelist of the day does she castigate those -Episcopalian clergymen who indulge in the mental and physical enjoyment -of illicit sex in wilful disregard of the most fundamental elements -of their professional etiquette, "the vicious and worldly clerical -bon-vivants ... talking society scandal with as much easy glibness -as any dissolute lay decadent that ever cozened another man's wife -away from honour in the tricky disguise of a soul." In _Thelma_, for -instance, the lascivious minister of Christ intent on compassing the -almost compulsory seduction of the prettiest of his own parishioners, -while his "conscience was enveloped in a moral leather casing of -hypocrisy and arrogance," is a piece of characterisation which in its -own particular line of vice forms a fitting analogue to the monstrous -clergyman in Mrs. Voynich's _Jack Raymond_. - -So far, moreover, as the nuances of dogma are concerned our teacher -takes the delicate and middle course, being as deeply shocked by the -ritualistic excesses of the High Church as by what Mr. G. K. Chesterton -has epigrammatically described as the "tea-leaves of Nonconformity." In -fact her theology may perhaps be crystallised in the following formula, -which however difficult in actual practice is from the stylistic -standpoint of perfect simplicity: - - "Why should we be followers of Luther, Wesley, or - any other human teacher or preacher when all that is - necessary is that we should be followers of Christ?" - -But Miss Corelli is no credulous bigot. She is as sceptical of the -historical trustworthiness of part of the initial chapters of Genesis -as Colonel Ingersoll, Mr. G. W. Foote, or Mr. Horatio Bottomley. Let -us quote from _Free Opinions_ the following eloquent parenthesis: "A -legend, which, like that of the Tree of Good and Evil itself requires -stronger confirmation than history as yet witnesseth, which, by the -way, was evidently invented by man himself for his own convenience." - -Let us, however, now turn from Miss Corelli's solitary excursion into -the sphere of the Higher Criticism to some brief survey of her more -positive and constructive philosophy. - -The Corellian cosmology is most fully expounded in _The Romance of Two -Worlds_. This novel is the story of a young girl who, sick in body and -mind, visits the Continent. She makes the acquaintance of a Chaldsean -_mage_ of magnetic personality called Heliobas. Heliobas, realising at -the first sight of the young girl "that her state of health precludes -her from the enjoyment of life natural to her sex and age," gives her -to drink of some rare and special potion with the result that her -soul, dissociated for the time being from her body, takes a flying -trip through space and purgatory, and the lady awakens to a more -complete spiritual harmony. In this book the authoress's individual -theories of the Soul Germ and the Electric Circle are expressed in -voluminous digressions and dialogues whose inexhaustible opulence -might well be called a Platonic Dialectic brought up to the date of -nineteenth-century science. - -This fusion of science and mysticism, which at first sight seem as far -apart as the poles or the sexes, into a harmonious if heterogeneous -unity, can also be traced in the Corellian physiology. Thus in _Thelma_ -we meet the unfortunate creature Sigurd, "an infant abortion, the evil -fruit of an evil deed," destined to so tragic and well-described a -death, while in _Temporal Power_ we are confronted with the strange -character of Paul Zouche, "the human eccentricity, the result of an -amour between a fiend and an angel." - -In the sphere of ethics, Miss Corelli is careful to avoid that -misplaced originality which is so often the gaudy masquerade for a -pallid and degenerate licentiousness. Our authoress finds sufficient -both for her own personal requirements and the spiritual health of her -reader in those good old maxims enshrined in the Bible, the _Family -Herald_, and the copy-books of all self-respecting seminaries. Good -is Good, she says, and Right is Right. We may note also the Corellian -principle of the inevitable triumph of the hero or heroine and the -inevitable damnation of the villain or villainess, a principle which -bears a distinct affinity to the Jewish and Christian doctrines of -Recompense, the Aeschylean doctrine of _nemesis_, and the -dramaturgy of the Transpontine Theatre. It may perhaps be urged by the -ultra-modern critic that novels of the stamp of _Anne Veronica, The New -Machiavelli_, or _Esther Waters_, where sin emerges from its slough, -sometimes in triumph, yet always in dignity and comfort, have a closer -correspondence with the actual facts of our modern civilisation. But -our authoress would no doubt confidently retort that it is the pious -duty of the moral missionary to censor ruthlessly such pernicious -intelligence, and that she is proud to prefer the higher if not always -accepted truths of ethics to the lower and degrading truths of a sordid -reality. - -This sublime principle of Divine Justice is perhaps best exemplified -in _Holy Orders_. In this extraordinary book, Jacqueline, the local -prostitute of a picturesque English village, marries a man named -Nordheim, "one of the smartest Jew-millionaires that ever played with -the money-markets of the world." But the wages of sin, though for a few -years a motor car and a Rockefellerian income, turn out in the long -run to be death in a balloon in the illicit company of an aristocratic -drunkard. For sheer psychology and for sheer English the following -portrayal of the villain which represents the cream of two or three -separate passages merits quotation. - - "Claude Ferrers? Why, he is a famous aeronaut; a man - who spends fabulous sums of money in the construction - of balloons and aeroplanes and airships. He is the - owner of a gorgeous steerable balloon in which all the - pretty 'smart' women take trips with him for change of - air. He is an atheist, a degenerate, and--one of the - most popular 'Souls' in decadent English society--just - to have a look at the fat smooth-faced sensualist and - voluptuary whose reputation for shameless vice makes him - the pride and joy of Upper-Ten Jezebels will help you - along like a gale of wind. Claude Ferrers is a modern - Heliogabalus in his very modern way, and by dint of - learning a few salacious witticisms out of Moliere and - Baudelaire he almost persuades people to think him a wit - and a poet." - -In view, no doubt, of the high moral tendency of most of the comedies -of Moliere, who in _Tartuffe,_ for instance, satirises hypocrisy almost -as effectively, if with a less palpable directness than does Miss -Corelli herself, and in view of the essentially religious or at any -rate mystical spirit that animates so many of the poems of the author -of _Les Fleurs de Mai,_ it must be reluctantly confessed that Miss -Corelli is more impressive as a moralist and as a psychologist than as -a woman of letters and an expert in French literature. It is possible, -however, that this slight error may be explained by the fact that her -acquaintance with these authors may only be second-hand, that she -was involuntarily misled by the rhyme in the two names, and that her -unimpeachable principles have debarred her from even hearing the names -of such refined exponents of the Gallic spirit as M. Abel Hermant and -M. Octave Mirbeau. - -It is, of course, highly characteristic of our authoress's simplicity -of vision that all her characters are either very, very, very good -or very, very, very bad. Realising that complexity of temperament -is but too frequently the mere euphemism for dissoluteness of life, -she is content that her young heroes should be immaculate with all -the immaculacy of the _jeune premier_, that her middle-aged heroes -should be those strong silent men who have contributed so largely -to make England what she is, and that her heroines should be all -equally typical and equally sweet flowers of our English womanhood. -Her villains invariably smile with all the depraved and diabolical -cynicism of Drury Lane, and her villainesses are branded as degenerate -super-women of intrigue and lust. And if the authoress by thus -delineating her characters in the two primary colours of black and -white thus denies herself the intellectual pleasure of minutely -analysing some ultra-modern soul torn a myriad ways by unnumbered and -unmentionable emotions, she has the consolation that she certainly -points her moral with a more obvious precision. - -The only character who in any way suffers from a complex temperament -is Maryllia, the sweet-named heroine of _God's Good Man_. By nature -as white and pure a specimen of Anglo-Saxon girlhood as ever spent to -some good moral purpose her fragrance in the pages of the prettiest -novelette, Maryllia is so corrupted by the fashionable whirl of smart -society, "where without mincing matters it can be fairly stated that -the aristocratic Jezebel is the fashionable woman of the hour, while -the men vie with one another as to who shall best screen her from -their amours with themselves," that she becomes addicted to the vice -of smoking. God's Good Man, however, in the person of that high-minded -clergyman the Rev. John Walden, has the courage to rebuke her at a -dinner-party with an incivility which is, fortunately, more than -counterbalanced by the fundamental kindness of his intention: - - "I have always been under the impression that English - ladies never smoke." - -Maryllia, it is true, at first bridles at this essentially well-meant -reprimand, only, however, to return finally repentant and converted to -her prospective husband. - -It is, consequently, not surprising to find that Miss Corelli's -attitude to modern problems is one of a rugged and uncompromising -conservatism. Thus she disapproves not merely of smoking but also of -the bridge-party and the motor-car and of the _decollete_ dress which -she so severely satirises in the phrase, "the brief shoulder-strap -called by courtesy a sleeve which keeps her ladyship's bodice in place." - -Consistently enough, also, in the sphere of philosophy she chaffs -the agnostic dilettantism of Mr. Balfour with the most delicate of -badinage: "His study of these volumes is almost as profound as that of -Mr. Balfour must have been when writing _The Foundations of Belief_," -and flicks with a deadly though gentle irony the "sort of cliquey -reputation and public failure attending a certain novel entitled -_Marius the Epicurean_." - -True Englishwoman that she is, Miss Corelli yields to none in her -reverence for established institutions, and does not shrink from -attacking boldly the complex questions of contemporary royal and -political life. Thus, in the 600-page romance, _Temporal Power_, -apparently disapproving of that democratic shuffling of the classes -which is so marked a feature of our ultra-modern age, she treats with -exquisite taste of the problems of the sinister Semitic capitalist, -the intriguing politician who was once a manufacturer, and of the -morganatic marriage of a sailor-prince. - -For our authoress has at bottom a true respect for the social order -of England. What though the monarch masquerade as an anarchist in -_Temporal Power_ and sign his name in the red letters of a woman's -blood? Does not the repeated insistence on the title "Sir Philip," in -referring to the virile and delectable hero of _Thelma_, show that it -is less society _per se_ than the abuses and perversions of society -which constitute the target of the Corellian invective? Does not -again the following passage show the bias of a soul which inclines -with the sincerest sympathy to that innate munificence which forms -the chief petal in the "fine flower" of the English gentry: "They got -their overcoats from the officious Briggs, tipped him handsomely, and -departed arm in arm?" Does not similarly such a phrase as "a dignified -_grande dame_ clad in richest black silk" show that most generous of -loyalties which will not allow the true majesty of the aristocracy to -be imperilled through the stinting of an extra adjective or the lack of -a superlatively appropriate dress. - -Unfortunately many passages in Miss Corelli's novels may occasion -her admirers some heart-searchings as to the reliability of her -social psychology. In such a sentence, for instance, as "Why does -an English earl marry a music-hall singer? Because he has seen her -in tights," it would appear that the real heart of the matter is -tactfully adumbrated rather than specifically described. When again -that lecherous Jew, David Jost, the chief villain in _Temporal Power_, -is sitting at home in his study a few minutes before midnight, after -he had already "supped in private with two or three painted heroines -of the foot-lights," does not our authoress attribute to the horrible -Hebrew a capacity for concentrating an amount of pleasure into a -brief period, more consistent with the powers of some hustling and -record-breaking American than with the more protracted languors of -the Oriental? Similarly, when she writes that "the public are getting -sick of having the discarded mistresses of wealthy Semites put forward -for their delectation in 'leading' histrionic parts," Miss Corelli is -either inverting the more natural and logical order of events, or is -attributing to such isolated members of the Jewish race as happen to be -licentious a retrospective generosity in respect of past kindness which -however gratifying to their co-religionists seems somewhat inconsistent -with the general trend of her attitude. - -The Corellian dialogue also frequently gives the psychologist food -for thought. "O God" (cried impetuously the heroine of _Thelma_ after -she had listened virtuously to the illicit overtures of the villain, -a "lascivious dandy and disciple of no creed and self-worship"), a -magnificent glory of disdain flashing in her jewel-like eyes, "what -thing is this that calls itself a man--this thief of honour--this -pretended friend of me, the wife of the noblest gentleman in the land!" - -Or take again so characteristic a specimen as the following: - - "You will be made the subject for the coarse jests of - witticisms at your expense--your dearest friends will - tear your name to shreds--the newspapers will reek of - your doings, and honest housemaids reading of your fall - from your high estate will thank God that their souls - and bodies are more clean than yours." - -If, however, Miss Corelli disdains the more gramophonic accuracy of -Mrs. Humphry Ward, she is none the less perfectly entitled to answer -that her characters like those of Mr. G. Bernard Shaw, being something -more than mere mechanical and objective copies of humanity, subserve -the far higher function of being the mouthpieces of the subjective -philosophy of their creator. - -Our last quotation, however, brings us to the burning question of Miss -Corelli's attitude towards the sexual problem. In this connection it -will not be without its interest to draw some slight analogy between -Miss Corelli and her equally distinguished if not equally popular -sister-in-letters, Mrs. Elinor Glyn. - -We would remark in the first place that the sexual problem clutches -Miss Corelli hotly in its drastic grip. Her religious temperament -may no doubt occasion a profound and genuine abhorrence for physical -sin, but as was the case with the even more religious Tolstoi, or -that strangely interesting character Elfrida (the ethical sexual -reformer in Herr Frank Wedekind's _Totentanz_), her abhorrence merely -supplies an added vehemence to the unflinching nature of her treatment -and the drastic audacities of her missionary work, while the proud -consciousness of her own personal virtue may conceivably entitle her to -find at once a duty and a recompense in the sanguinary flagellation of -her less immaculate sisters. Though, moreover, a moral teacher, Miss -Corelli is also a psychologist, and her aphorism "Men never fall in -love with a woman's mind, only with her body," can be well compared -for its bold but delicate cynicism with Mrs. Glyn's maxim, "Love is a -purely physical emotion." - -But Miss Corelli with all her unimpeachable correctness is by no means -blind to the temperamental significance of a _grande passion_, though -of course she does not specialise on this subject to the same extent -as her distinguished colleague. It is none the less instructive to -compare Miss Corelli's saving grace of a _grande passion_, "the one of -those faithful passions which sometimes make the greatness of both man -and woman concerned and adorn the pages of history with the brilliancy -of deathless romance," with the following fine passage from Mrs. Glyn -in which she admonishes those philistine readers "who have no eye to -see God's world with the stars in it and to whom Three Weeks will be -but the sensual record of a passion" with a dignified apologia for the -life of her heroine--"Now some of you who read will think her death was -just, in that she was not a moral woman, but others will hold with Paul -that she was the noblest lady who ever wore a crown." - -The latter quotation, however, brings us to an important distinction -in the sexual ethics of our two novelists. For while Miss Corelli -on the one hand is no respecter of persons and would be prepared to -treat an "Upper-Ten Jezebel" or a "soiled dove of the town" (if we may -borrow two typically Corellian phrases) with scrupulous impartiality -according to their respective deserts, the novels of Mrs. Elinor Glyn -constitute a valuable sexual hierarchy by which the degree of license -to be enjoyed and condoned is in direct proportion to the social rank -of the lady or her paramour. Thus the continued adultery on the part -of the Princess throughout a period of three weeks in the novel of -that name is freed from any taint of offensiveness or indignity by the -exalted rank of that royal personage who is decorated in this one book -with several sets of stars. The ordinary untitled gentlewoman, however -(if we except Agnes the lady in _Elizabeth's Visits to America_, who -"had an affair with her chauffeur," and the Mildred in _Beyond the -Rocks_, whose lovers, however, were "so well chosen and so thoroughly -of the right sort"), though she may frequently infringe the spirit -of the seventh commandment, is usually far too prudent to break the -letter. Thus the romantic young wife in _Beyond the Rocks_, in spite -of the assiduous attentions of an extremely fascinating peer, "an -ordinary Englishman of the world who had lived and loved and seen many -lands," succeeds by the most heroic self-control in preserving the -technical chastity of a Prevostian _demi-vierge_. Note, however, by way -of contrast the extremely wide margin which is allowed to the hale and -energetic duchess: "Her path was strewn with lovers and protected by a -proud and complacent husband who had realised early he never would be -master of the situation and had preferred peace to open scandal. She -was a woman of sixty and, report said, still had her lapses." - -But the paramount importance of social etiquette in sexual relationship -is most effectively illustrated in _His Hour_. This novel deals with -the mutual physical passion between a barbaric and dissolute Russian -prince and a typical and refined modern Englishwoman. Matters reach a -crisis when the prince lures the lady by night to the sinister solitude -of a deserted hut. "His splendid eyes blazed with the passion of a -wild beast"; the lady faints, and when she wakes up in the morning of -course assumes that she has been ravished. Not unnaturally she is quite -upset that she should have been the victim of such insulting behaviour, -"she, a lady, a proud English lady." The commands of society, however, -are inexorable in such matters and she consequently writes proposing -marriage with dignified irony to that bestial nobleman, who had, -according to her own theory, put her own status as a gentlewoman into -such delicate jeopardy: "I consent--I have no choice--I consent. Yours -truly, Tamara Lorane." - -So far as mere erotic description and dialogue is concerned, there is -very little to choose between our authoresses. The following passages -are fair examples of Mrs. Glyn's conception of romantic love-making: - - "Then, sweet Paul, I shall teach you many things, and - among them I shall teach you how to LIVE." - * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * - "Beloved, beloved," he cried, "let us waste no more - precious moments. I want you, I want you, my sweet." - * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * - "My darling one," the lady whispered in his ear, as she - lay in his arms on the couch of roses, crushed deep and - half-buried in their velvet leaves, "this is our soul's - wedding, in life and in death they can never part us more." - * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * - -If, however, we would make any distinction between the respective -techniques of the two ladies, we would say that while Mrs. Glyn tends -to exhibit the practical modernity of Mayfair or Continental society, -Miss Corelli is at times more exotic and luxuriant, at times more -explicit and direct, for blunt, plain woman that she is, she never even -once dabbles in those mystic messages of the stars which Mrs. Glyn -interprets with so facile and consummate a felicity. We search in vain, -for instance, in the works of Mrs. Elinor Glyn for a passage like the -following, which but for the pendent nominative might quite well have -come out of the _Aphrodite_ of M. Pierre Louys or the _Mafarka le -Futuriste_ of M. Marinetti: - - "This done, they rose and began to undo the fastenings - of her golden domino-like garment; but either they were - too slow, or the fair priestess was impatient, for - she suddenly shook herself free of their hands, and - loosening the gorgeous mantle herself from its jewelled - clasps it fell slowly from her symmetrical form on the - perfumed floor with a rustle as of fallen leaves." - -Again, the delicious sachets of Mrs. Elinor Glyn's diction never -somehow exhale such whiffs of unadulterated English as the following: - - "With the seduction of your nude limbs and lying eyes - you make fools, cowards, and beasts of men." - -We may, perhaps, conclude this portion of our comparative analysis by -suggesting for the erotic crest of Mrs. Elinor Glyn a Debrett and an -Almanach de Gotha enveloped in a silk and scented "nightie"; for that -of Miss Marie Corelli, a volume of the Self-and-Sex series lying open -between a doffed domino and a crinoline. - -It is also noticeable that while Miss Corelli, with whatever detail she -may feel it her duty to portray their erotic sins, is always primarily -concerned with her characters' ethical significance for good or for -evil, Mrs. Glyn devotes herself more specifically to their physical -qualifications. Miss Corelli's typical hero, for instance, is the -Rev. John Walden, that middle-aged God's Good Man whose ripe dignity -of manhood is subordinated to the description of his more spiritual -qualities. Mrs. Glyn's typical hero is the Paul of _Three Weeks_, "a -splendid young English animal of the best class." - -We thus find that the space which Mrs. Elinor Glyn will devote to -telling us that her heroine's skin "seemed good to eat," or that her -hero had "fine lines" and "velvet eyelids," will be devoted by Miss -Corelli to the description of the corresponding attributes of her -hero or heroine's soul. Miss Corelli, however, is by no means obtuse -to the baleful effect on the spiritual life exercised by physical -blandishments. She will thus explain the precocious corruption by -senile perversity of a young girl in a remarkable passage whose stark -realism certainly succeeds in portraying fully an important ethical and -physiological truth: - - "Old roues smelling of wine and tobacco were eager to - take me on their knees and pinch my soft flesh;--they - would press my innocent lips with their withered - ones--withered and contaminated by the kisses of - cocottes and soiled doves of the town." - -As showing the comprehensive ultra-modernity of Miss Corelli's outlook -on the sexual question, we would refer finally to her frequent -allusions to "the unnatural and strutting embryos of a new sex which -will be neither male nor female." Though, however, she is in one of -her maxims apparently of opinion that "true beauty is sexless," we -would infer from the following passages that she does not go so far as -Peladan in ascribing an important ethical and sociological significance -to this new type: - - "Men's hearts are not enthralled or captured by a - something appearing to be neither man nor woman. And - there are a great many of these Somethings about just - now.... Beauty remains intrinsically where it was first - born and first admitted into the annals of Art and - Literature. Its home is still in the Isles of Greece - where burning Sappho loved and sang." - -Returning, however, from Lesbos to Stratford-on-Avon, let us make some -brief survey of Miss Corelli's style. To condense into a few phrases -so delicate and baffling a phenomenon is difficult. At one moment her -weighty nouns, guarded not infrequently by a triple escort of epithets, -possess the pomp and luxuriance of the true Asiatic style, at another -the brisk horsiness of her diction has all the spontaneous force of -English as it is actually spoken. At times such passages as "A moisture -as of tears glistened on the silky fringe of his eyelids--his lips -quivered--he had the look of a Narcissus regretfully bewailing his own -perishable loveliness. On a swift impulse of affection Theos threw one -arm round his neck in the fashion of a confiding schoolboy walking -with his favourite companion.... Sah-luma looked up with a pleased yet -wondering glance. 'Thou hast a silvery and persuasive tongue,' he said -gently," are reminiscent of the mellifluous cadences of _Dorian Gray_. -Anon she will indulge in a vein of frank but militant simplicity that -bears a greater resemblance to the style of Mr. Robert Blatchford, the -celebrated atheist: - - "A small private dinner-party at which the company are - some six or eight persons at most is sometimes (though - not by any means always) quite a pleasant affair; but a - 'big' dinner in the 'big' sense of the word is generally - the most painful and dismal of functions except to - those for whom silent gorging and after-repletion are - the essence of all mental and physical joys. I remember - --and of a truth it would be impossible to forget--one - of those dinners which took place one season at a very - 'swagger' house--the house of a member of the old - British nobility, whose ancestors and titles always - excite a gentle flow of saliva in the mouths of snobs." - -We would incidentally mention that Miss Corelli is above all a purist -in her diction, and that she has registered her emphatic protest -against the use of the expression "Little Mary," "a phrase which, -although invented by Mr. J. M. Barrie, is not without considerable -vulgarity and offence." Though, moreover, her language is on the whole -essentially English, Miss Corelli by no means disdains the use of -classical figures. For instance in the phrase "after-repletion" from -our last quotation we meet an interesting survival of the Greek use -of a preposition to qualify a noun. The occasional anacoluthon also -(or lack of orthodox syntax) which is found in her works points to a -by no means unprofitable study of Thucydides, unless indeed it is -simply in order to emphasize her lack of any literary snobbery that our -authoress so frequently declines to curtsey to the affected rigidities -of pedantic grammar. Her frequent use, again, of compound words such -as "socially-popular," "brilliantly-appointed," "Jew-spider" betrays -the distinct influence of the Teutonic idiom, while such a phrase as -"braced with the golden shield of Courage" shows what unique results -can be obtained by a metaphor simultaneously fashioned out of the -defensive article of war of the ancient Spartan and the preservative -article of attire of the modern European. - -Finally, what is the real secret of Miss Corelli's success? It is -that she is sincere and that she means well. Whether her invective -rises to the lofty scorn of an Isaiah, a Mrs. Ormiston Chant, or a -Juvenal, or whether the smooth current of her hate meanders along -with all the tepid benevolence of a grandmotherly facetiousness, it -is impossible to doubt her portentous sincerity. It is this quality -which distinguishes her most effectively from the merely journalistic -authors of the "big" serials. These ladies and gentlemen, it is true, -effect their object and succeed in presenting the outlook on life of -the typical man or woman in the typical street or alley. But their -most brilliant productions but produce the effect of an intellectual -_tour de force_, as though achieved in despite of the natural bias -of their temperaments, by dint of a diligent study of the well-known -Manual of Serialese. Miss Marie Corelli needs no such manual. Her -_Weltanschauung_, broad, plain, simple, touched at once with a high -consciousness of her ethical mission and a ruthless observation for -all the sins and follies of the age, is the authentic and spontaneous -outcome of her own unique psychology. - - - - -FRANK WEDEKIND - - - "Alike in the comedies and dream-plays too You see but - a domesticated Zoo, Their blood so thin that in that - hot-house air They batten on a vegetable fare, And revel - chronically in chat and calls, Sitting like our friends - yonder in the stalls, _One's_ stomach of liqueurs will - disapprove, Another wonders if he really love, Another - hero starts with threats to pass From this foul world to - one perhaps more divine, But through five mortal acts - behold him whine, Yet no kind friend supplies the _coup - de grace_, But the real thing, the wild and beauteous - beast, I, ladies, only I provide that feast." - - -These lines, delivered by a lion-tamer in the due professional -panoply of riding-coat, top-boots, and a revolver, are extracted -from the prologue of Frank Wedekind's tragedy, _Die Erdgeist_, and -illustrate efficiently the bizarre and Mephistophelian genius of a -German dramatist alike in his qualities and his defects indisputably -unique. Buccaneering no small way in front of the very left wing of -the aesthetic movement, Wedekind is at once the _bete noire_ of the -reactionaries and the spoilt darling of the ultra-moderns. To his -enemies he is a mere shoddy Anti-Christ, to his friends a dramatic -Messiah leading back the inner circles of the chosen intellects into -the promised land of vice and crime. It cannot be denied that his -subject-matter gives considerable colour to both these theories. Life, -as seen through the medium of his plays, is but a torrent of sex -foaming over the jagged rocks of crime and insanity. Take examples -from his three most powerful plays. In _Die Erdgeist_, the theme -of which is the baleful glamour of the "Evil Woman," three of the -four acts are punctuated with almost complete regularity by a death; -_Fruehlingserwachen_, again, deals with hoydens and hobbledehoys, whose -only occupation appears to be the creation, discussion, and destruction -of life: In _Die Totentanz_, on the other hand, the scene is laid in -a "private hotel" (if one may borrow the highly convenient euphemism -of Mr. Shaw), while a charming interlude in lyrics is provided by one -of the boarders and a temporary visitor, and the hero and proprietor -is a "marquis," who psychologically is much more closely related to -Hamlet than to Sir George Crofts. Add to this choice of subject-matter -a violently impressionist technique and a hangman humour, whose grin is -at its broadest amid the sharpest agonies of the victims, and one can -form an approximately accurate idea of an author, conceivably somewhat -poisonous to anaemic constitutions, but certainly both piquant and -stimulating to the hardened and the adventurous. To arrive, however, -at a correct appreciation of so monstrous a phenomenon, it will be -advisable to investigate first the literary and social tendencies by -which it has been produced, together with the character of the audience -for whose edification it disports itself, and then by the light of such -investigations to proceed to an analysis of his individual works. - -For the ten or fifteen years following 1880, both the novel and the -drama in Germany were transformed into a Zolaesque laboratory, where -interesting human experiments were conducted by skilled operators -with scientific precision. There were three chief causes for this: -firstly, a healthy reaction against the colourless and conventional -school which had held the stage for so many years, a school somewhat -analogous to that of our own Mid-Victorians with their strong silent -men and sweet insipid women; secondly, a dogmatic and uncompromising -materialism was the creed of the most ambitious and efficient -intellects who found their chief mental diet in Zola, Taine, Darwin, -and Haeckel; thirdly, the abstract theory of the struggle for -existence had received an excessively concrete exemplification in the -Franco-German war and the colossal commercial impetus that followed -in the wake of a united Germany. Naturalism, however, was destined by -the very character of the nation to be but a passing phase. Even apart -from the inevitable swing of the pendulum and the powerful Catholic and -religious reaction, whose force is seen at a glance in the numerical -majority of the Centrum, the German temperament is in its essence as -romantic as the French is logical. The nation, moreover, being at -bottom religious, "the death of God," to use the classic phrase of -Nietzsche, left a most crying lacuna. The philosopher of the Superman -adroitly filled the vacancy by the deification of Man. Human life -became an end in itself embraced with the most poetic exaltation and -pursued with all the zeal of religious martyrdom. The struggle for -existence, ceasing to be a bare scientific formula, was metamorphosed -into a classic arena in which the "life-artist" battled for the crown -of his Dionysiac agonies, finding the most delicious music in the -perpetual clash of brain with brain, and experiencing a sweetness in -the very bitterness of the conflict.[1] - -Crushed then by the force of these tendencies, pure realism died. _Die -Ehre_ and _Die Weber_, it is true, still hold the German stage, but in -_Johannes_ and in _Die Versunkene Glocke_ respectively both Sudermann -and Hauptmann have deserted to the Romantic camp, taking with them, -however, a good proportion of the Realistic equipment. Particularly -typical of this amalgamation of the two forces is _Hannele_, where the -pathological and mystical explanations are to be accepted concurrently -and not as alternatives, as in Mr. Henry James's _Turn of the Screw_. -As was, however, only natural, there was a considerable reaction, and -orthodox naturalism was deliberately flouted by the Secessionsbuehne in -1899 with their penchant for fairy-dramas and their genuinely aesthetic -project of stretching between the stage and the audience a veil of -transparent gauze intended to draw the scene into a misty distance. The -rankest idealism seemed for a time the order of the day. "All that the -young and the moderns have fought against with such animosity between -1880 and 1890, pseudo-idealism, bookish dialogue, false and artificial -characterisation, clap-trap stagecraft, all this celebrates in this -drama a joyous resurrection; let us acknowledge it; we have lost the -battle against falsehood and stupidity, conventionalism, and the -public, lost it absolutely," writes Julius Hart in the _Tag_ of 1902. - -But the most interesting direction was given to this neo-romanticism by -the aesthetic movement and _Kunstschwarmerei_ which began to sweep over -music, literature, painting, and the drama with an almost Nietzschean -intensity. Pure realism and pure romanticism, then, both being extinct, -and an agressive horde of exuberant and heretical artists being alive, -the solution for the artistic problem was found in the aesthetic and -romantic treatment of realistic themes. The prose of the human document -became illuminated with the poesy of the human imagination. Realism -and Romanticism went into partnership in the freest of unions, and -Wedekind is one of the most interesting fruits of this drastic alliance. - -The realistic method might be worse than useless for aesthetic purposes, -but the realistic stock-in-trade was invaluable material for spirits -bursting with an almost morbid healthiness, spirits for whom no subject -was too terrible, no sensation too violent. Let us, however, turn to -the official pronouncement of Wedekind's preface to his revised and -expurgated edition of _Die Buechse von Pandora_, in which he states his -defence to the prosecution which the first edition of that interesting -book had brought upon his martyred head: "Wedekind is an apostle -of the modern movement. It is the motto of this movement to effect -a transvaluation of aesthetic values in style and stagecraft. The -followers of this movement have for over fifteen years repudiated the -claims of the so-called 'aesthetic-content' and of mere formal beauty; -they hold it permissible to depict artistically and to represent on -the stage the ugly, the crude, the repulsive, and even the vulgar, -provided always that such characteristics are not treated as ends in -themselves--that is to say, when the work is not created by love of the -abhorrent for its own sake but is merely the medium for the expression -of an artistic idea. Wedekind, accordingly, as the disciple of these -authors, chooses to shed a light upon the darkest crannies of vice, and -in particular to surround with a poetic framework those sexual subjects -which have been the peculiar subject of medical science. The end and -goal of his writings is to awaken fear and pity." - -Such an apologia can scarcely be said to be superfluous when one of the -sub-plots of the play in question deals with the heroic, if somewhat -nauseating, rebellion of a woman in the determination of whose lot -nature has made a somewhat unfortunate mistake. - -Before, however, we proceed to gaze upon the black and lurid pictures -of our dramatic artist, it is advisable to turn very briefly to the -audience for whose particular benefit they exercise their hellish -fascination. Wedekind's audience, in a word, is the extreme left -wing. The German left wing, however, is considerably more numerous, -more advanced, and more dangerous than the English. Our own aesthetic -movement was killed almost instantaneously by the Wilde debacle. We -still, of course, have our ultra-modern movement, such as it is, but -for practical purposes no one could be more amiable or innocuous -than the ladies and gentlemen who used to constitute the highly -respectable audiences of the Court Theatre, or who find in the Stage -Society a mildly audacious means of spending their Sabbath evenings. -Germany, however, with its vastly superior education, and its horde -of professional men and women, schoolmasters and piano-mistresses, -lawyers, doctors, poets, and litterateurs, has the disease of modernity -with a vengeance, carrying through each symptom to its logical -conclusion with a violence and intensity to which our own fluttering -unconventionalism affords but the faintest and most shadowy parallel. -Free-love, which, with the possible exception of a certain ephemeral -incident successfully immortalised in three or four recent novels, -is in England little more than a name, the mythical bogey with which -the halfpenny press pretend to frighten their delighted readers, or -is at best among the smart and the semi-educated rich the philosophic -sanction for highly unphilosophic impulses, is in Germany a theoretic -dogma almost as sacred as that of woman suffrage and demanding almost -as devout sacrifices on the shrine of its philosophic altar. When again -the subtle souls of Great Britain will so far break the ice of their -insular reserve as to discourse about the tragedy of existence, the -far more heroic spirits of German modernity will have recourse to all -the aesthetic delights of a fine and artistic suicide, which indeed -in the most advanced circles is almost a fashionable analogue to our -own appendicitis, or will find in the modern dogma of "living their -own life" the substantial though possibly slightly less exhausting -equivalent to our English hunger-strike. How strong is the neo-aesthetic -movement may be gauged by the phenomenal success in Berlin of _Salome_ -and _Monna Vanna,_ the great scenes of which were followed avidly -by young girls with an enthusiasm which was more than aesthetic. It -may also be mentioned incidentally that Wilde's _De Profundis_ was -published in German before it appeared in England, a circumstance -due quite as much to a keener intellectual enthusiasm as to superior -commercial enterprise. - -Realising, then, that while it is orthodox in England to be ashamed of -one's passions and emotions, the German ambition is to plume oneself on -taking everything _an grand serieux_, let us turn to a consideration -of those plays in which, on a large canvas and in big bold splashes -reminiscent of the not unanalogous methods of the Secessionist -painters, Wedekind is pleased to present framed in gigantic irony: - - "Les immondes chacals, les pantheres, les lices, - Les singes, les scorpions, les vautours, les serpents, - Les monstres glapissants, hurlants, grognants, rampants, - Dans la menagerie infame de nos vices." - -It will, perhaps, be well to start with that little masterpiece of -a dramatic caricature, _Der Kammersaenger_. A fashionable singer, -having completed his engagements in a provincial town, is snatching -at last a few minutes' well-earned repose prior to catching his -train. He has given strict orders that he is at home to no one. But -there is no repose for the famed. An English school miss, who has -waited two hours in the rain, smuggles herself into the room: she -prattles her enthusiasm with pretty infantile gush: a few deft words -of paternal advice and she is summarily dismissed. But again the great -man's seclusion is desecrated by the entrance of a brother artist, a -pathetically grotesque figure of a megalomaniac failure whose publisher -complains that he spoils his one chance of success by refusing to die -and thus afford an opportunity for posthumous discovery. But the genial -tolerance of the illustrious one is considerably harshened when his -colleague insists on playing his own compositions in a scene every whit -as racy and delightful as the classic episode in Wycherley's _Plain -Dealer_, where Major Oldfox, having tied down the Widow Blackacre, -discharges at her helpless person the most deadly poetical fusillade. -Exit, however, the composer, after an interesting philosophic lecture -by his victim on the singer's life and of the contempt which as -a practical man (for at an early period in his career he was "in -carpets") he has for his fashionable bourgeois audience for whom he is -a mere article of luxury as much in request as a motor-car or a new -dress. Then, as the climax of this crescendo of invaders, enter Helene: -a formal invitation to elope: the artist, however, has his contracts -to fulfil and his train to catch, and the favour is declined with -thanks: tears and threats of suicide: he endeavours to pacify her, and -she promises to be good: he will miss his train if he is not quick. -The romantic woman, however, unable to bear the final parting, shoots -herself on the spot. The remorseful lover follows her example? Not a -bit of it. He is politely regretful for the contretemps, but after all -business is business, and he must catch his train. It is impossible -without copious quotations to give a full idea of the piquant irony -with which the comedy is salted; the truth and reality of the theme -stand out all the more brilliant from their garb of romantic travesty, -while the superb impudence of utilising death as an essentially comic -climax is without parallel in European literature. - -Let us, however, now turn from light comedy to serious tragedy in -the shape of _Der Totentanz_. The scene, as already mentioned, is -laid in a "private hotel." Where Shaw, however, sees but the problem, -Wedekind has only eyes for the poetry. To Shaw the irony is a weapon, -to Wedekind an end in itself. Elfrida, a young lady in Reformkleid, -one of the most militant members of a suppression society, interviews -the proprietor, the Marquis Casti Piani, on the subject of a former -maid of hers, for whom she has been searching for some years. The girl -is identified, and the whole question philosophically discussed. The -proprietor, moreover, who is an extremely well-dressed gentleman with -a first-class education, polished manners, and all the introspective -subtlety of the most modern of decadents, neatly turns the tables -by announcing that the real impetus which made the girl change her -calling was the "suppression literature" which the puritanical young -woman had with unpardonable carelessness left lying about. The ice -being thus broken, he proceeds in his capacity of sexual expert to -diagnose the respective psychologies of his _tete-a-tete_ and himself. -Why, they are both tarred with the same brush. If he, the trafficker, -pursues his unpopular vocation even more as a matter of sexual mania -than of commercial enterprise, so does she, the philanthropist, ply -her good work out of an equally morbid craving to move in a congenial -atmosphere. Are they not both but the obverse and reverse of the same -medal? Paradoxical and super-Shavian dissertations on the theory of -woman are then followed by blandishments and caresses, in respect of -which with a marvellous genius for brutality he chaffs her on the -crudity and inexperience of her technique. Then comes the most _outre_ -scene of the play when Casti Piani and Elfrida watch from behind -a screen the courtship of Lisiska, the missing servant-girl, by a -young man in a check knickerbocker suit; the bizarre paradox is but -accentuated by the swing and beauty of the lyrics in which this wooing -is conducted, and the distorted idealism of the girl, who, as the -martyr-priestess of the _joie de vivre_, is almost genuinely convinced -of the sanctity of her mission. The interlude over, the audience come -from behind the curtain. Stung to the wildest pitch of emulation, the -extreme limit of self-sacrificing ecstasy, the neurotic woman completes -the cycle of her psychic revolution by the supplication, "Verkaufen Sie -mich." The marquis, who has thus succeeded beyond his most sanguine -expectations, in a fit of nervous revulsion shoots himself before the -girl's eyes. Three of the inmates rush from three distinct doors, -and the over-civilised satyr expires with their kisses on his lips, -kisses savoured and criticised with all the frenzy of the moribund -connoisseur--"Kuesse mich--nein, das war nicht--Kuesse--kuesse mich -anders." - -It is impossible to express more cogently the whole tragedy of the -dying sensualist. - -No normal Englishman can be expected to enjoy such a play; in justice, -however, to the author, this freny is aesthetic as well as sexual. New -worlds, in fact, have been needed to regale the insatiate appetites of -the dramatist and his hearers; "Heaven has been blown to pieces by the -artillery of science; earth is cold, stale and unpalatable; perforce -let us batten on the fires of hell," would run his motto. As Baudelaire -in verse, and Beardsley in painting, found their theme in the vicious -and the abhorrent, so does Wedekind in the drama. As an ordinary play, -_Der Totentanz_ falls outside judgment; as a sheer literary curiosity, -a dramatic fantasia on the sex-motif, a deliberate essay in the art of -the ironical and the brutal, the piece achieves its own and peculiar -ambition. - -_Die Junge Welt_, on the other hand, flows in a current which, in -spite of the eventual madness of the principal male character, is -limpid and playful by comparison with the Phlegethontian course of the -_Totentanz._ The theme of the comedy is the woman movement. In the -prologue, one of his most aery and delicious pieces of work, Wedekind -shows us a bevy of schoolgirls at lessons, chattering, fooling, and -"ragging" their master with the most delightful _naivete_. They have a -pretty taste in literature, forsooth, reading surreptitious copies of -_The Arabian Nights_, talking gravely of Schopenhauer and Nietzsche, -and quoting with the prettiest of pedantry Schiller, Goethe, and even -Ovid. No mere prattlers, however. Glorying in their grievance, they -found a league, the solemn oath of whose members is never to marry -until the most glaring outrages in the education of the young are -remedied. Towards the end of the scene some youthful figures of the -opposite sex enter. How long will the league last? - -Then we come to the actual play where the sacred circle has been -already cut by a marriage of one of the members. The whole comedy, in -fact, shows how irresistibly the Life Force claims its own. The brisk -racy dialogue and the satiric character drawing of the ultra-moderns -are equally delicious. Particularly charming are Anna, masking the -temperament of her Shavian namesake beneath the pose of the new woman; -Karl, the picturesque scamp, who has married a seamstress on abstract -socialistic principles; and Meyer, the modern poet, who, when his -fiancee presents herself to recite a poem which he has written, in -the most faithful of Cupid costumes, is most righteously indignant -because--the dress fails to harmonise with the subtle spirit of his -masterpiece. - -A masterly little piece of irony, again, is the celebrated -stage-direction, when, at the climax of an intense passage, a -baby squalls, and is carried off the stage by its mother, to the -accompaniment of music. Perhaps, however, the deftest touch of -satire is the analysis of the decline of the _detraque litterateur,_ -accustomed to transcribe each kiss fresh from the lips of his beloved -into his artistic note-book.--"When I made my psychological studies on -Anna, then Anna becomes unnatural--on some other specimen--she became -jealous--there was no other alternative but to make them on myself." - -Wedekind's dramatic masterpieces, however, are _Die Erdgeist_. and -_Fruehlingserwachen_, which merit, consequently, a somewhat more -detailed analysis. _Die Erdgeist_, as has been already remarked, -deals with the theme of the modern Lilith, not from the point of view -of orthodox dramatic technique like Mr. Pinero, not scientifically -like Zola, but aesthetically. No show of esoteric detail, no orthodox -_denouement_; simply atmosphere. The play, together with its sequel, -_Die Buechse von Pandora_, constitutes the epic of the courtesan. In the -first act, Schwarz, a painter, is at work on the portrait, in pierrot -costume, of the wife of a Dr. Goll, a lady rejoicing in the various -Christian names of Nellie, Eva, and Lulu. A middle-aged journalist, -named Schoen, who is in the studio, is on old and friendly terms with -Frau Goll. The fact that female beauty is the _raison etre_ of the -creature's existence is soon made apparent by the following dialogue: - - LULU. Here I am. - - SCHOEN. Splendid. - - LULU. Well? - - SCHOEN. You put the wildest imagination to the blush. - - LULU. Do you find me nice? - - SCHOEN. You're a picture that makes artists despair. - -The pompous conventionalism of the doctor is seen almost immediately, -when he suggests with heavy gravity that she is not wearing her costume -with sufficient reserve. The artist proceeds to work, and the mere -mechanism of posing brings out at once the sheer sexuality of the -animal which he is painting. Goll is carried off by Schoen, and the -artist and the pierrot are left alone. The young painter proves more -attractive than the old professor, who arrives towards the climax of a -wild scene. In the scuffle, Goll is killed. Death, however, is a pet -theme of Wedekind, who proceeds to batten thereon with abnormal gusto. - - SCHWARZ. The doctor is bound to be here in a minute. - - LULU. Doctoring won't help him. - - SCHWARZ. Still, in a case like this, one does what one - can. - - LULU. He doesn't believe in doctors. - - SCHWARZ. Won't you, at any rate, change? - - LULU. Yes, at once. - - SCHWARZ. Why are you waiting? - - LULU. I say-- - - SCHWARZ. What? - - LULU. Please close his eyes. - - SCHWARZ. They are awful. - - LULU. Nothing like as awful as you. - - SCHWARZ. As I? - - LULU. You're a depraved character. - - SCHWARZ. Doesn't all this affect you? - - LULU. Yes, I too am as well moved. - - SCHWARZ. Then I ask you not to say anything. - - LULU. You are moved as well. - -Shocked by her comparative callousness, Schwarz subjects her to a -catechism--does she believe in a Creator, a soul, or anything--only to -find himself beating against an eternal "I don't know." - -So ends the first act, and this creature, whose hair is a net of -murder, whose lips are poisoned fruit, and whose eyes are pits of hell, -has already one death to her credit. - -The second act discloses Schwarz married to Lulu, and in the heyday of -artistic fame and fortune. A fleeting light is cast on the swamp, from -which the fiend has emerged, by the entry and departure of Schigolch, -her old ragamuffin of a sire. Then follows a _tete-a-tete_ between Lulu -and Schoen. Combining, as she does, the soul of an Ibsen woman with -the body of a Phryne, she complains of her husband's obtusity: "He -is not a child--he is commonplace--he has no education--he realises -nothing--he realises neither me nor himself--he is blind, blind--he -doesn't know me, but he loves me; that is an unbridgeable gulf." The -painter returns, and is given by Schoen the outlines of his wife's past. -Schoen had picked her out of the gutter at the age of twelve, and had -had her educated; her antecedents were ghastly; after the death of -Schoen's wife, Lulu wished to marry him; to obviate that, he made her -marry Dr. Goll with his half a million. Lulu is anxious to be good, -but must be taken seriously. The painter then commits suicide, and the -author feasts again on the carnage in a scene which, for sheer horror, -challenges even _Macbeth_. - -"After you," says Lulu, after they have heard the body fall, and Schoen -has opened the door. - - SCHOEN. There's the end of my engagement. Ten minutes ago - he lay here.[2] - - . . . . . . . . . . . . . - - SCHOEN. That is your husband's blood. - - LULU. It leaves no stain. - - SCHOEN. Monster! - - LULU. Of course you will marry me. - -Then, by way of a really strong curtain, they send for a reporter, and -dictate the official version of the thrilling story. The third act is -the dressing-room of Lulu; she has gone on the music-hall stage as a -barefoot dancer of classical measure; Schoen, having temporarily freed -himself from the spell, is about to marry a charming, "innocent child," -whom he has brought to witness the spectacle. The insult stimulates -the girl to a supernormal fascination. Having refused the proposals -of a prince, she deliberately sets herself to cast her wand over the -journalist. She mocks him brazenly, with her magic potency over him, in -a scene of the most subtle cruelty. - - SCHOEN. Don't look at me so shamelessly. - - LULU. No one is keeping you here. - -The Circaean witchery is complete, and the man, transformed, writes, at -the dictation of the enchantress, a letter breaking off his engagement. - -In the fourth act, nemesis is at hand. His marriage with Lulu shatters -the constitution of the aging journalist, who falls a victim to -persecution-mania. Lulu, though genuinely in love with him, surrenders -herself almost mechanically to the kisses of his son. The journalist -can stand no more--such a creature is not fit to live--she must commit -suicide with the revolver which he produces. Simply as a matter of -self-preservation, she turns the weapon against the man himself. Then -ensues the most devilish scene of all. Fearing the prison-cage, the -brute turns for help to the child of its prey: "I shot him because he -wanted to shoot me. I loved no man in the world like I did him. Alwa, -demand what you will. Look at me, Alwa; look at me, man, look at me." - -Those anxious for the further history of Lulu should turn to the livid -pages of _Die Buechse von Pandora._ There, in flaming characters, they -will read of her imprisonment, of how, being deprived of a mirror, -she at last found relief by seeing her reflection in a new spoon, of -her rescue therefrom by her inamorata, the Countess Geschwitz, and of -her flight to Paris with Alwa Schoen; they will read of her life there -among _souteneurs_, blackmailers, and millionaires, of her migration -from Paris to London, of her degradation to the streets, and her final -assassination at the hands of Jack the Ripper. - -Wedekind, who to the _metier_ of the artist joins that of the -_enfant terrible_, strains in this play every nerve to shock. As the -susceptibilities of the left wing of most of the English intellects -are about on a par with those of the right wing of the German aesthetic -movement, from our own point of view he more than overshoots the mark. -None the less, the English reader, though stifled amid the fumes of the -monstrous debauch, is forced to admire here and there passages of a -potency truly infernal. The final scene in the wet and noisome garret -is indisputably tragic, when the squalid thing gazes at Schwarz's -pierrot picture of her dead beauty, only to throw it in revulsion out -of the window, or where Alwa and Schigolch analyse the melancholy past. - - ALWA. She should have been a Catherine of Russia. - - SCHIGOLCH. That beast! - - ALWA. Although her development was precocious, she - once had the expression of a gay and healthy child of - five years old. She was then only three years younger - than I. In spite of her marvellous superiority to me - in practical matters, she let me explain to her the - meaning of _Tristan and Isolde_, and how fascinating - she was when I read it to her and she grasped its - meaning. From the little sister that felt herself like - a schoolgirl in her first marriage, she became the wife - of an unfortunate and hysterical artist; from being - the wife of the artist, she became the wife of my late - father; from being the wife of my father, she became my - mistress; so flows the stream of the world. Who can swim - against it? - -So ends a play not without some resemblance to Hogarth's _Harlot's -Progress_, if one can imagine the fanatical moralist treating such -a subject with the artistic irony of a very much Germanised Aubrey -Beardsley. - -But Wedekind's most serious contribution to dramatic literature is to -be found in _Fruehlingserwachen._ The orthodox stage-conventions, it -is true, are sweepingly ignored; the scene is changed with more than -Shakespearean frequency; the characters indulge in prolonged romantic -soliloquies; none the less, the night of genuine tragedy broods over -the whole piece. - -The first act opens with a conversation between Frau Bergman and her -daughter Wendla. The girl is growing up, fit to wear longer dresses, -and exhibiting the morbidity appropriate to her years. In the next -scene we see schoolboys at talk; with intense gravity they travel -from their work to religion, and from religion to sex, discussing the -Platonic and American systems of education, remarking that Superstition -is the Charybdis into which one flies out of the Scylla of religious -mania, or comparing notes on the growth of their respective manhoods. -Melchior, the leading spirit of the knot, promises to provide his less -experienced friend, Moritz, with a written synopsis of the mechanism -of life. In the third scene, we get the other side of the medal, when -a bevy of girls discuss life. How shall we dress our children? Which -is it better to be--a girl, or a man? Then, again, the scene is filled -with schoolboys, and we see the academic enthusiasm of young Germany. - -"I've got my move," cried Melchior. "I've got my move--now the world -can go to pot--if I hadn't got my move, I'd have shot myself." A -British youth with his cricket or football "colours" fresh on his -victorious head could not possibly have manifested a more sacred joy, -and one thinks incidentally of the Viennese student who shot the -professor who had ploughed him in his viva voce. - -Scene V, after a short philosophic exposition by Melchior of the -universality of egoism, contains an episode between himself and Wendla, -when at her own request he hits and beats her, so that, forsooth, she -may realise the sufferings of a friend of hers similarly handled by her -parents. After we have paid a visit to Melchior's study, where Melchior -and Moritz are reading _Faust_ together, we are transported once again -to the house of Wendla and her mother. This scene is the most pathetic -in the first act. The old fairy tales about the stork cease to obtain -credence, but the birthright of knowledge claimed by the child is -refused by the mother. - - "Why can't you tell me, Mother dear--see, I kneel at - your feet and lay my head upon your lap--you put your - skirt over my head and tell me, and tell me as if you - were alone in the room. I promise not to move--I promise - not to shriek." - -Could the dim forebodings of innocence, the harrowing consciousness of -mystery, be more poignantly delineated? - -In the third act, events move apace. A poetic nemesis befalls the -prudish mother, for the child surrenders all unwitting to the ardour -of Melchior. Spring has indeed awakened. Moritz, however, has been -unsuccessful at school; he wanders into the forest to make the end. -Four pages of soliloquy; a dramatic device, no doubt, but none the less -indicative of the exaggerated introspective pedantry of the average -German schoolboy. "I wander to the altar like the youth in old Etruria, -whose death-rattle purchased deliverance for his brothers in the coming -year." Then, when his thoughts are at their darkest, a pretty little -artist's model comes tripping along barefoot; gay and sparkling is her -careless life. "Come home with me." But the schoolboy has his lessons -to do, and he hies himself to his final task. Act III.--Apprehensive of -a suicide epidemic, the masters hold a meeting in which the question -of whether the window shall be open or shut is apparently of as much -importance as the expulsion of Melchior. Then comes the funeral of -Moritz; the father repudiates the paternity of so prodigal a son, while -the classical professor sapiently remarks, "If he had only learnt his -history of Greek literature, he would have had no occasion to hang -himself." Melchior, however, is still at large, and after a harrowing -dialogue between his father and mother, is packed off to a reformatory. - -But the transformation scene goes merrily on, and we behold first the -reformatory, from which Melchior effects an escape, and then Wendla's -sick-room. Amid the most trenchant satire on the pompous fashionable -doctor, it becomes apparent that the child has brought home to her -mother the full wages of innocence. - - FRAU BERGMANN. You have a child. - - WENDLA. But that is not possible, Mother. I am not - married. Oh, Mother, why did you not tell me everything? - -The finale of the play is laid in the churchyard, over whose wall there -clambers the escaped Melchior; he walks past the tombstone of Wendla, -dead from her mother's heroic efforts to save her reputation; after an -interview with Moritz, out for a nocturnal stroll, with his head tucked -under his arm, he meets a mysterious stranger, who launches him in the -world. - -Such is a synopsis of a play produced in Germany amid the wildest -acclamation and disparagement. Its success is largely due to the fact -that it is pregnant with a problem which, in Germany, at any rate, is -of peculiar moment. "Is such a subject capable of artistic treatment?" -demands the man of the old school. If, however, the treatment is -somewhat more drastic than in Longfellow's - - "Standing with reluctant feet - Where the brook and river meet," - -the subject is the same, the reason for the difference being that -German blood flows with a swifter current and a fuller volume than the -thin New England trickle of the early nineteenth century. As a sheer -piece of psychology, the work is as great as James's _The Awkward Age_, -if one may compare a Vulcanic forge with a Daedalean web. That, indeed, -the theme is unfit for tragic treatment, let those maintain whose -ideally balanced temperaments have never experienced the throes and -travails that attend the birth of manhood or womanhood. - -Some reference should be made to Wedekind's less important works--to -the somewhat inferior farce, _Der Liebestrank_; to the highly -serious _So ist das Leben_, a work whose psychology and symbolism -are analogous to Ibsen's _Volksfiend_[3]; to the amusing, but not -particularly significant _Marquis von Keith_, with its mixture of -the problem, the extravaganza, and the character study, and its -delightful comedy passage, when a boy wins his way with his father -by blackmailing him with suicide; to _Minnehaha_, the prose-poem, -compounded of the spirits of the classics and the coulisses; to the -satiric grotesque, _Oaha_, an elaborate skit on the celebrated Munich -journal with its chronic confiscations by the police and its special -"prison-editor"; and to _Hidalla_, that rollicking burlesque tragedy -of Free Love and Eugenics. On a higher plane, however, are the volume -of short stories, _Feuerwerk_, and the collection of poems entitled -_Die Vier Jahrzeiten_. Like Guy de Maupassant, Wedekind treats only -the one subject. His technique, however, is different, and while the -Frenchman crowns each tale with a climax, the German clothes it with an -atmosphere. _Feuerwerk,_ moreover, is worth reading, if only for the -style, with its noble simplicity and its majestic roll. The masterpiece -of the series is _Der Greise Freier_, where, set in the background of -an Italian honeymoon, lies painted the grey romance of a young girl -realising her love in the very arms of death. Matchless, again, as a -mock heroic _tour de force_ is _Rabbi von Ezra_, a philosophic sermon -by an aged Hebrew, delivered in the grandiose style of the prophets, -on his comparative experiences with the wife of his bosom and the -strange woman. The poems, also, are, with a few exceptions, innumerable -variations of the eternal theme. With all its fantastic bizarrerie, -reminiscent of Baudelaire, Poe, or Verlaine, the mood is throughout -more masculine, not to say more brutal. No lover has yet set his -enamoured features to a grin of such tigerish ferocity; no writer of -songs has yet refined melodious lyrics with such Nietzschean gusto, -such Satanic exultation. _Keuscheit_, in particular, is truly the -apotheosis of the super-brutal. In a more normal vein, making quite a -new departure in the art of light verse, is the charming poem beginning: - - "Ich habe meine Tante geschlachtet, - Meine Tante war alt und schwach." - -Of course it is inevitable that, like the Secessionist painters, -seeking, as he does, such drastic effects by such drastic means, when -he falls, he should fall with overwhelming heaviness. Occasionally, -instead of being powerful, he is merely crude. At his best, however, -his poems exhibit the swing and ripple of the authentic lyric. Typical -of him at his best are _Heimweh_ and _Der Blinde Knabe_. Yet now and -again the cry of the sufferer pierces the cynic's mask. - - "Ich stehe schuldlos vor meinem Verstand, - Und fuehle des Schicksals zermalmende Hand." - -Among Wedekind's more recent works we would mention _Zensur_ and -_Schloss von Wetterstein_ and, far more particularly, _Musik_ and -_Franziska_. - -_Zensur_, with its sub-title _a Theodicy_, is an _apologia pro vita -sua_, arising more particularly out of the fact that the play, _Die -Buechse von Pandora_, was actually censored even in Munich. The -protagonist of this work, _Walter Buridan_, is without disguise -Frank Wedekind, for the postulate of the Wedekindian personality, -as a fundamental element in contemporary national culture, is as -important in Germany as was some years ago the postulate of the Shavian -personality in England. And, indeed, with all his clownings and -buffooneries, Wedekind is frequently as serious as Mr. Shaw himself. It -will therefore be appreciated that the passage which we are now going -to quote out of the dialogue between Buridan and the Court official -is meant deliberately, not as a mere piece of impudence but in all -earnestness. - - BURIDAN. But can you adduce anything out of my writings - which hasn't for its ultimate object to glorify and - represent artistically that eternal justice before which - we all bend the knee with all humility? - - DR. PRANTL. What do you mean by eternal justice? - - BURIDAN. I understand by eternal justice the same thing - as that which John the Evangelist called the Logos. I - understand by it the same thing as that which the whole - of Christendom worships as the Holy Ghost. In no one - of my works have I put forward the good as bad or the - bad as good. I have never falsified the consequences - which accrue to a man as the result of his actions. I - have simply portrayed those consequences in all their - inexorable necessity. - -In a somewhat different vein is the weird trilogy, _In Allen Satteln -Gerecht_ (_Ready for Everything_), _Mit Allen Hueden Gehetzt_ (_Up -to Everything_), and _In Allen Wassern Gewaschen_, which have -been recently published together, under the title of _Schloss von -Wetterstein._ In these three plays the lascivious and the intellectual, -the monstrous and the real, the comic and the tragic, are linked -together in a union which, though to some extent burlesque, is on -the whole successful. The dialogue, in particular, in this hybrid -of tragedy and extravaganza, with its ingenious twists, its lusty -thwackings, its shrewd, violent thrusts, not merely home, but, as it -were, right through the body, is in its own way packed with genius. -Effie, in particular, with her insatiable appetite in the erotic -sphere, is the greatest _enfant terrible_ in the whole of modern -European literature. And truly tragic is her dismay when she discovers -that that _Unersaettlichkeit in Liebe_, on which she has built her whole -philosophy of life, is simply to be attributed to chronic indigestion, -and that the instantaneous effect which she produces upon males is -simply due to a diseased liver. - -More serious, though with the usual Wedekindian sardonic undercurrent, -is _Musik_. This play consists of four "pictures" from the life of -a young singing student, Klara Huhnerwadel, studying her art in the -household of a professor who is married to another woman. Events take -their normal course, but there is a great uproar owing to the arrest -and trial of the woman, through whose illegal assistance Klara had -successfully escaped the natural corollary of her rash romanticism. -Klara is consequently packed off across the frontier to avoid arrest -herself. She returns, however, is duly arrested, and the second -"picture" shows her in prison. In the third "picture," she is once -more back at the professor's house, and once more does history repeat -itself, though in this case the legal ordinances are not infringed. In -the fourth "picture," Klara has given birth to a son, of whom she is -devotedly fond. With true Wedekindian irony, however, the child dies on -the stage. Such is the skeleton of the plot, squalid, though no doubt -highly plausible. But the play must be read itself to appreciate the -sheer force of its sinister realism. The characters in this piece are -among the most convincing that ever walked the boards of a Wedekind -play, painted too in colours far more sober than those fantastic -luridities with which this author is accustomed to disport himself. -It is, in fact, if we may draw a slightly startling analogy, a "slice -of life" play of the Galsworthian genre. Before passing from _Musik_, -we would like to quote the passage describing the child's death as -typically characteristic of the author's brutal pathos. - - ELSE. The bath will do him good (_with her bare arm in - the water_)--it's all cooking salt--the salt won't hurt - him, will it, doctor? - - DR. SCHWARZKOPF (_by the cot, dully_). There is nothing - more to be done. The child is dead. - - KLARA (_gives an agonised shriek_). - - [_The_ Landlady _picks up the tub of water from the - floor and carries it out_. - -In _Franziska_ (1912), Wedekind has given fresh rein to his fantastic -exuberance. This weird drama deals with the experiences of an -ultra-modern Mademoiselle de Maupin, who, having sold herself to the -devil in the shape of an impresario, who holds her strictly to her -bargain, proceeds to see life like a veritable twentieth-century female -Faust. And life, forsooth, she sees with a vengeance, playing the smart -"blood" in a gay _Weinstube_; marrying a rich heiress, so naive and -so unsophisticated as to put everything down to sheer frigidity on -the part of her imagined husband; successfully masquerading in silk -knee-breeches to a silly old monarch as a genuine spirit, only finally, -like a contemporary - - "In veterem Caeneus revoluta figuram," - -to subside both purified and enlightened byher kaleidoscopic -experiences into the healthy bliss of the quasi-domestic life with a -new, honest, and well-meaning lover. - -The wild, rollicking humour of this play will perhaps appeal in vain -to the more stolid of our English minds. Some help may perhaps be -found for the due appreciation of this, and, indeed, of all Wedekind's -plays, if it be borne in mind that for a modern woman to live her own -life in Southern Germany (_sich auszuleben_, to employ the technical -and official phrase) is not revolutionary but elementary, and is far -more of a cliche than a new departure. Further, the play claims to be -treated not by the standards of the ordinary drama, but as a problem -farce, an Aristophanic modernity, a philosophic extravaganza, a -dramatic anomaly, very much _sui generis_, and consequently requiring -very special critical standards. Judging it by these standards, it is -impossible not to be swept away by the high spirits of this strange -piece of art. Who, too, can gainsay the practical up-to-dateness of a -play where maidens insure against children, wives against infidelity, -monarchs against madness? And who will not admire the almost morbid -conscientiousness of Franziska, who, having had one lover of the -name of Veit, and another lover of the name of Ralph, and becoming -subsequently a mother, determines, out of comprehensive precaution -and sheer sense of fairness, to call the little boy by the impartial -designation of Veitralph? It is, however, only fair to state, as we -have already hinted, that the play finishes up on a note of genuine -pathos and semi-conjugal affection. - -What, then, is Wedekind's final claim? As a play-wright in the ordinary -sense of the word, his pretensions are negligible. One of the most -marked features, however, of the last decade and a half has been the -evolution of fresh species in the genus drama. Thus, apart from the -drama or play of action, with its orthodox _denouement_ and climax, we -have the "idea" play, as in Mr. Shaw; the "slice of life" play, as in -Mr. Galsworthy; or the "aesthetic atmosphere" play, as in Maeterlinck. -Whether we call such work drama, or quasi-drama, is as immaterial -from the larger standpoint as the surname we choose to give to the -individual who did, or who did not, write _Hamlet_. Even, however, -with this extended classification, it is difficult to docket into any -definite pigeon-hole so idiosyncratic a temperament. If we have to -commit ourselves, we would say that the Wedekind play is the lyric play -of irony--irony both comic and tragic. Even making all due allowances -for defects, for the superfluous thickness with which sometimes he -places his harsh and violent colours, or for occasional amorphous -construction, as in _Fruehlingserwachen_, as a master of irony he is -indisputably a genius. No _soeva indignatio_, it is true, lends its -ethical sanction, no Hellenic [Greek: _eironeia_] its delicate grace: -it is for his own fiendish delectation that he plies his knout on that -world of abnormalities called into existence for this express purpose, -and writhing prettily in the most ingenious of dances. Yet with what -art and dexterity does he operate, finding with unerring aim the raw -place of his victims, and drawing from these apparent grotesques the -blood of genuine humanity. Your specialist will no doubt diagnose him a -decadent, yet he is tense with a frenzied virility. It is, as we have -said before, the very exuberance and violence of his energy that leads -him plumb the abyss. He has himself well expressed his whole outlook -on life, and indeed the whole Nietzschean standpoint, in the following -lines: - - "For them your kind and gracious face, - For me the sword smiles sweet, - For me the savage bear's embrace, - For them old Bruin's meat. - The brutal foe's own strife I choose, - They the humanities of truce." - - -[Footnote 1: _Cf._ the lines of Ricarda Huch to life: "Denn du bist -suss in deinen Bitternessen."] - -[Footnote 2: It is curious to notice that almost identical words were -used in _Irene Wycherley_.] - -[Footnote 3: "Volksfiend" (sic); German is "Volksfeind", Norwegian is -"Folkefiende"--transcriber's note--M.D.] - - - - -ARTHUR SCHNITZLER - - - "My dear friend, as far as that grotesque realism is - concerned, which considers it its duty to get along - without stage management or prompter, that realism in - which a fifth act frequently fails to be reached because - a tile has fallen upon the hero's head in the second - act--I am not interested. As for myself, I let the - curtain go up when it begins to be amusing, and I let it - go down at the moment which I consider fit." - - -In these words, touched with a delicate flippancy which is thoroughly -characteristic, Arthur Schnitzler endeavours to summarise that -technique which, though it has lifted him to the summit of the Austrian -drama, is as yet comparatively unknown to the English public, if one -excepts the recent performance by the Stage Society of _The Green -Cockatoo_ and _Countess Mizzi_, and the production of _Anatol_ at the -Palace Music Hall. - -It is, in fact, because Schnitzler's plays combining, and on the whole -combining efficiently, the psychological interest of pure "problem" -with the emotional interest of pure "drama," afford specimens of a -type novel to, at any rate, the majority of our theatre-goers, that -they provoke something more than a cursory examination, not only of -themselves, but of the standpoint and method of the man who wrote -them. Above all is this the case in a country like England, where -the problem play is hampered by so many handicaps. The exaggerated -officialdom of our English propriety, beneficial though it may be -from the moral aspect, produces artistically unfortunate results. -Many first-class problem plays are exiled from the stage, but that is -not where the mischief ends. Even when they are produced, it is only -to be looked on with suspicion as eccentric symptoms of dangerous, -not to say anarchistic tendencies. When, however, official and -"respectable" dramatists (_i.e._ dramatists of the stamp of Mr. Pinero -or of Mr. Sutro) produce so-called problem plays before official and -"respectable" audiences (_i.e._ audiences of a calibre other than -that of those who patronise the Little Theatre and Stage Society -performances), it will be usually found (if, indeed, the play is not -an innocuous family drama, or simply a comedy of intrigue, for in many -cases the word "problem" has degenerated into a mere euphemism for some -slight forgetfulness of the Seventh Commandment) that the dramatist -has sacrificed the duty of working out his problems logically and -artistically to the still more paramount duty of appeasing the moral -consciousness of his audience. - -Further, it is one of the precepts of our dramatic technique, most -honoured in the observance, that the action should take place among -people of high social position; as, however, it so happens that it is -rather among the more intellectual and introspective of the middle -classes that genuine problems tend to arise, the scope of the dramatist -becomes automatically narrowed. Of course we have our dramatic left -wing, Mr. Shaw, Mr. Galsworthy, Mr. Barker, our ultra-modern exponents -of the drama of ideas and the drama of psychology. But here, again, -our revolutionaries overshoot the mark in their reaction from the -orthodox. Mr. Shaw will bombard us with ideas till we can hardly -stand. When, however, we have recovered our balance, we observe that, -however indisputable may be his pre-eminence as a thaumaturgic apostle -of a successfully dechristianised Christianity, his characters are -marked by comparatively few traits of individual psychology, and -participate in comparatively little dramatic action. It is, indeed, -with profound appreciation of his weakness that "talking" is set by -Mr. Shaw as a final seal on the _Superman_. Mr. Galsworthy and Mr. -Barker, it is true, do give us not only elaborate discussion of social -problems (though not infrequently an airy discussion of things in -general is dragged in forcibly with no, or little, reference to the -action of the play), but also refined and delicate delineations of -individual character. But with the possible exception of the grandiose -and monstrous _Waste_ and the statuesque thesis and antithesis of the -sociological _Strife_, their plays are not dramatic. To express it with -almost childish implicity, their plays are not "exciting." With a few -exceptions, they are charged with no atmosphere and abut at no climax. - -Mere ideas, however, will not make the dramatic world go round, and -mere psychology often only makes it go flat. Few words are mouthed with -such fluent irresponsibility as "technique," but it may be said--and -said, we think, truly, and without affectation--that no play can be -a success without a certain minimum of "technique"; that is to say, -either one continuous thread of dramatic interest on which successive -acts are strung, or some particular arch-effect to which (especially if -a one-acter) the whole play abuts, and to the atmosphere of which all -the elements are harmoniously toned. - -The vice of the English drama, then, is this: plays of good technical -mechanism possess little or no "problem" interest; plays of "problem" -or psychological interest possess little or no technical mechanism. - -Let us, consequently, glancing first at his plays, and perhaps later -at those short stories which stand in the most intimate relation -to his one-acters, ascertain to what extent Schnitzler has solved -successfully the great "problem of the problem." - -_Liebelei_, which was produced first in 1895, is an excellent example -both of Schnitzler's powers and of Schnitzler's limitations. The -_motif_ of the play is the problem of the refined middle-class girl, -who stands, if we may borrow the terminology of popular melodrama, at -the cross-roads. Which turning is it better for her to take--the right -turning, or the wrong turning? - -Fritz, a sentimental young Viennese student, is discussing in his rooms -the affairs of his heart with the saner and more practical Theodor. -Fritz is melancholy. He has been sustaining a grand passion for a -married woman, but the looming shadow of the husband obsesses him. Are -his nerves playing him tricks, or has the husband ascertained? - -Theodor advises him to sail in shallower and less troubled waters. "You -must go for your happiness where I did--and found it, too--where there -are no great scenes, no dangers, and no tragic developments, where -the first steps are not particularly hard and the last, again, are -not painful, where one receives the first kiss with a smile and parts -finally with the softest feeling." - -Scruples are out of place on the principle, "Better myself than someone -else, and the someone else is as inevitable as Fate." - -Theodor, moreover, has not only prescribed the cure, but has ordered -the medicine. Enter Mizzi, the actual "happiness" of Theodor, -and Christine, the prospective "happiness" of Fritz. Mizzi the -practical prepares supper, while the sweet _naivete_ of the genuinely -unsophisticated Christine captivates the jaded soul of our _fin de -siecle_ romantic. There ensues a scene of the most delicate gaiety -and camaraderie. All is health and goodwill. Even Mizzi the prosaic -shows her passion for the picturesque on learning that Fritz is in the -Dragoons: - - MIZZI. Are you in the yellow or the black? - - FRITZ. I'm in the yellow. - - MIZZI. (_dreamily_). In the yellow. - -Could there be a more subtle probing into the soul of the -novelette-reading shopgirl? - -Then, at the zenith of the feast, when glasses are clinking and souls -are flowing, enter the skeleton. The company is packed into the next -room, and Fritz is left to arrange a duel with the man whom he has -wronged. Exit the skeleton, re-enter the revellers; yet the shadow of -the looming death casts a gloom even over the unconscious minds of -the others. The girls bid a gay farewell to the young men, but the -aftermath of the old love is already poisoning the sweets of the new. - -The next scene is in the lodgings of Christine on the eve of that duel -of which the love-stricken girl is in blissful ignorance. Christine, -_bien entendu_, in contradistinction to the casual and heart-whole -Mizzi, is taking her love-affair with the maximum of seriousness. -Katherine, a benevolent busybody of a neighbour, puts Weiring, the -musician father of Christine, on his guard. Weiring, however, having -been the uncomplaisant brother of his sister, is determined, on the -strength of his experience, to be the complaisant father of his -daughter. - - WEIRING. I became, Heaven knows, proud, and gloried in - my conduct--and then, little by little, the grey hairs - came and the wrinkles, and one day went by another - till her whole youth was gone--and gradually, so that - one could scarcely notice it, the young girl became an - old maid, and then I first began to suspect what I had - really done. - - KATHERINE. But, Herr Weiring.... - - WEIRING. I can see how she often used to sit with me in - the evening by this lamp in this room, with her silent - smile, with a strange kind of devotion, as if she still - wished to thank me for something, and I--the one thing - I wanted most to do was to throw myself on my knees and - ask for her forgiveness for guarding her so well from - all dangers and from all happiness. - -The act ends with a love-scene between Christine and Fritz, poignant in -its irony. He is all-in-all to her, she is just something to him; but -he goes off to fight a duel on account of another woman without so much -as bidding her a real farewell. - -In the third act the news of Fritz's death is broken to Christine, -and here comes the most subtle and delicate touch of all. Poignant as -is her grief at his death, her grief at the casual flippancy of his -treatment is even more poignant. Our _fin de siecle_ Ophelia rushes -madly out of the house to commit suicide in the nearest brook, or -perhaps more probably under the nearest train, to point the philosophic -moral, "_A bas la grande passion! Vive l'Amourette!_" - -The play, however, should be read or seen to obtain an adequate -appreciation of the precision with which each character is drawn, the -spontaneity with which the dialogue flows, and the lyric pathos with -which the whole is invested. The limitations, such as they are, simply -lie in the fact that each act is self-complete in itself. However -good they may be, three consecutive one-acters never made a drama. -To compare great things with low, each act of a drama, like each -instalment of a _feuilleton_, should leave, as it were, the hanging -tag of some vital interrogation. The dramatic banquet should not only -regale the mind of the spectator during, but titillate it with the -aftermath between the acts. - -As we shall see later, when he comes to dramatise on the larger -scale, Schnitzler not infrequently exhibits the defects of those very -qualities which make him so supreme in the sphere of the one-acter. - -In _Maerchen_ (the Fairy Tale), on the other hand, the problem is -brought more officially into the foreground of the play, while each -act is more closely connected with those which follow or precede it. -Fedor Denner, a romantic young journalist (nearly all Schnitzler's -young men are highly romantic), is in love with Fanny, a young actress -on the threshold of theatrical success, and of those dangers which -follow so closely in the wake of theatrical success. Fedor, moreover, -is not only romantic, he is modern--ultra-modern. And so, in the -inspiring atmosphere of Fanny's home circle, where the mother bustles -about with the refreshments and the "good" piano-teacher of a sister -discourses music for the edification of the journalists, painters, and -students who frequent the house, he gives an impassioned little lecture -on the "Fairy Tale of the Fallen Woman" and on the "washed-out views -and dead-beat ideas" of which the fairy tale is composed. The little -lecture, however, goes off just a little too successfully. In a climax, -marvellous in its tacit concentration, Fanny takes an opportunity -of kissing his hand. Fedor is revolted, however, by the revelation -implied in this pathetic gratitude. He had contemplated marriage, but -now----. For the time being he nurses in solitary misery all the pangs -of retrospective jealousy. Then Fanny, unable to bear the separation, -rushes headlong into his arms. Then comes the great act of the play. We -are back once more in the house of Fanny's mother. The young actress, -having scored a brilliant success on the Vienna stage, has been offered -a splendid contract in St. Petersburg by Moritzki, the agent. If, -however, she goes to St. Petersburg, she will have to face the pains -and pleasures of life unsheltered by the respectability of a family. -The problem is acute. Fanny, however, places the Fate of her life on -the knees of--Fedor. And Fedor shuffles and vacillates. - - FANNY. Come, and you--what do you say yourself? - - FEDOR. After you have received Herr Moritzki at the - house you can scarcely seriously mean to refuse him. - - FANNY. Herr Denner, I consider you an exceptionally - shrewd man, I ask you for your advice. - - FEDOR. Yes, I think ... I would accept. - - Fanny. Good! [_To_ Moritzki.] Herr Moritzki. - -Woman-like, however, having signed the contract, she craves time to -reconsider. Fedor looks at it again. - - FANNY. Fedor--you gave me the contract back. - - FEDOR. Well, yes. - - FANNY. You should have torn it up, dear. Why didn't you - do it? - - FEDOR. You should not have signed it, Fanny. - - FANNY. Fedor! It is unbearable--you're driving me out of - my senses. - - FEDOR. But you yourself don't quite know your own mind. - There's something in you which craves for adventures. - - FANNY. Fedor--if you would only put me to the test--I - will do anything you want--only tell me. - -And then, eventually, Fedor owns up. - - FEDOR. Would I not still have to kiss away from your - lips the kisses of other men? - -And so Fanny forsakes the life of domesticity for the life of the -actress. - -The chief defect, however, in this play is that, in spite of all its -dramatic compound of psychology, pathos, and problem, the problem is -not fairly presented, in that Fanny, being of inferior social status -to Fedor, the question of whether he shall marry her must inevitably -be influenced by purely snobbish considerations. It is only when the -woman is of equal, if not slightly superior, rank to the man that the -real problem of her ante-nuptial chastity can be discussed with real -sociological fairness. - -In _Die Vermaechtniss_ (produced in Berlin in 1898), the problem which -our dramatist has made the centre of his play is the relation to the -family of the mistress and child of the dead son of the house. The -dashing young cavalry officer is brought home fatally wounded from -a fall from his horse. Realising his approaching death, he informs -his parents of his responsibilities. Death raises the home circle to -a pitch of more than ordinary humanity. In spite of their poignant -jealousy at the existence of other affections and another home life, -they send for their son's household, and accede to his dying request to -incorporate it into the family. - -Act II shows the mistress installed in the bosom of her lover's family. -Modernity, however, though satisfying to the heroic pose, has its -penalties. Our ultra-modern family finds itself confronted with social -ostracism. Still, they love their grandchild, and the mother of the -grandchild is the price that they must pay. But the grandchild dies. -The semi-official daughter-in-law consequently becomes a somewhat -unprofitable luxury, and in the final act is given her _conge_. Even -more than in _Liebelei_, however, the claim to merit lies almost -exclusively in the precision with which each successive phase of -the problem is portrayed. As a series of family pictures, the play -succeeds, and succeeds brilliantly; as a drama of continuous interest, -it fails, and fails hopelessly. - -The next play of Schnitzler is _The Veil of Beatrice._ This "tragedy -of sensualism" has qualities too arresting to be lightly disregarded. -The dramatist has forsaken his problems to portray how the fatal -temperament of a young girl of the Italian Renaissance works out its -own destruction. - -In the first act, we are shown the garden of Filippo, a poet of -Bologna, which is on the eve of being plundered by the enemy. The -heads on Bolognese shoulders are worth little purchase, and who leaves -not the town to-night will never leave the town at all. The Duke -invites Filippo to the palace to recite his poems. Filippo refuses, -so that he may leave the city of doom with his beloved Beatrice, -a daughter of the people. On learning, however, that Beatrice has -dreamt of the Duke, he spurns her in an egoistic paroxysm of refined -jealousy, typical in its subtlety more of the twentieth century than -the Renaissance. - - "So much I give thee, more than thou canst dream, - So much that to be worthy of my love, - Loathing should fasten on thee at the thought - This earth is trod by other men than I." - -Beatrice leaves him with the vague intimation-- - - "Feel I that without thee I cannot live - And have desire for death, I come again - To take thee with me." - -In the second act, Beatrice is on the point of marrying her legitimate -suitor, Vittorino, and escaping from the town, when the Duke appears -and proposes to exercise the _jus ultimae nodis_. Owing to the -remonstrances of her brother Francesco, he generously offers to -relinquish his intentions. Beatrice is bidden to go on her way, but -stands riveted to the spot by a fatalistic impulse to realise her -dream. And what is more, she insists on being the wife of the Duke. -Her wish is granted. The nuptials are celebrated by a gigantic _fete_ -in the palace, whose doors are thrown open to rich and poor. Beatrice, -however, with the placid _naivete_ of her will-less temperament, flies -to Filippo. - - "What boots it, - Were I this eve an empress to whom worlds - Bowed, or the callat of a fool? For I - Am with thee now to die by thine own side." - -Filippo pretends to poison both her and himself, and on her discovering -the ruse, commits suicide in earnest. Beatrice rushes back to the -palace, but discovering that she has left behind that priceless veil -which was the wedding-gift of her husband, leads back the Duke to the -chamber of love and death. The living is confronted with the dead -rival, and the indignant Francesco slays his sister. - -The power of this tragedy, however, lies not so much in the actual -plot or even in the marvellous delineation of Beatrice, gracefully and -innocently childish in the very irresponsibility of her fated sin, -as in the rich tints of the picture and the gorgeous frame in which -the picture is set. All the multicoloured elements of the Renaissance -take their place in the vivid scheme--poets, sculptors, courtiers, -courtesans, soldiers, and populace. Annihilation and vitality grow each -more grandiose from their mutual juxtaposition, and the red blood of -life flows but the quicker and the warmer beneath the black shadow of -doom. Few more eloquent tragedies have been written on the great twin -themes: "In the midst of life we are in death; in the midst of death we -are in life." - -Reverting back to prose, we come to _Der Einsame Weg_ (_The Lonely -Way_, 1903). If, however, the tendency to import the methods of -the short story and the long novel were apparent in _Liebelei_ and -_Vermaechtniss_, it is even more marked in this play. A son, finding -a sire in the shape of the middle-aged lover of his now dead mother, -repudiates the natural for the putative father; a neurotic and -over-sexed young girl, finding that her lover, unknown to himself, is -suffering from an incurable disease, dies by her own act. These are the -two _motifs_, knit together by no shred of logical connection, which -form the threads on which the drama is hung. Yet, if here we have -Schnitzler at his worst, the many excellences even of this play attest -by implication the merits of Schnitzler at his best. The scene between -father and son is a sheer masterpiece. How delicately does the father -intimate that "mothers also have their destinies like other women." And -how complete is his rejection. - - JULIAN. It is now absolutely impossible for you to - forget that you are my son. - - FELIX. Your son--it is nothing but a word--it is a mere - empty sound--I know it, but I don't realise it. - - JULIAN. Felix! - - FELIX. You are further away from me since I know it. - -Interesting, again, is the Nietzschean sanction for intrigue: "One has -the right to exploit to the completest extent all one's life with all -the ecstasy and all the shame which is involved." - -Far superior, however, to _Der Einsame Weg_, with its heavy Ibsenite -atmosphere, is _Zwischenspiel_ (1905), where that problem of the -quadrangle, compared to which that of the triangle is from the more -advanced standpoint but _vieux jeu_, is treated with the most delicate -and biting raillery. Victor Amadeus, the pianist, and his wife -Cecilie, the singer, love each other with as much genuine constancy -as can be expected from normal persons of the artistic temperament. -Victor Amadeus, however, philanders with a countess, and his wife -with a prince. Mutual jealousy! Too civilised, however, to interfere -by any display of primitive emotion with the sacred love of the -new modernity, they grant each other, on general principles, _carte -blanche_. And so, at the end of Act I, they separate for their mutual -holiday. Henceforward the husband and wife are to be the most Platonic -of comrades. The necessities of their professional engagements, -however, bring about their meeting in their old home. But the -affair with the countess is dead, and the affair with the prince has -apparently not yet matured. Then do Victor Amadeus and Cecilie forget -the ultra-modern theories which they are bound in duty to exemplify, -and only realise that they are man and woman. Bursting with his new -humanity, Victor Amadeus begins in the third act to be quite jealous -of the prince. His astonishment can consequently be imagined when his -Serene Highness presents himself to ask the husband formally for the -hand of the wife. On the situation being explained to him, the prince -gracefully retires, gallant gentleman that he is. But the reunited pair -cannot live happily ever after. Cecilie, it is true, had been faithful, -but faithful, she explains, by the narrowest of margins. She cannot -guarantee the future; and does not history repeat itself? True, they -had loved each other, but what love can be proof against the theories -of the newer sexual ethics? - -"If we had only before," says Cecilie, "shrieked into each other's -faces our rage, our bitterness, our despair, instead of posing as -superior people who never lost their heads, then we should have been -true to ourselves--and that we never were." - -And so that parting, taking place, as it does, when all barriers but -their two selves have disappeared, rings down the curtain on this most -brilliant of satires on the ultra-modern. - -On almost as high a level is _Freiwild_[1], a piece which gains an -added interest from the fact that it has not only been censored because -an army officer is given a box on the ears, but that the actors on one -occasion refused to play it till solemnly assured by the author that -the apparent realism of the portrayal of the _procurer-impresario_ -was, after all, merely poetic licence. The play is a vehement satire -on the duel. In a scene marvellous in its ingenious stagecraft -and airy atmosphere, we are shown the picturesque gardens of an -Austrian pleasure resort. Close by is the local theatre, where -musical comedy is performed for the entertainment of officers. One -of the actresses, however, Anna, shocks all orthodox traditions by -refusing to participate in that social life which, according to the -manager, is the sacred duty of the efficient chorus girl. For Anna, -Paul Rohring, an analytical painter, entertains feelings which are -quixotic, and Karinski, a heavy bully of a fire-eater, feelings typical -of a less exalted Don. But the overtures of Karinski are rebuffed -ignominiously. Rohring[2] cannot repress the smile of sarcastic -triumph. The discomfited lady-killer, aspersing the name of Anna -with an insolent _gaucherie_, has his ears boxed for his pains. The -inevitable challenge is brought to Rohring by one Poldi, the complete -exponent of punctilious aristocracy, the past-master in all the -intricacies of the _duelli codex_, the super-gentleman. But Rohring, -who is anxious to marry Anna and live a long and happy life, rejects -the inevitable challenge. Genuine consternation on the part of Poldi, -who explains that the unpurged shame of the box on the ears spells -ruin to Karinski's military career. Poldi proposes a compromise--the -solemn farce of a bloodless duel. Rohring, however, disdains playing -dummy parts in solemn farces. It is all madness. It is in vain that the -incarnation of military honour expostulates. - -"For you it is madness, but others have grown up in this madness; what -is madness to you is for others the very element in which they live." - -Finally, Rohring is given to understand that, unless he flees, the -outraged Karinski will shoot him at sight. But with a somewhat human -perversity our heroic painter refuses to run away. An encounter _a -l'Americaine_ takes place in the gardens, but Rohring, drawing just -a second too late, is shot dead. And now, as orthodox applause to the -red-handed, cold-blooded murderer, comes from the mouth of Karinski's -own friend in six words the indictment of the duel, irrevocably damning -in the cold subtlety of its satire: "And now you have won back your -honour." - -If, however, in this play Schnitzler proved his ability to write a -problem drama which should be something more than a mere series of -isolated phases, we find again in his next play, _The Call of Life_, in -spite of its many excellences, the old taint of the one-acter. - -The _motif_ of the play is the claim of the desire for life to ride -rough-shod over all other claims. A beautiful daughter is wasting the -best years of her life in the care of a querulous father, incurably -ill, but never dying. The little garrison town is agog with the -excitement of a newly declared war. This war, moreover, has a special -interest, in that the local regiment, the Blue Cuirassiers, had in -the last war, by ignominious flight, branded itself with shame. -Though this episode took place over thirty years ago and none of the -actual renegades are now in the regiment, the Blue Hussars, with that -inflated idea of honour only found in Teutonic countries, resolve -to purge the disgrace by dying gloriously in the front of the fray. -Among the officers is Lieutenant Max, who has cast on Marie, the -beautiful daughter, eyes of admiration. Irony, moreover, sharpens the -situation when the bedridden father, who was once a member of the Blue -Cuirassiers, explains he himself was responsible for the historic -flight. - - "What was the good of it? Who would have thanked me? - They would have put me in a grave with a thousand others - and piled the earth on top, and that would have been the - end of it. And I wouldn't have it. I wanted to live--to - live like others. I wanted to have a wife and children - and live. And so I rushed from the field; and so it has - happened that the young men whom I don't know are going - to their death and that I still live on at seventy-nine - and will survive them all--all--all." - -The old soldier, however, is unduly sanguine as to the protraction of -his life, for the same call of life which ordered him from the battle -orders his daughter to pour poison into the water for which he now -craves. - -It is outside the purpose of this essay to argue the ethics of this -precipitation of the inevitable. Suffice it that it constitutes a most -efficient curtain--a curtain, however, so efficient that there seems no -compelling necessity for a continuation of the play. A continuation, -however, there is, and in the rooms of Max, which are visited at night -by Marie, who ensconces herself behind a curtain. She sees the major's -wife come to urge a vain prayer that he should desert the army and -elope with her. They are discovered by the major, who, shooting the -wife, spares the lover. It is, however, when the major leaves that we -understand the intense hypertrophy of life evoked by imminent death. -Marie, knowing all, yet presents herself. Max can only realise that -his life has but a few remaining hours, and that these remaining hours -stand now before him. Another curtain, strong, if slightly crude, yet -followed by a third act, which is nothing but an epilogue. - -This somewhat exaggerated scorn, however, of such of the more -complicated effects of theatricalism as are manifested in the ingenious -concatenation of the plot, or the representation of sensational -incidents which have no justification but their own inherent dramatic -force, fails absolutely to affect Schnitzler's position as a writer of -one-act plays. Indeed, it is his subordination of plot to atmosphere -that constitutes in this sphere his paramount excellence. As, moreover, -Mr. Henry James in his _Embarrassments and Terminations_ wrote short -stories independent in themselves yet harmonising with some permeating -_motif_, so has Schnitzler in his _Anatol_, _Marionetten_, and -_Lebendigen Stunden_ given us symmetrical one-act sequences. - -Let us deal first with the Anatol-Cyclus, a series of one-acters -portraying the amoristic vicissitudes of a _fin de siecle_ -sentimentalist, flitting prettily from heart to heart, till he is -eventually encompassed by the matrimonial net. Little action weighs -down these delicate pieces. Anatol and the flame of the moment -participate in a dialogue, or Anatol appeals to the worldly wisdom of -his friend Max to rescue him from some dilemma in which he has been -landed by his own weakness or his own folly. That is all. Yet each -piece sheds a little more light upon the holy of holies of Anatol's -heart, and illumines with equal clarity and colour the charm and -individuality of each successive priestess of the temple. Though -no doubt the chief effect of the cycle lies in its accumulative -force, some idea of the general airiness and brilliance may perhaps -be obtained by a short sketch of two of the most striking. In _The -Question to Fate_ Anatol confides to Max his anxiety. Does the flame -of the moment burn true and for him alone? By hypnotism he proposes -to extract from his unconscious love that answer which will make him -either the happiest or the most miserable of mankind. Cora enters, and -is duly soothed into a hypnotic trance. Anatol, however, insists on -being left alone with her at this critical moment of his fate, so Max -retires into the adjoining room. And now, when the helpless girl is -ready to answer every question, and, what is more, to answer it with -automatic accuracy, and the book of truth lies ready in his trembling -hand, the seeker of knowledge has not the courage to know. Waking her -up with a kiss, he expresses complete reassurance to the re-entering -Max. Cora, however, manifests a perhaps intelligible anxiety as to the -nature of her answers. - -In the _Farewell Supper_, the scene of which is laid in the _cabinet -particulier_ of a Viennese restaurant, Anatol describes to Max the -ineffable woes of being on with the new love before he is off with the -old. What a strain it is, moreover, to be compelled to eat two suppers -every night! However, he and Anna (the old love) had at the initiation -of their romance arranged to confide to each other the first symptom -of approaching _ennui_. To-night at this supper he will tactfully -intimate that she is no longer indispensable to his soul's happiness. -He implores Max to stay as the helpful buffer in an inevitable scene. -Enter Anna, fresh from the stage and hungry for oysters. The pangs of -starvation temporarily appeased, Anna announces that she has something -important to communicate. She has grown tired of Anatol and fallen in -love with another. She hopes he will not mind, but better she should -tell him now than when it was too late. Collapse of Max into uproarious -laughter. With pique mingling with his relief, Anatol rises to the -occasion, professing the righteous indignation of a wounded spirit. To -vindicate his _amour-propre_, he contemptuously informs her that he -too has fallen in love with another, but as far as he is concerned his -confession does come too late. "Only a man could be so brutal," retorts -Anna; "a woman would never be so tactless as to say anything so crude." -And so the comedy ends with the girl carrying off the remains of the -supper to her cavalier round the corner. - -The whole cycle, however, should be read to appreciate the racy ripple -of the dialogue, the subtle malice of the characterisation, and the -general verve and irony of these most sparkling of comedies. - -Perhaps at this moment it may be convenient just to mention the -audacious psychology of the super-Boccacian _Reigen_. English decorum, -no doubt, for-bids anything but the most casual allusion to this -sequence of duologues, where all the members of the social hierarchy -are linked together by participation in the same eternal plot. - -Yet in its way, this book, written originally for a select circle -and subsequently published by universal request, is one of the most -refined feats of intellectualism which Schnitzler has ever performed. -For the delicacy of the style is in inverse ratio to the delicacy -of the subject-matter, and the various nuances of social technique -are described and differentiated with the masterly touch of combined -experience and intuition. Scarcely suited, no doubt, as a Sunday School -prize, the book will, none the less, well repay perusal by modern men -and women of the modern world. - -The series _Marionetten_, to which allusion has already been made, has -for its _motif_ the ironic tragedy of those who essay to manipulate -the lives of others. The best of three plays is _The Puppet-player_. -To the happy fireside of Eduard and Anna there is introduced an old -friend, George Merklin, whom the husband had casually encountered. -Merklin is a picturesque, if battered, Bohemian who encircles himself -somewhat showily with a halo of alleged mysticism. The whole art of -the dramatist, however, in this little piece is devoted to creating -an atmosphere of light melancholy, in which the poetic isolation of -the second-rate genius, Merklin, stands in vivid contrast to the -prosaic happiness of his less gifted friend. The climax comes when it -transpires that Merklin had loved Anna in the past and had brought the -two together by way of a psychological experiment at a Bohemian supper. - - "The little girl who was so nice to you simply did what - I wished. You two were the puppets in my hand. I pulled - the strings. It was arranged that she should pretend to - be in love with you. For you always roused my sympathy, - my dear Eduard; I wanted to awake in you the illusion - of happiness, so that you should be ready for true - happiness when you found it." - -And so this shoddy superman goes out into this lonely world, having -played with the fates of others only to have played away his own life's -happiness. - -Perhaps, however, Schnitzler's most characteristic series of one-acters -is the one headed _Lebendige Stunden_. Life should be weighed as -much by quality as by quantity. One man can traverse more life in a -few seconds than another in whole years. It is typical, however, of -Schnitzler's method that he essays not merely to lead up to a violent -climax by artifices of calculated stagecraft, but to set the vivid hour -in an harmonious and poetic frame. The most striking of the series is -the extraordinary fantasia, _The Woman with the Dagger_. - -Leonhardt, a seriously romantic youth, in apparently the full flush of -his first grand passion, meets the wife of a dramatic author in the -Renaissance saloon of a picture gallery. Pre-eminent among the pictures -on the wall is that of a woman robed in white, holding a dagger in her -uplifted hand, and gazing at the floor as if there lay someone whom -she had murdered. It is then in this atmosphere that our gallant urges -his suit to the unresponsive Pauline, who coolly informs him that she -has confessed to her husband that she is in danger, and that they are -travelling away to-morrow. And then, as she is on the point of saying -farewell, she stands before the picture. - - PAULINE (_looking closer_). Who lies there in the shadow? - - LEONHARDT. Where? - - PAULINE. Do you not see? - - LEONHARDT. I see nothing. - - PAULINE. It is you. - - LEONHARDT. I? Pauline, what an extraordinary jest! - -And then, as they look and look, they fall into an hypnotic trance and -the clock of the world goes back some five hundred years. Pauline has -become Paola, and Leonhardt, Lionardo, while the racy Viennese idiom is -turned to classical blank verse. It is early dawn in the studio of the -Master Remigio, and Remigio is away on his travels. Lionardo arrogates -the claims of love on the strength of the favours which he has just -enjoyed. Paola spurns him as the mere mechanical toy of her passion. -She loves and has always loved her husband. That this is no mere pose -is apparent from the fact that on the sudden entrance of the husband -she immediately elucidates the situation. Remigio, however, with a -sublime tolerance, perhaps more typical of the husband in Mr. Shaw's -_Irrational Knot_ than of a hot-blooded Italian, pardons Paola on the -general principles of twentieth-century philosophy. Lionardo, however, -piqued and insulted as being regarded as - - "The glass, the poor mean glass - From which a child drank a forbidden draught, - The merest pitiful tool of a chance and fate," - -vows vengeance on Remigio. Paola anticipates this vengeance by killing -Lionardo on the spot with a dagger, thus exemplifying the pose of the -picture. Remigio rises to the occasion and seizes on this splendidly -tragic attitude to complete an unfinished portrait of this loyalest of -wives. - -And then they awaken from their trance. But the magnet of destiny draws -them inexorably. Pauline grants the assignation, with an air, however, -of mystic fatality, which shows only too well with what precision the -present must once again mirror the past. - -But perhaps the most sustained and elaborated specimen of our author's -method is the ironic tragedy of the French Revolution, _The Green -Cockatoo._ The "Green Cockatoo" is an underground tavern where -brilliant, if disreputable, actors give, for the edification of their -aristocratic audiences, impromptu representations of crime and vice. - -Henri, the star-man, moreover, has just married the actress Leocadie, -not for the sake of paradox, but in all seriousness. When his turn -comes, he rushes on to the stage shouting out that he found his wife, -Leocadie, with her lover the duke, and killed her. Such a calamity -being not apparently _prima facie_ improbable, even the manager is -almost as alarmed as the audience, till he realises that the whole -thing is but an histrionic _tour de force_. And then, as the play -progresses, the atmosphere becomes more and more lurid with impending -gloom. Jest and reality intermingle in the subtlest of ironies. It is -part of the entertainment that the ragamuffins should lavish on their -patrons the freest of insults. But is there not a paradox within the -paradox, when one remembers that the Bastille has fallen that very -day? The various types, moreover, of an aristocracy exhibiting the -levity of people who are shortly going to be hanged are delightfully -portrayed--the _viveur_, "for whom every day is lost in which he -has not captured a woman or killed a man," the pretty young noble -whose corrupt flirtation is so deftly adumbrated, and the lascivious -_grande dame_, who, in spite of her husband's anxiety, is very far -from shocked at these spectacular novelties. And then Henri snaps -up the truth from the demeanour of the manager and his colleagues. -The Duke comes on to the stage and the actor then gives yet another -representation of the avenging husband--and this time he surpasses -himself, for he is but acting the truth. - -Less sensational, but of equal psychological grimness, is the play -_The Mate_, which is in the same series as the _Green Cockatoo_. The -theme is the pathetic irony of the illusion of a middle-aged professor, -who gives an almost paternal benediction to what he fondly imagines -to be the grand passion of his young and temperamental wife. When, -consequently, his wife dies suddenly, the husband is prepared quite -honestly to condole with the lover, for after all has he not a right to -be pitied even more than himself? When, therefore, he learns from his -young colleague that he has just become engaged to another girl with -whom he has been in love for some time his righteous indignation is -unbounded. - - "I would have raised you from the ground if you had - been broken by grief. I would have gone with you to her - grave, if the woman who is lying over there had been - your love; but you have turned her into your wanton, - and you have filled this house with lies and foulness - right up to the roof till it makes me sick--and that's - why--that's why, yes, that's why I'm going to kick you - out." - -But there is an anti-climax within an anti-climax, for the man learns -from a mutual woman friend of the dead woman and of himself, that the -imagined _grande passion_ had been even from the standpoint of the lady -nothing more or less than a miserable trumpery adventure. - -Reverting now to Schnitzler's longer plays, some mention should be -made of _Komtesse Mizzi_, _Der Junge Medardus_, and, above all, _Das -Weites Land_. - -_Komtesse Mizzi_, entitled, appropriately enough, "A Family Day" is in -form a one-acter, though of sufficient length and substance to have -obtained separate publication. There is little, if any, action. The -play is based on character, dialogue, and situation. Yet it possesses -distinct psychological titillation in its presentation of a daughter -who takes a filial interest in her father's "actress-mistress," and who -is sensible enough, aristocrat though she is, to meet the lady herself -with all friendliness, and chat with her as woman to woman without the -slightest affectation. This feminine freemasonry, however, is perhaps -explained by the fact that the countess herself has lived her own -life, to such good effect that she is the mother of a grown-up boy by -her father's best friend, Prince Egon. When, consequently, the prince -introduces the boy as his own natural child by an unknown mother, the -atmosphere becomes somewhat rare. At first highly irritated, she treats -with frigid indifference the frank exuberant youth, who divines the -truth with instinctive intuition, only, however, shortly afterwards to -consent to marry the prince, and thus become the official stepmother -of her own long-lost child. The racy worldly optimism of this play is -particularly characteristic of the essentially benevolent malice of the -Schnitzlerian cynicism. - -Of a totally different order is _Der Junge Medardus_, a long play -of historical patriotism, specially written for the respectable and -official Burg Theater of Vienna. It might seem indeed at first sight -that Schnitzler, the refined, ultra-modern analyst, would be somewhat -out of his element amid all the blood and thunder of the Napoleonic -campaigns, which _prima facie_ offer but small scope for psychological -subtleties. The _tour de force_ consequently becomes all the more -creditable when the author, in spite of all his trappings of patriotic -melodrama, manages successfully to execute his own favourite tricks. -The canvas on which this drama is portrayed is so vast as to render -any synopsis necessarily inadequate. The idyll, however, and double -suicide of the young French prince Franz and the bourgeois girl Agatha, -is one of the purest and sweetest love episodes which Schnitzler -has ever written. But it is Agatha's brother, the young, brave, and -picturesque Medardus, who provides the most precious examples of -recherche psychology. The suicide of the dead couple, Agatha and Franz, -had been occasioned by the refusal of Franz's family to consent to -the marriage. When, consequently, Franz's sister, Helene (a character -somewhat analogous to Mathilde de la Mole in Stendhal's _Le Rouge et le -Noir_) wishes to put flowers on the graves of the dead pair, Medardus -refuses to allow her. Helene has him challenged by her suitor, but -Medardus emerges triumphantly from the duel. Anxious to carry the -war into the enemy's camp, and to redress the balance of the family -account, he succeeds, by the dashing conquest of the most perilous -difficulties, in becoming the lover of Helene, with the eventual object -of rousing the whole household and flaunting to her own family the -haughty girl's dishonour. Helene, however, is erratic in her favours. -Medardus, like Julien, is scorched by his own fire. The ending, -moreover, of the play, though extremely effective theatrically, strikes -us from the psychological standpoint as distinctly false. Helene and -Medardus both plot to assassinate Napoleon. Hearing that Helene is -Napoleon's mistress, Medardus kills her instead of Napoleon. So far, -so good. But when our quixotic hero, when offered a free pardon on the -sole condition that he undertakes to make no further attempt against -Napoleon's life, obstinately refuses to give the required word, one can -only say that he is observing the etiquette neither of melodrama nor -even of life, but solely of patriotic tragedy. - -But of all the longer plays of Schnitzler, the best and most -distinctive in that erotic "General Post" entitled _Das Weite -Land_ (The Wide Country). This drama, which is the only full-dress -drawing-room comedy which Schnitzler has written, belongs to what we -have already designated as the "slice of life" school. It depends for -its convincingness neither on any particularly drastic situation nor -on the disproportionate merit of any individual act. The author simply -takes a group of representative modern people, rich, intellectual, and -energetic, and shows the respective crossings and intertwinings of -their various lives. The complexity of the intrigue is overwhelming, -not to say bewildering, for practically every character, from the -prolific Aigon to the virginal Erna, and from the active business man -Friedrich to his polyandrous wife Genia, is subject to one or more -erotic moods, with whose more or less simultaneous conjugation in the -past, present, and future tenses the play specifically deals. Though, -too, all the characters lead emotional lives, they deserve credit in -that they none of them wear their souls upon their sleeves, or carry -their temperaments in their pockets with the ostentatious affectation -of those Sudermannic personages who never for a moment lose the -consciousness that they are living in an atmosphere of "high problem." -For the people with whom we have now to deal are so occupied with the -concrete acts of their actual lives that they have little time to waste -in mere airy generalities. When consequently they do philosophise, -shortly, crisply, and in the light of personal experience, they are for -that very reason all the more convincing. The whole _motif_ of this -play, where the spirits of Congreve and Henry James seem to amalgamate -in so strange but yet so harmonious a compound, is well crystallised -in the following quotation: "Love and deception--faithfulness and -unfaithfulness--adoration for one woman and desire for another woman or -several others, yes, my good Hofreiter, the soul is a wide country." - -As can be seen from these tolerant words, which have all the greater -force in that the man who speaks them is at any rate temporarily more -or less in love with his friend's wife, the mood in which the problem -of promiscuity is treated is less one of indignant satire than of -an ironic charity, which, while finding the complications at once -comic and tragic, yet assigns to every phase of love from the kiss -Friedrich gave to Erna three thousand metres above the sea, to Otto's -nocturnal escalades of Genia's room, its own specific emotional value, -even though the final verdict is to be found in the words of the -middle-aged Friedrich, refusing to elope with the twenty-year-old Erna: -"Everything's an illusion!" - -From the point of view, also, of concentrated crispness of dialogue -and characterisation, Schnitzler has never achieved anything better -than this play. How telling in particular is the dialogue between -the mutually unfaithful spouses, Genia and Friedrich. The husband is -interrogating his wife about a young Russian virtuoso who had just -blown out his brains. - - GENIA. He was not my lover. I'm sorry to say he was not - my lover. Is that enough for you! - -Or take again the passage between Friedrich and Genia after Friedrich -has just fought a fatal duel with the twenty-five year old naval -officer, Otto. - - GENIA. But why? If you cared the least bit about - me--if it had been a case of hate--if it had been - jealousy--love-- - - FRED. No--I feel at any rate damned little of all that. - But no man likes to be made an ass of. - -In his new asexual play, _Professor Bernhardi_, Schnitzler strikes -out an entirely new line, leaves that light, airy sphere which he had -made so peculiarly his own, and embarks into the grim realms of pure -problem. The play is an avowed and deliberate tract in the manner of -Granville Barker, Galsworthy, or Brieux. Yet however devoid it may be -of those qualities which one is accustomed to label Schnitzlerian, it -is the most earnest, the most ethical, the most convincing of all his -plays. - -Put shortly, the piece deals with an "affaire Dreyfus" in the medical -profession. Professor Bernhardi, a great Jewish doctor, has in the -face of numerous obstacles succeeded in building up the prosperity of -a new hospital, the Elisabethinum, treating mainly Catholic patients, -but supported mainly by Jewish funds. A substantial percentage of -the staff are Jewish, and it is instructive to observe how almost -instinctively the Jews and Catholics range themselves into two camps. -In the first act a Catholic girl is dying of septic poisoning as the -result of some outside doctor's clumsy attempt to help her to escape -the consequences of her own indiscretion. The patient herself, however, -in a state of blissful delirium, confident of recovery, and expecting -the speedy advent of her lover, is deriving the maximum of enjoyment -out of the few minutes she has yet to live. Under these circumstances -there arrives a Catholic priest, sent for, not by the girl but by a -nurse, with the object of administering the last sacrament. Out of -sheer humanity and medical conscientiousness, Professor Bernhardi is -reluctant to have his patient's last hours marred by the realisation of -her death and the shattering of her happy dream. The Catholic priest -is insistent. The Professor is politely firm. There is an animated -dialogue in the course of which the Professor touches the priest very -lightly on the shoulder, though there is nothing in the nature of an -assault. In the meanwhile the patient dies comfortably. The Clerical -and Anti-semitic parties exploit the incident with inaccurate though -artistic journalistic embellishments. There is a tremendous uproar. -The Governors of the hospital threaten to resign. Under pressure -from his friends, the Professor is willing to tender, not indeed an -abject apology, but a polite explanation. The Clerical party thereupon -blackmail him by threatening to raise the question in Parliament, if he -does not secure the election to a vacant post on the hospital staff of -a Catholic candidate who is on the one hand the protege of the cousin -of their leader, and on the other hand incompetent. Refusing to be a -party to the job, Bernhardi secures the election to the post of a man -who is both competent and a Jew. Bernhardi, moreover, relies on the -personal assurance of Flint, the Minister for Education and Public -Worship, that he will help him by his support in Parliament. When, -however, matters came to a head, Flint, scenting in the middle of his -speech with the divine flair of the true politician the actual state -of public opinion, throws Bernhardi to the wolves and himself suggests -a prosecution for sacrilege. The Executive Board of the hospital are -divided as to what course they shall pursue. Shall they pass a vote of -confidence in their chief, or, on the other hand, suspend him until the -determination of the proceedings. By a fine stroke of irony Bernhardi -realises that he will be in a minority through the vote of the very -Jew through the conscientious insistence on whose election to the -Board he had lost the proffered opportunity of bribing the Clericals -and squaring the whole matter. He consequently resigns from the Board. -The trial takes place. The priest himself denies that there was any -assault. Bernhardi, however, is defended by a converted Jew, who, -sinking the advocate in the Catholic, conducts the case so lukewarmly -that Bernhardi is convicted on the perjured evidence of a vindictive -colleague and a hysterical lay sister. During the trial the priest -is convinced that Bernhardi was morally right in the course which he -adopted, but, as he feels subsequently driven as a matter of conscience -to inform him, refrained out of sheer religious duty from telling the -truth. Bernhardi serves his term and becomes, much to his disgust, -a political hero and a popular martyr. The hysterical lay sister -eventually confesses her perjury and Bernhardi is finally righted, -though the final note in the play is that Bernhardi was really rather -a fool to have involved himself in such grave consequences for the -mere sake of a quixotic principle. Some portion possibly of the effect -produced by this play depends on the full appreciation of its personal -allusions and some knowledge of the circumstances on which it was -substantially founded. Nevertheless, present symptoms would appear to -indicate that this play will have especial interest, not only to Jews -and Anti-Semites, but to impartial students of ethics and sociology. -Though, moreover, "pure problem" and studded with long didactical -speeches, the dramatic interest is well sustained, at any rate up -to the fourth Act, while the different characters are distinguished -with the sharpest precision. We would refer in particular to Flint, -that delightfully bland opportunist, that benevolently unscrupulous -politician, that perfectly conscientious hypocrite who honestly -believes that there is a higher and larger duty both in politics and -in life than the observance of one's own principles and the keeping of -one's given word. - -Schnitzler, moreover, is not only a dramatist, but a writer of short -stories and novels, which stand on practically as high a level as -his plays. Like De Maupassant, Schnitzler has only one real _motif_. -Unlike De Maupassant, however, it is the psychological complications in -which he is chiefly interested. In further contrast, his short stories -lack that inevitable precision of climax which is the chief mark of -the French author. Yet perhaps it is for this very reason that, with -their picturesque atmosphere and pathetic simplicity, they obtain an -added reality. In the almost clinical minuteness of his psychology, -explicable from the fact that he was once a doctor, he is reminiscent -of Mr. Henry James, of a Mr. James, however, who writes without -preciosity about individuals linked with ordinary human beings by very -much more than just some shred of normality. Among his earlier short -stories we would mention in particular _Die Frau der Weisen, Das neue -Lied_, and the hypnotic fantasia at the beginning of _Daemmerseelen_. - -The more recent series, _Masken und Wunder_, also possesses a -well-merited claim to recognition for its series of studies, some -modern, some symbolical, yet all written with that almost intangible -softness, combined at the same time with a certain neat strength, -which is the essential mark of Schnitzler's literary style. One of the -most striking is the telepathic romance, _Redegonda's Diary_; but in -our view the best short story in the whole book is that Maupassantian -_Death of the Bachelor_ where the three intimate friends of a dead man -are summoned to his bedside, only to find their friend dead and to read -in a letter addressed to them all, of the three separate yet identical -domestic reasons which were responsible for their participation in this -superb piece of posthumous buffoonery. - -Far more significant than any of his short stories is Schnitzler's -comparatively recent novel, _Der Weg ins Freie_ (The Road to the Open), -a novel which both by its actual success and its intrinsic merit, -stands out conspicuously among modern German literature. This book is -an admirable example of what one can perhaps call the "slice of life" -novel. Actual plot in the stereotyped sense of the term it has none. -Georg von Wergenthin, a young aristocratic Viennese dilettante, has, -in the course of an active emotional life, a fairly serious _liaison_ -with Anna Rosner, a music-mistress belonging to a good Jewish set. -The child to which Anna and Georg had both been looking forward, -though in somewhat varying degrees, dies. Georg accepts a post of -conductor in a German town. Anna reassumes the normal tenor of her -spinster life. Finis. Neither conventional marriage nor even more -conventional suicide, but just life, a slice of sheer probable real -convincing life. But the book is far more than the history of Anna, -and far more than the history of Georg, even though it would appear at -first sight that the enumeration of Georg's emotions tends somewhat -to swamp the four hundred and sixty pages of this novel which yet -reads so shortly. For Georg's soul is a mirror which reflects not only -itself but a considerable number of the more interesting characters -of a specific modern Viennese set. And the lives of Anna and Georg -touch the lives of numerous other persons, persons too who, at any -rate, give the impression of being no mere characters in novels, but -of having been honourably plagiarised, and without suffering either -caricature or idealisation in the process, from the pages of the -book of life itself. And all these various lives are followed up and -adumbrated and described at greater or lesser detail. Of course they -have nothing to do with the story of Georg von Wergenthin. But they -play an important part in the life of Georg von Wergenthin, just as he -plays a more or less important part in their existence. And though of -course Georg is the nominal hero of the book, it is the modern Jewish -set with, of course, its Gentile appanages which constitutes the real -subject-matter. And how vivid and interesting on their merits are all -these characters--old Ehrenberg, the Jewish millionaire, with his -delightful habit of talking Yiddish before smart company, specially -to annoy his snobbish son Oskar; Oskar himself, who, on being caught -by his father in the flagrant act of posing as a Catholic in front -of a church and given a box on the ears by way of reproof, makes an -abortive attempt to commit hara-kiri with a revolver; Else Ehrenberg, -the temperamental, but unmarried sister of Oskar; Heinrich Bermann, the -brilliant self-centred author, with his grand passion for his faithless -actress in the foreign town; Leo Golowski, the enthusiastic Zionist; -Therese Golowski, the Socialist agitatress, with her temporary trip -with that fascinating hussar-officer, Demeter Stanzides; Winternitz, -the poet, with his not very _soigne_ hands and his naif mania for -reciting his own erotic verses; Dr. Stauber, the benevolent modern of -the last generation; Anna herself, with her soft wistfulness and her -essential dignity; Sissy Wyner, with her high wanton spirits and pretty -English accent; and of course Georg himself, Georg the aristocrat, -Georg the _grand amoureux_, Georg the composer, Georg the dilettante, -Georg the drifter, Georg the ineffectual. - -In the technique of this novel Schnitzler marks what we suggest to be a -new departure, by the insertion of substantial slabs of past life into -the analysis of his hero's thoughts, a process which by a tremendous -economy of space and time thus describes simultaneously the inner -workings of Georg's mind, and simultaneously narrates important pieces -of antecedent history which have no place in the official action of the -novel. - -Some tribute, also, must be paid to the style, which is at times -soft and sweet, at times light and crisp, yet always lucid, always -individual, and always possessed of that gracefulness which is so rare -a quality in German prose literature. - -To revert to Schnitzler the dramatist, what are his chief claims, his -chief excellences, his chief defects? It seems to us that the essence -of his merit lies in the fact that, speaking broadly, he handles -problems neither as ends in themselves, as do the more advanced of our -own dramatists, nor yet, like Sudermann, as mere pegs on which to hang -violently theatrical stage effects. Some problem may constitute the -centre of most of his plays; yet, with a few exceptions, this problem -is not presented too nakedly or without sufficient relief. Each problem -is bathed in an artistic atmosphere, and each character in the picture -limned with the most subtle psychology. It is true that, as has already -been pointed out, many of the acts in his early longer dramas exhibit -too strong a tendency to form self-independent pictures; yet it is this -defect which forms the chief charm of his one-acters. It is true that -nearly all his characters are Bohemian--artists, flaneurs, actresses, -journalists, doctors, painters--yet each author creates, as of right, -the population of his own individual world; and is it not rather a -claim to glory to have attained such heights of dramatic celebrity -without having written more than one single play specifically devoted -to fashionable life? It is true that the ethics of these plays, with -their chronic and inevitable intrigues, may strike the English mind as -somewhat unusual; yet Schnitzler enjoys the reputation of being the -most brilliant and accurate portrayer of contemporary Viennese life. -It is, moreover, in the nature of all problem plays that they should -be pieces of special pleading, where the other side is allowed just so -much of a hearing as will not permit of its convincing. After all, from -the standpoint of dramatic art, that which counts is not the ethics, -but the presentation of the problem. - -Yet, with all his subtlety and all his problems, he is never heavy. -Vienna stands intellectually nearer to Paris than to Berlin, so that -the Teutonic introspection and sentimentalism are touched with a Gallic -sprightliness and a Gallic grace. No dramatist has written tragedy with -so light a hand, or comedy with so ironically pathetic a smile, as has -Arthur Schnitzler. - - -[Footnote 1: "Der Freiwild" (sic); correct title is -"Freiwild"--transcriber's note (M.D.)] - -[Footnote 2: "Rohring" is "Roenning" in the original play--transcriber's -note (M.D.)] - - - - -EMILE VERHAEREN - - - "Mais les plus exaltes se dirent dans leur coeur, - 'Partons quand meme avec notre ame inassouvie - Puisque la force et que la vie - Sont au dela des verites et des erreurs.'" - - "Vivre c'est prendre et donner avec liesse. - Toute la vie est dans l'essor." - - -The above principles, prefixed to the _Forces Tumultueuses_ of Emile -Verhaeren, are well fitted to supply the key to a man who both in -thought and in technique is indisputably the most modern and the -most massive force in the whole of contemporary European poetry. -For Verhaeren is no narrow specialist with an outlook limited to -some particular sphere. He is the singer of the whole fulness of -modern European life as a whole, with its clashes, its complexities, -its agonies and its tensions, its deserted country-sides and its -pullulating metropoles, its armaments and its Armageddons, its -brothels, cathedrals, laboratories and Stock Exchanges, its sciences -and its sensualities, its arts, philosophies and aspirations. His muse -is no serene nymph piping delicately on some Parnassian slope, but -an extremely tumultuous Amazon, at once primeval, and ultra-modern, -chanting the paean of battle, steeped in the wine of victory, and -suckling the supermen of the future on her universal breasts. No muse -in the whole of literature is more highly charged with vitality, and -no reader is qualified to enjoy her unless he, too, is charged to the -maximum with "the red tonic liquor of a harsh and formidable reality." - -Let us then glance first at the early _milieu_ of a man who -combines the exultant fury of the lyric with the wide outlook of the -cosmopolitan sociologist, and who can incidentally beat both Baudelaire -and Wordsworth at their own respective game. - -Verhaeren was born on the 21st May 1855 at St. Amand in Belgium, one -of the most strenuous countries in the modern world, which, it is -interesting to remember, holds the European record for sensualism, -alcoholism, and clericalism. St. Amand is situated on the broad plains -of the Scheldt, and it is not unimportant to lay some stress on the -Flemish ancestry and environment of a man who, though he wrote in the -French language, is more Germanic than Gallic in his temperament, and -who represents in the sphere of verse perhaps the nearest analogue -to the crass majesty and red sensuality of Rubens. His early country -upbringing, moreover, is responsible for that _joie de vivre_ in -the fields, and, above all, the wind, the symbolisation of fury and -rebellion which was to inspire those nature lyrics, many of which are -nearly as great, though by no means as interesting, as his cosmic and -metropolitan poems. - -Verhaeren was originally intended for the priest-hood, and was -educated at the Jesuit school of St. Barbe in Ghent, where he had -for his schoolfellows such men as Maeterlinck, Van Lenbergh, and -Rodenbach. Leaving school, he went to Brussels, where he felt "his -multiplied heart grow and become exalted" with the roaring intensity -of metropolitan life. All thoughts of a holy life were now abandoned, -and in 1881 the poet was called to the Bar. His chief interests, -however, were literature, Socialism, and Brussels life. Joining the -Young Belgian group under the leadership of Edmond Picard, he became -a frequent contributor to _L'Art Moderne_ and _La Jeune Belgique_. -Politically he was a Socialist, associated himself with the Socialist -leader Vandervelde, and was one of the founders of the philanthropic -_Maison des Peuples_. - -But it was in the poetic representation of "the monstrous scenery of -the crass Flemish Kermesses" (_Les Flamands_, 1883) that Verhaeren gave -the first vent to his violent virility. In this work a Rubensesque and -Rabelaisian subject-matter is treated with poetic exaltation by a man -who found in the great national festivals of past and present Flanders, -with - - "Des chocs de corps, des heurts de chair et des bourrades, - Des lechements subis dans un etreignement," - -the same patriotic inspiration which Mr. G. K. Chesterton has -discovered in that beer; into which he has, as it were, so successfully -transubstantiated the whole national spirit of our English -body-politic. Thus our poet wallows defiantly in the black roughness of -his Flemish peasants: - - "Les voici noirs, grossiers, bestiaux--ils sont tels," - -or casts regretful glances towards the healthier grossness of the -artists of old Flanders: - - "Vos pinceaux ignoraient le fard, - Les indecences, les malices, - Et les sous-entendus de vice - Qui clignent l'oeil dans notre art, - Vos femmes suaient la sante, - Rouge de sang blanche de graisse, - Elles menaient les ruts en laisse - Avec des airs de royaute." - -But these poems are far more than mere erotic or gastronomic -diversions. Somewhat turgid, no doubt, with red health, they yet -possess the same sweep and the same impetus with which Aristophanes -himself once gave expression to the riotous fecundity of the earth and -the Dionysian forces of nature. - -In _Les Moines_ (_The Monks_, 1886), Verhaeren treats a subject-matter -which _prima facie_ would seem to denote the abandonment of the cult of -the flesh for the cult of the spirit. Yet such veneration as the poet -may ever have possessed for the Catholic creed was aesthetic rather than -religious. He penetrates, it is true, into the "enormous shrine where -the Middle Ages slumber," but it is less to worship than to describe -in a rigid, but majestic prosody "the grand survivors of the Christian -world"--the - - "Moines venus vers nous des horizons gothiques - Mais dont l'ame mais dont l'esprit meurt de demain." - -Psychologically the interesting feature of this work is that, so far -from being in any way obsessed by any Chestertonian nostalgia for a -dead and mediaeval past, the poet anticipates with all apparent serenity -the day when "the final blasphemy will have transpierced God like to -an immense sword." Even, moreover, in these, as it were, antiquarian -descriptions the poet emphasizes the contrast between the visionary -life of the cloister (a life, albeit, where occasionally - - "Un repas colossal souffle fourneaux beants - Eructant vers l'azur sa flamme et sa fumee") - -and the real life of the outside world, and seems by no means -unsympathetic to the rebellious monk who requires - - "Le ciel torride et le desert et l'air des monts - Et les tentations en rut des vieux demons - Agacant de leurs doigts la chair enflee des gouges - En lui brulant la levre avec de grands seins rouges." - -Yet both _Les Flamands_ and _Les Moines_ seem quite innocent and -playful in comparison with the great black trinity of _Les Soirs, Les -Debacles_, and _Les Flambeaux Noirs_ (1887-1891), in which Verhaeren -gave expression to the mental and physical crisis which for a time -seemed to imperil both his life and his reason. In these poems, many of -which were written in London and its - - "Gares de suie et de fumee ou du gaz pleure - Ses spleens d'argent lointain vers des chemins d'eclair, - Ou des betes d'ennui baillent a l'heure - Dolente immensement qui tinte a Westminster," - -Verhaeren leaves the objective mood of his earlier poems to clothe his -soul in the Nessian shirt of the most poisonous subjectivity. But true -tragic dignity stalks in the very extremity of his agony. Compared, -indeed, with the gigantic bass of this unhappiness, black, definite, -drastic, what is the grey wistfulness of Verlaine but the hysterical -falsetto of a whining child? Verhaeren, on the other hand, with the -ecstatic defiance of a kind of Nietzschean Prometheus sets himself to -plumb the lowest abysses of despair, and himself eggs on the eagles -of torment to devour every shred of his own soul. With "brutal teeth -of fire and madness he bites and outrages his own heart within him," -lashes himself in his thought and in his blood, in his effort, in his -hope, in his blasphemy: - - "Et quand leve le soir son calice de lie - Je me le verse a boire insatiablement." - -Or take again the sinister gusto of the passage: - - "Aurai-j'enfin l'atroce joie - De voir nuits apres nuits comme une proie - La demence attaquer mon cerveau, - Et detraque, malade, sorti de la prison - Et des travaux forces de sa raison - D'appareiller vers un lointain nouveau?" - -The technique of these poems is worthy of some study. Having little use -for the orthodox alexandrine (except in a few instances like _Le Gel_, -where the icy massiveness of the blocked couplets faithfully mirrors -the polar desolation of his own soul), he fashions his own metres to -incarnate his own moods. Such a refrain as "Ce minuit dalle d'ennui" -will boom out again and again the dull monotonous clank of his own -weary spirit. At other times the grinding engines of a disorganised -mind whirr and jar with spasmodic feverishness: - - "C'est l'heure ou les hallucines, - Les gueux, et les deracines - Dressent leur orgueil dans la vie." - -Note, too, the ghastly effectiveness of the internal rhymes. Is not, -for instance, such a line as - - "Les chiens du noir espoir out aboye ce soir" - -a triple series, as it were, of metrical mirrors, where the bitten mind -barks savagely back at its own mad image. Or listen to the Titanic thud -of such a line as - - "La Mer choque ses blocs de flots contre les rocs," - -or the silent smash of - - "Dites suis-je seul avec mon ame, - Mon ame helas maison d'ebene - Ou s'est fendu sans bruit un soir - Le grand miroir de mon espoir?" - -At times transcending the blank negativity of despair, the poet will -coquet positively with his own madness, as he wanders "hallucinated -in the forest of numbers," or wishes to march towards "madness and -her suns, her white suns of moonlight in the great weird noon, and -her distant echoes bitten by dins and barkings and full of vermilion -hounds." Or abandoning the more specific formulation of his own -emotions, he will give vent to his feelings by letting his brain dance -upon the lurid boards of some _macabre_ theme. The little poem, _La -Tete_, is dank with all the smooth bloodiness of the guillotine, -while the _Dame en Noir_, with the ghastly rhymes and assurances of -its refrain, is swathed in a black pathos, in comparison with which -the most lurid horrors of Baudelaire appear the mere artificial -extravagances of a perverse mind. - -As we have already seen, the blackness of the trilogy which we have -just considered was no mere dabbling in morbidity, but the genuine -expression of a genuine unhappiness. In, however, _Les Apparus dans -Mes Chemins, Les Vignes de Ma Muraille_ the storm gradually exhausts -itself, and is replaced by a more serene and confident mood. Contrast, -for instance, with the drastic violence of _Les Debacles_ the jaded -weariness of such a lyric as _Celui de la Fatigue_, where the poet -sings of an "ardour broken on the whirling staircase of the infinite," -or of such a passage as - - "Je m'habille des loques de mes jours - Et le baton de mon orgueil il plie, - Mes pieds dites comme ils sont lourds - De me porter de me trainer toujours - Au long de siecle de ma vie." - -And as a complete antithesis, again, to the black bloodiness of such -poems as _La Tete_ or _Un Meurtre,_ take the white suavity of _St. -Georges_: - - "Il vient un bel ambassadeur - Du pays blanc illumine de marbres - Ou dans les pares au bords des mers sur l'arbre - De la bonte suavement croit la douceur." - -But this serenity marked rather a respite in Verhaeren's development -than a real abatement of his poetic fury. With the furnaces of his mind -recharged to their maximum capacity with blazing health, he starts to -race his muse over the main lines of the modern civilisation, which -lead from _The Hallucinated Country-sides_ to _The Tentacular Towns_. -Though written at different times, these two sets of poems constitute -the contrasting halves of a complete whole, and were published together -in 1895 with two prologues, _La Ville_ and _La Plaine_. The prologues, -in particular, well illustrate the new rushing irregular prosody, -specially forged for the purpose of hammering out that white-hot -steel of the modern civilisation which enmeshes in its fabric all the -helpless flotsam of the agricultural economy. The academic harmony -of the alexandrine is here abandoned. The rhymes crash out at lesser -and greater intervals as they march along on feet that range from the -quick spasm of some dissyllabic line to the spondaic emphasis of a -full-length alexandrine. - -In _Les Campagnes Hallucines_ itself the prosody is no doubt simpler, -as the poet describes the ruined and pestilential country with its -fevers, its sins, its beggars, its pilgrims, its diseases, insanities -and debauches, and the immense monotony of its interminable plains. - - "C'est la plaine, la plaine bleme - Interminablement toujours la meme, - Par au-dessus, souvent - Rage si forte le vent, - Que l'on dirait le ciel fendu - Au coup de boxe - De l'equinoxe; - Novembre hurle ainsi qu'un loup - Lamentable par le soir fou." - -Perhaps, however, the most sinister poems in _Les Campagnes_ are the -_Chansons de Fou_, with their naif absurdities and their intuitive -reason, where the rhymes laugh and clatter like rows of grinning teeth, -and the almost Dureresque _Le Fleau_, from its exordium, - - "La Mort a bu du sang - Au cabaret des Trois Cercueils - La Mort a mis sur le comptoir - Un ecu noir, - 'C'est pour les cierges, pour les deuils,'" - -down to its ghastly climax, - - "Et les foules suivaient vers n'importent ou, - Le grand squelette aimable et soul - Qui trimballait sur son cheval bonhomme - L'epouvante de sa personne, - Jusqu'aux lointains de peur et de panique, - Sans eprouver l'horreur de son odeur, - Ni voir danser, sous un repli de sa tunique, - Le trousseau de vers blancs qui lui tetaient le coeur." - -The final significance of _Les Campagnes_ lies in its last poem, _Le -Depart_, describing the desertion by the whole country-side of that -dead mournful plain which is being eaten up by the town. - - "Tandis qu'au loin la-bas - Sous les cieux lourds fuligineux et gras, - Avec son front comme un Thabor, - Avec ses sugoirs noirs et ses rouges haleines - Hallucinant et attirant les gens des plaines, - C'est la ville que le jour plombe et que la nuit eclaire - La ville en platre, en stuc, en bois, en marbre, en fer, en or-- - Tentaculaire." - -It is, however, in _Les Villes Tentaculaires_, where the fever and -indefatigable aspiration of the town are described with a Zolaesque -exaltation, that the originality of the departure initiated by -Verhaeren is more specifically manifested. For he now boldly stalks -forward as the pioneer realist in European poetry. Disregarding alike -the orthodox subject-matter and the orthodox terminology of official -poesy, he seeks and finds his inspiration in the vast forces at work -in actual modern life. The realism of Verhaeren, in somewhat pointed -contrast to the realism of some of our own patriotic or fashionable -poets, even though such expressions as "cabs" and "steamers" are to be -found in his work in the original English, depends for its aesthetic -value neither on the swing of its slang nor the egregiousness of -its expletives. The hot blast of his sincerity sweeps away at once -any impeachment of mere dabbling in the ultra-modern. His diction -is frequently brusque, and even red, if we may borrow his favourite -colour, if not his favourite adjective; yet it never loses the dignity -of authentic poetry. For the poet would seem to have been personally -susceptible, in the highest degree, to that peculiar multiplication of -vitality and intensification of emotion which is the essential effect -produced by big metropoles upon certain temperaments. And this cerebral -ecstasy is increased by the consciousness of being on the threshold of -a new age, "for the ancient dream is dead, and the new one is now being -forged." Thus the poet will wander into _The Cathedrals_, take pity on -the multitudinous misery of the praying hordes, and boom out again and -again the refrain: - - "O ces foules, ces foules - Et la misere et la detresse qui les foulent." - -But note the sociological symbolism of the climax: - - "Et les vitraux grands de siecles agenouilles - Devant le Christ avec leurs papes immobiles - Et leurs martyrs et leurs heros semblent trembler - Au bruit d'un train lointain qui roule sur la ville." - -For refusing to bear the cross of Gothic ideas, the poet plunges -deliberately into the inferno of modern life. And each fresh circle but -kindles his ardour and inflames his Muse. For he will pass with growing -exaltation from the muscled teeming life of the port to the garish -ballet of a music hall where - - "Des bataillons de chair et de cuisses en marche - Grouillent sur des rampes ou sous des arches, - Jambes, hanches, gorges, maillots, jupes, dentelles," - -and then, as midnight strikes and the crowd ebbs away, he will stalk -into the "brilliant chemical atmosphere" where - - "Au long de promenoirs qui s'ouvrent sur la nuit - --Balcons de fleurs, rampes de flammes-- - Des femmes en deuil de leur ame - Entrecroisent leurs pas sans bruit." - -Nor does the poet disdain the grinding factories where - - "Entre des murs de fer et pierre - Soudainement se leve altiere - La force en rut de la matiere," - -or even the Bourse itself, where he sings in feverish staccato rhythm -the - - "Langues seches, regards aigus, gestes inverses, - Et cervelles qu'en tourbillons les millions traversent." - -But it is typical of Verhaeren's essential optimism that after -describing with Zolaesque detail both a strike and a "shop of luxury," -he should find the ransom of the future in - - "La maison de la science au loin dardee - Obstinement par a travers les faits jusqu'aux idees." - -In _Les Heures Claires_ (1896) the drastic violence of _Les Villes -Tentaculaires_ abates for the time being into a mood of resigned, but -yet robust melancholy, which immortalises the sweetness, deepness, and -softness of the poet's love for his wife. - -In _Les Forces Tumultueuses_, however, the poet has got once again -into the full swing of his drastic stride. The mood is to some extent -the same as that of _Les Villes Tentaculaires_, though the Zolaesque -concreteness of detail is merged in the broadness of a genuine -Lucretian sweep. The book consists of a series of lyrical poems, -lyrical, albeit, in the sense rather of Pindar than of Herrick, which -exalt the various phases of human energy. Thus in the poem, _L'Art,_ -Verhaeren soars upwards with a tremendous rush: - - "D'un bond - Son pied cassant le sol profond - Son double aile dans la lumiere - Le cou tendu, le feu sous les paupieres - Partit, vers le soleil et vers l'extase, - Ce devoreur d'espace et de splendeur Pegase." - -In _Les Maitres_ the poet describes the various types of superman, from -"the monk" of the Middle Ages to the banker of the twentieth century, -who dominates the world as he "binds sinister destiny to his bourgeois -will," and sows in the distance his winged gold. - - "Son or aile qui s'enivre d'espace, - Son or planant, son or rapace, - Son or vivant, - Son or dont s'eclairent et rayonnent les vents, - Son or qui boit la terre - Par les pores de son misere - Son or ardent, son or furtif, son or retors. - Morceau d'espoir et de soleil--son or!" - - -Some mention must also be made of the poem, _Les Femmes_, which, -subdivided into _L'Eternelle, L'Amante,_ _L'Amazone_, ranks in our view -as the greatest sex poem of the century. In contrast, for instance, -with Swinburne, who treats sex rather as a thing of beauty and of -pleasure than as an underlying world-force, and who has both the -advantage and the disadvantage of the specifically classical conception -of life, Verhaeren, whether he rings his changes in _L'Amante_ on the -soft refrain, "Mon reve est embarque dans une ile flottante," shows in -_L'Amazone_ that the New Woman can be something considerably more poetic -than a Strindbergian monstrosity, or sings in _L'Eternelle_ her "who -thinks she encloses the whole world within her flesh," will boom out -again and again the cosmic and universal peal. The verse throughout is -as beautiful as can be desired. But it has something more than beauty; -it has stature, majesty, speed, force, that exaltation of reality which -is the essence of the highest poetry. - -In the poems, _La Science_, _L'Erreur, La Folie_, _Les Cultes_, -Verhaeren proceeds to formulate his own philosophy of life, and his -prophetic enthusiasm for the new modern truths, under whose clear feet -the old texts have crumbled, as he expounds - - "Comment la vie est une a travers tous les etres - Qu'ils soient matiere instruit esprit ou volonte - Foret myriadaire et rouge ou s'enchevetrent - Les debordements fous de la fecondite." - -Put shortly, his philosophy is a compound of those of Nietzsche and -of Bergson. His soul, no doubt, swings in unison with the universal -rhythm of the world, but, like Nietzsche, he finds in force and life -realities transcending all errors, and after a historic survey of the -more popular deities of humanity from Gog to Jehovah, and from Satan -to Christ, enunciates his belief in humanity in stanzas of sublime -blasphemy, far more truly religious than the ambiguous scrolls and -rubrics of any antiquarian creed: - - "L'homme respire et sur la terre il marche, seul. - Il vit pour s'exalter du monde et de lui-meme, - Sa langue oublie et la priere et le blaspheme; - Ses pieds foulent le drap de son ancien linceul. - Il est l'heureuse audace au lieu d'etre la crainte; - Tout l'infini ne retentit que de ses bonds - Vers l'avenir plus doux, plus clair et plus feconds - Dont s'aggrave le chant et s'alentit la plainte. - Penser, chercher, et decouvrir sont ses exploits. - Il emplit jusqu'aux bords son existence breve; - Il n'enfle aucun espoir, il ne fausse aucun reve, - Et s'il lui faut des Dieux encore--qu'il les soit!" - -In _La Multiple Splendeur_ and _Les Visages de la Vie_ the same -insatiable gusto for an infinitude of life darts again and again its -red tongue. It is impossible by mere quotation to do justice to the -full vastness of Verhaeren's lyric sweep. We would, however, at any -rate, refer to the majesty of _Le Monde_ with its combined crash and -concord of incessant life and the Cyclopean weight of the adamantine -line which buttresses at either end the flaming rivers of its verse, - - "Le monde est fait avec des astres et des hommes," - -or to the sublimity of _Les Penseurs_ in which the poet tells how - - "Autour de la terre obsedee - Circule au fond des nuits, au coeur des jours - Toujours - L'orage amoncele des idees," - -and how - - "Descartes et Spinoza, Leibniz, Kant et Hegel" - -"fixed the highest pinnacles of inaccessible problems for the goal of -their silver arrows, and carried within themselves the grand obstinate -dream of one day, imprisoning eternity in the white ice of immobile -truth." - -The very names, too, of some of the poems may possibly reflect some -of the facets of their multiplied splendour: _Le Verbe, Les Vieux -Empires, La Louange du Corps Humain, A la Gloire des Cieux, A la Gloire -du Vent, Les Reves, L'Europe, La Conquete, Les Souffrances, La Joie, -La Ferveur, Les Idees, La Vie, L'Effort, L'Action, Plus Loin que les -Gares, Le Soir_. And again and again rings out in various keys the true -Nietzschean note. For "vast hopes come from the unknown" has displaced -the ancient balance whereof souls are now tired. But the only reality -is life: - - "La vie en cris ou en silence, - La vie en lutte ou en accord - Avec la vie avec la mort - La vie apre, la vie intense, - Elle est ici dans la fureur ou dans la haine - De l'ascendant et rouge ardeur humaine." - -It is fine proof also of the vast vitality of Verhaeren that even in so -recent a work as _Les Rhythmes Souveraines_ the muscled majesty of his -verse, though possibly a trifle less violent, shows no abatement of its -essential strength. We would mention in particular the poems _Michel -Ange, Chant d'Hercule, Les Barbares_ with the swift crispness of its -one-foot lines, and above all _Le Paradis_ with its almost Miltonic -picture of - - "L'archange endormant Eve au creux de sa grande aile." - -But does not Verhaeren transcend Milton in the wideness of his humanity -when he describes not with regret but with the maximum of exalted -exultation how - - "Eve bondit soudain hors de son aile immense, - Oh l'heureuse subite et feconde demence, - Que l'ange avec son coeur trop pur ne comprit pas." - -In his latest volume, _Les Bles Mouvants_, Verhaeren sinks back no -doubt to a quieter and serener mood, but who shall say that these -eclogues do not simply represent the sage crouch for another leonine -spring? - -We do not propose to make more than a passing reference to Verhaeren's -plays, for it is the lyric rather than the drama which is his true -medium of expression. - -_Helene de Sparte_, with all its graceful Alexandrines, is inferior -to any play by D'Annunzio, and even the socialist drama _Les Aubes_ -is, notwithstanding the fine verses with which it is sown, simply -stiff and heavy when compared with Hauptmann's _Weavers_. It is by -his lyrics that Verhaeren lives, and will continue to live beyond his -mere death whenever it comes, as the greatest and most essentially -European poet of our new age. For his lyrics are equally great, both -in their message and the method of their expression. Disdaining alike -the cowardice and the perversity of those who, refusing to face the red -realities of the present century, fly for their comfort to the pale -shadows of the Middle Ages, Verhaeren has plunged boldly into the very -brazier of our modern existence. He affirms, he combats, he prophesies, -but he rarely, if ever, rests. He hymns every phase of life, from the -human brain to the human body, and from the winds and seas of nature -to the towns and marts of man. And no message is more virile, more -tonic, more essentially healthy, for is not his message the phoenix -of a new humanitarian faith soaring aloft on its fiery wings out of -the corpses of the decomposing dogmas? And his prosody has the supreme -excellence that it is not a mere aesthetic end in itself, but a drastic -instrument of expression. Your pure aesthete, no doubt, may cavil at -his ruggedness. For he is the Rodin of poetical rhyme, the veritable -Vulcan of verse, or rather a Siegfried forging the sword of the future -on the anvil of the present, as he drives in the stubborn nails of his -nouns with the hissing hammers of his adjectives. His lines no doubt -at times will growl, grind and boom, hit the reader in the face with -all the force of a clenched fist, and palpitate with a full-bloodedness -somewhat overpowering for the jaded and the anaemic. But is not this the -very seal of success in a man who specifically sets himself to sing -not the mere beauty of beauty, but the beauty of force, the beauty of -life, "life violent, prodigious, unsatiated, the universal spasm of all -things"? - - - - -THE FUTURE OF FUTURISM - - - "Repose-toi!... Repose-toi!... il n'est doux que dormir!..." - - "Non, la vie est a bruler comme un falot de paille, - Il faut l'ingurgiter d'une lampe hardie, - Tels ces jongleurs de foire qui vont mangeant du feu - D'un coup de langue, escamotant la Mort dans l'estomac." - - -The above quotation from M. Marinetti's poem, _Le Demon de la Vitesse_, -is well adapted to give some idea of the feverish but sustained energy -of those pictures whose recent exhibition in the Sackville Gallery so -successfully scandalised not only the _doyens_ of the Royal Academy but -even the official champions of all that is new and progressive in our -modern English art. But for a correct appreciation even of the Futurist -pictures themselves, it is essential to realise that, so far from -being the mere isolated extravagances and _tours de force_ of a new -technique, they constitute an integral part of a living scheme, which -with all its lavish use of the most ostentatious hyperbolism, has yet -claims to be seriously considered as a substantial movement, artistic, -literary, economic, sociological, and above all human. - -Let us then make some scrutiny of this "Rising City" of Futurism, as -it rears with such vehement exaltation from out the trampled debris -of a superseded and dishonoured past. For this purpose, having first -examined those conditions of contemporary Italy which more immediately -provoked this "Red Rebellion," we shall proceed to some analysis of -the general character of the movement and of the aggressive and -sensational works of M. Marinetti himself, the audacious Mercury of -this new message. - -The direct cause of the Futurist movement is to be found in the fact -that that modern current of electric energy, which has been galvanising -the states of Northern and Central Europe to a more and more strenuous -and a more and more complicated activity has, so far as Italy is -concerned, not succeeded in flowing further south than Milan. In this -connection it is not without its significance that, while Milan is -indubitably the vital and commercial capital of the peninsula, the -official capital should be merely Rome, aureoled with its hybrid halo -of majesty and malaria, the centre of the tourist, the archaeologist, -and the Papacy, that august shadow of a once living empire. - -Even, moreover, the great heroes of the _Risorgimento Italiano_, -the euphonious title by which Italians designate the unification of -their country, suffered from an undue obsession with the democratic -ideals of a mediaeval past. Dissipating their energy in rushing reams -of republican rhetoric or the purple pomp of patriotic platitudes, -they remained sublimely oblivious to the crying economic needs of -a country which, with all its natural richness and all its natural -genius, still, so far as general material and intellectual progress -is concerned, lags no inconsiderable distance behind the increasingly -quick march of the European civilisation. Nor did matters improve -when the regime of the naif idealists was succeeded by that of the -opportunist bureaucracy which has since governed Italy. A vast portion -of the country still remains unforested, uncultivated, unirrigated, -and above all uneducated. The taint of malaria still infects wide -tracts of land, which with proper treatment might have been profitably -developed by those masses of sturdy labourers who have emigrated to -America with an almost Irish eagerness. Indeed with all respect to -M. Marinetti, who has himself fought in the Tripolitan trenches, the -Italo-Turkish war was occasioned (if we can rely on one of the most -brilliant and responsible of the Parisian reviews) not so much by a -_bona fide_ desire to find a place in the sun for the not yet surplus -population of a not yet fully developed country, as by an indisputably -authentic ambition to find a lucrative outlet for the money of the -clique of clerical capitalists who control the Bank of Rome. So far, -however, as no inconsiderable portion of Italy itself is concerned, -we are confronted with a country of museums, ruins, and ciceroni -which, exploiting the _Fremdenindustrie_ after the manner of some -more perverse and inexcusable Switzerland, prostitutes with venal -ostentation the faded beauties of its undoubtedly glorious past to the -complete ruin of its only potentially splendid present. - -A certain pseudo-Nietzscheanism has no doubt been introduced into Italy -beneath the auspices of D'Annunzio. Yet, with all his fanfaronnade of -tense and exuberant virility, the atmosphere of D'Annunzio is, speaking -broadly, moistly rank and exotically enervating. With the possible -exception of his latest novel, his heroes are languidly feverish -dilettantes whose lives are principally devoted to the literary and -aesthetic cultivation of all the neurotic luxuriance of their own erotic -morbidities. This brings us to the important sociological fact of that -rigid obsession with sex, as the one paramount emotional, artistic, -and vital value which, sapping the manhood not only of Italy but also -indeed of France, tends to corrupt the whole social, political, and -economic life of the two nations. - -It is this exaggerated preoccupation with the sexual aspect of life -which has produced, by way of a vehement but deliberate _riposte_, the -important Futurist maxim, "Meprisez la femme." With an enthusiasm in -fact almost worthy of our own Young Men's Christian Association, these -comparative Hippolyti of a young mother-country, only recently wedded -in the bonds of political union, flaunt themselves as the unscrupulous -iconoclasts of such firmly established national ideals as "the glorious -conception of Don Juan and the grotesque conception of the cocu." -Thus the Futurists would banish the nude from painting and adultery -from the novel, so that they may be able to substitute the sublime -male fury of creation of artistic and scientific masterpieces for all -the sterile embraces of hedonistic eroticism, and, like some gallant -band of twentieth-century Hercules, cleanse the Augean stables of the -Latin civilisation of its vast surplus of malignant mud vomited forth -by that stewing and pestiferous swamp of sex. As an antidote to that -virulent plague of luxurious and diseased sexuality, which it is their -self-imposed mission to eradicate, they pen the drastic prescription -of "patriotism and war, the only hygiene of the world." So hot indeed -is the ardour of these militant apostles of a new Latin civilisation, -that they once incurred the displeasure of established authority by -insisting on a war with Austria with such a maxim of vehemence that -an Austrian journal actually demanded the intervention of the Italian -Government. - -And whether this policy indicates the mere tetanic spasms of a -delirious Chauvinism, or the lucid vision of an inspired if heretical -diplomacy, it is certainly symptomatic of a tense, combative, and -drastic energy which is, in the deepest sense of the word, essentially -Nietzschean. In this connection the attitude of the Futurists towards -Nietzsche is instructive. They have read his books, thrilled to his -magic, and yet they repudiate him. For they cavil, and not altogether -unreasonably, at the bigoted and hidebound dualism of Nietzsche's -political philosophy, and his obstinate and obsolete division of the -political world into the divine spirit of a few strong geniuses and the -brute matter of a weak and numerous proletariate. - -Yet, taking the matter in its broad lines, M. Marinetti's programme -for "the indefinite physiological and intellectual progress of man" -expresses admirably the whole theory of the Nietzschean Superman. -Nietzschean also are such phrases as, "the type inhuman, mechanical, -cruel, omniscient and combative," or "the multiplied man who mingles -with iron, nourishes himself on electricity, and only appreciates the -delight of the danger and of the heroism of every single day." The -real distinction lies in the fact that the Futurist Superman is more -practical, more concrete, more up-to-date, and, above all, infinitely -less dreamy than his elder and more pedantic brother. - -And in spite of M. Marinetti's analysis of Nietzscheanism as nothing -but the artificial resurrection of a dead and past antiquity, the two -ideals are harmonious in their denunciation of the facile and automatic -reverence for "the good old days," and their savage exhortation to -"sweep away the grey cinders of the Past with the incandescent lava of -the Future." - -This announcement of a virile desire to improve and improve and -improve, not only on the past but also on the present, constitutes -the principal mark in the Futurist platform. Hence the leaders of -the movement have coined the two words _passeisme_, the object of -their onslaught, and _Futurism_, the watch-word of their faith. And -truculently pushing their theories to the extreme limit of extravagant -logic, M. Marinetti and his brothers in arms exhorted the assembled -Venetians, in the 200,000 multicoloured manifestos which on a certain -memorable day they flung down into the Piazza San Marco, "to cure -and cicatrize this rotting town, magnificent wound of the Past, and -to hasten to fill its small foetid canals with the ruins of its -tumbling, leprous palaces." But the remedy is constructive as well as -destructive. - -"Burn the gondolas, those swings for fools, and erect up to the sky -the rigid geometry of large metallic bridges and factories with waving -hair of smoke; abolish everywhere the languishing curve of the old -architecture." - -We see at once how, in this more than Wellsian enthusiasm for all the -romantic possibilities of a scientific civilisation, they declare -the most sanguinary war _a l'outrance_ with that Ruskinian and -Pre-Raphaelite sentimentalism which, sublimely burying its mediaeval -head in the immemorial sands of a crumbling past, is somewhat -ill-adapted to confront the onrushing simoon of an increasingly -definite and formidable future. And with the deliberate object of -emphasizing his point with the maximum of provocative aggressiveness, -the Futurist will fling at his enemies the insolent paradox that a -motor-car in motion has a higher aesthetic value than the Victory of -Samothrace, or announce with theatrical solemnity that the pain of -a man is just about as interesting in their eyes as the pain of an -electric lamp, suffering in convulsive spasms and crying out with the -most agonising effects of colour. - -Yet if we strip this new "beauty of mechanism" and "aesthetic of speed" -of its loud garb of ostentatious extravagance, the intrinsic theories -themselves strike us as neither monstrous nor unreasonable. For if -we may presume to put our own unauthorised gloss on M. Marinetti's -vividly illuminated manuscript, what the Futurist really wishes is to -break down the conventional divorce that is so often thought to exist -between ideal Art and actual Life, so as to bring the two elements -into the most drastic and immediate contact. Art, in fact, should not -be an escape _from_ but an exaltation _of_ the red impetus of life. -Art's function is not merely to titillate the dispassionate aesthetic -feeling of the dilettante or connoisseur, but to thrill with a keen -vital emotion the actual experiencer of life. Form is not an end in -itself, its sole function is to extract the whole emotional quality -of its content. And when confronted with the problem of what content -is best fitted to be the proper subject of artistic representation, -your Futurist would promptly retort that, inasmuch as the tumultuous -twentieth-century emotions of "steel, pride, fever, and speed" are -those to which the twentieth-century civilisation will naturally -vibrate with the most authentic sympathy, those emotions and those -alone are the proper subject-matter for twentieth-century art. - -Having thus obtained some rough idea of the broad lines of the new -Futurism, let us proceed to examine its manifestation in the spheres -of painting and literature. So far as their painting is concerned, the -primary principle of the Futurists is their subordination of intrinsic -aesthetic form to emotional content. This principle, though carried to a -pitch far transcending anything which had ever been previously essayed, -is by no means without its exemplifications, in the history both of -past and contemporary art. Even indeed in the eighteenth century Blake -had transferred on to the painted canvas his highly abstract ideas of -esoteric mysticism. The content of the pictures of Blake is of course -diametrically opposed to the content of the Futurists, yet an authentic -analogy lies in the fact that a content at all should have been -specifically painted. With a similar qualification we can remember with -advantage how Rossetti and Burne-Jones, as indisputably modern in the -fact that they had the courage to paint a content at all, as they were -indisputably reactionary in the actual content which they felt inspired -to portray, gave pictorial representation to the Pre-Raphaelite -nostalgia for a prae-mediaeval past. More analogous are the canvases of -Franz von Stuck, the Munich Secessionist, who also sets out to paint -ideas and to give aesthetic form to psychological contents. Thus his -_Krieg_, with its grimly triumphant rider, steadfastly pursuing the -goal of an ideal, future over the wallowing corpses of a transcended -present, expresses perfectly in the sphere of paint the whole spirit of -the Nietzschean Superman. - -Even better examples of the growing predominance of the content in the -sphere of art are to be found in Rodin, who moulds even in immobile -statuary something of the tumultuous sweep of the present age, or in -Max Klinger the creator in concrete form of the most abstract and -impalpable ideas. - -So also modern music, as represented at any rate by the tense -restlessness of Richard Strauss with all his fine shades of crouching -fear and exultant cruelty, or the mystical sensuousness of Debussy, -ceases to be a mere meaningless euphony of pleasing melody, devoid of -any vital significance except its own aesthetic beauty, sets itself more -and more to travel, in the sphere of sound, over the whole vibrant -gamut of the human emotions. - -To achieve the presentation of a content with the maximum of drastic -effect, the Futurists have invented a new technique. Without embarking -oh any elaborate technical discussion, we would say that their chief -principle in the painting of apparently even the most objective -phenomena is that it should be the aim of the artist to reproduce no -mere picturesque copy of some stationary pose, but that whole sensorial -or emotional quality inherent in all dynamic life which radiates to -the mind of the spectator, or which again may be simply flashed into -dynamic life by the mind of the spectator himself. - -And as, according to our latest and most fashionable metaphysical -authority, the ego, whether of a man, an insect, or a cosmos, is merely -a movement, it should not strike us as altogether unreasonable if -the dynamic idea of movement should enter very prominently into the -Futurist paintings. For, realising fully that consciousness is a stream -and not a pond, and that both cerebral memories and visual impressions -are but, as it were, the flying nets hastily created and re-created -to catch a world that is perpetually on the run, the Futurists make -boldly ingenious efforts to capture the jumping chameleon of truth, by -portraying not one but several phases of the unending series of the -human cinematograph. - -Thus in Severini's picture of the "Pan-Pan dance at the Monico," the -artist sets himself to paint the whole moving, multicoloured soul of -this by no means spiritual Montmartre tavern, with all its various -subdivisions of male and female customers engaged in their mutual -revels and their mutual dances, the deviltry of its _rigolo_ music, and -all the hustling clash and clatter of its insolent carouse.-- - -It is also significant of their general _Weltanschauung_ that the -Futurists should frequently find their inspiration in the speed, -stress, and creativity of a glorious modernity. Thus Russolo's -"Rebellion," angular, aggressive, rampant, reproduces the whole red -energy of an insurgent proletariate, while the same painter's "Train" -essays, and not unsuccessfully, to paint the very lights and ridges of -velocity itself. - -The feats of the new culture in the realm of literature are quite as -impressive and as sensational as in that of painting. This brings us -to some consideration of M. Marinetti himself, both the real and the -official, chief of the new movement. - -To comprehend the true essence of this man, who certainly constitutes -a European portent which, whether hated or loved, can scarcely be -ignored, it is necessary to realise that while a poet he is above all a -man of the world and of action. While, also, as would appear from his -visit to the _Morning Post_ correspondent in Tripoli, he is a gentleman -inflamed by a genuine if no doubt slightly truculent patriotism, he -has all the advantages of being an almost perfect cosmopolitan. Born -in Egypt of Italian parents, educated in France, and now directing the -Futurist movement from Milan, M. Marinetti combines all the heat of an -African temperament with all the mercurial dash and aggressiveness of -the modern Latin civilisation. At present only in the early thirties, -M. Marinetti founded in the years 1904--1905 his international review -_Poesia_. To this journal he endeavoured to attract all that was -strenuous, aspiring, and daring in the artistic youth of the Latin -civilisation. Eventually the various tentative ideals and ideas which -he and his colleagues entertained became crystallised in the word -_Futurism_, which grew more and more a definite creed with a more and -more definite catechism of literature, music, painting, politics, and -life. Since the publication of the first Futurist manifesto in the -_Figaro_ in 1909, M. Marinetti has devoted himself to waging with -all his militant energy of tongue, sword, and pen the campaign of -Futurism. Meeting after meeting, demonstration after demonstration has -he addressed in Italy, and, carrying the war into the enemy's country, -he has even had the audacity to hurl his defiance from Trieste itself. -And if the deliberate provocativeness at which he has pitched his -propaganda has brought upon him the venomous hatred of both numerous -and powerful enemies, it has merely served to give but an additional -fillip to the fury of his impetus. - -It is indeed not only amusing, but also an indication of the man's -verve and defiance, to remember that when he had been hissed for -a whole hour on end in the Theatre Mercadante of Naples, where he -was delivering a lecture, and an apparently quite edible orange was -eventually thrown at him, he should with fine _bravura_ take out -his penknife and both peel and eat the orange. In Italy, at any -rate, Futurism has swept the universities, and the disciples of the -new faith number 50,000. Endeavouring to give to the campaign a -cosmopolitan significance, the Futurists have carried their pictures, -their manifestos, and their books to Madrid, to Berlin, to Paris -(where they were enthusiastically toasted by the "Association Generale -des Etudiants," the Parisian equivalent of the Oxford and Cambridge -Unions), and even to England itself, which, with a surprising lack of -its usual insularity, would actually appear to be taking an intelligent -interest in a new movement without waiting, as was the case with -Nietzscheanism, until it has first become the respectable if _passee_ -object of the devotion of Continental academicism. - -Before we proceed on our short survey of the chief works of M. -Marinetti, which have been written in French and only subsequently -translated into Italian, it is necessary to make some brief mention -of the new technique which he employs. This new technique is Free -Verse, first introduced into French literature in the _Palais Nomades_ -of M. Gustave Kahn. It should be remembered, of course, that French -Free Verse is an article totally distinct from that mixture of rolling -dithyramb and conversational slap-dash which characterises the work of -Walt Whitman. - -So far indeed as M. Gustave Kahn is concerned, the innovation -simply consisted not in any repudiation of rhyme in itself, but in -the emancipation of French verse from the strait-waistcoat of the -Alexandrine and the strict disciplinary rules of academic composition. - -M. Marinetti, on the other hand, in the three volumes which it is now -proposed to consider, viz. _La Conquete des Etoiles_ (Sansot, 1902), -_Destruction_ (Vanier, 1904), _La Ville Charnelle_ (Sansot, 1908), -carries the metrical revolution considerably further. For while the -essence of classicism itself when compared with the polyphonic though -at times majestic ebullitions of Walt Whitman, they subserve no -specific rule. Metre, genuine metre, is invariably present, but the -precise shape which it happens to take is determined by the exigencies -not of the particular metre in which the poet happens to be writing, -but of the particular mood or emotion which clamours for expression -in the form most specifically appropriate to its own particular -idiosyncrasies. If, in fact, we may endeavour to crystallise the theory -of this verse, which though free from mechanical restraint is always -subordinate to the command of its own dynamic soul, we should say that -it is simply the principle of onomatopoeia carried from the sphere of -words to the sphere of metre. - -In the _Conquete des Etoiles_ the twenty-four-year-old Marinetti, -with the characteristic verve of audacious adolescence, essays to open -the oyster of the poetical world with the sword of a romantic epic. -Bearing evidence at times, in its grandiose anthropomorphism of natural -phenomena, of the influence of "his old masters the French Symbolists," -the poem of this future champion of a concrete modernity challenges, -at any rate in the gigantic massing of its imagery, that grandiose -if somewhat bourgeois romantic Victor Hugo. For here poetic Pelion -is piled upon poetic Ossa with the most drastic vengeance. For the -Sovereign Sea, chanting her inaugural battle-cry, - - "Hola-he! Hola-ho! Stridionla, Stridionla, Stridionla! - Stridionlaire!" - -to her ancient waves, puissant warriors with venerable beards of foam, -lashes them to conquer Space and mount to the assault of the grinning -Stars. And missiles are there in her Reservoir of Death--"petrified -bodies, bodies of steel, embers and gold, harder than the diamond, -the suicides whose courage failed beneath the weight of their heart, -that furnace of stars, those who died for that they stoked within -their blood the fire of the Ideal, the great flame of the Absolute -that encompassed them." And for an army has she the legions of her -amazon cavalry, the veterans of the Sea, the great waves, the riotous, -prancing narwhals with their scaly rings, the typhoons, the cyclones -and the haughty trombes (water-spouts), "draping around their loins -their fuliginous veils, or lifting masses of darkness in their great -open arms." And so this feud of the elements proceeds from climax to -climax, from crescendo to crescendo, till the astral fortresses succumb -to the shock of an infernal charge, and the last star expires "with her -pupils of grey shadow imploring the Unknown, oh how sweetly." - -No doubt the poem almost reels at times as though intoxicated with -the excesses of its own imagery. Yet making all due discount for this -healthy turgidity of adolescence, it is impossible to dispute the -authentic poetical value of this brilliant epic. - -By so masterly a grasp is the metre handled that the reader, quite -oblivious of the immaterial question of whether he is perusing verse -or prose, is only conscious of the ideas and emotions themselves. -The following passage is typical not only of the poem's potency of -expression, but of the intimate union which is effected between the -meaning and the form. - - "C'est ainsi que passe le Simoun, - aiguillonant sa furie de desert en desert, - avec son escorte caracolante - de sables souleves tout ruisselants de feu; - c'est ainsi que le Simoun galope - sur l'ocean fige des sables, - en balangant son torse geant d'idole barbare - sur des fuyantes croupes d'onagres affoles." - -In the series of poems, however, known as _Destruction_, - - "Since there is only splendour in this word of terror - And of crushing force like a Cyclopaean hammer," - -that boyish robustness which we have seen playing so naively in the -romantic limbo, has attained the solidity of manhood. Finding it no -longer necessary to have recourse for his subject-matter to some set -theme of an Elemental War, the author reproduces the experiences of -his own inner life in a new lyrical language, whose rhythm vibrates -responsively to every thrill of its creator's spirit, and takes -faithfully every colour of his chameleon soul. - -For the poet is now reverential: - - "Tu es infinie et divine, o Mer, et je le sais - de par le jurement de tes levres, ecumantes - de par ton jurement que repercutent de plage en plage - les echos attentifs ainsi que des guetteurs." - -now jocund: - - "O Mer, mon ame est puerile et demande un jouet"; - -now, almost sensually, adoring: - - "O toi ballerina orientale au ventre sursautant, - dont les seins sont rouges par le sang des naufrages"; - -now sunk in the abject ecstasies of opium: - - "Derriere des vitres rouges des voix rauques criaient - 'De la moelle et du sang pour les lampdes d'oubli - C'est le prix des beaux reves!... c'est le prix....' - Et j'entrais avec eux au bouge de ma chair"; - -now gentle: - - "C'est pour nous que le Vent las de voyages eternels, - desabuse de sa vitesse de fantome, - froissant d'une main lasse, au trefonds de l'espace, - les velours somptueux d'un grand oreiller d'ombre - tout diamantes de larmes siddrales"; - -now bitterly conscious of the ironic raillery of the sea: - - "Vos caresses brulantes, vos savantes caresses, - sont pareilles a des tatonnements d'aveugles - qui vont ramant par les couloirs d'un labyrinthe! - Vos baisers out toujours l'acharnement infatigable - d'un dialogue enrage entre deux sourds - emprisonnes au fond d'un cachot noir." - -Even more characteristic of the feverish, but not unhealthy ardour of -the book is that series of ten poems entitled _Le Demon de la Vitesse_, -a kind of railway journey of the modern soul. For now the poet, stoking -the engines of his pounding brain with the monstrous coals of his own -energy, drives his train of Aeschylean images (well equipped with all -the latest modern inventions) with all the record-breaking rapidity of -some Trans-American express, from the "vermilion terraces of love," -across "Hindu evenings," "tyrannical rivers," "avenging forests," -"milleniar torrents," and "the dusky corpulence of mountains," to -traverse "the delirium of Space," and "the supreme plateaux of an -absurd Ideal," to end finally in the grinding shock of a collision and -all the agony of a shipwrecked vessel. It is in this series of poems -that the author's wealth of imagery, always superabundant, lavishes its -most profound and incessant exuberance. - -For such phrases as "the drunken fulness of streaming stars in the -great bed of heaven," "oh, folly, my folly, oh, Eternal Juggler," "O -wind, crucified beneath the nails of the stars," "the flesh scorched in -the burning tunic of a terrible desire," "the sad towns crucified on -the great crossed arms of thewhite road" are not mere isolated flashes -of poetical riches, but casual samples of an opulence displaying -itself on this same grandiose scale throughout every line of every -poem. Note, also, that the poet has completely fused himself with the -whole scientific universe. He will thus portray a man in the terms of -some dynamic entity of mechanical science, which as likely as not will -itself be represented in terms of humanity. Contrast, for instance, -such phrases as-- - - "Les geantes pneumatiques de l'Orgueil," or "train - fougueux de mon ame," - -with-- - - "Colonnes de fumee, immenses bras de negre, - anneles d'etincelles et de rubis sanglants." - -To sum up the essential character of _Destruction,_ we would say that -releasing poetry from the shackles of the conventional subject-matter, -the conventional language, and the conventional metres to which it -had been so long confined, it lays the hitherto untravelled lines of -the speed and beauty of the whole of modern civilisation, with its -all-unexplored scientific and psychological regions, as it sings the -rushing rhapsody of the whole spirit of the twentieth century. - - "I bid ye pant your fury and your spleen, - I reck not the long roarings of your wrath, - O galloping Simoons of my ambition, - Who heavily the city's threshold paw, - Nor ever shall ye cross her sensual walls, - Ye neigh in vain in my stopped ears, already - With rosy murmurs steeped and stupefied - (And subterranean voices of the deep), - Like spells of freshness full of the sea's song." - -The above quotation may perhaps give such readers as have not the -luxury of the French language some faint shadow of the warm charm of -_La Ville Charnelle_, which, at any rate from the conventional standard -of ordinary aesthetic beauty, represents the zenith of M. Marinetti's -poetical achievement. For in his second volume of verse, our author -abandons the furious pace of his rushing modernity to sing the almost -sensual beauty of a tropical town, with "the silky murmur of its -African sea," its pointed "mosques of desire," and its "hills moulded -like the knees of women, and swathed in the linen billows of its -dazzling chalk." The swift piston rhythm of _Destruction_ is exchanged -for a measure which, though untrammelled by any tight convention, is -often clad in the Turkish trousers of some languorous rhyme, or slides -with the voluptuous swish of some blank alexandrine. But if the flood -of images has abated its turbulence to a serener beauty, it has not -thereby suffered any loss of volume, as is evidenced by such phrases -as "les molles emeraudes de prairies infinies," "la bouche eclatee des -horizons engloutisseurs," or "jusqu'au volant trapeze de ce grand vent -gymnaste." - -Or take the following passage from _The Banjoes of Despair and of -Adventure_: - - "Elles chantent, les benjohs hysteriques et sauvages, - comme des chattes enervees par l'odeur de l'orage. - Ce sont des negres qui les tiennent - empoignees violemment, comme on tient - une amarre que secoue la bourrasque. - Elles miaulent, les benjohs, sous leurs doigts frenetiques, - et la mer, en bombant son dos d'hippopotame, - acclame leurs chansons par des flic-flacs sonores - et des renaclements." - -More aery and fantastic in their radiance are the _Little Dramas of -Light_, which in the same volume play outside the walls of _La Ville -Charnelle_. For pushing the pathetic fallacy to the extreme limit of -pantheism, or anthropomorphism, as one cares to put it, our author -constructs his miniature scenes out of the interplay of plants, -elements, and the very fabrics of human invention, all participating in -something of the mingled dash, despair, and desire which go to weave -the somewhat complex tissue of our ultra-modern humanity. - -Even the titles of a few of these delicate poems give some idea of -their darting beauty--"The Foolish Vines and the Greyhound of the -Firmament" (the Moon), "The Life of the Sails," "The Death of the -Fortresses," "The Folly of the Little Houses," "The Dying Vessels," -"The Japanese Dawn," "The Courtesans of Gold" (the Stars). - -Observe, also, the eminently twentieth-century temperament of the -"coquettish vessels," who, "half-clothed in their ragged sails, and -playing like urchins with the incandescent ball of the sun," have yet -experienced "amid the disillusioned smile of the autumn evenings" the -desire for a fuller and more tumultuous life than is afforded by the -"ventriloquist soliloquies of the gurgling waters of the quays." - - "C'est ainsi, c'est ainsi que les jeunes Navires - implorent affolees delivrance, - en s'esclaffant de tous leurs linges barioles, - claquant au vent comme les levres brulees de fievre. - Leurs drisses et leurs haubans se raidissent - tels des nerfs trop tendus qui grincent de desir, - car ils veulent partir et s'en aller - vers la tristesse affreuse (qu'importe?) inconsolable - et (qu'importe?) infinie - d'avoir tout savoure et tout maudit (qu'importe?)." - -We can perhaps best formulate the dynamic _elan de vie_, which pulses -through every line of M. Marinetti's poems, by indulging in the -perversion of the great line of Baudelaire, so that we can give to our -poet for his motto: - - "Je hais la ligne qui tue le mouvement." - -M. Marinetti's activity, however, is not limited to the sphere of -verse. In 1905 he published _Le Roi Bombance_ (_Mercure de France_), -a satyric tragedy, compound of the scarcely harmonious temperaments -of Rabelais and Maeterlinck, a wild extravaganza of anthropophagy and -resurrection, which satirises the prominent figures in contemporary -Italian politics, including the recently dead Crispi, Ferri, and -Tenatri, and contains withal a profound undercurrent of sociological -truth. _Poupees Electriques_ (Sansot) followed in 1909, a play which, -with all its brilliance and originality, somehow just misses the real -dramatic pitch. - -Far more significant are the _belles lettres_ of _Les Dieux s'en vont -D'Annunzio reste_ (Sansot, 1908), with its steely dash of style and its -criticism at once singularly acute and delightfully malicious of the -official protagonist of all Italian culture, and the recently published -_Futurisme_ (Sansot, 1911). - -But of all the works of M. Marinetti, the most impressive is the great -prose epic, _Mafarka Le Futuriste_. It is in the three hundred pages -of this novel, which describes the destructive and creative exploits -of a militant and intellectual African prince, that the Futurist -leader has given the most complete expression to the vehement surge -of his genius. In this book, the spirits of the East and of the West -strangely combine. The gross heat of an African sun beats incessantly -down upon these torrid pages, yet even the most oriental passages have -such a Homeric freshness of epic sweep as to render them immeasurably -cleaner than the sniggering indecencies of not a few of even the more -fashionable and respectable of our lady novelists. Incident follows -on incident, adventure on adventure, with the magic bewilderment of -some Arabian Night, an Arabian night illumined by the galvanic current -of some twentieth-century genie, as it flashes image after image on -the multicoloured sheet of some dancing cinematograph. The style -bounds with a lithe male crispness, in comparison with which even the -luxuriant and self-complacent flowers of D'Annunzio himself seem at -times to offer but rank and androgynous beauties. - -How admirable, for instance, is such a passage as-- - - "And Mafarka-el-Bey bounded forward, with great elastic - steps, sliding on the voluptuous springs of the wind and - rolling--like a word of victory--in the very mouth of - God"; - -or such a perfect Homeric simile as-- - - "All the beloved sweetness of his vanished youth mounted - in his throat, even as from the courtyard of schools - there mount the joyous cries of children towards their - old masters, leaning over the parapet of the terrace - from which they see the flight of the vessels upon the - sea"; - -or such a perfect description as-- - - "Et d'en haut descendaient les rayons des etoiles des - milliers de chainettes dorees tintinabulantes, qui - balancaient au ras de l'eau leurs tremblants reflets, - innombrables veilleuses." - -But the wondrous story of how Mafarka-el-Bey exhorted to the work of -war the thousands of his wallowing soldiers from the putrescent bed -of that dried-up lake; of how, disguising himself as an aged beggar, -he visited the camp of the negroes; of the monstrous tale which he -there told his Ethiopian foes; of the stratagem by which he drew the -two pursuing wings of the infatuated army to the stupendous shock of -an internecine collision; of how he annihilated the maddened hordes of -the Hounds of the Sun with the stones flung by the mechanical Giraffes -of War; of the Neronian banquet in the grotto of the Whale's Belly; of -the agonised hydrophobic death of his brother Magamal, the light of his -eyes; of the nocturnal journey in which he conveyed across the sea his -brother's body in a sack to the land of the Hypogeans; of the Futurist -Discourse which he there held; of his passing encounter with the -fellahin Habbi and Luba; of how, disdaining the more banal method of -filial creation, he compelled the weavers of Lagahourso and the smiths -of Milmillah to make the body of that Airgod Gazourmeh, whose spirit he -had fashioned out of the glory of his own unaided brain; and of how he -died exultantly, brushed away beneath the gigantic wings of his son, as -it flew like some hilarious parricide into the clear infinitude, is it -not all written in the pages of _Mafarka Le Futuriste_? (E. Sansot & -Cie, Paris, 3 fr. 50 c.) - -Note, also, the religious exultation of martial and intellectual -energy, whose hoarse prayer is uttered on almost every page. For -Mafarka is the prophet of that "new voluptuousness which shall have -rid the world of love when he shall have founded the religion of the -concrete will and of the heroism of every single day." - -And to still further exemplify his new religion of war and energy, -and inspired, too, no doubt by the airy message of the Arab bullets, -M. Marinetti finished on the 29th November 1911 in the trenches of -Sidi-Missri, near Tripoli, the great free-verse epic of three hundred -and fifty pages, entitled _The Popes Monoplane_. The function of this -poem, which is certainly the most original epic known to literary -history, is to serve as an anti-clerical, an anti-pacifist, and -anti-Austrian polemic. And this function it accomplishes by a technique -which in its successful audacity transcends even itself. For nowhere -is the free verse of Marinetti more free. New harmonies and even new -dissonances are conjured up according to the emotion to be expressed -and the object to be described, while the terminology of mechanics -and physiology is judiciously mingled with just a trace of the old -romanticism. The whole epic quite literally flies with inordinate -swiftness. For the poet is, on his monoplane, careering over the heart -of Italy. He takes counsel of his father the volcano, and, flying back -to Rome, fishes up by means of an iron chain with a spring-trap the -great polished Seal, or, as he exultantly describes it, - - "Un pape, un vrai pape, le saint Pontif lui-meme." - -And on he flies on his missionary career, with the miserable Vicar of -God dangling helplessly beneath him, now present at the debates of -_Les Moucherons Politiciens_, now assisting at the tumultuous congress -of _Les Syndicate Pacifistes_, now side by side with the moon, now -exhorting the Italian youth to shake off their execrable lethargy, -and, finally, participating in the eventual overthrow of the Austrian -enemy. This poem marks an immense advance on the earlier epic, _La -Conquete des Etoiles_, to which we have already referred. It pullulates -with an equal energy, but this energy is tenser and far less turgid. It -is an energy, moreover, whose impetus is expended not on imaginative -abstractions, but on the drastic attack of concrete political problems. -As a sheer piece, too, of description, Marinetti's description of the -_Battle of Monfalcone_ is in our view superior to any of the military -verse even of Kipling himself. _The Pope's Monoplane_ is, of course, an -aggressively specific example of realism in poetry. But it is a realism -which, so far from clipping the wings of Pegasus, rather spurs him to -higher and more strenuous flights. We may perhaps conclude our survey -of this work by an endeavour to render into English a characteristic -passage from the dialogue between the Poet and the Volcano. - - - THE VOLCANO - - Ne'er have I slept; I labour endlessly, - Enriching space with many a masterpiece - That lives and dies in a day. - Over the baking of the chiselled rocks - Upon the vitrefaction of the many-coloured sands - I keep my watch - So well that the clay 'neath my fingers - Will metamorphose - To a porcelain of perfect rose, - Which I shatter with the buffets of my steam. - - My accomplice is the Strait of Messina - Which dozes in the dawn, couching white and glossy - As an Angora cat... - My accomplice is the Strait of Messina - Lolling like a cushion of lazy turquoise silk, - With soft Arabian words embroidered by the wake - Of clouds and languorous sails, - Words woven silently methinks - With a fair silver thread upon the ocean's robe. - - The perfidious moon is my accomplice, - The arch-courtesan of the painted stars, - For nowhere are the moon's cajoleries - So luring and persuasive. - - And nowhere does the moon cast such assiduous eyes - To seduce the hard red funnels of the steamers, - Those surly strollers South - With a fat cigar in their mouth - Whose smoke they spit against the azure sky. - - And nowhere does the moon throw such a tender shower - Of soft and violet ashes, - As that which lulls to sleep the lava petrified - On the black houses hanging on my flanks. - And nowhere has the moon such poignancy - Of inundations of light and ecstasy, - As on the gashed paths - Carved by my surgical fire. - - But woe to those who follow the bleating light of the moon, - And the plaintive bells of the flocks, - And the bitter flutes of the shepherds whose world-weary notes - Are long, long threads that vanish in the blue! - Woe to those who refuse to make their galloping blood - Keep step with the gallop of the blood of my devastation! - - And woe to those who wish to root their heads, - To root their feet and houses - In a craven hope of eternity! - A truce to building, for ye must encamp! - Nay, am I not shaped even as a tent - Whose truncated top fanneth my wrath? - I only love the acrobatic stars - Who balance on the rolling balls of smoke - Wherewith I juggle! - - - MYSELF - I can dance to them, and juggle in mid air, - And shower my song on the reverberations - Of thy storms that breed - In subterranean depths!... - And I descend - To hear the diapasons of thy voice. - So make a pause - In the electrical discharges of thy tubes - That tear from thy base the underlying rocks. - Enjoin to silence all thy babbling grottoes, - That all a-flutter quiver ceaselessly. - Gag with thick cinders - The basaltic echoes whose chorus rings thy praise. - - What good are thy volcanic bombs - That serve as punctuations for the growlings of thy speech? - And what care I for the ruddy jets - Of thine aggressive foam? - Thy deluges of mud have soiled my wings of white, - But check me not, for proof against thine avalanche - Of scoria I descend, gilded and aureoled - By all the powdery shower of thy dumbfounded gold. - -It is also relevant to mention that M. Marinetti has been recently -formulating new rules and principles for his new literary code. Among -the more drastic phases of this stylistic revolution we would mention -the employment of mathematical signs and symbols, the rebellion from -too rigid and pedantic a syntax, the minimum use of the adjective and -the infinitive, the opening up of new fields of images and metaphors, -and the freer and more increased use of onomatopoeia. These ideas -are succinctly, though no doubt extravagantly, set out in the two -manifestos entitled _Wireless Imagination and Words at Liberty_ and -_The Futurist Anti-Tradition_. - -Space vetoes more than the enumeration of the other Futurist -poets--Luccini, Palazzescho, Folgore, and Altomare--though we may -perhaps mention the recently published _Poesie Electrichie_ of Govoni, -and the _A Claude Debussy_ of Paolo Buzzi, which won the first prize of -the first international competition of "Poesia," and which transfers -into a marvellously fluid Italian verse the at once ethereal and -faunish emotions of the composer's music. - -But if, finally, we may speculate on the Future of Futurism, its real -prospects and its real significance are to be found in the fact that, -though extravagant and aggressive, it is in essence a concentrated -manifestation of the whole vital impetus of the twentieth century. Its -relationship to Nietzscheanism we have already examined. Almost equally -close is its affinity to the standpoints of such representative spirits -of the real genius of this particular age as Verhaeren and Mr. Wells; -Verhaeren, the gazer on the _Multiple Splendour_ of the _Tumultuous -Forces_ of the _Visages of Life_, with his motto, "Life is to be -mounted and not to be descended; the whole of life is in the soaring -upwards," who expresses in the strenuous majesty of his verse the whole -raging complex of our psychological and material civilisation; Mr. -Wells, too, the glorifier of all the new machinery of our scientific -fabric; Mr. Wells, who, with all his intoxication for the "gigantic -syntheses of life," expresses himself most effectually by the maxim, -"The world exists for and by initiative, and the method of initiative -is individuality." - -Even if we go to more concrete and more topical manifestations, there -is not wanting evidence that the fiery blast of the Futurists is fanned -by the huge bellows of our own labouring _Zeitgeist_. - -If indeed we may meddle with the very latest metaphysical terminology, -we would suggest that it is by a singularly brilliant and apposite -stroke of intuition on the part of, the newly discovered _elan de vie_ -that, at a time which is moving at an unprecedented rapidity, at a time -when the two great brother nations of the Teutonic race are preparing -their rival sacrifices for the God of War with all the mocking and -drastic fraternity of a Cain and of an Abel; when the air is thick -with the wings of a new and regenerated France; when the militant -maenads of both the West and the East, under the inspiration of their -dashing and elusive Pythoness, are waging with foaming fanaticism a -Holy War of Sex; when even one of the most responsible of our lawyers -is coquetting dangerously with both the theory and the practice of the -superior ethical value of Active Resistance; when the most venerable -of our Lord Justices recently interpolated a homily on the Law of -Change into the middle of an otherwise purely legal judgment; when -the two young, but patriotic _condottieri_ of either political party -are fast leaping into a more and more aggressive prominence; when the -insurgent masses of our industrial proletariat have made a vehement and -not entirely unsuccessful charge against existing economic fabric of -the country; when Mr. Thomas Hardy has attended, in the pages of even -the _Fortnightly Review_, the funeral of the old God of pity, and when -Bergsonism, judiciously advertised in the masquerade of a religious -revival, has replaced the old Eternal Absolute with the creative -activity of an endless Movement, the Futurists should now exalt the -sublime vehemence of war, and the aggressive fury of youth, while M. -Marinetti chants the strident hallelujahs of the new God of sweat and -agony and tension, and Signor Russolo and his _confreres_ exhibit to us -in the actual canvases of the Sackville Galleries the rampant hordes of -rebellion and the painting of Movement itself. - - - -INDEX - - - Abel, 237 - _Advent_, 110 - Aeschylus (_cf_. Corelli), 115 - Alcibiades, 61 - _Almansor_, 32 - _Alroy_, 55 - Altomare, 236 - _Amour, De l'_, 13, 14 - _Anatol_, 161, 176-9 - _Anne Veronica_, 120 - Anti-Semite, 115, 190 - Anti-Semitism, 115 - Antoine, 98 - _Aphrodite_, 129 - _Arabian Nights_, 144 - _Ardath_, 114, 115 - Aristotle, 74 - _Armance_, 15-16 - Athanasius, 89 - Attila, 117 - _Aubes, Les_, 210 - Austria, 215 - _Awkward Age, The_, 153 - - BALFOUR, Mr., 123 - Balzac, 38, 201 - _Banti, Consultation de_, 9 - Barker, 162 - Barrie, J. M., 132 - _Baths of Lucca_, 35 - Baudelaire, 121, 144, 154 - Beaconsfield. _See_ Disraeli - Beardsley, 144 - Belgium, 197 - Bergson, 208 - Bergsonism, 238 - Berlioz, 38, 44 - Beyle. _See_ Stendhal - _Beyond the Rocks_, 128 - Bible, 89, 120 - Bigillon, 5 - Birrell, 64 - Bjornsen, 98 - _Black Flags_, 95, 100, 111-13 - Blake, 219 - Blatchford, Robert, 132 - _Bles Mouvants, Les_, 210 - Bohair, 38 - _Bond, The_, 104 - _Book of Songs_, 30, 31, 35, 36, 49 - Borgia, 86 - Borne, 38, 39 - Bottomley, Horatio, 119 - Bourget, 24 - _Bovary, Madame_, 16 - _Boy_, 115 - Brandes, 71 - Brieux, 188 - Browning, 63 - Brummel, 61 - Bryce, 60 - _Buechse von Pandora_, 138, 145, 149, 150, 155 - Buddhism, 72 - Burne-Jones, 219 - Buzzi, 236 - Byron, 30, 52, 93 - - CAIN, 81, 237 - _Call of Life_, 175-6 - _Campagnes Hallucines_, 202-4 - Carlyle, 44, 66 - Carpani, 11 - Casanova, 64 - Catholicism, 39, 110 - Cervantes, 30 - Chant, Mrs. Ormiston, 133 - _Chartreuse de Parme_, 20, 21 - Chateaubriand, 6 - Chauvinism, 215 - Chesterton, G. K., 119, 198 - Christ, 71, 110, 118, 208 - _Childe Harold_, 52 - Christianity, 71, 72, 73, 76, 78, 79, 80, 88, 93; - Electric Principle of, 114 - _Comedie Humaine_, 16 - _Confession of a Fool_, 95, 97, 105-8 - Congreve, 187 - _Conquete des Etoiles_, 223-5 - _Conrad_, 52 - Conservatism, 67 - _Contarini Fleming_, 55, 62 - Corelli, Miss Marie, 114-33 - _Countess Mizzi_, 161, 184 - Court Theatre, 139 - Craigie, Mrs., 69 - _Creditor, The_, 103 - Crispi, 230 - Crowley, Aleister, 114 - _Crown Bride_, ill - - - _Damascus, To_, 110 - _Daemmerseelen_, 191 - D'Annunzio, 210, 214, 231 - Daru, 3, 4, 9, 12, 18 - Darwin, 84, 136 - _Death Dance_, 97, 110-11 - _Debacles, Les_, 199 - Debussy, 219 - Dembowska, Countess, 12 - Democracy, 67 - _Demon de la Vitesse_, 212, 226 - _De Profundis_, 140 - _Destruction_, 223, 225 - _Deutschland_, 40 - Disraeli, 50-69 - Disraeli, Mrs., 62, 63, 68 - Don Juan, 19, 50, 97, 215 - _Dorian Gray_, 132 - D'Orsay, 61 - Dowie, Dr., 117 - _Dream Pictures_, 30, 32 - Drury Lane, 122 - Dugazon, 7 - Dumas, 38 - - _Easter_, 110 - _Ehre, Die_, 136 - _Einsame Weg, Der_, 171, 172 - Eldon, 67 - _Elizabeth's Visits to America_, 128 - _Embarrassments_, 177 - _Endymion_, 52 - _Erdgeist_, 134, 135, 145-9 - Essen, Siri von, 95 - _Esther Waters_, 129 - Eugenics, 154 - - FAGUET, 24 - Fakredeen, 52 - _Father, The_, 101, 102 - Faust, 158 - Ferri, 230 - _Feuerwerk_, 154 - Fichte, 74 - - _Flamands, Les_, 198, 199 - _Flambeaux Noirs_, 199-202 - _Fleurs du Mal_, 121 - Foote, G. W., 119 - _Forces Tumultueuses_, 196 - _Foundations of Belief_, 123 - France, 214, 237 - _Franziska_, 155, 157-9 - _Frau Margit_, 95 - Free Love, 139, 154 - _Free Opinions_, 119 - Free Verse, 223 - _Freiwild_, 173-5 - Froude, 51 - _Fruehlingserwachen_, 135, 145, 150-3, 159 - Futurism, 212-38 - - GALSWORTHY, 157, 159, 162, 163 - Gambetta, 67 - Garvice, Charles, 116 - Gautier, 38 - _Geheimniss der Gilde_, 95 - _Genealogy of Morals_, 70-90 - Genesis, 119 - Germany, 72, 135-9 - Gladstone, 53, 54, 61, 65, 66, 68 - _Gluckspeter_, 95 - Glyn, Elinor, 126-30 - _God's Good Man_, 122 - Goethe, 74, 144 - Gog, 208 - Govoni, 236 - _Green Cockatoo_, 161, 182-3 - Guilbert, Melanie, 7 - Gull, Ranger, 115 - - HALEVY, Jehudah, 43 - _Hallucinated Country-sides_, 202-4 - _Hannele_, 137 - Hardy, 238 - Hart, Julius, 137 - _Harzreise_, 34 - Hauptmann, 137, 210 - _Haydn and Mozart, Lives of_, 11 - _Heimkehr_, 34 - Heine, 26-49, 60, 77, 89 - Heine, Amalie, 31, 32 - Heine, Samson, 29 - Heine, Solomon, 30 - _Helene de Sparte_, 210 - Heliogabalus, 121 - Hermant, Abel, 122 - _Hidalla_, 154 - Higher Criticism (Corelli), 119 - _His Hour_, 128 - _History of Painting in Italy_, 12 - Hitchman, 50 - Hobbes, 83 - Hofmann, 28 - Hogarth, 150 - Holy Alliance, 27 - _Holy Orders_, 121 - Hugo, 38, 224 - Humboldt, 38 - - IBSEN, 153 - Idealists, 87 - Ihering, 85 - _In Allen Satteln Gerecht_, 156 - _In Allen Wassern Gewaschen_, 156 - _Inferno_, 109 - Ingersoll, 119 - _Intoxication_, 110 - Isaiah, 72, 133 - Israel, 71, 78 - _Italian Travels_, 11 - _Italy_, 35, 213 - - JACK the Ripper, 149 - James, Henry, 137, 153, 177, 187 - Jeremiah, 72 - Jesuits, 118 - Jesus, 71, 72 - Jew-Millionaires, 121 - Jews, 118 - Jezebels, Upper-Ten, 121, 127 - Job, 111 - _Johannes_, 137 - Josepha, 30 - _Journal, Le_, 24 - Judaea, 78 - _Julien_, 17-20 - _Junge Leiden_, 35 - Juvenal, 133 - - KABLY, Mdlle., 3 - Kahn, Gustave, 223 - _Kammersaenger, Der_, 140-142 - Kant, 40, 87 - Karl Moor, 19 - Key, Ellen, 88, 96 - Kipling, 110, 234 - Klinger, 219 - - LAFAYETTE, 38 - _Lamiel_, 22-23 - _Lebendige Stunden_, 177, 180-182 - _Legends_, 109 - _Les Dieux s'en vont D'Annunzio reste_, 230 - Lesbos, 131 - _Liebelei_, 164-166, 169 - _Liebestrank, Der_, 153 - Life Force, 145 - "Little Mary," 132 - Longfellow, 153 - Louason, 7, 8 - Louis XVI, 2 - Louis Philippe, 21 - Louys, 115, 129 - Loyola, 117 - Luccini, 236 - _Lucien Leuwen_, 21-22 - _Lyrisches Intermezzo_, 32, 35, 36 - - MADONNA, 96, 97 - Maeterlinck, 197, 230 - _Mafarka le Futuriste_, 129, 231, 232 - Maine, 81, 84 - _Maerchen, Das_, 167, 168 - Marinetti, 129, 212-238 - _Marionetten_, 177, 179 - _Marius the Epicurean_, 124 - _Marquis von Keith_, 153 - _Marriage_, 98-100 - _Masken und Wunder_, 191 - _Mate, The_, 183 - Maupassant, 98, 191 - Maupin, Mademoiselle de, 157 - Meade, L. T., 116 - _Medardus, Der Junge_, 184-186 - Meissner, 38 - _Meister Olof_, 94 - _Meister, Wilhelm_, 55 - Melville, Walter, 115 - _Mighty Atom, The_, 115 - Milan, 4, 12, 13, 213 - Milton, 210 - _Minnehaha_, 153 - Mirbeau, Octave, 122 - Mirat, Matilde, 41 - _Miss Julie_, 102, 103 - _Mit Allen Huenden Gehetzt_, 156 - _Moines, Les_, 199 - Moliere, 3, 121 - _Monna Vanna_, 140 - Moore, George, 106 - _Motherly Love_, 104 - Mouche, La, 48 - _Multiple Splendeur, Le_, 208-209 - _Murder of Delicia_, 115 - _Musik_, 155, 156, 157 - - NAPOLEON, 29, 30, 69 - Nerval, Gerard de, 38 - New England, 67, 153 - _New Machiavelli_, 105, 120 - New Woman Movement, 96 - Nietzsche, 24, 70-90, 136, 144, 208, 216 - Nirvana, 73 - Nonconformity, 119 - _Nordsee Cyklus_, 33, 34 - Northcliffe, 86 - _Nouvelle Heloise_, 3 - - _Oaha_, 154 - O'Connell, 57 - O'Connor, T. P., 50 - _Open Sea, The_, 100, 108 - Opportunism, 67 - Orestes, 81 - Ovid, 144 - - PALAZZESCHO, 236 - Papacy, 213 - Peel, 64 - Peladan, 131 - Pietragrua, Countess, 4, 10, 12 - Pinero, 145 - _Plain Dealer, The_, 141 - _Playing with Fire_, 97, 104-105 - Poe, 154 - _Poesia_, 221, 236 - _Poetische Nachlese_, 35, 47 - _Pope's Monoplane, The_, 233-236 - _Professor Bernhardi_, 188-190 - Przybyszewski, 109 - _Puppet-player_, 179-180 - - QUEUX, Le, 116 - - _Racine and Shakespeare_, 14, 15 - _Ratcliff_, 32 - _Raymond, Jack_, 119 - Realism, 138 - _Red Room_, 95 - _Reigen_, 179 - _Reisebilder_, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 49 - Rene, 19 - Restoration, French, 17 - Revolution, French, 27, 28, 53 - _Revolutionary Epicke_, 67 - _Rhythmes Souveraines, Les_, 210 - Richter, 38 - _Risorgimento Italiano_, 213 - _Road to the Open, The_, 192-194 - Robespierre, 40 - Rockefeller, 86 - Rodenbach, 197, - Rodin, 211 - _Romance of Two Worlds_, 114 - _Romantic School, The_, 40 - Romanticism, 14, 27, 28, 138 - _Romanzero_, 35, 47, 48 - Rome, 79, 213 - _Rome, Naples, and Florence_, 11 - Roosevelt, President, 116 - Rossetti, 219 - _Rossini, Life of_, 15 - _Rouge et le Noir, Le_, 9, 16, 17-20, 56, 185 - Rousseau, 46, 83 - Rubens, 197 - Russolo, 220, 238 - - _Salome_, 140 - Sand, 38 - Sappho, 131 - Satan, 208 - _Satan, Sorrows of_, 114 - Schiller, 144 - Schlegel, 38 - _Schloss von Wetterstein_, 155, 156 - Schnitzler, 161-195 - Schopenhauer, 72, 73, 74, 144 - Secessionists, 140 - Secessionsbuehne, 137 - Sefchen, 30 - Selden, Camille, 48 - Self-and-Sex Series, 130 - Semites, 125 - _Serialese, Manual of_, 133 - Severini, 220 - Shaw, G. B., 126, 135, 155, 159, 162, 163 - Sichel, 51 - Sidonia, 52 - Smiles, Samuel, 115 - Smith, Adam, 7 - Socialists, 88 - Sorel, Julien, 16-20 - _Souvenirs d'Egotisme_, 24 - Spencer, 77 - _Spring's Awakening_, 115. See - _Fruehlingserwachen_ - St. Amand, 197 - St. Barbe, 197 - St. Beuve, 24 - Stael, Mme. de, 40 - Stage Society, 139, 161, 162 - Stendhal, 1-25, 74, 185 - Sterne, 30 - Stratford-on-Avon, 131 - Strauss, 219 - _Strife_, 163 - Strindberg, 91-113 - Stuck, 219 - Sudermann, 88, 137 - Suffragette, 96 - Superman, 75, 80 85, 87, 136, 163 - Sutro, 162 - Swan, Annie, 116 - _Swan White_, 111 - Sweden, 96 - Swedenborgianism, 110 - _Swedish Destinies_, 98 - _Swedish Miniatures_, 111 - Swift, 30, 44 - _Swiss Tales_, 100 - Switzerland, 215 - Symbolists, 224 - - TAINE, 20, 24, 136 - Tamerlane, 86 - _Tancred_, 55, 60, 65 - Tanner, John, 97 - _Tartuffe_, 121 - Technique, 163 - _Temporal Power_, 120, 124 - Tenatri, 230 - - _Tentacular Towns_, 202-205 - _Terminations_, 177 - _Thelma_, 119, 124 - Thorne, Guy, 115 - _Three Weeks_, 127, 130 - Thucydides, 132 - Tolstoi, 76, 126 - Tories, 65, 66, 67 - Torquemada, 117 - _Totentanz_, 126, 135, 142-4 - Tracy, 7 - _Turn of the Screw_, 137 - - UHL, Frida, 109 - Ultramontanes, 21 - Ultramontanism, 115 - - VAN Lenburgh, 197 - _Veil of Beatrice_, 169-171 - _Vendetta_, 115 - _Venetia_, 56 - Verhaeren, 196-211, 237 - Verlaine, 154, 200 - _Vermaechtniss, Die_, 169 - _Versunkene Glocke, Die_, 137 - _Vie de Henri Brulard, La_, 24 - _Vier Jahrzeiten, Die_, 154 - _Ville Charnelle La_, 223, 228-230 - _Villes Tentaculaires, Les_, 202-205 - _Visages de la Vie_, _Les_, 208 - _Vivian Grey_, 19, 52, 55, 56, 59 - Voltaire, 42, 46, 77, 89 - Voynich, Mrs., 119 - - WAGNER, 73 - Ward, Mrs., 126 - _Waste_, 163 - _Weber, Die_, 136, 210 - Wedekind, 98, 126, 134-160 - _Weg ins Freie, Der_, 192-194 - _Weites Land, Das_, 184, 186-188 - Wells, 237 - Werther, 19 - Westermarck, 84 - Whigs, 65, 66, 67 - Whitman, Walt, 223 - Wilde, 89, 139, 140 - Will to Live, 73 - Williams, Mrs. Brydges, 63 - _Woman with the Dagger_, 180-182 - Women atheists, 118 - _Wormwood_, 115 - Wycherley, 141 - - YOUNG Men's Christian Association, 215 - - _Zarathustra_, 70, 80-3, 88 - _Zensur_, 155, 156 - _Zwischenspiel_, 172, 173 - Zola, 118, 136, 145 - - - -***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MODERNITIES*** - - -******* This file should be named 44916.txt or 44916.zip ******* - - -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: -http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/4/4/9/1/44916 - - - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions -will be renamed. - -Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no -one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation -(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without -permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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