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diff --git a/78957-0.txt b/78957-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..7e0fd7d --- /dev/null +++ b/78957-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,10489 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 78957 *** + + + + + IN THE AMERICAN JUNGLE + + [1925–1936] + + +[Illustration: © _Sheldon Dick_] + + + + +In the +American Jungle + [1925–1936] + + + WALDO FRANK + + _Photographic Decorations by William H. Field_ + + FARRAR _&_ RINEHART, _Incorporated_ + + NEW YORK · TORONTO + + +[Illustration: A vintage, stylized oval emblem resembling a leaf or +fruit, featuring the bold capital letters 'F' and 'R' on either side of +a central vertical stem.] + + COPYRIGHT, 1937, BY WALDO FRANK + + PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA + + BY J. J. LITTLE AND IVES COMPANY, NEW YORK + + ALL RIGHTS RESERVED + + + _to my friend Adolph S. Oko_ + + + + + FOREWORD + + +For the general idea and design of this book, I am indebted to my +friend, Harold Clurman, the director of the Group Theater. During +several years, he urged me to publish a collection of my papers similar +to “SALVOS” which united certain of my short critical writings from 1915 +to 1924. I was always too busy—and the notion of a miscellany does not +appeal to me. At last, at his request, I handed him from my files what I +could find of my articles and papers published in the past twelve years. +I was amazed to find how much it was. Several months later, he returned +to me a selection, reduced by two thirds. He pointed out that what he +had put in order was not a miscellany but _a book_ with a beginning, a +middle and a conclusion: a book even with a “plot”! + +The materials that compose this “collective portrait” of an era which +spans the Boom, the Depression, and (perhaps) the beginning, in Spain, +of the new World War that may end the world we have all lived in, +appeared originally in the following periodicals (of New York, unless +otherwise noted): + +_The Adelphi_ (London), _The Dial_, _Europe_ (Paris), _Harper’s_, _The +Menorah Journal_, _La Nación_ (Buenos Aires), _The New Masses_, _The New +Republic_, _The New Yorker_, _Occidente_ (Rome), _El Repertorio +Americano_ (San José, Costa Rica), _Scribner’s_, _Soviet Russia Today_, +_Sur_ (Buenos Aires), _Virginia Quarterly Review_, _The Guardian_ +(Philadelphia). + +Many other magazines reprinted or translated some of this material, but +since I have no full list of these I have not named them. + + W. F. + +New York, December, 1936 + + + + + CONTENTS + + + _Foreword_ vii + + ONE: BOOM YEAR SKETCHES + 1. I DISCOVER THE NEW WORLD 3 + 2. A SAVAGE ISLE 16 + 3. A MOB AND A MACHINE 21 + 4. MURDER AS BAD ART 25 + 5. THE BATTLE OF A CENTURY AND A HALF 29 + 6. ENNOBLING OUR CRIMINALS 35 + 7. READING THE SPORTS 38 + 8. THE NEW CONQUISTADORES 41 + 9. TWO FACES 45 + 10. THE DRUG ON THE MARKET 48 + + TWO: PORTRAITS + I. _MEN_ + 1. RANDOLPH BOURNE 59 + 2. CHARLES CHAPLIN 61 + 3. D. H. LAWRENCE 74 + 4. HERBERT CROLY 75 + 5. SIGMUND FREUD 82 + 6. SHERWOOD ANDERSON 93 + 7. HART CRANE 96 + II. _AMERICAN TRAITS_ + 1. IN DEFENSE OF OUR VULGARITY 109 + 2. THE MOVIES AND THE MASSES 112 + 3. THE COMEDY OF COMMERCE 116 + 4. JAZZ AND FOLK ART 119 + 5. STRAIGHT STREETS 123 + III. _IDEAS_ + 1. SERIOUSNESS AND DADA 128 + 2. MR. MENCKEN, KING OF THE PHILISTINES 135 + 3. PSEUDO LITERATURE 139 + 4. “UTILITARIAN ART” 142 + 5. ART IN OUR JUNGLE 146 + 6. THE ARTIST IN OUR JUNGLE 149 + 7. THE MACHINE AND METAPHYSICS 153 + + THREE: BOOKS + 1. POE AT LAST 161 + 2. FRANCE AND THOREAU 165 + 3. FAIRY TALES FOR THE OLD 168 + 4. DUSK AND DAWN 172 + 5. ELEGY FOR ANARCHISM 177 + 6. THE BOOK OF LEO STEIN 183 + 7. REFLECTIONS ON SPENGLER 188 + 8. THE MODERN DISTEMPER 201 + 9. THE “UNIVERSE” OF T. S. ELIOT 220 + + FOUR: SOME PRACTICAL CONCLUSIONS FOR THE SURVIVAL OF MAN + 1. SOLIDARITY IS NOT ENOUGH 231 + 2. WITH MARX, SPINOZA ... 240 + 3. FROM MANY MESSAGES TO MANY PEOPLES: + I. WAR IS WITH US NOW 254 + II. TO THE STUDENTS OF CUBA 256 + III. THE TOUCHSTONE 260 + IV. TO ROMAIN ROLLAND ON HIS SEVENTIETH BIRTHDAY 262 + V. TO THE PREMIER OF FRANCE 265 + VI. VALUES OF THE REVOLUTIONARY WRITER 269 + VII. THE WRITER’S PART IN SOCIAL REVOLUTION 279 + 4. TERRE HAUTE HOTEL 287 + + INDEX 295 + + + “... _in a dying world, creation is revolution_.” + “Our America,” 1919 + + “_The American jungle is rich in denatured elements of a transplanted + world: it consists largely in those deposits, cultural, political, + economic, which justify our calling ‘the new world’ the Grave of + Europe._” + + “The Re-Discovery of America,” 1929 + + + + + ONE: BOOM YEAR SKETCHES + + +1. I DISCOVER THE NEW WORLD + + + a. + +The most important room at home was the library. Our house was the usual +four-story brownstone segment in the unbroken wall of an upper West Side +block. There were plenty of windows. Those to the north looked out upon +the street where grocery wagons rattled by day and by night the gas +lamps dimly slumbered. Those to the south gave a broad view of another +wall of houses which at dark became fantastic with lighted windows +holding many secrets and black silhouettes mysteriously alive behind +drawn blinds. And beyond the houses was the glow of the great city. The +library had but a single window; it was too little for so large and low +a room. Even by day the library was dark and, since the window opened on +a strip of yard choked by an ugly ailanthus, I never looked through that +window. When I was in this room New York did not come in; New York +stayed distant and silent. The real world became this world of books; +and almost all the books had come from Europe. + +Among the pictures on the walls were those of two Americans: Washington +and Lincoln. But they had little to do with the America outside the +window. They spoke to me less eloquently than the novelists and poets of +England, than the thinkers of Germany, than the Athenians and Romans all +living on the shelves. This library in my father’s house in the city of +New York was a sanctuary of Europe. It glowed with a secluded quiet and +with a life of its own. And here my childhood lived with an intensity +and depth of feeling that not school, not the streets could give me. + +My father nearly every year went to Europe. We would go down to the ship +often, on the eve of his sailing, board the great vessel, and dine with +the captain in his cabin. I was in Europe then: everything, from the +food we ate to the words we heard, was strange to America. Father sailed +away, and mother bundled us children into a train. We got at last into a +shimmer of meadows and of young green trees. But even in the mountains +Europe was not far distant. Letters would presently arrive with foreign +stamps. They were long letters: page upon page of personal description +in which my father narrated his adventures in Hamburg, in London, in +Paris. His trips were short—business trips. When he came back he brought +Europe still more vividly along; in the air of his clothes, in the scent +of his label-plastered luggage. And then mother was always there: and +that made more of Europe. Mother was an artist. She sang every day. +Beethoven, Wagner, Brahms, Schubert, Schumann, Wolf—these were the +voices that came with us even to the mountains. + +My room in the city home was on the top floor. I was the youngest, a +tragic fate since it meant my going earliest to bed. It was not easy, +this clambering up from the lighted drawing room filled with the cheer +of guests, through the shadowed house. But the fourth floor was mine, +and already I was a confirmed breaker of laws. I knew that my father +would presently sit down at the organ or the piano to accompany my +mother. I would then take a blanket from my bed, wrap myself snugly, and +seat myself on the stair. My mother’s singing came clearly through the +house. School was a dim fable beside the reality of those songs; even +the strong words on the library shelves were weak by contrast. That +lovely, breathing voice with its perfect modulation and its subtle +colors brought the lands across the sea miraculously near as I sat in +guilt—and in ecstasy—upon the stair. + +So when I went to Europe (several times before I was old enough for +college) I found lands familiar to the library of my father and to my +mother’s music: familiar also through the American poets, Longfellow, +Lowell, Holmes. Cooper’s redskins and sea rovers were more remote to me +than the cockneys of Dickens, the Parisians of Balzac. As to Poe, whose +wistful little house my father showed me in a Fordham waste of goats and +cans, his land seemed a wraithlike world in no way kin to the +rectangular New York that was, for me, most of America. + +Of course, this European “nature” of my boyhood was wholly and merely +conscious surface. My hours of school, my mates of the street, the +values and activities of parent and relative, under all, the food I ate +and the air I breathed—flesh of my flesh, bone of my bone—were American. +But these depths were voiceless, and I did not know them. Even the +family traditions: the adventures of my father’s father in New York +during the Civil War, the tales of my mother’s mother about the Yankee +army that burned her Alabama home and stole her heirlooms, and about her +running the blockade in a tiny rowboat in Mobile bay (with mother a +child in arms and the constant fear that if she cried the Yankee ships +would find them) failed somehow to come as close as the great tales I +read in Homer or in Tolstoi: tales of Europe. America was in me, of +course; but too close for my roving mind to know it. + + + b. + +In my fifteenth year I had a great adventure. I picked up a history of +American literature which spoke, coldly and slightingly enough, of an +unknown poet, of whose curious style there was appended an example +called “O Pioneers!” + +I procured a green-bound volume, “Leaves of Grass”; it had a title page +in archaic type and the portrait of an ancient bearded sage, all grey, +who signed himself Walt Whitman. I read, studied, annotated, as I might +have done with the Bible if I had been reared religiously. Whitman +stirred deep voices in my soul; he inspired me. I believe in those early +days I understood him well enough. But one so obvious fact escaped me, +since I was not ready for it: the fact that this man was an American, +that his experience was related to my own and that this was why I loved +him! I thought he was as remote—and holy—as a Hebrew prophet! + +That spring there was the annual oratory contest at the high school. The +usual bright lads rose before an auditorium of a thousand people and +bespoke “The Spirit of ’76,” “The Blessings of Democracy,” and so forth. +And then a strange thing happened. A short, black-haired boy stood upon +the rostrum and for half an hour harangued the audience about the merits +of an unknown, dead poet called Walt Whitman. He must have been eloquent +as well as amusing, for the judges gave him the gold medal for his +effort. But the whole affair remained somehow outside his experience as +an American. These teachers who had rewarded him for praising Whitman +kept on quoting Longfellow. Whitman’s value seemed well symbolized by +the useless medal of gold which the boy’s mother put away and which he +never saw again. Whitman was an outsider, a myth—almost an outcast. + +But Europe came ever closer. I was done with school and too young for +college. So I was sent abroad. I discovered myself at sixteen, at +seventeen, to be of an age which on the Continent was deemed the age of +a man! I consorted with students from every land of Europe: Russians, +Spaniards, Serbians, Jews from Egypt, burly football players from Great +Britain. They were not “pretty” fellows. They knew life—women—books. We +sat about at night, drinking our tea with rum; and the air was less +thick with tobacco smoke than with the thunder of exciting talk. +Revolution, art, morality, death: all the old dwellers of the books +which I had met in my father’s library took on flesh, grew warm, grew +urgent. And here at last, so many miles from his Manhattan, Whitman +became alive; Poe found recognition. “America?” said my European +friends. “It is the place that gave us Poe and Whitman.” + +I had engaged my room at Harvard. But I wanted to go to Heidelberg, I +wanted, like my friends, to make the rounds of the great universities of +Germany, England, Paris. I wanted to persevere in this world of midnight +tea and rum with its dizzy flights into art and metaphysics. Europe +beckoned me on, like a dark, mellow woman in whom the Mother eternally +old and the Lover wondrously young were merged. And my father would not +have stood against my will. He was an imperious, passionate man, whose +prime passion was respect for the personality of others. A tyrant in +matters of deportment, he hated all interference in adventures of the +spirit. He had watched me, perhaps amused, perhaps with a hidden pang, +go about at the age of twelve with my undigested load of Ibsen and Zola +and Tolstoi. He had observed me, bored with school, become a truant, +frequent the vaudeville shows or barricade myself from furious teachers +in the office of our high school paper. Now, when the formal letters +came from Heidelberg, telling the young American that he knew enough to +be admitted, my father would not have said no, whatever his conviction. +But my older brother was less philosophical. He came to Europe; and in a +hotel room high above the Seine we had what for me was a decisive +battle. + +“You are not going to Heidelberg,” said my brother. “You are going to be +an American, by gum! And what’s more, you are not going to Harvard. +You’re queer enough as it is. You’re going to be not only an American, +but as _human_ an American as I can make you. I’m going to send you to a +place that will smooth out your angles and your crotchets. Yale for +you.”... And to Yale I went. + +I suppose I had been ill-prepared for the “dear old Campus.” My +classmates were engrossed in football, not in ideas; in Greek-letter +fraternities, not in secret revolutionary orders. They got drunk on beer +and sang sentimental songs, whereas my friends in Europe had sipped +their liquor soberly for the most part, and got drunk on Nietzsche. +Good, groping, earnest fellows, my chums at Yale seemed children to me. +I went through college a rather cantankerous rebel. To amuse myself I +wrote dramatic criticism for a local paper, losing no occasion to bewray +America’s woeful “lack of culture”; I played Bach; I wrote a book on the +Literature of Modern France; and always my eyes continued to turn east, +across the Atlantic Ocean. + +Active journalism in New York was a leap from a nursery to a sort of +jungle. The academic cloisters had struck me as anemic imitations of the +full-blooded youthfulness which I had seen in Europe. I liked sport well +enough; but was there not as well an athleticism in literature and in +philosophy? Now came New York once again: a New York of murders, +robberies, politics, and visiting celebrities who spent the +interviewer’s hour telling him pleasant things about America which were +not so. + +This New York seemed wholly body. While the slums reeked with poverty +and vice, while the high spirit of youth was trampled out by the thresh +of mechanical progress, the City seemed aware only of problems of +traffic, of taxation, of money. A vast town, New York; but since it was +concerned only with the mechanics of sheer physical growth, it struck me +as a baby—a sort of Brobdingnagian baby. If a man proposed municipal +ownership of public utilities, or cheap gas, he was treated like a +monster. If a woman was suspected of infidelity, it seemed right to drag +her to a divorce court; and the important thing—the only important +thing—seemed to be to ascertain the fact; the deep hidden significances +of her character, of her unhappiness, of the subtle treatment of her +husband—all these elements of truth were ignored. I could not accept +this gross, this infantile America, which was all the America I knew. +Being a child myself, I made the same old gross mistake: I imagined that +my Paradise existed “over there,” across the sea. I packed a bag at last +and went to live in Paris. + + + c. + +When I arrived it was nightfall. I left my bags at a hotel and wandered +up the Boul’ Mich’—the gaudy thoroughfare of the Latin Quarter. I saw no +face that I knew in the thronged terraces of the cafés which made two +fertile banks from the Gardens of the Luxembourg down to the Seine. But +I felt happy and I felt at home. I began to write. I found myself in a +world where writing—the sheer creative act—was considered a sacrament +and a service: not because of what it brought, not for what it did—for +itself. It was in the air—this rhythm of creation. Life was looked on as +a lovely, mysterious adventure, and its true priests were they who sang +of it, who pictured it, who revealed its beauty. I made friends. Here, +among these swarms of enthusiasts who spent their days arguing about a +picture or a poet, I found men after my own heart. And I found a woman, +a true daughter of this world who took me in and made me part of it. And +then, after a brief year, just as I was beginning truly to be at home, I +packed my bags and I went back to New York! + +What had happened? I was having a good time and a successful one. Living +was cheap there. It was extremely easy for a journalist like myself to +send articles and stories to the United States, convert the few dollars +into many francs, and live like a young lord in this perpetual holiday +town where poverty was no disgrace, where there was as much honor in +contributing to certain magazines as in being elected to the Senate! Did +not wealthy ladies of Paris find the same thrill in climbing five musty +flights of stairs to the garret of an obscure American author that our +own ladies found in dining with celebrities from Paris? Was there indeed +not a whole world here fashioned for the artist and ruled by his desire? +Paris itself, vast and modern, had the leisurely freedom of an +aristocratic village. Here was a huge city in which there were happy +people, in which there were trees and gardens, in which there was room +for all moods, all liberties—even for a bit of license. + +I had more than I had ever had, and yet I gave it up quite simply +because I did not want it, and I could not stand it. In several of the +cafés of Paris there gathered artists from America. Many of them had not +been home in years; most of them came from small places in the interior +and had had no contact with Europe until they had come over. They spoke +seldom of our country. But when they did, they sneered, they jeered, +they swore they were done with the barbaric land that had given them +birth. I could not argue with them; so much of what they said was simply +fact. Yet it was in the company of these Americans that I began to feel +most sharply my need of coming back. If what they said was true, all the +more urgent was the return of men like themselves who claimed to be +conveyers of the truth, creators of beauty—men who could endow America +with what they accused America of lacking. + +But I went little with these expatriates. My knowledge of the language, +my love and, bit by bit, my work gained me an entrance into the true +world of France, which before the War was the home of so much of Europe. +I was happy here, but I was not _needed_. I was being nourished by what +other men, through centuries and ages, had created. I was a parasite. At +least, so it seemed to me. I do not believe that I thought further in +those youthful days. Certainly, I thought scarcely at all of what I was +going to find when I returned. I knew simply that I was going home. I +left the best friends that I had ever had, the most congenial home, I +left my love (she never understood). I took a boat. I rented a room in +Washington Place. I stared at the dirty wall—and wondered what madness +had driven me. No matter. I was where I belonged! + + + d. + +The year was 1913 and I was twenty-three. I was alone and miserable as I +had never been. In Paris they had not understood why I had left them. +But in America no one even knew that I was here. I had outgrown my old +friends. I was done with newspapers. Everything that a young man most +needs—companionship, ideas, love—was beyond the ocean. Here? I lay on my +iron cot and stared at the blank walls; I heard the elevated trains +pound past and the arrogant motors shuffle and the crowds press, press +in their weary quest for money—in their vast indifference to all which +made _my_ world. I was unable to eat, unable to sleep—unable to work. At +times, in my weakness, I thought of what I had left behind in Paris. But +always I knew that I was not going back—never going back until I had +proven to my friends abroad, both the Europeans and the Americans, that +I was right in leaving. + +In 1914 America was not what the young artist or writer found ten years +later. There were no magazines hospitable to virgin efforts, there were +no Little Theatres, no liberal weeklies. The land seemed a hostile +waste, consumed by the fires of possession. Whatever “literature and +art” there was had to be imported from Europe in order to find a market. +But did not this fact prove that such as I were needed? The very fact +that life was hard here, that life did not seem to want me, that America +was quite resigned to letting me starve—did not this prove that I was +_needed_, and that I had come home? + +So I set to work upon the pleasant task of making myself wanted in a +world that seemed to be getting along extremely well without me. I soon +learned that it was getting on so well, chiefly on the surface. I had a +vision then, in those dark days, which gave me light and strength, and +which has never left me. + +I saw our land as a fumbling giant child, idealistically hungry as was +no other land in all the West, but helpless to express its hunger. Our +forefathers had come here brimful of religious energy: Puritans from +England, Catholics from Spain, Jews from Germany and Russia. And here +were material things that must be done: a continent to clear, bridges to +build, a nation to house. Our fathers had learned to perform these +substantial chores; they had performed them so miraculously well because +of the spiritual force which drove them. But now that they longed to +express their deeper dreams, their subtler ideals, they did not know +how. So that, for want of better, they poured all their poetry and most +of their religion into the business at hand: made it express their +idealism which they could not express otherwise at all! + +We spent so much time making money because the poets had not yet come to +teach us to make better things. We were so proud of our machines because +the builders of more significant beauty had not yet come among us. We +were such busybodies about the personal habits of our neighbors—keeping +them from an innocent drink or even from a cigarette—because the teacher +had not yet appeared to show us better ways of ennobling our souls. And +finally, we marched about in white sheets, passed restrictive laws +against immigration, grew intolerant of the chaos of creeds and races in +our midst, because we were not yet strong enough, mature enough, to +conceive of a unity of inclusion rather than of exclusion. + +Now I was ready to see America. I had intellectually or in the flesh +been “round the world.” I had known personally the men of modern Europe, +studied the masters of ancient Greece, Israel, and India. I discovered +America last—which was the right way to discover it, since America is to +be the last word, the summing up of all the yesterdays which have poured +their blood upon the American shores. + +I went west. Under the noisy, dirty, braggart mood of Chicago I felt a +childlike spirit—I found childlike men. I found a fertile and sweet +world pushing up in this town which Sandburg called the Hog-butcher of +the world—pushing up under the coal and the grime like springtime grass +beneath the muck of winter. + +I helped to edit a country paper in the heart of Kansas. I spoke to the +farmers, wrote for them, lived with them. And though I had done the same +thing with the intellectuals of Paris, I found here a warmth of response +which I had not found abroad. Here in this crude corngrower hungering to +“git America and his dream together,” and in his overworked wife +scheming to give her girls the “culture” she had never had, was a seed +of the spirit which needed only nurture and the sun to flower. And I had +talks in the kitchens of solitary farms that moved me in a way +mysteriously deep and gave me strength. + +I lived with coal miners. I found them hungry for light, possessed of an +infallible instinct for the tragic beauty of the world. They, too, were +spiritual seed long underground and ready to push up. And when a fellow +who had mined since he was twelve and who had never seen his dad by +light of day piloted me through a leaky shaft with a care that was +loving and paternal, I realized what I had won by giving up salutes of +another sort in Paris. + +I went south—to the country which my mother had left as a baby. I spent +months in lodgings in that slumberous aristocrat of cities, Richmond. +Here, too, were esthetes, weavers of silly images of distant Paradise. I +did not see them. I saw a people, stricken still under the curse of a +past and under the load of an intricate present: a people hungering for +light, for expression—a people hungering and, hence, a people growing. I +came to know the Negroes in the cypress swamps of Alabama and +Mississippi. I lived with them, I spoke to them in their churches and +their schools. In these dark breasts was a flame. I realized the +wondrous wealth of spirit and of dream which America possesses in her +Negroes. + +And I saw the Indians of the Southwest pueblos. In their classic +ceremonial dances, in their deeply unselfish religion of nature, in the +dignity and restraint of their lives and culture, I recognized an +American past—and an American example. Here was a spiritual splendor +which America had created. Like all our past it was waning. Would we +create it anew in our own culture? + + + e. + +Finally, after the War, I went again to Europe. I had begun to put my +vision of America into books. Many intellectuals had sneered. A large +group of them had even come together under the leadership of one of the +Americans who spend their time in Paris and had published a fat book to +prove that America was hopeless, an altogether unlivable place. Much of +the response which my books had won had come, not from the +intellectuals, but from those very byways of our country—the farms of +the West, the cities of the North, the fields of the South—where I had +wandered and where I had been nourished. And some of the response had +come from Europe. My books had been translated. And now that I was again +in Paris the writers of that great city called me to them and told me +with warm hospitality that this new America of which I wrote was what +_they_ needed. For, they said, the spiritual power of Europe was +declining. Europe’s noon was past. Europe, which had created and +nurtured us, now needed nurture! If America was indeed to be a land to +distil new spiritual values out of our modern chaos it would be the +savior of the Old World! + +Some of the writers of France and England had been here, and were +pessimistic. “Do not believe him,” they said. “He and his sort are only +importations from Europe—they represent a transplanted dream of the Old +World. They cannot thrive in America. They will be crushed out. Their +light is a twilight, not a dawn. The future of America is steel, more +steel; is gold, more gold; is the triumph of a sordid, ignorant Herd. +There is no hope.” + +But at these men I smiled. They had seen what I saw as a boy: they had +been repelled by the crude, the ignorant surface.... + +A few days before I left for home I was sitting in a library infinitely +richer than the one in my father’s house. It was the library of the +master, Anatole France. There he sat in his red skullcap by the open +fire. About him in manuscript, in illuminated volume, in precious +bibelot, ranged wide treasures of European culture, and in him lived the +essence of that culture—the exquisite distillation of the thought of a +hundred ages. + +“Make no mistake,” he smiled at me, “Europe is a tale that has been +told. Our long twilight is before us. But I believe in your American +dream. And I will tell you why. It is not because of your books. It is +because of the pictures I have seen, in common magazines, of your girls +and your women. You have said a great deal about Puritanism, about +materialism in America. Those glorious girls belie all that. How could +an ugly world produce such women? How could such women produce an ugly +world?”... + + _1925_ + + +2. A SAVAGE ISLE + + + a. + +I’ve been away from home for almost a year. In France, in Germany, in +Lithuania and Poland, in Egypt and Palestine and Tunis, I’ve talked with +eager men about my own fabulous country. Everywhere people knew about +America. They told me all about it. I learned a lot. + +I’m a peaceful fellow, not given to argument. And I’m impressionable, +delighted to agree with what is told me. This I find particularly easy +when what I hear is pleasant; when I am taken, for instance, in my +capacity of American, for a citizen of Eldorado or of Ophir. So +gradually, as the months of my absence grew, I found myself accepting +what I heard, in Europe, Africa and Asia, about my native land. + +By the time I took ship from Boulogne, this—more or less—is the portrait +of America which the industrialist of Essen, the rabbi of Posen, the +Vilna medical professor, the Tunisian judge, the merchant of Damascus, +the Parisian dentist, the nationalist of Egypt, had impressed upon me: + +America ... meaning above all New York ... is the most modern, the most +civilized, the most genteel, the most efficient, the most expeditious, +the most comfortable spot on earth. In America, there are no low or +humble classes. In America, everywhere, the families dwell on the +twentieth floors of palaces equipped with electric ice and radiant heat; +and when they descend to the street it is to roll away in private autos. +In America, everybody has a hand in the state; everybody has a heart for +public welfare; everybody reads; everybody considers everybody’s rights +to peace and comfort. In America, the rich lavish their money upon +scientific progress for its own sake; and of course, in America, +everyone is rich. + +... In America, the women are beautiful, free and pure. They are +comrades to men. The American man is as pure as his mother. Vice is not +tolerated, drink is unknown. + +... It is true that this American folk is overconcerned with material +well-being. But at least it has uplifted material well-being to the rank +of an art. The American people have perhaps too great a care for money. +But, at least, they spend it with splendor, and get for what they spend +their heart’s desire. For here are gleaming cities, marvelously fed with +sun and air; here are farmlands ribboned with smooth roads and labored +by miraculous machines. + +... In America, to sum up, are men and women elegant, cheerful, +leisured, powerful, serene. The rest of the backward world is jealous of +America, of course. The world, in places, quite sincerely thinks that +there are spiritual values which shining America may have missed. But +America is the apogee of material refinement. Beside American towns, +Paris must seem an unkempt village, Warsaw a dumpheap.... + + + b. + +Finally my boat put into the great American harbor. I came up on deck, +my eyes shiningly ready to enjoy the America of the talkers of Europe, +Africa and Asia. + +I saw no scintillant city rising like an army of arrows toward the Sun, +its father. What I saw was a conglomerate of buildings, formless with +haphazard shapes, a phalanx of skyscrapers as formidable from the +distance as an old comb lacking half its teeth. A sprawling and grimy +town above the noble Hudson. And the famous buildings, if they were at +all the symbol of power, made me think of a baby giant, in weak control +of his muscles, who had heaped this tilting mess of blocks upon the +floor of his playroom. + +The river-front streets had a brash rottenness that hurt, after the +mellow rottenness of Fez. The houses were cheap and dirty. They revealed +no imagination: a dull obsession seemed the architect of these +innumerable banks of brick. A folk had dumped these houses where they +stood, with its mind elsewhere or totally absent, with its heart cold or +altogether lacking. As the taxi shunted me along, going slower than a +rickshaw in Pekin (a taxi dirtier than any in Madrid, and driven by a +man who needed but a soiled burnoose and a turban to brother him with +the sword-eater in the Tangier Sacco), I thought of the improvised +squalor in certain modern sections of Egyptian towns and of the far +sweeter and swifter rhythm of the Saharan camel. And as the traffic +crawled under the marshaling terror of the cop, I remembered the ease +and speed with which one flies through the intricate network of Paris. +Fifth Avenue has a splendor; Park Avenue (when at last I reached it) +flaunted the elegance of a Brobdingnagian refrigerator, electrically +cooled. But I’d gone through an hour of back yard and alley to get +there.... + +I went uptown. I discovered empty lots throughout the heart of the city, +and unpaved stretches of street where my car bumped precisely as I had +been bumped on the winter-logged roads of Poland. Indeed, more and more, +this iridescent city of men’s dreams—in its disorder, in its dirt, in +its noise, in its lack of form and style—brought to my mind the towns I +had seen in Eastern Europe: towns where for ten unceasing years armies, +rebellions, insurrections, pogroms, have spewed their havoc. + +I dismounted at last from my taxi, and began to look into the faces of +this most pampered, ultracivilized and genteel people. Since they are +having a good time, enjoying the “top of the world,” why are they so +gloomy about it? Since they are at ease in their Zion of physical +comfort, why are they so uncomfortable, so nervous, so harassed? Since +they have been polished off by all the polishing machines of the +Modernist Machine Age, why do their brutal faces make me quake? I am no +dauntless Galahad. But I have roamed the water front of Antwerp, +searched the night kasbah of Algiers, tramped the lightless wastes of +London’s Wapping, tempted the traps of Cádiz and of Jaffa. I have never +seen faces more sullen, more dehumanized, than these of New Yorkers. I +forgot all about my conversations with the informed gentlemen of Europe, +Africa and Asia. I recalled certain statistics and knew that I was in a +town where thieving is a soft profession and where holdups and +assassinations hugely outnumber the totals in populous European +countries. + +Also, I was forced to remember that alcohol intoxicates. In my first ten +hours I saw more drunkenness in my native village than I had observed in +as many months in Spain. + + + c. + +At last I was safely in bed in a room the price of which for the night +was a little over the cost of a week’s rental of a furnished farm in +France. There came to my blasted ears, beneath the zephyrous purr of a +million motors emitting carbon gas and of a thousand radios drenching +the air with the still more noxious fumes of ballyhoo, fragments of +flattering talks about my native land in Paris, Berlin, Warsaw, +Jerusalem and Cairo. + +“Comfort” ... I heard: “speed ... efficiency” ... “mechanical +perfection” ... “civilization too easy, too happy, too refined.”... On +the fields of France they had once builded great Gothic myths; and Egypt +has her Sphinx; and Palestine wove the legends of Jehovah. Now, the sons +of these mythmakers croon fables of an America where houses sing with +gladness, and men move noiselessly and swift from pleasure to pleasure. + +Please do not mistake me. I have no grouch; I am not pessimistic. I live +in the land of my birth through choice; I deem myself fortunate in being +a New Yorker. But the notion that our country is at an apex of +perfection is the most inept falsehood. We are barbarians in a savage +jungle, we are at the sultriest beginning. + +That, precisely, is the fun of living here. Everything, however +primitive and basic, still must be accomplished: the present generation +of Americans are more profoundly pioneers than Daniel Boone, more +original adventurers than Columbus. The myth consists of supposing that +we are, to date, more than a lot of babies rising from the womb of +Europe. + +Of course, the European and African and Asiatic supporters of this myth +have been helped by ourselves. They have got their “information” and +their “facts” from the News. That modern Wonder, compact of cable, +print, radio, and motion picture—has it not “linked the whole world +close together,” making each man know all about his brothers? And could +I expect the American myth to fail to carry in Morocco, when it succeeds +right here? + +Grab your paper and plunge into the subway. The steel corridors have an +infernal beauty and the subway stinks. The noise deafens you and you are +jammed for forty minutes between strap-hanging troglodytes all reading +the same paper. That paper shrieks an incessant alternation of Lust and +Death, fulfilling the portrait of a savage jungle. No matter. On the +editorial page you will be sweetly informed that your land is the +Pinnacle of Progress, your town the culmination of man’s seeking ages. +And you, too, will be convinced of the American—the modern—myth. + +[Illustration: © _Acme_] + + + d. + +I know a way out, if you want one. Let the conduits of “information” and +“news” be placed in the hands of philosophers and men of science. For +instance, give the dailies to the metaphysicians; the weeklies to the +psychologists, the radio and movies to experts in social science. And +let it be stipulated that no edition and no story be released, until the +_entire Board agree upon the truth_. This would at once diminish the +output of press, radio and cinema to precisely what that output was in +the year 1200 B.C., and thereby enhance our accurate knowledge of the +world—and of America—to what that knowledge was in those more illumined +days. + + _1928_ + + +3. A MOB AND A MACHINE + +I went up to the opening ball game at the Polo Grounds. A number of +thousands of others went along with me. I suppose it may safely be +surmised that all of us were there to have a good time. However varied +our definitions of what a good time is, all of us, at least, must have +had the idea that a good time was to be had at a ball game. + +What happened to us, up there, strikes me as pathetic. I am not +referring to the particular brand of ball played that afternoon by the +Giants or the Braves. It was typical baseball, more or less: and it was +the typical scene. + +Here was the great stadium filled with the black human mass. The field +is enormous; the stands must be huge to compass the field. The majority +of us were pretty remote from the inner diamond where most of the game +takes place. On the periphery of it all were we—we, the great human +throng—spread parabola-wise around the field. And in one corner of that +field was the tight, shut diamond: and was the machine of players going +through its motions. + +It would be hard to exaggerate the abyss that separates a ball game at +the Polo Grounds from the vast crowds that watch it. We all know the +picture of the hungry lad peering at the man in Childs who flips the +wheat cakes on the grid inside the window. It seems to me that that boy +is less remote from his cakes than we were from our ball game. + +Just think of those titanic stands of steel. If they are not wholly +filled, their emptiness makes a menacing unlit presence all about, +chilling the spectacle of the game. And if they are packed, they form a +human mob so great it is unwieldy. No normal ball game can stir it more +than ten seconds out of every hour. + +We and the teams, moreover, had so little in common! Good baseball, such +as is habitually played by the Major Leagues, is a smooth-running, +impersonal affair. As little is left to the discretion of the players on +the field as it is possible to leave them. They are tools, or rather +parts of a mechanism run by a “mastermind” who sits on the bench. +Batsman and fielder mechanically carry out motions whose plan and +purpose are established for them. Even in the ultimate personal element +that remains—the hitting of the ball, the fielding of the ball—the good +player is a specialist, a coldly trained performer whose ways are very +far removed from the ways of the urban, sedentary throng. The beauty of +baseball, indeed, is precisely in its mechanical perfection. It is +related to the beauty of a machine, rather than of art. + +Far, far away is the crowd. It is not close in any sense, as is the +theatre crowd, for instance, close to the actors on the stage. A theatre +is a shut, packed unity: crowd and performers are physically knit. And +what the physical proximity of audience and stage does not effect, the +emotions expressed on the stage supply. Humor, pathos, passion, dancing, +music—these are all symbols enacted by the players and immediately +current in the life of every man and woman watching. But the ball game +is a machine: by and large, it remains as separate from the mob as might +a brilliantly intricate dynamo set out upon the field. + +Sitting there, that day, I understood why Babe Ruth—ignoble, fat fellow +that he is—deserves his vogue. I understood that a man like the Babe is +indeed greater than the National Game. It is such as he who enable the +wistful mob to have some sort of contact with the game. For baseball is +only clockwork; but the Babe is a boy—moody, clever, human. He “gets +across.” One crowd sees the game: another crowd follows it on the +scoreboard of Times Square; America reads of it in Kalamazoo and +Junktown. All, with a difference only of degree, are separate from this +highly organized, privately owned, secretly controlled affair of +baseball. + +Here comes a player, with whom the crowd can identify itself. Babe Ruth +catapulting the pill into the grandstand is a symbol. There have been +subtler batsmen, but all of them, Lajoie, Wagner, Sisler, Cobb, aimed +for the base hit which stays _inside_ the field. The Babe’s home run is +an effort on the part of the machine to _connect_ with the crowd. When +the ball reaches the bleachers, contact is established. The game and the +watchers of the game for that instant have the ball in common. Babe Ruth +is the demagogue of baseball. + +Not only is Babe Ruth greater than the game: such little episodes as the +periodic scandals, so deplored by moral managers and punctilious +pressmen, are little less than godsends. If they did not crop up from +time to time, Judge Landis would do well to invent them. They, too, +introduce into the machinery of baseball certain negotiable passions: +public responses to bribery, temptation, nobility and vice, come to +reinforce the old worn response of partisanship—a response difficult to +sustain when players are swapped from town to town like cattle. Anything +that makes us feel—even if what we feel is only anger—helps the game. + +What a hungry, wistful crowd we are, seated in our ascetic seats! The +game itself rarely holds us. Most of us, where we are placed, cannot +spot a ball from a strike, until we see it posted. We cannot tell +Bancroft from Marriott at the bat, without looking up the number and +consulting our score card. And save for a few tense moments, the game is +as static down there as a dead motor on a winter morning. + +No wonder we are driven to help ourselves to entertainment! + +We call every player by his first name. That helps. It makes him less +remote, away down there. + +We shout advice to him. Praise. Vituperation. We josh him, we cuss him +out. That helps. It makes us, in some wise, participants, after all, in +our great National Sport. + +When a ball comes our way, we make the most of it. We shout at a long +fly, even if it is caught. We pray for a home run in our particular +direction. + +But even when the game runs on, smooth and cold and remote, we can make +use of it. It permits us to act like children—or like madmen. That +helps, by golly! Where else can we scream ourselves hoarse—about +nothing? Where else can we make all the strange, uncivilized noises of +which the human throat is capable? We hoot, shout, boo, scream, whistle. +We get excited—without consequences. We get profane, abusive, +grandiose—without danger of having to pay. Downtown, excitement about +much is bad business. Here, corybantic ecstasy about nothing is good +form. To hell with the ball game, after all. We can enact lyrical dramas +of rage, disgust, beatitude—flinging our jewels of gesture to the empty +air, even if the game be a machine and a sell. + +And after an hour and a half of this, we can pack ourselves like grains +of sand into a stifled elevated train, and read in the headlines of the +paper we have just bought what a significant national event we have just +witnessed.... + +It is quite true that the old-fashioned humble game was better sport. +The bleachers hugged the field. The players were visible: we could see +the sweat on them and the look in their eyes. They made more errors, but +even in that were they not closer to us? Well, like everything else in +our America, the Game’s got bigger—and that means better. Even sport had +to be specialized. It used to be an enjoyable means of moving our own +bodies. Not any more. Now there’s a machine that does the moving, while +our forty thousand bodies sit packed and rancid in the grandstands. You +gotta expect to pay for the privilege of belonging to the most +progressive country on earth. + + _1925_ + + +4. MURDER AS BAD ART + +Nearly every day you see the statistics in the papers. “Half as many +homicides in Erie in an hour, as in England in an era.” “As many +assassinations in St. Louis in a second, as in Yucatán in a year.” “More +murders in Manhattan in a month, than in Schleswig-Holstein in a +century.” From which it is to be inferred that private slaughter is an +American activity. + +When, moreover, you observe the high consideration accorded to our +slayers—a consideration expressed in most cases by letting them alone +(and this, in a democracy where such a privilege is almost unheard of!) +or—in the few authenticated instances of capture—by hero worship and +adulation, it becomes further clear that we regard the murderer somewhat +as Spaniards the matador, as Frenchmen the poet, as Germans the +philosopher, as Jews the prophet. + +Murder is an American expression, a folk art. It contains some virtue so +close to our desire that we have protected it jealously from the class +distinctions which begin to encroach on our once so purely democratic +life. The American murderer can win a front page, be he millionaire or +beggar. The same sob sisters will write him up—gilded clubman or lowly +loafer. There is no hierarchy here but Merit; no limit to glory save the +intensest competition. Murder, in short, is an American art. My quarrel +with it is that it is bad art; and that America’s growing devotion to it +threatens our cultural progress. + +Consider, first, the psychology of murder. Murder is above all a +solution. We take an elementary case. _A_ hates _B_—hates the sight and +presence of _B_. So _A_ kills _B_. _A_ no longer sees what he hates to +see. _He has succeeded_: he has found a solution. This is the +instinctive murder. We will complicate it with a higher impulse. _A_ +wants _B_‘s purse. _B_, alive, would prefer not to give his purse to +_A_. So _A_ shoots _B_ or slits _B_’s throat. _B_ no longer objects to +giving _A_ his purse. _A_, once again, has succeeded. He has found a +solution. This is the emotional murder—what the Europeans know as the +_crime passionnel_: since the commercial desire, the will to earn, is +the dominant American emotion. We go still higher in the category. _A_ +wants _B_’s girl, or _B_’s social status as Beer Baron. _B_, active and +alive, is too handsome and too clever. _A_ spoils _B_’s beauty by +bashing in his face, and overcomes _B_’s intellectual superiority by +bashing out his brains. _A_, now unimpeded, wins Girl and Fortune. He +has succeeded again: found a solution again. This is the intellectual +murder: since Shakespeare and Milton severally tell us that love of +woman and love of fame are the last infirmities of the noble mind. + +Having thus placed murder under the Microscope provided by a scientific +age, we have detected in it a constant germ: what might be called the +_success bacillus_—the will to a quick solution. Now it must be +understood why murder is so advanced and wide a practice in the United +States. We are believers in success: we are clamorers for a solution: we +are no brookers of delay. Take our three hypothetic situations between +_A_ and _B_; and consider how in a less successful milieu than our own +they might be blunderingly met. A French _A_ hates a French _B_: he +grins and bears it—or he fights, perhaps vainly, to overcome his +hatred—or he avoids _B_—or possibly he comes close to his foe and, by +studying him well, strains to turn hate to love. These are arduous +endeavors, for which there is no _guarantee_ of success. None of them +_gets results_, like arsenic or a bullet. + +A London _A_ covets the purse of a London _B_. Unless he is as atypical +as genius, _A_ will not dream of murder. He will pick _B_’s pocket, or +gamble with him, or slip by stealth into his room at night—or even do +without! Again, it is clear that success is less assured. The solution +is in doubt: the result is far below 100 per cent certain. + +And now, finally, _A_ belonging to any of the effete societies of Europe +has a rival in _B_ for a girl and for social fortune. He will probably +try to get at the girl (an uncertain method where a moment’s success +“carries no insurance”) or he may try to outstrip _B_ by study and +application. The processes are long, difficult, full of hazard. The +American way of assassination is sure-fire. + +But the American method gets so quickly and nakedly at the result, by +destroying what stands in the way: _which is Life itself_. And not alone +the life of _B_: what _A_ avoids—trial, struggle, doubt—is just that +content of experience which enriches living and is the stuff of art. The +American system is very competent, and very sterile. It is related +neither to life nor to art: but rather to the machine. + +Let us consider our other American arts. We shall then see at once how +general is this love of a _quick_ solution; and how systematically we +eliminate from life those elements which might hinder a solution. Quite +recently we were mad over the Crossword Puzzle. The puzzle was soluble: +it made success easy: and it contained nothing—neither sense nor +content—except the incentive toward success. Even if one did happen to +fail, despite the aid of dictionaries and of neighbors, in finding the +“3-letter word meaning the adult of kitten,” next morning’s paper put an +end to the agony. Similarly, there is the Movie and the Popular Story. +They must contain a mechanism leading in simple and directest terms to +Success and a solution. They must dispense with any forms of “life” that +might impede solution. We can see now how harmoniously murder fits in +with the other common ways of American Law and Order. + +So much for our recognizable arts. If we tum to our public life—to our +“serious” side—we encounter the same habit. We have social problems: and +we solve them. Folks get drunk on alcohol? Easy: abolish alcohol. +Roundhead foreigners cluttered up our landscape? Easy: abolish +immigration. Dour dramas corrupted Sweet Sixteen? Easy: censor the +drama. Crazy communists upset bedtime story mood of bourgeois gentlemen? +Easy: jail ’em and let the Supreme Court of the United States outlaw +their nonsense. These are all problems they still have in blundering, +backward Europe. By gosh, we’ve solved them. + +And we’re constructive, too: not merely defensive. Having money means +having a good time. We’ve learned that. So we are abolishing every +value, and throwing in contempt each occupation, which does not aim at +money: either in the earning of it or in the display of it, once it has +been earned. And finally, success is success. Having discovered this, +there is nothing left but to murder all moods and impulses which would +deny this crucial American proposition. + +You have the idea. We jolt off more folk in New Jersey in a week than +they do in France in a generation, because murder is so consonant with +the American Idea. Of course, murder’s the low form of our art: a folk +art. (We have our pickpockets, too.) But you can’t get away from it. The +murderer is a go-getter. The murderer has a problem, and he solves it. +The murderer sees what he wants, and he takes it. The murderer believes +in quick action: he is a maker of success: he is a man with results. +(“Success” magazines and popular platform artists please copy.) + +And all this makes for bad art because—as Goethe put it—“art is long.” +The short cut gets you “there.” But what if the “short cut” cuts out +life itself? You’ve had nothing on the way. And when you are once +“there,” what can you do but start again—on another short cut—for the +next place? This is the joker in our competence. We do away with the +means: and behold! The Means are everything and the End is nothing. It’s +like the modern Sunday afternoon. We used to go nowhere in particular, +on foot: and see the country. Now we motor a hundred miles to X. And X +is nothing. And we’ve gone so fast, and swallowed so much carbon +monoxide gas, that the way was nothing either. So we speed on to Y and +to Z, ad infinitum, ad nauseam. + +To solve the problems of life is very simple. All you need do is to +eliminate—to murder—life. That gets rid of the problems: and that +explains 99/100 of what men call civilization. For life is all Problem, +and the brave dwelling therein: and the solution is death. A good life +is the art of avoiding quick solutions. And murder—this so popular +American practice, this so simple mechanical means toward a solution—is +a good symbol of the bad art of America. + + _1925_ + + +5. THE BATTLE OF A CENTURY AND A HALF + +PHILADELPHIA (JULY 4, 1776-SEPT. 23, 1926) + +The rain was the hero of the evening. The gentle falling rain. It +appeared second on the scene, pattering down so modestly just after +Tunney had climbed up, and preceding the Champion Dempsey. It was not +greeted quite so cordially by the crowd as were Gene and Jack. But ere +long it made itself felt. At the end, it held undisputed sway. + +The rain was the hero of that memorable hour in which the Mauler of +Manassa lost his crown to the Sweet Marine—for a variety of reasons. To +begin with, everybody saw the rain; and don’t you dream for an instant +that every one of those good 130,000 American patriots who had come so +far—at such expense and trouble—just to celebrate their country’s +Sesquicentennial birthday, _saw_ the Fight. Did the seats lack +visibility? Not a bit of it. A marvel of architectural finesse is the +great stadium. But even Mr. Rickard could not stretch the structure of +men’s sight nor mold to a more plastic shape the sort of scrap he had +staged. The seeing was carefully graded, as everything should be in an +orderly Republic. + +For $27.50 (up) you _saw_ the Fight, and the stripe on Jack’s trunks; +you saw the exquisite process whereby Dempsey was softened, slowed, +mauled, unshaped by the obdurate indifference of Tunney. The sum of +$16.50 gave you two men—one square head and one oblong—manifestly clad +in purple and blue trunks; face and condition a blank, but bodies +spinning visibly enough, and hopping and hugging and lunging, boring and +jabbing in a ten-round dance. Fairly balanced, they were, under the +heavy crown of the loudspeakers. No one went down, no one went through +the ropes. Tunney was steadfast and Dempsey was wild. So $16.50 got a +mere guess at the decision of the Fight you had come so laboriously to +behold. At $10.00, what you saw was a couple of bright bugs with swift +antennae, making love or something in true insect fashion—and getting +nowhere, so that you could notice. And at $3.30, you beheld, all about a +far flame, a spot, a sky of moveless, pivotless heads, a sky rolling +with human thunder. And that was worth the money. + +But when the rain came, the gentle falling rain, it played no favorites. +It did not pour buckets on Mayor Walker’s crown, and drip a mere drop on +Paddy. And how the rain was needed! Don’t you believe it put a damper on +that mob. Individual men and women may have been disgruntled—although +they didn’t show it. But the crowd itself, and the spirit of the show, +_called for_ the rain. + +In the mists which tided to the crowd from the high shell walls, see a +symbol of tedium, and you’ve got the idea. A solid, stolid thing was the +mob, massing from the ringside. When the lights that stared from +brackets all around went out, the crowd seemed dead. Myriad heads rose +from the flanks of the thing like carven facets—like knobs—like +artificed protuberances on a woody substance. You felt that a plane, if +it were big enough, could run over the vast surface, and smooth it, and +smooth off the heads. You felt there’d be a lot of sawdust, and that’s +all. You were unjust, however. For when the lights screamed back, +shedding their green-blue ice on the hot crowd, you saw that each of +these myriad individual knobs had a face: mostly a man’s, perhaps a +woman’s, face. The expression was dull, not too lifelike; and almost +never varied. But if you doubted the monumental genius of the painter of +all those phizes, you couldn’t help admiring the assiduity for going to +such trouble. + +Then the Fight, to make the stadium come alive. Shouts, cheers, murmurs, +ran at first through the inert thing: trickled, jabbed at it, +harried—and failed to fuse it together. Many sparks and no flame. The +spirit of the evening was not a spirit of fire. Sogginess, +wetness—spirit of the rain was what Philadelphia summoned from its weary +streets to meet the wearied visitors from afar. And that’s why, when the +rain did fall, it was right. You can’t blame Mr. Rickard. How could he +know? How could he know, for instance, that this stadium, unlike other +circuses, sprawls too horizontal from the ring, is too fluid in its +forms to be galvanized into a furious hard passion? A fight scene should +be more vertical, more funnel-shaped. Then your scrappers have a chance, +with their lean frail arms, to weave a spell to pull the human lump +together—fire it, make it the mad, single-howling creature which loomed +above Dempsey and Firpo in New York.... And how could Mr. Rickard +foresee that his two prize babies, this time, would keep their feet so +well? + +If the prize fight is to outlive its present mastodonic bulk, and +not—like other dinosauri—collapse from sheer flatulent vastness, the +pugs’ arms will have to grow stronger so that there is more flooring, or +their legs will have to grow feebler, so that there is more flopping. In +a huge stadium, you can see a man go down flat—and that is always worth +a week’s salary and ten hours’ sweating in trains. But boxing, boring, +sparring, dancing, spinning—but a bloody nose and Jack’s shut +eye—what’n’ell do such fine points get you, when you cannot _see_ them? +The fat ball park developed the fat Babe Ruth. Slugging makes contact +with the huge modern mob, where all the place-hitting of Nap Lajoie +would be lost. The fisticuff equivalent of a fast-bounding ball in the +bleachers is a couple of giants tumbling each other, as in the +Dempsey-Firpo fracas. There was none of that in Philadelphia. + +The crowds were childish about it; and you cannot blame them. They +wanted action: thudding, sudden action. Without it, they were bored. How +far they had come! what hours they had voyaged, leaving wife and +children! what hours’ hard earnings expended! what sweat exuded! what +shoe leather worn away, in order to be in Philly! Was it to see two +boxers, bobbing in a white-roped ring? Once they were there, they +couldn’t wait to get home. A knockout in round one would have delighted +them. Immediate action—what the French in another context call _la +jouissance immédiate_—that was the infantile temper of the crowd. They +howled down the announcer, when he wasted time on adjectives. They were +nonpartisan. They were for Tunney when his blow landed; they were for +Jack when the thud of _his_ glove came over the acred heads. They were +for anybody who’d bring it all crashing to a decisive thrill. Poor +public! Hadn’t they paid two million dollars for _something_? I suppose +that is why Mr. Rickard, whose influence with the weather is well known, +brought down the rain. + +Which leads me to our Showman. The show was, of course, the packed +stadium. Or, if you prefer, the show was the show itself. The Fight was +the pretext for bringing the show together. To this end, Jack and Gene +fought for championship. To this end, one hundred and fifty years ago, +our fathers fought for independence. So that Philadelphia might have her +celebration and dawdle through it meagerly for many months on such +nurture as the Pageant of Freedom (loss $700,000)—and recoup it all in +the sudden financial glory of a scrap fight, which a hundred-odd +thousand paid for, and which the radio stay-at-homes alone followed +clearly. But if the Show was the show itself—who saw it? + +Not the newspapermen, not the frontiersmen in the wide, cheapest spaces. +All of them erroneously had their eyes on the ringside. The chief +appreciator of this thing of beauty was the chief creator of it: Mr. Tex +Rickard himself. + +From 8:00 to 9:30 P.M. I followed this enraptured artist as he moved +from entrance to entrance of his golden dump. I was happy to catch the +esthetic gleam in his eye, and to hear him murmur: + +“Gee! Only look at ’em all! See that silver blimp tipping the stadium +askew as if we were on a boat in a storm. See that Penn State Building +yonder, like a city in the air. See the heavens rolling, rumbling near. +All so fluid, all so fairy-like—above the solid substances of my crowd! +One hundred thirty thousand ... solid ... solid ... _paid for_! By +Michael Angelo,” cried our leading modeler of mobs, “it’s worth earning +half a million dollars to make a thing as beautiful as this.”... + +And so, to make that beauty perfect, he summoned down the rain. It +worked on the crowd like water on a thirsty plant. It eased them—brought +them together. It gave them something more immediate and urgent than +that distant dance in the ring. Water, drooling from one bosom to +another, joined them. The little raindrop, bounding from head to head, +made brothers as it bounded. We knew that our forefathers, fighting for +freedom, had fought to make a Nation, after all. + +Men and women removed their hats and swathed their heads in +handkerchiefs that gleamed in the gloom like turbans. The stadium turned +Oriental; the fight fans became worshipers at some rite. Now, the +remoteness of the bout was good—since a rite before an altar should be +occult. Now, the cavortings and borings of two men on a light-blazed box +seemed fitting. And it was well that a little man in an incongruous +dinner coat should make noiseless speech under a diadem of arcs and +amplifiers; and that his voice should loom, by some sudden miracle, into +each shadow of the conchshaped pile. And, finally, it was right that at +the very end, at least a hundred thousand of the worshipers (who had, +they thought, come to _see_ a fight) should stand quiet until the Metal +Voice belched forth the news to them of _who had won_. + +Slowly, sweetly they plashed away through the mud and the motors, toward +their distant homes. Through the waterlogged rhetoric of a National Fair +which needed a prize fight to put it on the map. And the heavens wept +gently. + +But when we reached the Penn Station at Broad Street, all my hopes for +mankind were reborn. With a greater drive than Dempsey’s, with more +stamina than Tunney’s, silent mobs of men stormed with drenched bodies +through the gates—to the New York trains. And then I knew that my +brothers, after all, were capable of enthusiastic action when some high +purpose urged them. + + _1926_ + + +6. ENNOBLING OUR CRIMINALS + +So it has come to this. They’re advertising for the crook and the yegg. +The first practical sign of the uplift was in the modest little placards +which blossomed out some time ago in the “L” stations: they reminded +prospective robbers of ticket offices that, _if they were caught_, +they’d get from six to seven years. The suggestion, of course, was: not +to be caught, and doubtless some few courageous men were thereby +inspired to do better work. But now there are to be flamboyant +posters—every bit as good as the old ones which urged us to Buy Liberty +Bonds, to Save Sugar, to Save the World from the Kaiser.... These new +works of democratic art speak out to all whom they concern: “You CAN’T +win. Ships Don’t Sail Beyond the Arm of the Law.” Or, “You CAN’T win. +You Have to Get All the Breaks. One Little Slip Means Sing Sing.” + +It is fair to assume that these exhortations are not addressed to the +little girl who works all day in a milliner’s shop; nor even to the +plumber riding home from his pipes. There must be a criminal class, +large and plebeian enough to use the streetcars, to whom these +advertisements are devoted and whom they are aimed to improve. This is +highly significant as perhaps the final proof that we are a democracy. I +feel, however, that much good material is neglected by not putting the +posters also in the taxis. + +At last the criminal class is to be exalted. Today, of course, it is +small pumpkins to hold up a bank clerk or sandbag an aged millionaire as +he saunters from his club. Mediocre men—men of conservative instincts +and cool passions—have degraded the ranks of crime. All this is now to +be changed. The crook is to be challenged! The yegg is to be dared! “YOU +CAN’T WIN” shout the ads. This will, of course, discourage the weak +members. It will fire and inspire the strong ones. It will weed out the +cautious crooks. It will raise the moral and spiritual standard of the +whole fraternity of pillagers, marauders, brigands, thugs and pirates +who grace our peaceful land, and serve to circulate moneys and emotions. + +Dick Turpin, Robin Hood, the great corsairs, had no encouragement like +this. They worked against a spirit of states and peoples which in every +way encouraged “virtue.” When one thinks of the drawbacks of those days +one wonders that picaroons, spielers and strong-arm men survived at all! +It merely goes to show the indestructibility of genius. Men were +discouraged from peculation by thoughts of God, and by the subtle +suggestion of the priests that it was _harder_ to go straight! Moses had +thundered: “Thou shalt not”—with the assumption that, of course, _thou +couldst_. Jesus of Nazareth went even further. He made it clear that it +was almost impossible to be good. For ages, the aristocracies and the +churches kept up their propaganda, discouraging crime on the ground that +crime was easy, forgivable and mean. + +We have changed all that. “You can’t win my swag!” challenges the +banker, knowing well that this is the very tune to inspire the daring +crook against him. Indeed, the best of this new scene of our Democratic +Drama is the altruism of the leaders. + +They have suffered, after all, very little from holdups. Crime has been +endemic, but sporadic. The land buccaneering art needed uplift and +stimulation. It needed the standards and the token of popular support +which advertising—that university of democracy—alone would give it. +Enough vivid posters encouraging superior youth to bust safes or board +bullion-carrying motors—through the method of challenge and of a call to +adventure, and we can look forward to the day when all banks will be +broken, all rich ladies stripped of their jewels, and all motors in the +hands of thieves, save, of course, those taxis which are already run by +licensed yeggmen. + +Our ruling class disproves the cynicism of the materialist philosopher. +Are they not now inspiring a criminal class, with educational posters, +to despoil them? + +But perhaps there’s a way out of this dilemma, after all. + +Everyone knows that about fifty years ago our pioneers and pork-barrel +experts instituted the campaign which has resulted in the present flood, +throughout the land, of novelists and poets. Advertising methods in +those days were more intimate, because the science had not been +standardized. Yet the process was essentially the same as that now begun +for the benefit of our criminal classes. Instead of shouting in posters, +it was whispered about: “Write Poetry—and Starve.” “Creators—You Can’t +Win. The Possessive Arm of the Law Will Get You, Even in Paris.” + +The result, of course, was Greenwich Village, and our ten thousand +Little Theatres. In the bright lexicon of youth, there’s no word of +challenge like CAN’T. But the crowning stroke of this maneuver for +supplying our land with a sufficiency of poets, was the system of awards +and prizes which has since sprung up. + +The creators, of course, were first _challenged_ into existence by the +possessors. Then, those who were wise enough to make their imagination +and their art work _for_ the possessors, were paid sumptuously in coin. + +Similarly, bank robbers and holdup men must first be inspired to know +the dignity of their calling. These posters will help to draw the right +class of energetic youth. All that remains, then, will be to announce +positive rewards for those criminals who make good. + + _1925_ + + +7. READING THE SPORTS + +Oh, how glad I am that spring is coming and that baseball’s here! For +once again, I can get something from the papers. I am what America would +unanimously call a highbrow. Put me down as that, since the Majority +Rules. It is because I am a highbrow, spending my days and nights in +philosophic contemplation, that I rely on the sports in our dailies. +During these last months, life has been bitterly empty. At its best, pro +football is a vague business, and tennis is the sort of game you must +see in order to believe. I have suffered frightfully for lack of news. +But now I am myself again. The sun shines promisingly in my window. +Mayor Walker has thrown out the first ball and at last I can spend my +pennies evening after evening, for Baseball Finals: certain at last of +having _news_ to read. + +It is, if you insist on explanations, because I am a highbrow spending +my days and nights in philosophic contemplation that I require the +sports. You don’t see? Well: let’s examine the matter like two highbrows +together. + +I prop my morning paper carefully (so as not to spill it) against the +water tumbler, with its edge held down by the plate which holds my +grapefruit. Right column spread: Briand and the League of Nations. Do I +read it? No. Why do I not read it? Because I am not concerned in +International Affairs? Wrong again. It is because I am concerned in +International Affairs, and know something _about_ International Affairs, +and know a good deal about papers—that I skip this column. For I am +aware, whatever the true crux of the crisis, that I’ll not find it +printed. Vague conjectures, superficial facts, details, a perfect +avoidance of everything causal—of all that _counts_ in this particular +matter—this is what my faithful paper spreads before me, on +International Affairs. Next door, an article about the Police and +Bootlegging and the Crime Wave in our city. I am exceeding interested in +all crime news, and in the liquor market. That is why I skip the column. +If I desire to be sure what really happened, I must wait till I can drop +in on the boys who know one thing and who write another.... Left column: +the big story about Congress. It also fails to qualify. Nothing but the +hot air is in the print. The real plots, plans, motives, are as far from +this open page as are the committee rooms and dining rooms of Washington +from the visitors’ gallery at the Capitol. + +I turn the page. I fare no better. Discovery of ruins in Yucatán, Egypt, +the Gobi Desert. I know the “desk” has sedulously deformed the trickle +of “quick” news which the telegraph has shot across the sea.... Divorce? +I’ll get none of the violet rays of subtle human truth in this odious, +scarlet, lyingly “whole” report. Taxi smashup? Perhaps the names at +least are right (though even they may be misspelled, unless they’re +famous). Music? I happen to know too much about music to marvel +convincedly at Marion Talley’s voice. + +Ah, but here is the book page! I may glance at the ads. They tell me at +least, with a modicum of truth, that Mr. Mencken’s new novel is out; and +that the Hexameter Epic to which Mr. Broun has devoted so many years of +silence is to be published in the fall. But will these lengthy and +pontifical disquisitions about the current output give me either _facts_ +or credible _opinion_? Alas! I fear not. There is more honesty and +candor here than in the sections devoted to politics and crime. But not +more competence. Real information about books and art requires an +informer with background and perspective, and fairly permanent esthetic +standards. + +And I crave facts! I’m a highbrow: I want to _know_ at least of +SOMETHING that’s happened in the world, since yesterday. So I turn to +the sports page. + +I am told that Babe Ruth fanned three times, and I believe it! I am told +that Vance pitched as good a game as that famous one of Walter +Johnson’s, five years ago in Detroit. I’ll stake my dollars, it’s true! +Here is the statement that the Giants blew in the seventh and the +Pirates hammered five earned runs. I know it! I know the runs were +earned! (What a relief it is, to know anything at all in our chaotic +world—when even the atom has crumbled!) + +I am pretty certain that these boys in the Majors are really Major +Leaguers, and deserve to be there, by the best of baseball standards. I +believe these baseball critics. I am willing to accept, without the +tedium of a personal inquiry, that the fellows who are playing in +Paterson or Oshkosh are not as good as their brothers in Big Time. But I +am quite as sure that the real Major Leaguers in politics, law, +business, literature, education, are usually ignored by the papers; +whereas every morning there’s a new crop of tenth-rate Minors in the +five-column spreads. + +McGraw would stand for no Mayor Hylan in his line-up. It wouldn’t pay +_him_, as it paid Tammany. No sentimental blurb can hide the fact if +Ruth has batted .170 for a week. No lack of a blurb can blur the +fielding and batting splendor of George Sisler. There’s plenty of stuff +about the past, that we believe in; plenty of hopes for the future. But +today—what can we believe today? In the sports I get rare satisfaction, +for I can say: “It’s in the papers, and I do believe it.” + +You’ve got to have _some_ certainties at breakfast. You’ve got to have +_some_ English written in a style living, appropriate, honest. There’s +plenty of fiction: forty pages, daily, in our average-sized journals. +Forty pages of cake. That’s all very well. But, being a plain highbrow, +I need a little of the bread of fact. Thank the Lord for baseball. + + _1926_ + + +8. THE NEW CONQUISTADORES + +So I went to Florida for a rest.... + +Of course, I left all my money there in real estate ventures, and had to +return by boat. This is a cheaper way than Pullman, and I soothed my +pride by arguing that it would round out my experience. In Miami, +Sarasota, St. Augustine and Jacksonville, I had encountered nothing but +millionaires. There must be a nether side, an “other half of the world,” +even in Florida. More modest revelers in sunshine surely must go south +by winter and doubtless I would find these coming north by boat. + +I was mistaken. The steamer was crowded. Every cabin and berth were +occupied by men and women who, according to admissions obliquely and +nonchalantly let fall in talk, were larded with money. Everyone had +tried to get a _de luxe_ stateroom, alas! and had failed. Everyone, +moreover, was traveling by boat because of a tender love of the sea. +There was not much wind; but a good portion of our company were sick. +Nor do I recall any gazing at the ocean, save on one or two instances +when porpoises were sighted. Perhaps there was more sea to the voyage +than the pampered landowners had bargained for. It is true that from +beginning to end the boat was utterly surrounded. + +And besides, there was too much of an intellectual, cultural, +public-spirited nature to discuss on board for any childish pleasure in +salt water. These were men and women on a holiday. Yet, everybody knows +that the athletic mind finds rest, not in lazing, but in a simple change +of the topic of cerebration. These men and women had gone South +ostensibly in quest of sunshine, alligators, golf and bathing. Their +alert minds had soon discovered that Florida today was the very apex of +American progress, the cynosure of all live American eyes, the ideal of +every purse possessed of the creative impulse to increase and multiply. +What more inevitable than that, returning to their estates in Kalamazoo, +Newark and the Bronx, they should discuss and discuss? + +We were foregathered in the smoking room. + +“They are sure doing wonders down there in Florida.” A heavy Elk spoke +with gleaming eyes. His chest was deep and so was his voice. It was +strange how two-dimensional those eyes seemed. + +As the four others of us round the table nodded and sipped our near beer +and chewed at our cigars, I became aware of a strange presence overhead. +The smoking room was fitted out after the fashion of an old English inn. +In the ceiling were open rafters clouded in smoke. And here, straight +above us, through the darkling mist, I saw another group of men gathered +like us about an oaken table. + +At first, I thought that there must be a mirror in the beams, catching +our group through the haze; for these men above were placed like us. But +as my vision cleared I saw that they were different, after all. They +were clad in steel coats of mail; swords swanked angularly at their +sides; they wore flaring boots; armored gauntlets were drawn off, and +freed the harsh-haired fists of conquistadores clasping silver goblets +filled with ruby wine. + +My neighbor answered—a weasel fellow, all grey, whose nose seemed in a +perpetual tremor of scenting and searching: + +“Why, Jacksonville’s population alone has doubled in ten years!” + +—_Tell the Padre that we have made another hundred converts_, came from +the smoke-veiled rafters. + +“They got 268 manufacturing plants that can turn out $50,000,000 worth +of goods a year.” + +—_Our first stone building at San Agustin is a school for the Indians._ + +“You know that filling-in of marsh water front at Sarasota cost the +Ringling Brothers about $10,000. They sold it at $13,500 the acre.” + +—_The new Cathedral was built by Christian natives. We have sent the +deed of the property as a gift to the University of Salamanca._ + +“Miami has a transient population of 90,000. That’s what pays ... the +transients.” + +And over my head the echo:—_We are being urged to marry with the Indian +if need be, and to settle. Are these men not the hidalgos of a great +land? Has not Don Francisco called them brothers of the Spaniard?_ + +“Fifteen thousand hotels in Florida.” The Elk eyes glowed. + +—_A Mission in the Everglades at last!_ was the refrain. + +“The whole thing is stupendous,” came the shrill voice from the grey man +at my side. “It’s the greatest land rush in the history of the U. S. A.” + +“Which means, in the history of the world,” said a surgeon who operated +in lots on the side. He was a man burly and sinuous. There was in him +something of the otter and a good deal of the boar. “Why, compared to +this, the great movements of history—the gold rush into California, the +dash to the Klondike, the opening of the Middle West and the Northwest +with Harriman and Hill, were puny.” + +He was an eloquent as well as learnèd speaker. And as each glorious +instance rolled from his soft mouth, there came an echo mysteriously +transformed by the smoky rafters.... + +—_Movements of history ... passage of the children of Israel across the +Red Sea ... the quest of the Holy Grail ... Crusades ... Columbus._... + +“But it ain’t business only!” I protested. + +“You bet not,” said the Elk. “‘Come to Florida and see the nation at +play.’” He quoted the great line without hesitation. + +I saw our nation at play. Motoring ... movies ... lot jugglings ... +motoring ... walnut chocolate fudge sundaes and bad booze ... +motoring ... boosting, boasting ... motoring.... + +Overhead clinked silver goblets. The conquistadores were humming a +“malagueña.” From the mist about them came a glow as of mellow vineyards +yielding sunny wines, and of women dancing. Below, hard lips told of +sport. + +Said our Elk: “I dropped in on the Yankees at St. Petersburg. Those boys +clear a fortune even out of training.” + +The tale of sport from overhead was different. Honor and love were +counters; the players risked life and joyously won death. + +“Not alone a nation at play,” exclaimed the surgeon. “Florida is a +frontier with all the culture of the capitals. Here is a whole state +being opened up, with the best accommodations! For modern improvements, +New York’s got nothing on it.” + +“And they ain’t forgot religion,” added the grey man with the tremulous +nose. “They just put up a church in De Land, cost $300,000. You bet I +bought all the lots I could in a town like that. Where they spend money +on a church, they’re going to stick. A swell church means business.” + +—_Our Mission was builded by volunteers from the old Settlements +elsewhere. They were not paid, of course; but we had to shoot many +infidel natives who did not understand why we wanted to build so fair a +church in a land that was not ours. Yes, many were killed and some were +tortured. There is no room for infidels. We let the gold go home for the +greater glory of our Gracious Queen._ + +“Well,” cried I, emptying my mug of legal beer, “Florida is certainly a +hum-dinging first-class show of American progress.” + +“It’s enough to make you proud,” said the Elk. + +“—and rich,” smiled the sly surgeon. + +“Why, in Jacksonville every guy in town’s got to wear a big button—and +if he don’t, you just bet he gets into trouble. It’s yellow and on it is +printed in red [those are old Spain’s colors, you know]: WE ARE +BELIEVERS IN JACKSONVILLE.” + +—_We are believers in God_, came clearly from the rafters. + + _1925_ + + +9. TWO FACES + +In the literary office of a certain magazine there is a vast table piled +with books. “Mostly junk,” the editor will explain. My hand feathers the +outskirts and picks a volume with title: “Calvin Coolidge. His First +Biography.” I am not permitted to speak of it here. Nor shall I linger +wistfully over the so symbolic circumstance that a book about a living +President should be a thing void of ideas, vile in composition, rancid, +and false in spirit. Within its covers, I found the portraits of two +faces: one of the President and one of the President’s mother. Thereby +hangs my tale. + +She was beautiful. She looks out at you in a black dress of satin, +sterncuffed in white, high-collared, with a cameo at the throat. The +hands lie demure in the lap. The hair is drawn tight and sideways to the +ears. She looks out at you, not so much from the frontispiece of a book +as from New England. + +She is impressive. The sharp small chin is firm. The mouth is pursed, +its prim lips faintly flexed into a downward frown. The nose is +straight. It has delicacy; its nostrils seem to quiver not from emotion, +but from restraint of emotion. Under the plastered hair is a forehead +high and ample: a square forehead which is the feminine form of the +stern unsubtlety of pioneers. It holds a mind serene through exclusions, +correct through lack of doubts. The eyebrows are straight as a whiplash. +Above them the flesh puckers like a girl’s, ere the forehead’s rigor +claims it. But the eyes are deep-set as in some dark seclusion. + +They glower. Their gaze is reproof. And their sight is a shadow. Pain +lurks in them, muted and proud, and constant. There speaks a virtue +assumed, a mastery willed: almost a habitude of judgment. The eyes +dominate all. Under the girlish brows with their faint fleshliness, +above the exquisite nose, within the contour both fragile and brittle +which the folded hands whitely enhance, these eyes are paramount. +Tenderness turns hard; frailty assigns itself master; weakness wills +itself mighty. The result is a transformation. This face, so gracious in +its elements, gives for its final word inhospitality and shutness. The +result, in more personal terms, is Calvin Coolidge. + +His face is the response to his mother’s. She was the obscure farmer’s +wife in the Connecticut River Valley. There, as with countless other +women, her loveliness had its begrudging bloom. Winters long as a siege, +summers of swift fever, the inclement lordship of Puritan ideals, made +her astringent. Weather attuned to will hardened this flesh and drew the +spirit down to the sure rigor of material affairs. Virtue became a +saying of Nay and an economic cunning. Poetry took property for symbol. +And so at last, on a certain Fourth of July, this daughter of New +England gave birth to Calvin Coolidge. Not she alone. A whole decadent +Puritan tradition gave birth to him; fathered his spirit; molded his +memorable face. + +The little man waxed great. And as he grew, his face became the +caricature of his mother’s fairness. It is a caricature horrible in its +significance, superb in its logic. + +Chin, mouth, nose, brow, eyes of Calvin Coolidge are children of the +splendors strangled in his mother. Her face already is this twilight, is +a recession of splendors. Her features speak but greyly an ancestral +greatness. Moral power, will, devotion, chastity, singleness of vision, +bore this woman. But the essence of their means to life made the mind +intense to the exclusion of content; made the beauty neurotic; made the +virtue shut. Made, inevitably, their own culminant death whose Person +now presides the American lands. + +The chin of Calvin Coolidge has grown pointed, out of all proportion: it +is a shallow, contentless thrusting. The lips have almost disappeared. +The mouth is a crease of shrewd, complacent purpose. The fold of +resolution beneath his mother’s nose becomes a dugout of meanness. The +nose itself is bulbous, perhaps with too much half-baked nutriment: it +is a proboscis of forwardness unchallenged along the path which the +canny eyes select from all the paths of the world. The forehead is blown +into a windy conch, unruffled and unfilled save with the echoes of dead +covenants. It crowns the face like a seashell; and the face itself +becomes, beneath it, a pucker of soft parts like some naked creature +peering forth for food. The head, indeed, is the Rhetoric of absence. +The face is the expression of an immaculate instinct for sure and mean +details. + +[Illustration: © _Fairchild Aerial Surveys_] + +Again, as with his mother, the man’s eyes give the key. They have lost +the tragedy of hers. They have flattened, hardened, and come out to the +surface. They do not, from a secret depth, glower upon a hostile world: +but have pressed, with a twist and a leer, to Victory. They twinkle. +They have the lasciviousness of cold possession. They are the logical +eyes of the battener on nullities: the eyes of the democratic +politician. + +So, as Calvin Coolidge, professional legislator, might declare: The Nays +have it. Here is a face at last, ultimate and stripped to the model of a +will like a machine. A face where no dream lingers beyond the dreams +approved by a smug world: a face which no thought troubles that has no +answer in the current coinage: a face that knows not passion, unless it +be charted and chartered in the Statutes. The mother’s frown is gone +with the conflict it expressed. Here, in lieu, is a smirk. All the +realms of spiritual risk which her men, good pioneers, to such good +purpose barred, have here stayed out, indeed. A race’s turning of its +ideal power into the body of Success becomes this face and body, +stripped to cunning, instinct with the spirit of acquisition. The symbol +becomes a man; the man becomes a symbol. He crawls up the greased ladder +of public honors. He becomes a leader and an idol, in whom the mob can +worship its own meanness.... + + _1926_ + + +10. THE DRUG ON THE MARKET + +It is prevalent and poisonous. And the land is proud of it. Its +manufacture is a huge industry; its sale is a popular art. Billions of +dollars are spent in making it: millions more go to the appurtenances of +its use: and billions are paid in wages to men and women who devote +their lives, openly, to its production, distribution, upkeep. The states +all license it, turning a tithe of the wealth spent for it by our people +to their own coffers. Great magazines and newspapers grow fatter with +its advertisements. Some papers, indeed, are entirely given to its +commercial and esthetic aspects. And no publication, however ethical in +editing its columns, however adverse to such drugs as coffee or tobacco, +refuses to display its blandishments for money. + +All America lives under its influence, and does not suspect that it is +enslaved by a drug. “Shows” are planned yearly in great towns to +propagate its sales and sing its praises. Special sections of the +dailies detail its progress. Schools teach the beginner how to enjoy it. +And everywhere ordinances and officials tune the whole life of the land +to the needs and habits of those who use it. + +It comes in varieties of kind which display distinct differences in +expenditure of money. And these gradations have a truly hierarchic +value. In a democracy where castes are vague, where money-power has few +manifest badges of dress or standard of living; where, indeed, +millionaire and clerk go to the same movie, read the same books, travel +the same roads, and where intellectual distinctions must be very +carefully concealed, the conspicuous uses of this drug have become a +standard of social status. The lowest classes aspire, first of all, to +earn the means of _visibly_ possessing it. When they have risen so far, +they may be said to have a foot on the first rung of the Ladder of +Success. Thence, they are urged, instructed, exhorted, by advertisement, +editorial, numberless methods of herd pressure, to progress upward. It +is neither uncommon nor unworthy to mortgage a farm or keep it bare of +such luxuries as furniture and books, in order to purchase a more showy +form of the drug: one whose effects are swifter and whose price is +higher. + +Like all drugs, this one has estimable virtues. Its effect is great on +the motility of man, when used in moderation. It is a synthetic product. +It is not found in a state of nature, but must be concocted; although, +of course, from natural ingredients both mineral and vegetable. I do not +know how man first came to put it together. Probably his love of new +combinations led him. I doubt whether the incentive to increase our +mobility on earth was there at the beginning. (The thing, by the way, +was invented in Europe; and in Europe, largely still, it is controlled +within the limits of good use.) But America soon transformed it from a +delicate ornament to the mastering instrument it is today. It increases +man’s power to move things, and to move himself. It increases his power +to see things. It opens up to him stretches of the world he might +elsewise never reach: communities of action and intercourse with other +men whom he might elsewise not come near enough to work with. + +This virtue of the drug is a positive contribution. It makes it not +unworthy to be placed in man’s esteem beside other concoctions long +known and loved. Alcoholic drinks, for instance, with their heat-making, +cheer-making, fat-making, nerve-relaxing power: tobacco, which is a +subtle sedative to mind and stimulant to nerve: coffee and tea which +cheat fatigue: opium, morphine, cocaine, ether, by means of which men +and women are helped across the crises of the body without the drain of +too great suffering. + +The drug’s most typical and most desired effect is the sense of +_self-motion_. The user feels that he is “on the go.” The faith that he +is covering ground or getting somewhere (although that “somewhere” be of +no intrinsic value) is, of course, the type of morbid rationalization +common to all addicts of all poisons. The sensation of flight is the +main matter. The drug is a means of physical escape. It becomes a symbol +of psychological escape. + +Now, “progress” is an American superstition whose chief feature is +movement. To progress, you’ve got to move on: you’ve got to be +perpetually passing from what _is_ to what will never, never be—since as +soon as _that_ is, it also must be passed. This superstitious tic is +potently flattered by the effects of our drug. From being a means of +motion and escape, it has grown into a symbol of progress. It began by +cajoling our nerves. It ends by cajoling our ideals. + +Of course, this subtle transition from use to abuse is generic of all +vices. Far too soon, the ill annuls the good which tempted us into the +path leading to addiction. But with older narcotics, men have had time +to learn the dangers hidden in delight. They have elaborated mental and +moral mechanisms to protect them. It is deemed a “social vice” in Europe +to drink too much liquor. Men almost everywhere have become “afraid” to +employ opiates without the doctor’s sanction. Sometimes this instinct of +defense hardens into law. America, for instance, as befits a timid land, +was armored by Constitutional Amendment against the ravages of a mug of +beer, against the blight of a little glass of wine. (This may not be +known to the reader, who can verify it by consulting any lawyer.) The +instinct of self-protection is naturally strong in the small and the +weak. This makes it all the more amazing that America has developed no +defense, and no awareness of the need of defense, against the +holocaustic uses of this drug on our market. + +The reason is, that we have not yet had it long enough. The lapse from +use to abuse has been too subtle and too short. And the reason is, also, +that there has been confusion between the sensory effects of the drug +and what Americans consider their ideals. The notion, for instance, of +bare movement as value—is this, indeed, a human value or is it the +delusion of a drug fiend? or the idea of utilitarian progress whereby +all present life is successively sacrificed to a never-reached tomorrow? +or the standard of measuring worth which makes man neglect himself and +give his love only to the accumulation of dead external objects? It +might well be argued that such “values” as these are the results of a +drug habit, rather than the spiritual traits of a Great Republic. + +The key to the popular appeal of this narcotic is, then, an induced +sense of flight—idealized into the delusion of “progress.” The addict +becomes nervous and restless. He hungers to “progress” with his drug to +help him move; and also he aims to heighten the outward splendor of the +drug itself, so that the world may judge his “progress” in the world by +it. Battening on change, he dares not stop. He must go on moving. And +since even motion can become a constant almost as steady as rest, he +must be forever changing his pace of motion. His life must be accented +motion—ever irregularly accented. And change, from being a means, +becomes an end. + +Now follow other results. Swift movement, increasing the extension of +our sight, enfeebles the intensity and quality of what we see. With the +delusion of seeing more, we see less: with the delusion of unfolding +more miles of the world, the span of living shrinks. The drug is foe to +meditation, to solitude, to careful and loving observance. It frees the +addict from resorting to himself in the crises of dullness: he need not +explore the devious trails of his soul, when so many, wider, asphalted +roads are beyond him. But meditation and leisurely observance are the +traits whereby life becomes real. + +In lieu of them, we have the bare experience of passing. Moments are not +dwelt in; they are overcome. The “present” of life, no longer a treasure +to be mined, is a barrier to be vaulted. But moments and places are real +to us only in so far as we put ourselves _within_ them. Now with this +drug the converse happens: we take ourselves _away_ from moments and +from places. Moments and places grow void. Life becomes a succession of +zeros. + +Within each soul there is a kindred process. The drug is a substitute +for thought and for emotion. So hallucinatory is its sensuous effect of +“progress” that the addict literally _moves out_ of his troubles. Are +troubles not matter for thinking and for feeling? And do not thought and +feeling require some rest—or at least some constant, unconscious +motion—in order to be enjoyed? This drug of ours, spelling flight, +flight from the hour and the place upon us, brings flight as well from +the problems of life that fill the place and the hour.... Remains only +motion ... only the emotion of motion. + +The drug’s use is a short cut: and nothing is more dangerous and +sterile. A short cut through time, through place, through life—leads to +death! Life is swift, and the value of life is the value of every +moment. A machine, an act, a drug which makes us leap this moment is +murderous. Alas! here, too, there has been confusion between the effects +of a narcotic and what we consider our ideals. For we are proud of the +short cuts with which we clutter and sterilize our world. Newspapers, +telephones, radios, are imperious short cuts, demanding that we devote +an ever-increased portion of our days to details and surfaces of men and +matters we might well ignore. The use of this drug eliminates the ground +between the “beginning” and the “end.” But both “beginning” and “end” of +anything are abstractions, darkness, death. The _between_ is life. So +the use of the drug lessens life. + +It has another, curious effect upon the user: a subtle one, hard to +grasp—but not without importance. It lifts the user from the embrace of +living things, setting him, half insulate, in a machine. To walk the +earth, to sail the sea, to ride a horse or plod behind one in a buggy—to +drink the heady brews of grain or vine—these are all ways of touching +life. But to box oneself into a thing of iron, and race through the +verdurous world as fast as ever one may, is to get almost out of life, +even without the common aid of accidents. It is to exile oneself from +the sensuous growing earth which is our ultimate food. + +Now, to move is to overcome resistance. And to overcome resistance _too +well_ is to avoid life’s loveliness which dawns on men only when they +are forced to pause. The perfect, unconscious mechanism of an animal +knows neither thought nor beauty. The child begins to think and to +enjoy, only when life stops him. This drug of ours induces a child’s +heaven—or an animal’s. It makes things too easy: seeing the world, +seeing folks, seeing your girl, too easy. And man can stand the +adversity which bores him, far better than a lubricated ease. To see an +endless series of places is to value none of them. To see too many folks +is to see too little of oneself. For the value of things lies, in great +extent, in the amount of ourselves we must put forth to get them. Take +love-making, for example. Resistance and time are so necessary for its +right consummation that even the brutes know it. Make the tryst between +the boy and the girl too facile and too swift—eliminate the hazards of +invading little brothers in family drawing rooms—and the couple will +very soon prefer the delights of a hard-won brown bottle to the delights +of each other. + +So the vicious circle rounds. And the drug whose use was to bring +increased power and joy turns its addict impotent and sad. This specific +concoction has done much to make of us a gloomy people. Or, perhaps, it +was the other way. Being a lugubrious lot, we have fallen victims to a +drug which turns us even worse: making us roll along on lines of motion +far less fancifully pleasant than the devious ones induced by alcohol. + +Unfortunately the drug’s ill results have not yet made us sick of it. We +are merely demanding more of the same. Swifter mobility to kill time and +trouble; more elaborate and expensive emptinesses to fill empty +holidays. In the American town, the effect is sadly visible. The streets +are cluttered with the wheeled instruments in which the drug is used. +And the air is fouled with its miasmic fumes. And the poor folk who took +to it in order to be free, in order to know flight from trouble, find +themselves grooved into traffic lines, manacled by traffic laws, +crawling like slaves under the haughty signals of the cop. + +Verily, the hour calls for some great solver of problems to save the +nation. I think at once of Mr. Henry Ford. He has been so successful in +solving our transportation problems. He has earned so much wealth in +that beneficent task. And he has shown himself so eager to go on serving +his people—if possible, in bigger, better ways! Has he no scheme for +curbing the evil uses of this Thing which causes our noble countrymen to +roll along the landside in a complacent stupor? + + _1927_ + + + + + TWO: PORTRAITS + + I. MEN + + II. AMERICAN TRAITS + + III. IDEAS + + + _I. MEN_ + + +1. RANDOLPH BOURNE + +A girl friend of his mother snatched him away from the wise arms, to hug +and coddle him; let him slip and dropped him from the balcony where they +were standing. This is the origin of the sad mutilations with which +Randolph Bourne went through life. The tale has the true depth of a +legend. The affection of a young woman, clumsy with unskilled love; the +desire to share, to help, perhaps—and as aftermath, the lifetime of +agony and visible disgrace. This is the sort of irony that Randolph +relished, and bore with him through the world. Beholding him, one felt +that his deformity somehow was not the profane traditional one: it was +rather the stigmata of some miscarried loveliness. + +He was very deformed. Not alone was he dwarfed and hunchbacked: his face +was twisted, he had a tortured ear, his color was sallow and his +breathing was audible and hard. He walked in a cape that hid him. He +took a chair for the first time in your presence, let fall the black +shroud about him, and revealed a form so mangled that you despaired ever +to find sufficient ease for the sort of conversation his immediately +brilliant mind demanded. + +But the magic of Randolph Bourne was not separate from his poor body, +and at once you knew this. This is why, in writing of his splendid +spirit, it is meet to dwell upon his misery. Within half an hour, your +discomfort was gone—so miraculously gone that your mind was prone to +look about for it. But whenever, in the future, awareness did return of +the grotesque shape in which this spirit was imprisoned and was doomed +to walk, it was intellectual altogether: the mind needed to stir the +senses with the thought of it, while the senses moved in full ease +within his presence. + +It was Randolph’s eyes and hands that brought about the wonder. The +hands were exquisite, gentle, quiet. They seemed made for such clear +profundities as the playing of Bach: they bespoke his style—the caress +of his ruthless understanding. And they flowered from his body with the +inevitable irony of all his being. The eyes were penetrant, studious. +There was a reticence in them, after the adventure, not before it. You +knew from them that Randolph Bourne was wise, and that he had withdrawn +some subtle spirit of himself forever from gross contacts: that he had +learned to see and to experience without the ill-focused turmoil of too +close contacts. So surely consonant were his hands and eyes with what he +said, that the body became a sort of Christian _Lest Ye Forget_—a sign +to thrust you back into the humiliating coil of life, from the high +freedom of his discourse. + +All of him had this counterpoint. His spirituality was shrewd; his +warmth was ironical and measured; his gaiety was leashed; above all, his +direct caustic wit was barbed with a general indulgence. The body had +forced on him this complex economy of emotion. And there ensued from it +a splendor of free energy for every challenge of liberty, for every +accolade of the creative life. This little man, indeed, so celled in a +crushed body that even breath was hard, became a rounded athlete of the +spirit, as none, perhaps, of us who have survived him. The loss of +Randolph Bourne is a shadow that lengthens.... + + _1925_ + + +2. CHARLES CHAPLIN + + + a. + +Chaplin’s eyes are a blue so darkly shadowed that they are almost +purple. They are sad eyes; from them pity and bitterness look out upon +the world. They are veiled: while the man moves forward with +irresistible charm, his eyes hold back in a solitude fiercely +forbidding. No one who sees the eyes of Chaplin can feel like laughing. +They are the one part of the man which does not show in his pictures. + +For fifteen years these eyes have looked out on Hollywood. Much nonsense +has been written about this suburb of Los Angeles, which is itself a +suburb of the country. America reviles it as an indecent stranger +somehow lodged in its midst, or romanticizes it into a scene from the +“Arabian Nights.” But, of course, Hollywood is no worse a place than any +provincial city of our land; nor better. Hollywood’s producers are +typical money men; its directors are typical professional men; its +actresses and actors are typical girls and boys. Its army of mechanics, +craftsmen, engineers, are the usual American sort: grime them up a bit, +lower their wages, and they would fit in to your town garage. +Hollywood’s swarm of aspirants buzzing about the lots are typical +floating seed of the American jungle: the wastrel seed that finds no +soil to root in, whether it rots near home or blows away. Only in one +respect is Hollywood unusual: its girls are really as fair as all girls +would like to be. + +Hollywood is the perfect mirror of banal American success. Ordinary +souls dream extraordinary dreams—in the way of ordinary souls. And in +Hollywood the dreams come true. Here is uncounted money, here is +glamour, here is the exact mechanical production of that ideal to which +success means a show. And Chaplin, with those frightening eyes of his, +which almost no one ever sees, looks out upon this world, his home since +he was twenty-four. There is another world which he looks in upon: the +grey, grinding London of his childhood. He loves the London slums; for +these slums were his and they are in his heart. But on his mother’s side +the blood of Chaplin is half gypsy. Through her, whom he brought from +England to live near him on the Coast, yet another world lives in him: a +world of meadows and irresponsible laughter. + +In the city of success he carries with him the taste of the London +slums. But even there he was not at home: even for that sad past which +formed his body and his mind he has a grim, ironical refusal—since +there, too, the gypsy in him was a stranger. + +This counterpoint of sympathy and denial is our first clew to the man. +The drawing room of his house is packed with bibelots, pictures, +bric-a-brac, sent him by the admiring splendor of the world. Here are +tributes from Chinese mandarins and from the royalty of Europe. And +here, too, on the wall, hang a few colored lithographs of Whitechapel +and Wapping. Chaplin loves to take these from the wall. They depict +streets that are like some cold inferno, in which the people stir slowly +like souls stripped of all save the capacity to suffer. Watch his eyes +as he looks at this picture of his childhood world. They are at once too +soft and too hard. The emotions of understanding and of refusal are +separate in them. In this room I once sat with Chaplin while the Comte +de Chasseloup exhibited to us what are perhaps the most terrible +photographs in the world: close-ups in progressive detail of tortures +and executions which he had collected in China. We looked on the +deliberate process of men being carved alive—as a butcher quarters a +calf. We saw faces black with the horror of their pain, and then white +with the relief of death. And in Chaplin there was the same counterpoint +of feeling. His eyes took in the tremendous pity of these portrayals of +man’s way with man. Suddenly his eyes hardened; he jumped up, and his +mouth was cruel. “There’s humanity for you! By God, they deserve it. +Give it to them! That’s man. Cut ’em up. Torture ’em! The bastards!”... +The pity he had felt was intolerable to him. He summoned hardness to +wipe it out: to save himself from this danger of being overwhelmed. +Chaplin does not wish to give himself to any emotion, to any situation, +to any life. Life draws him too terribly for that. Whatever he feels +must immediately arouse its opposite; so that Chaplin may remain +untouched—immaculate and impervious in himself. + +With this same reserve he moves through Hollywood. He is no recluse. His +secret apartness is far subtler than that. He frequents the Coconut +Grove at the Ambassador, where the slightly decayed youth of the Coast +ferments in dance. He sits for hours in the smoke of his friend Henry +Bergman’s restaurant on the crowded boulevard. He goes to parties—to +those of his friend Marion Davies at her Beach House, to those of +William Randolph Hearst at his ranch. And wherever he goes he is the +life of the crowd. He acts, he mimics, he plays, he insists on amusing +and on being seen. But always there is the same immediate wavering away +from the life about him and from the effect he produces. He does not +give himself nor does he really take. Above all, he does not +aggressively refuse any advance or emotion. He is noncommittal. + +_Intactness_—this is the principle that best explains the balance of +opposites in feeling, conduct, thought, which he sets up. He is like an +atom that must journey alone through the world. The atom moves an +intricate course, swerving here and there, myriadly attracted, myriadly +repelled, seeming to give, seeming to respond—always remaining free and +alone. A direct refusal of the world about him would mean a definite +relation with it. This is not Chaplin’s game. If the world draws him, he +responds—passive. His course has been swerved, but he is uncommitted. He +resolves every force with its opposite. Emotionally this means that he +frustrates in himself every impulse of utter giving or of utter taking. +He remains unpossessed and ultimately unpossessing. But this deep +frustration is the key to his profound success. Do not pity him for it. +He is no pitiable creature. + +With sure instinct Chaplin has guided his personal life through channels +where he would be always alone. He loves the world he lives in, and +despises it. He does not want to change it: no man is farther from the +fervor of the prophet, and yet few men have done so much to show it up +as ridiculous and worthless. He does not want another world. He uses +this one, just as it is, in order to ensure his aloneness. But, were he +really alone, he would meet in the silence of himself some acceptance +which would prove his unity with the world. So he courts the world, and +dwells in it, in order to frustrate such a possible self-encounter. + +There was a time when Chaplin seemed to me a kind of fallen angel: an +angel cursed by God with all human feelings and with the inability to +fulfill them: cursed with the gift of evoking laughter and love and with +no power to take laughter and love to himself. But this was a +sentimental error. The inordinate tenderness of the man, his gentility +and grace, are checked by his native rejection of the self-bestowal to +which such qualities must lead. Hardness and ruthless egoism are as +primal in him as the generous emotions. He refuses to be lost in any +synthesis of love. He must remain the atom of himself. And in his +perfect poise _between_ the forces of the world—the poise of +opposites—this is what he remains. And this is what he wants. + +What he wants, Chaplin has infinite resources for getting. The shrewd +technique of his art is but a phase of the same art in his life. This is +the man who, when he was first approached with an invitation to enter +pictures—untried and unknown—jacked up the initial offer of seventy-five +dollars a week to twelve times that figure. “I saw they were anxious,” +he explained to me. “When I said to them, ‘I think I’ll study +philosophy; I don’t care for acting,’ I saw them go white. That’s how I +knew what I was worth.” And this is the man who, three years later, when +Mary Pickford, Fairbanks, Griffith, Hart and himself were in danger of +being shamefully exploited by the business end of the game, gathered +them all together into “United Artists” and preserved a fair portion of +the treasure to the men and women who were doing the work. Chaplin is +endowed with consummate powers for connecting with the world. “I’d make +a great banker,” he once told me. He is intelligent, so intelligent that +he intuitively grasps the abstruse currents of modern thought, esthetic, +political, even philosophic. He is sensitive, so exquisitely that the +gamut of human joy and pain plays endless responses within him. And he +is passionate and earthy, a lover of good food and of women and of racy +words. All these gifts naturally conspire to make him one with the +world. Yet there is in him this dominant need to be one only with +himself, to submit to no marriage, to let himself be lost in no union, +to which his mind and sense impel him. What, in this diathesis, can he +do? He can keep on moving. He can make his life a constant journey +through the inconstancy of impressions which, if he dwelt with them, +would bind him. He can make of his life an _escape_. + + + b. + +The life, then, of this first master of the motion picture, is motion. +His art is the treasured essence of his life. The theme of the Chaplin +picture is Chaplin himself, in relation (opposition) to the world. He +journeys through it, immeasurably roused, solicited, moved—yet aloof, +yet intactly alone. The form of the Chaplin film is his own body, set +off by the world: his body made into a mask behind which the man, all +intact, goes slyly and painfully on his impervious journey. And the plot +of the Chaplin film is merely some sequence of episodes in this constant +opposition of himself journeying through life and never fused within it. + +Of course, it is not as easy as it sounds. Precisely because his work is +the incarnation of his life mood, of his life journey, its birth is a +delicate issue. In the beginning there is the atomic Chaplin, cast in +some role that will motivate his passage through the required number of +reels. But that passage—as pawnbroker’s assistant, circus fool, convict +pilgrim, fireman, seeker of gold, tramp, janitor, country bumpkin, +etc.—that passage must be blocked out with events. Each foot of the film +is an event, an encounter between Chaplin and the world. Since the art +is to be the essence of his life, it, too, like his life, must be +completely _fleshed_; and must breathe! From each encounter, either with +another person or with some inanimate object like a brickbat, there must +rise visible and palpable the personality of the entire journey. So each +event of the film must be a work of art in itself. And there must be +sequence, breathing, flowing, mounting. Each event must rise into the +next until the mass of events becomes a plastic music where each episode +is a note. The whole tale is a motion of events to represent the journey +of the man—his escape, intact, through the myriad mass of life. + +The mood of the tale, being intimately Chaplin’s own, is carried within +him. What he must wait for is the precise scale of episodes that will +form the mood. Even when the events have come to him (the particular +stunts of the film), they must be weighed and measured. Where do they +fit in? Do they fit in at all? + +This period of gestation is painful and long. Chaplin lies abed an +entire morning. He broods, measuring the tentative “body” of his tale by +the inner sense of what he wants. This sense is infallible, but it is +inarticulate save as the completed picture will be its articulation. +Chaplin does not know, he has no words for saying, the exact timbre and +gamut of physical actions that will express this particular body of his +life journey. The picture will be his knowing.... Meantime, several +miles away, his studio awaits him. It is a charming lot, several acres +in size. Here lives Kono, the remarkable Japanese factotum who manages +Chaplin’s personal journey through life, who serves as a kind of +intelligent oil against the inevitable frictions of the inevitable +encounters with stranger and friend. Here wait his general staff: Alf +Reeves (who has been with him since music-hall days), Harry Crocker, +Carl Robinson, Henry Bergman, Henry Clive, Roland Totheroh—possibly the +director Harry d’Arrast, who once worked with him in Crocker’s present +place and who remains his chum. All these men are distinguishably sweet, +sensitized, intelligent, aloof in the crass Hollywood world. (That world +is full of workers who carry on after they have left him, bearing the +stamp he gave them—Menjou is a celebrated instance.) + +The staff all feel the tension of their chief. The strain, indeed, is so +great that there are men in the “industry” who could not stand it. At +last, possibly around noon, Chaplin arrives. The instant has come when +he is ready. He has dropped into his clothes, stepped into the limousine +which waits all morning at the door, with the engine throbbing. He is +hatless, tieless, and his vest is open. But the clothes are the most +dapper product of the London tailor. He wears them, at work, like a +gypsy. Even in this detail there is the meeting of the Chaplin +opposites. Gypsy and exquisitely groomed young gentleman delete each +other: leaving, as ever, merely Chaplin. + +He joins his crowd in the little bungalow on the lot, where lunch is +served and where he has his dressing rooms. Tentative moments of the +film are brought up, altered, discarded, readjusted. Chaplin paces, his +face hard, his mouth half open, his eyes far off in himself. +Infinitesimal details are studied, rehearsed, discussed; gags, postures, +meanings, properties, business. Walking up and down, the little man +holds in his head the film’s inexorable rhythm, the inner logic of its +growth. As the ideas fly back and forth, in words and mimicry, Chaplin +brings them to the measure in himself: rejects or accepts. + +There may be months of this. Nothing seems to be going. The corps of +workers champ and chafe. Chaplin moves with his preoccupation through +his habitual life: parties, dinners, wanderings about town, swift +flights with friends, long hours alone. At last certain scenes, having +withstood the critical pause, seem certain. Carpenters and plasterers +get busy. Sets rise on the lot. Chaplin wanders about among the hammers, +alone or with his group: judging, silent, suddenly exasperated, lost in +a new angle of vision—giving sharp orders that destroy the work of +weeks. A shot that cost a long journey to location (and $50,000) will be +ruthlessly scrapped. Later a scene will be repeated a literal hundred +times; and, if the fifty-ninth time was right, each detail of it will be +so clear in Chaplin’s eye that he will reproduce it for the camera. +Finally, a thousand feet of photography will be collapsed into a yard so +pregnant with the essence of the event that it will move, intact like +the man himself, through all the world. + +This perfect consciousness of Chaplin as craftsman would, of course, be +less conspicuous in any other place. (In Paris, for instance, where men +work with words and with pigment as Chaplin does with human masses, his +métier is understood as merely the highest form of a common practice.) +But Hollywood is a usual American town—not a capital of artists. And the +studios of Hollywood confine their precision and consciousness to +problems of mechanics and finance. They are monuments of esthetic +vagueness, intellectual nullity, artistic hit-or-miss. The usual story, +to begin with, is an externalized contraption put together by the +combined shrewdness of half a dozen wholesalers parading as writers, +scenarists, directors and producers. The actors have no accurate +technique. The directors have no conscious control. In such a +combination the chance artist is helpless and lost. When a scene is +“pretty good,” it is shot. And the result is the kind of flat +approximation that feeds the dreams of the millions. But by the time +Chaplin gets ready to rehearse a scene its precise place in the +architectonic of his tale has been measured, even as the theme itself +has been measured in his life. And as he rehearses, he knows what +happens. I mean that he knows the interplay of muscle, mass, space, and +their focal value as the camera lens will catch it. He is no expert in +photography. In his especial choreography he is supreme. + +All organic life has a commanding, individual rhythm: the beat of a +heart, the slant of a mind, the indecipherable stir of cells must go +with that rhythm. Such an organic rhythm besets the consciousness of +Chaplin, incarnating his subjective mood into a story. At the beginning, +he knows the rhythm only. He has to grope for the episodes to flesh it. +But when he finds his episodes he knows what he wants. And at the moment +of shooting a scene he knows how to recall what he wants. And he can do +this because, from the twist of a leg to the flicker of an eye, he knows +how everything is done. + + + c. + +All this, however, has not explained what it is that Chaplin is doing. +His work may be the incarnation of his personal escape from those +trammels of life to which his sensitivity and capacity for love expose +him; his way of escape may be shrewd with all the shrewdness of his +cockney-gypsy genius; and the esthetic expression of that journey of his +soul may be done with consummate craft. Yet the inward value of the +entire adventure is not yet clear. + +We can best approach the significance of Chaplin’s art by considering +another constant presence (besides himself) in his meditations on the +story, in his conferences with Crocker and d’Arrast, in his rehearsals, +in his final prunings, acceptances and rejections. That other presence +he always alludes to by a simple name. He calls it “they.” “They” is the +public. “They” collaborates unceasingly with Chaplin. “They” has the +final veto over even Chaplin himself. + +Of course, a similar “they” seems to preside over all the lots of +filmland. But in the usual studio there are a number of men pawing over +the platitudes of the human race in the deliberate effort to concoct +from them a pattern which the public will pay for. Chaplin, too, is a +child of the theatre. And there is no theatre without a “box” in front. +But in the studio of Chaplin there is, most really of all, a man of the +people—a cockney, a gypsy, a music-hall fellow—who looks into the eyes +of the world as into a mirror, in order to see _himself_ more +objectively and sharply. So it is that, coming to Chaplin’s public, we +return to the man. By means of this reflection we can see at last, in +clarity, how he manages his escape and what it is which, behind the mask +of “funny-legs,” goes its immortal journey into the heart of the world. + +Chaplin looks upon the world of today. He sees failure: poverty, agony, +disease, chaos, fear, pitiful passion, pitiful love. He sees success: +deceit, garishness, tinsel, boast, disillusion. He sees his own past in +London—his mother in the drab uniform of the poorhouse. He sees his own +victorious present. He sees and feels too much. He is afraid of being +lost in this world. There is a kernel of him that is neither this +success nor this failure: a core in the man that can dance its own life +if only it may remain alone. That is why he must escape; why he must +look on all the invading world as an enemy and must hate it. Chaplin is +a hard and princely fellow: his brow is strong, and his jaw and his +mouth. But the modeling about his temples is girlishly tender, and the +deepest spirit in his eyes is a retreating terror. He is afraid for that +core in him of grace and loveliness and youthful dance. To protect it, +he will fight—he will employ all his skill, all his hardness. + +Now consider Chaplin’s public, which is the modern world. In each breast +live grace and loveliness and wistful dream. But in the common man that +personal treasure of each heart cannot remain intact. Family, business, +law and war invade it. All civilization becomes a foe, trampling on this +secret heart, dispersing its dream, bruising and breaking its love. + +Chaplin, who has striven to keep it whole for himself, has made his +fight for the world. Here, in his films, the grace and beauty of the +human “atom” are visible once more. Behind the mask of Chaplin—behind +the swinging cane, the ambling, painful feet, the tight drawn coat, the +cocky derby hat—marches the common loveliness of man—marches and +journeys as it must through a hated modern world—dissociate from social +forms, shabby, despised, pitiful, poor; yet miraculously intact and +miraculously triumphant. + +Rousseau, I suppose, perfected this tragicomedy of the modern world, +with its dualistic conflict between beauty and civilization, between +love and man’s habitual life. Marvelously gifted, he gave to the world +its rationale for the impulse to creep back into a mythic childhood, to +worship the self at the expense of the towering forms about it. As Mr. +Lardner might say: “Jean Jacques started something.” Charles Chaplin has +finished it. (Even the cut of his comic coat recalls the romantic +century—the age of Alfred de Musset.) The cult of loveliness at war with +the sobrieties of life could beget no greater art than this journey of +Chaplin carrying beauty untouched through an atmosphere of heavy +institutions, of brickbats and policemen. French intellectual, London +clerk, Chinese coolie, Mexican peon, Park Avenue child, in the common +distress of their submission to a world too full of money to leave room +for singing and for dancing, can gaze together at this secret triumph +which Chaplin has enacted for them. His song explodes their oppressive +world. His primitive refusal to “grow up” in the “respectable way” +becomes the modern spirit of revolution.[1] + + + d. + +In the old days Charles Chaplin worked not less meticulously, but a good +deal faster. His theme has always been the exact transcription of the +mood of his life. But when his life was simpler, the bridge to his work +was more immediate. It was easier for the man to remain impervious, +intact, virginally himself. The instinctive operation of his will had +found no invasion too bruising or too tiring for him to repel. But he +has had to pay the toll of his way; and that toll has grown great. It is +hard to sustain one’s solitude when one is so full of eagerness as +Chaplin; and when, precisely because the world loved his aloneness, the +world has done everything to destroy it. His recent struggles, not so +much against the clamor of the public as against his own human need for +that peace and love which can be gained only by some union with another, +have made him conscious of himself. Consciousness and weariness have +stood between him and his journey—slowing him and slowing his work, +which is the expression of that journey. His hair has turned grey, and +his beautiful face is lined. + +“The Circus” marks the crisis. The terrible year[2] that separated its +first-made scenes from the last brought a new somberness into his art. +The picture on which he is at work at present is the most meditative, +the most complex, the darkest story he has ever imagined. A progress +like that which distinguishes the end of “Don Quixote” from its +rollicking outset is manifest in his work. Chaplin is still alone; still +intact. But the fight he has had to wage in order to remain so has worn +him. It is the natural destiny of so passionate a man to lose himself. +Thus far Chaplin has refused this death. It would mean, indeed, the +death of his old gay art. It might mean the birth of a new tragic +artist. + +Meantime the circumstances of his career in Hollywood have conspired to +perfect his solitude. Here was an artist whose theme was an essential +motion: the pantomimic medium of the motion picture was there to express +him. But now the motion-picture industry of Hollywood decides to talk. +Chaplin, whose excellence made him solitary enough, finds himself almost +literally alone. + +A little more entirely than he may have dreamed, he is having his way. +He is alone in his great house, alone with his few friends, who love him +but who cannot really reach him. He is alone among his professional +comrades, who, unlike him, have abandoned the silent picture. Chaplin +has reached a goal. A goal is an end. An end can be also a beginning. + + _1929._ + + +3. D. H. LAWRENCE + +Lawrence lived his entire life in a transition. Hence his painful and +irascible temper: hence also his illuminations, exquisite and unbearable +as direct contact with a nerve. + +One world he had left: the world of plural “facts.” He was no dupe of +the parade of detailed separatenesses that clutter mortal eye. He knew +that this world of things, this matter-of-fact and practical world of +commonplace, was false; for he had left it for a truer. But that other +world he never quite attained: the world of unity and wholeness, whereof +all things are momentary foci. He was close enough to this world to be +pulling away from the other: but he was not of it sufficiently to accept +the world of “things” in the transfigured sense that makes things real. +He was close enough to the true to win from it vision and power to +illumine the “things” he fought; close enough to create a vision of them +as an artist. Yet he was not of the true world of organic oneness so +deeply as to incorporate himself within it and thereby to be at peace +with the many. + +He was always striving to organize himself in wholeness: and always +failing, and always furious and exacerbated by his failures. These +failures are his life, and are his books. The characters of his stories +are never wholly persons in the sense of either world: the passion of +the writer of his books is never wholly either illumination of his +characters as organic bodies or life within the characters themselves. + +Lawrence was exiled from the moderate pace of things that enact their +part in the Whole unconsciously. This blessed naturalization he had left +forever. He could never share the peace of the clod which knows not its +share in the Life it enacts. Nor could he accept the clod, from within +the realm of the conscious Life itself. The ecstasy of knowing himself +part of the Whole was never quite natural for him; he never assimilated +it into the processes of living. To possess that ecstasy, he had to deny +the lineaments of life: he had to seek extraordinary moments. The true +ecstasy of knowing the many common things of the world as the common +features of life’s oneness was never his. + +He was imprisoned in transition. And he frantically strove to +incorporate himself entirely in the world of truth by lopping off his +attachments to the separatistic world that dragged him. Thus his +denial of “mind,” of tenderness and pity, of the feminine as +contradistinguished from the female. These were qualities that seemed +to hold him back near the world of “many-ness” which he hated as +false. He was neither strong enough nor clear enough to know that it +was his failure to fuse these qualities into wholeness, rather than +the intrinsic qualities themselves, that thwarted him and kept him +divided. + + _1930_ + + +4. HERBERT CROLY + +Most men are set and long past growing before they are forty. This is +true of the conspicuous and successful, no less than of the common. They +have contrived, from their first impacts with the world, some attitude, +trick or gesture; it works; they stick to it until they are repetitive +as machines. Herbert Croly was a growing man until he was stricken; and +the rate of his growth kept on accelerating with the years. This rare +capacity, which toward the end transfigured him, was his true genius. + +If we analyze the nature of his growth, we come close to the man, and +understand what made him so sound and beautiful a being. And the first +trait upon which we come is his humility. Herbert Croly was +authentically humble. Not humble with the inverted pride of a Franciscan +or of a character of Dostoevski’s—because of raging lusts intolerable to +himself which he had to flay into their opposite lest they drive him +mad. Herbert Croly’s humility came from a true sense of himself in the +world—a sense of true proportion. In the years when I knew him, at +least, he never seemed to be looking upon himself alone: always, he felt +and saw and thought himself within a texture that was the world. From +this proportion came sobriety and humility; and from this organic +contact with life’s sources, a springlike energy that kept him growing. + +There was nothing, I suppose, superficially brilliant or arresting about +him. He was in cool fact what Whitman romantically sang: a “divine +average.” By which I mean that he was a man whose pre-eminence came from +the purification and exaltation of those traits that made him most like +others. With the shining talents of the market place he was not lavishly +gifted. The talent he had is rare in any mart: the passion for growth, +the moral, intellectual powers needed for growth, and a courage in +devotion to the life of growth that served him in his long fight as +sudden illumination serves the romantic hero. + +How differently shrewd he was from the shrewd men with whom he +deliberately consorted, and whom he ruthlessly noted while, for the most +part, they took scant note of him. This world of atomic egos, bursting +with pride and will, and disappearing into the darkness of the mass, +after their brief explosion. And Herbert Croly, beginning in the mass, +groping his obscure way through a sense of brotherhood and life, into +true personality, into wisdom. His first impulse was to accept. And this +alone marked him off from his intellectual generation, and made his +discoveries far more potential. He had a sympathy for the commonplace. +His humility, deriving from his sense of proportion, made him +instinctively, even intellectually, share. Here, his “averageness” +ceased. For what he accepted and shared he weighed with the same quiet +ruthlessness that he brought to bear upon himself. That is why, at the +end, he had won a deeper vision of his world than had any of his +fellows. He had begun by letting himself be part of it, refusing +nothing. From within, he had scrutinized, purified—inexorably judged. + +Yet, if in this spirit, temper, method, he was different from the New +York in which he worked, it was because he carried on so purely an +American tradition. It is true, of course, that he did not come of old +American stock, both his parents having been born in Europe. But it is +also true that in the making of Americans lineage is the least factor. +The immigrant is potentially American: that is why he came: he is +brother in spirit, if not in blood, of Roger Williams or of Franklin. +Moreover, the land itself stamps the child more deeply than do his +fathers. Thus, despite the European background of Herbert Croly, there +was much of the Puritan about him, a great deal of the pioneer. He +trekked our continent of the modern spirit “on foot,” slowly and +laboriously blazing his way through the American chaos. He understood +creatively and creatively served it, because he had given himself to it; +and this he had done because—like Emerson, like Whitman, like Thoreau, +like all its deepest critics—he had faith in it. + +These homespun traits, almost exactly transposed from the plane of the +American forefathers, reveal the nature of his ideological growth. The +man who, twenty years ago, wrote “The Promise of American Life” had been +essentially one who accepted the intellectual pattern of the hour. +Herbert Croly was thinking in terms, then, of government commissions +with ideals of knight-errantry, of moral agencies somehow working out +through legislative bodies. His way of facing the problem of the good +life at that beginning would have been familiar enough to Gladstone or +to Burke. But, having accepted the pattern, he applied to it a sincerity +of penetration rare in any hour. His book, instead of following, became +the test—and the destroyer—of its own pattern. He was feeling his way; +and all of his career may similarly be termed a feeling of his way. + +This trait gives the quality of his style; it lacked charm and ease +because it was a process rather than a conclusion. It never flowered; it +burrowed and made roots: whatever energy it evolved from its growth +turned downward into deeper roots instead of blooming upward. From the +standpoint of English, this is a grave defect. A written style should be +a fruit, not an embryology for some future fruitage. But from the +standpoint of the promise of American life, the style, like the man +himself, was the very substance. His words portrayed the passage of the +author slowly, circuitously through the jungle of half-decayed surmise +which is the heritage of our generation. The ultimate light of what he +wrote was the consequence of that passage. His words might be said to +have ended with light, in contrast to most modern words which begin with +glitter and end in darkness. + +This book of 1910 began with a certain premise: America has the +political technique and the human equipment to fulfill itself. The book +studies the equipment—institutional, personal—turns back on its premise, +and rejects it. The book does not conclude; it institutes. While the +author writes, he grows: instead of ending, he changes. At the finale, +he is free of the pattern of his hour, truly free since he has first +accepted it and lived it through. + +More than once, he espoused causes that seemed contradictory to the +essence of the man as I later came to know him. Thus his acceptance of +the War, his sponsorship of the Progressivism of Roosevelt, his apparent +dedication to the Pragmatism of John Dewey. But to condemn him for this +was to misjudge him by standards that did not apply. Herbert Croly was +not a prophet; he was an experimental and emergent force within the body +politic—the force that energizes prophecy and must precede it: he +personified the gradual principle of detachment within the process of +his time. He was not espousing these causes that were, indeed, denials +of his essence, so much as living through them, and as growing through +them. By his acceptance of the War, of the noisy and supine +Progressivism of Theodore Roosevelt, of the spiritually prostrate +Pragmatism of John Dewey, he was—in his own way—getting beyond them. And +his humble method is, to me, the only possible promise of our nation, +which, too, having accepted these false positions, with a self-knowledge +and a humility like Herbert Croly’s may also get beyond them. + +His ultimate refusal was significant because he had lived through what +he rejected. Herbert Croly went through a gamut of faiths in political +reform; that is why his final doubts about the political method and his +convictions on psychological and religious re-education were important. +He was well versed in the instrumentalisms and technological credos of +his day; that is why his recognition of the nuclear spiritual force +within the person and beyond the reaches of pragmatic methods was +important. He knew the principles and methodologies of modern +engineering; that is why his transposition and application of them to +the problem of the person were important, and why his ultimate religious +interest—emergent from a practical participation in the affairs of our +day—was so convincing and potential. + +These later phases of his growth were clear only to those who personally +knew him. He spoke of two books that he was going to write: a sequel to +“The Promise of American Life” and an intimate record of his own +evolution. I do not know if any part of these works was ever set down. +But I feel that the quality of the man and the form of his spirit were +best revealed to his friends. At night, within the shadows of his +bookshelves, a release came to Herbert Croly. He was morbidly sensitive. +He spoke so low that when one ate with him in a restaurant it was +difficult to hear what he said. Yet to have raised his voice in a public +place, one felt, would have been an outrage to the nature of this man +who was, without doubt, the deepest publicist of his generation. In his +own occult way, Herbert Croly had embraced the world. A kind of dogged +heroism through the years had driven him to accept the crass contacts of +politics and journalism. For that was the method of his philosophy: his +knowing was action. But now, in the stillness of his room, his knowing +became words. What he said had a luminous strength, like wine kept long. +For these were words aged in the cellar of himself. The exquisite +perceptions had grown strong in secret. His eyes glowed, at such times, +with his words. He was relaxed. A flame burned from the hard wood of his +reticence. + +Like an old wine, this strength of Herbert Croly’s was not aggressive. +It did not come to you; you had to find the means of taking it. He had +none of the prophet’s and mystic’s need of self-assertion or of +liberation from the trammels of his time. His method was always the same +humble one: to work in the substances of the day, to live his day, and +slowly to go on emerging without separation from the day’s humble +matters. + +Some men synthesize the actuality of their time. Such a one was Theodore +Roosevelt, once Croly’s friend. Another kind, more rare and more +precious, synthesize not the day’s actuality, but its promise. Such was +Herbert Croly. But even within this group, he was unique. These men are +likely to be at odds with their hour, and quite aloof. Their method of +revelation is often the prophetic attitude which refuses all +participation with the actuality which they transcend. But Herbert Croly +synthesized American promise by his acceptance of the American fact. He +did not intuit his promise, he distilled it from the facts themselves. +He was very far from the conventional prophet or mystic. His exquisite +nerves grappled with the iron and blood of the twentieth century. What +could come of this embrace of an almost feminine spirit with a body in +which plunged a billion horsepower? The spirit of the man remained +undriven, clear; it became the record of a slow revelation. + +If we translate his career into terms of our national destiny, how does +it read? America runs the gamut of political credos. America sets up its +external technologies and worships in them its own infantile power. +America swears by the machine, and patterns from it arts and folkways. +Under high-sounding slogans of pragmatism and instrumentalism, America +submits to the hour—to all the miseries and tyrannies of a caste clad in +the immediacy of the hour. But America will, from its experience, return +unto itself; learn that there is no substitute for the strength and +value that reside secretly in man, and that there is no conduit to +mastery of the world other than mastery of self. America will again hear +the voices of the fathers who came to create a dwelling place, not for +gilded slaves of the machine, but for man—a world made new, not by +mechanical proliferation, but by the growth of the spirit of man and +woman. + +Such was the progress of Herbert Croly, who moved through the American +jungle to find himself, and in himself projected what must be the +destiny of his country, if that destiny be salvation. The promise of +American life has had no truer form than this life. + + _1930_ + + + 5. SIGMUND FREUD + + + a. + +The nineteenth century in Northern Europe was a time of Titans +struggling to create worlds of their own. The medieval Catholic world +had crumbled: simple or timid souls still lived in it, but for several +hundred years the strongest spirits had been engaged in tearing it to +pieces. This destruction was, of course, creative; was, indeed, largely +the cultural work of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries in +astronomy, geography, physics, economics, mysticism and esthetics. But +it was work of pioneering or analysis, rather than of synthesis. And it +bequeathed to the eighteenth century, not a new world for the whole man +to live in, but a miscellany of abstract, mutually discordant principles +with which to begin to build it. These principles were known as laws: +there were the laws of mathematics, of mechanics, of biology, of the +natural and the economic man. They were all based upon the law of +reason, and this was religiously believed in. The destructive centuries +had not invented the faith in reason; that faith was a legacy of the +Catholic world which reason, by shifting its premise, undermined. +Reason, to be hypostasized, requires an unchallenged premise; in +Catholic theology this premise was the revelation of the Bible; now it +was to be the revelation of the human senses or of the original +rightness and divinity of man. With such instruments, abstract and +confused, the forerunners of the nineteenth century (Kant, Rousseau, +Blake, etc.) strove to create a cosmos of their own to replace the +glorious fertile world of St. Francis, Aquinas, Dante. + +The period of great romantic art was ushered in; and it had many forms. +In philosophy, there were Schopenhauer, Hegel, Spencer, Comte; in the +novel, there were Balzac and Dostoevski; in music, there were Beethoven, +Moussorgsky, Wagner; in painting, there were Delacroix, Ingres, Cézanne; +in the sciences, there were Marx and Darwin. All these men, despite +immense distinctions, were of one family. They were in touch with +objective reality, masters of inquiry, often discoverers in the fields +from which they mined their materials. But their constructions, unlike +the worlds of the great Catholic creators right down to Bach, Descartes, +Racine, were the embodiments of the personal will of their creators. +There is, here, no contradiction; nor were these nineteenth-century +worlds less “real,” because personal, or of less social use. Man is not +an isolated atom. The genius who erects a world in the image of +himself—if his self-search be deep and his self-mastery strong—will +produce a work of universal nature. The more profound the subjective +impulse, the more complete the command over objective nature in order to +fulfill it. That is why the scientific realism of a Cézanne +qualitatively equals that of a Darwin; why a poet like Wagner portrays +the reality of Middle Europe; why an economist like Marx may write as +emotionally as Isaiah; and why we find in the solipsistic verse of a +Rimbaud prophecies, which science has fulfilled, of the nature and +behavior of the atom. + +I have needed to speak of these nineteenth-century Titans, because +Sigmund Freud, whose work dates from the 1890’s, is the last of their +line. To understand him, we must know his family. It was a family of men +moved to replace, by their own work, the broken synthesis of Catholic +Europe. They were all absolutists, seeking in some genetic principle of +unitary vision the pattern that God supplied in the old order. The law +may have been progress and reason or (as in Dostoevski and Rimbaud) +their denial; may have been will or (as in Schopenhauer) its overcoming; +it may have been some genetic rule like the survival of the fittest, +sexual selection, Aryan-Lutheran supremacy, class struggle, etc. Always +there was implicit in the texture of these men’s constructions an +absolute rationalism, or the nullification of reason; a faith in the +sufficiency of the senses as a report of truth, or total rejection. +These worlds, risen from an abstract and absolute law, were built of +materials preponderantly personal—more idiosyncratic, indeed (although +the work were a book on economics), than the love lyric of any medieval +poet who accepted his immersion in a common cosmic pattern. + +The twentieth century will be different: its creative work will be to +reconcile and integrate apparently contradictory laws by the aid of +supersensory dimensions. It will be the relativistic age, in which the +discoveries of the absolutists of the nineteenth century—Nietzsche and +Marx, Dostoevski and Darwin, Rimbaud and Spencer—will be worked together +for the making not of worlds, but of _the world_, and not less personal +because socially pragmatic. To this new era, barely ushered in by men +like Bergson, Whitehead, S. Alexander, André Gide, Franz Kafka, etc., +Freud does not belong. But in the perspective of cultural history, he +will be seen as a contemporary of Darwin, Schopenhauer, Dostoevski, +Marx; and he may be known, by the fecundity of his work, as their equal. + + + b. + +Freud began as a physician; as one seeking to heal human ills. But he +found, in the dark places of the human heart, a world as personal, +tragic and universal as the world of Dostoevski. The psychological +system of Freud is, first of all, a great human drama. Here, in the +arcana of the soul, are complex organisms: the superego, dwelling place +of the fathers—conscience and tradition; the id, hinterland of the +immense accumulations of instinct, habit, appetite; and between them the +ego, where lives the individual will. These organisms are interacting +units, from whose clash rise devious characters with strange names: +cathex, complex, sex-urge, death-urge, neurosis, fixation or repression +or sublimation of libido. They are all filled with the life of action; +they make lyric and epic conquests of the objective world; they also +interlock in secret combat or in more terrible alliance, giving forth +the gamut of emotions from horror to ecstasy, and producing the many +mansions of human deed from pastoral beginnings when the infant offers +its prized excrement as a gift to its mother, to heights where men make +philosophies and religions. + +This world of Freud has complex unity. Among the welter of symptom, +dream, and cultural act move the “heroes”: the radical urge for life +(sex and self-preservation) and the masochist-sadist hunger, born of +life, for the return to death. And like all the esthetic constructions +of the nineteenth-century Titans, this world has a personal savor. “The +Interpretation of Dreams,” Freud’s pivotal work, in its revelation of a +passionate individual nature may be compared with the “Confessions” of +Rousseau (the father of the century), with Dostoevski’s “Notes from +Underground,” with Volume I of “Capital,” with Schopenhauer’s “The World +as Will and Idea,” and with “Thus Spake Zarathustra.” A man is speaking. +He is building a system from his discoveries and observations by the use +of a legitimate instrument of science. But first and last, _a man_ is +revealing himself. And only less intensely is this true of all Freud’s +books. Whether he writes of the genetic sources of Da Vinci’s art (in +“Leonardo da Vinci”) or of a savage totem (in “Totem and Taboo”) or of a +slip of the tongue (in “Psychopathology of Everyday Life”), he brings +himself to the construction. While with healing hand he touches the +lesions of a soul, he is really carrying to these dark places a flame +from his own Promethean nature. + +Most men solve their inner conflicts by forgetting about them (with the +magic of ready-made solutions or of drugs, sexual, mechanical, +alcoholic, patriotic); some men need to create a world of their own to +solve them. Marx, suffering within himself the lesion of social +injustice, created a world that mankind will use as a rationale of cure +for its social diseases. The humbly religious Darwin, agonized by an age +of “Enlightenment” that had dissevered him from God only to marry him +with chaos, forecast a biological order where the human species could +begin again to find the peace of integration between its lowest and its +highest parts. Freud also makes answer to a personal conflict. + +He is a man who accepts the dogma of nineteenth-century science. “There +is no other source of knowledge,” he says, “but the intellectual +manipulation of carefully verified observations, in fact, what is called +research ... and no knowledge can be obtained from revelation, intuition +or inspiration.” This is pure eighteenth-century rationalism. Thus +armed, he goes down into the irrational depths of the soul, a chaos to +be conquered. His highway is the dream; and the Freudian technique of +dream interpretation by word and thought associations and by the use of +symbols is one of the mightiest acts of the imagination. The domain +where the dream has led him, which he calls the id, is a jungle of the +lusts of human organs aprowl like wild beasts among the tropical trees +and swamps of primeval habit. But Freud will not surrender to this +phantasmagoric and miasmic world; he will draw forth from its flux, by +means of reason, energy for the three-dimensional world of reasonable +practice, and this limited world he will insist to be the one reality. +It is a struggle between uneven forces, and the consequence is a +psychological design (called “real”) that is drenched with the +passionate and heroic will of its author. + +It is illuminating to compare this Freudian world with the world of +Dostoevski. The novelist explores the same Amazonian jungles of the +unconscious, made manifest in their most morbid extremes. He, too, has +gone down, through the need of an integrating principle that shall +transfigure this chaos into truth. His method is the precise opposite of +Freud’s. Dostoevski follows the unconscious impulse of men to its +irrational source, and he accepts this source as the sole reality, +finding in it his God and his values. He rejects as unreal the +contradictory world of reason and all the social-moral constructs of +reason. This rejected “conscious” world is dream for Dostoevski; the +nineteenth-century culture built from it in Europe is false for him; and +in the obscurantist ecstasy of what Freud calls the “lowest levels of +the id,” the Russian finds his salvation of “waking.” Freud moves toward +the irrational source only to reject of it what reason cannot bind; and +only such energies of the unconscious as reason can draw back into a +world of social conformity will he call “real.” The materials of +Dostoevski’s art, made plastic in the great organisms of his novels, are +identical with the materials of Freud’s world made into the looser +esthetic form of a psychological system. + +Dostoevski does not succeed in his absolutist attempt to deny reality to +all experience of reason: if the irrational ecstasy is man’s sole +waking, there is much sleep in his books, and hence their substance. The +same holds with Freud. He would be the first to disclaim victory in his +attempt to naturalize all the energy of the id within the domain of +reason. There is much “sleep” and much darkness in his system: hence its +livingness. + +Time and again, Freud is led to limits where he is face to face with +Dostoevski’s “real”—the mystic and the occult. “It can easily be +imagined,” he says, “that certain practices of the mystics may succeed +in upsetting the normal relations between the different regions of the +mind, so that, for example, the perceptual system becomes able to grasp +relations in the deeper layers of the ego and in the id which would +otherwise be inaccessible to it. Whether such a procedure can put one in +possession of ultimate truths [there speaks the absolutist devotee of +reason] may be safely doubted. All the same, we must admit that the +therapeutic efforts of psychoanalysis have chosen much the same method +of approach. For their object is to strengthen the ego, to make it more +independent of the superego, ... to take over new portions of the id. +Where id was, there ego shall be.” + +Freud does not admit the premise of the mystic method, which is, of +course, that the cosmic lives within the individual unconscious (the id) +so that the following of percepts to their source rounds man’s circle to +God. But Dostoevski, typical mystic in revolt against the world of +reason, would not see the implication in Freud’s rationalist method: if +the findings of reason are universal, reason must be cosmic. This +rationalist premise is also mystic, and also irrationally rounds the +circle between man and God. Freud, like all the nineteenth-century +rationalists, is an unconscious follower of the older, ethical Kant. +Dostoevski was a conscious, and hence a more reasonable, mystic. But +both groups of absolutists, in their attempt to exclude a part of man’s +equipment for finding truth—the one group reason, the other group +organic intuition—are doomed to failure. And in Freud, no less than in +Dostoevski, this awareness of limitations gives the poignant note of the +Titans who are helpless to create a world against the indefeasible God +who is the Whole. In all the great nineteenth-century creations, there +is this discord between the will and the work. It gives to the pages of +Freud a personal vibration that is not the least of their value. + + + c. + +What of the scientific values of Freud’s work? Psychoanalysis is, first +of all, a therapy in the treatment of nervous and psychic disorders. +Thousands of physicians, for the most part in the Central European and +Anglo-Saxon countries, practice it, and seemingly with success. But +therapy is the least important aspect of Freud’s work. Most of the ills +of personal maladjustment which the Freudian analysis may cure are +symptoms of the disorder, economic, social, cultural, of the +contemporary world. The right way to overcome them is to attack the +disease, not its individual symbols. In this task, the light thrown by +Freud on the human psyche is of great importance; the actual relief +given to a few persons is immaterial. The time required by an analysis, +and the expense, make the method (under our present system) available +chiefly to the type of idle woman and parasitic man who are not worth +saving at the price of the lengthy effort which the analyst must devote +to readjusting them into a morbid world. It would really be better for +the whole leisured class, who have supported so many analysts in luxury, +to be converted en masse to the Catholic Church. They could all go to +Lourdes, whose record of cures is vastly more varied. There is this +difference, however. When a patient finds relief at a Catholic shrine, +no one is the wiser: the cure has been worked in an invulnerable +darkness. But when even the most useless society woman is analyzed by a +Freudian, although she may not be cured, the analyst and science know +something more about the human soul. Psychoanalysis as a therapy is +justified, in so far as the physician is more important than the +patient. + +Freud, therefore, is within the tradition of his Jewish fathers, to whom +Wisdom was never (as it was with the Hindus) an end to be independently +attained, but the common fruit of the tree of humane living. Freud, the +physician, is moved to heal the suffering of his fellows; and from this +humble, socially immaterial ministration has issued a deep knowledge. + +I am not qualified to judge the precise final values, as objective +science, of the Freudian system. But, of course, objective science has +no final values. Despite its assumption of definitive laws, the light of +generations makes of the science of any epoch a mere trend or method +toward knowledge. That scientific work whose path is followed farther, +is good work; and here is its ultimate value. Thus the mathematical +science of a Pascal or a Leibnitz is good; and in this sense, it is +already clear that the Freudian technology is good. His dicta on any +specific problem, such as the origin of neurosis or the setup of the +psyche, may be amended. Indeed, Freud has himself refuted several of his +early propositions. For instance, he used to hold that in the anxiety +neurosis, the repression caused the anxiety, and his analytic experience +has now taught him, as indicated in “A New Series of Introductory +Lectures to Psycho-Analysis,” that the anxiety comes first, and that its +source is a (disguised) actual trauma. In the technique of analysis, +this reversal is important. But it reveals at what deeper level than any +fact or system lies the scientific value of Freud’s work. Freud’s vision +of the soul as an organism in dynamic integration with the physical +body, with the social body, and with the historic body of mankind, has +given us a _method_. And by this method we have come more close than we +had come before to the sources of behavior, to an anatomy of ideas and +emotions. Already, the uses of the method have proliferated widely. It +has shed light on the social origins of man, anthropological and +cultural; and on the problems of character formation without which there +can be no science of education and no science of ethics. By its +fecundity, the method of Freud’s psychology will perhaps prove to be as +good science as the method of Darwin’s biology or of the Marxian +historical critique. + +I have said that the least value of Freud’s work is its therapy; I may +amend this by saying that in therapy lie its greatest evils. Persons who +go to psychoanalysis to be cured of neurosis or of a functional +maladjustment, inevitably look for guiding values which anciently were +given by religion. They seek _a way of life_; and the analyst is placed +in the position of spiritual leader. This is not Freud’s claim. He +scouts all Weltanschauung beyond the scientific acceptance and ordering +of the report of the senses. These rationalists are all naïve in their +failure to recognize the limiting dogmatism of their creed. A measuring +rod that negates what lies beyond its scope is the sternest of +dogmatists. The man who disclaims any individual norm of values, and yet +deals with the subtlest problems of human adjustment, implicitly accepts +the values that are current and actively rejects what lies outside his +measure. The patient is sick because he does not fit into the world as +he finds it; the analyst who cures him helps him into this world, which +means that he has set up, as the desired norm, the values of the world. +If the analyst is not aware of this, his acceptance is merely the more +blind and his work upon the soul of the patient the more irresponsible. +This is a serious criticism to be made against psychoanalysis from the +viewpoint of a world sorely in need of revolution in the domain of +values. And it may well be that the maladjusted neurotic of today is +closer to the norm of healthy social transformation than the neurotic +whom Freudian analysis has made “fit and content” within a society of +false individualism and cultural decay. + +A more serious, because more philosophical, indictment is that the +Freudian system (not the method) makes of mental life a region without +polarity with either cosmos or individual person. The explorer Knud +Rasmussen once asked an Eskimo, who lived within the ice of the Arctic +Circle and whose food was the raw flesh of caribou, “What do you +understand by the soul?” And Ikinilik, the savage, answered: “It is +something beyond understanding, that makes me a human being.” Freud, the +man, would probably agree; Freud, the nineteenth century rationalist, +cannot admit of this “something beyond understanding.” He must draw his +charts of human behavior, his maps of the mind, without allowance for +this “x.” But what if the “x” is needed to produce, from Freud’s +hypothetic id and ego, the human being? What if all Freud’s analytic +counters, lacking this “x,” do not add up into the synthesis—the actual +person? “The id,” says Freud, “is the whole personality and the ego is +within it.” But Freud’s id is a chaos of instinct and desire, timeless +and spaceless, from which by definition all cosmic connection is +excised. How does it manage, out of its anarchic tidings, to throw up +the ego and the superego with their cultural cosmic sublimations? Where +is the forming factor? Dostoevski, who finds God at the irrational and +subnormal source, has a more logical explanation. Jung, the Swiss +psychologist, although he lacks Freud’s intellectual genius and although +his work is not, like Freud’s, a great esthetic body, is more logical, +calling the id the “collective unconscious” and finding there the cosmic +seed that can explain the human fruit. You can insert no new element, +says Whitehead, in an evolving organism. It must be there at the +beginning. Freud, in his rationalist refusal to allow within the id, at +least hypothetically, the mystic “x” which can alone explain the +flowering from the muck of the intellectual and esthetic capacities of +man, meets the tragic fate of all rationalists whose ultimate syllogism +proves the irrationality of the rationalist dogma. + +But whatever the reader judges to be the validity of the Freudian system +or the virtues of his own use of his method, he must know, as he reads +the books of Sigmund Freud, that he stands within the presence of true +human greatness. Freud, indeed, is one of the supreme intellectual +heroes of our time: one of those men who make life more livable for us +all through the fact of their existence. In his writings, we sense the +heroism of his effort, armed alone by faith in reason, to conquer cosmic +continents. We think of the first Spaniards, exploring with the +blunderbuss and a Cross, yet giving the Americas to man. Freud, also, +with a faith and weapons equally foredoomed, has discovered a new world +which, by outliving him, will make him immortal. + + _1934_ + + +6. SHERWOOD ANDERSON + +One must approach the stories of this storyteller in the spirit of +reverence, in the spirit of mystery—as one approaches the child. Let the +critical come after. If one begins by analyzing Sherwood Anderson, one +will not receive him; and all one’s analysis will go for naught. Let him +lodge in us ungrudgingly; not till then let our intellectual +questionings have play. + +For his tales are a testimony; and they testify to the still infantile +revelation of Our America. What would have happened in Europe, if the +naïve confessionals of convert Gaul and Frank and Goth had been analyzed +before they were accepted? Anderson’s books are a relation of the search +for fresh religious values; a groping toward an Apocalypse in our own +inchoate terms. Woe to us if we do not nurture this act in the childlike +simplicity of the man who gives it! + +We shall create a Scripture in our land. And of the stuff of Scripture +are the glowing songs of “Winesburg, Ohio,” “A Story Teller’s Story,” +the subsequent volumes. Scripture they are not. They are not hard, +clear, strong enough for that. They are to our new Scripture that shall +be, possibly, as were the lost Songs of Miriam to the subsequent Books +of Moses; as the pre-Vedic psalms to the Rig-Veda; as the stammering +testimonies before St. Isidore of Christians from the Rhine to the +Guadalquivir, to that medieval Scripture of Abélard, Anselm, Aquinas. +They are source, a living inchoate source. We must let them speak in us +and for us, in order to grow beyond them. + +If we fail to accept them, America will turn against them. There are +already signs of this revulsion—weakness turned into bravado—in the +shrill gestures of young-old men like Ernest Hemingway. We shall have to +spew out this false maturity; we shall have to go back and _live +through_ Anderson in order to grow beyond our childhood. + +From the molder heap of nineteenth-century America rise flames of +longing and dance a moment in the air. Then they fall back into the +smoke, lost, fetidly lost. There is still too much damp muck for the +divine bonfire which America shall be. We cannot yet burn. We can get +ready to burn. + +Such is the burden of Sherwood Anderson’s books; they are a playing of +wistful flames over the muck heap. There have been other flames, +hardier, greater. Either they came before our modern muck heap, or they +played on its edge. The flames of Thoreau, Melville, Poe, the fire of +Whitman, stood clear enough away to cast light to Europe. Anderson’s +flame is more modest. But it is at the heart, not at the edge of the +molder. It does not light Paris and London; it helps warm _us_. It helps +prepare the muck heap for the great bonfire. Its value lies in its +inwardness, in its humble staying. + +All the tales of this storyteller are little inward-creeping tongues of +fire. Anderson himself is a fragment flame flickering through America’s +chaos: licking, curling, dancing, smoking, fainting. He is not organic, +he has no body and no eyes. He ignites nothing. He warms, he lessens the +dank, he cleanses the stench of the muck heap. After, the bonfire. + +When we have accepted him, we can place him; and by this means place +America. Looking upon this man’s nature, listening to his words, above +all to the dull beat of his feet, we realize what a task this is: to +make America into a holy land. Elijah and Amos wrestling with their +idolaters, the Judges and Prophets swearing to force their pack of +stubborn shepherds into the Word of God, had a task no harder than ours +who would make America into a luminous land. If you have doubts, here +are books to strengthen despair; if you hesitate in your need to +transcend despair, here are books to hearten you by their songs of man’s +mysterious emergence. + +Whence came Sherwood Anderson? and what had he? If this be not God in +his blundering step, in his blinded eye, then God is not immanent on +earth. Not intelligence, not shrewdness, not cultural purpose, moved +this man. To the end he will be deaf, dumb, blind. The Midwest lives in +his stories but not in his knowledge of himself. He comes to New York, a +man past forty years. Can you say that he saw even one skyscraper, even +one person? High men, low men, bitter men and sweet, dance in equal +delirium before him. He goes to Europe, a pilgrimage through the +detritus of his own youthful readings about Europe. So he has gone +through life: so, in a true esthetic form of faint emergence out of +chaos, he has created his tales. Creeping flames searching in muck and +drench for the dry brand, striving so wistfully hard to catch on, to +ignite! + +I spoke with a sharp critic from England about “A Story Teller’s Story.” +He disposed of it with ease: it lacked form, it lacked clarity of image +and thought, it gave nothing of Ohio, nothing of New York; it was vague +in picturing the associates of childhood, the transition years; it had +no incisive word on the artists encountered in the East. The European +mind could not touch the flavor of this revelation. What it saw as +muddle is search; what it saw as evasion is honest effort. + +Sherwood Anderson used to sing of the gods, the new-old gods coming out +of the corn into the streets of Chicago. Primitive gods they were, +almost phallic. Mere trunks of power, moving; mere conveyancers of life +greyly luminous into the builded blackness of our cities. Sherwood +Anderson is such a god, himself. There must be many, ere the new Elohim +grow into the new Jehovah. + + _1926_ + + +7. HART CRANE + + _I dwell in Possibility + A fairer house than Prose, + More numerous of windows + Superior of doors._ + EMILY DICKINSON + + + a. + +Agrarian America had a common culture, which was both the fruit and the +carrier of what I have called elsewhere “the great tradition.”[3] This +tradition rose in the Mediterranean world with the will of Egypt, Israel +and Greece, to re-create the individual and the group in the image of +values called divine. The same will established Catholic Europe, and +when it failed (producing nonetheless what came to be the national +European cultures), the great tradition survived. It survived in the +Europe of Renaissance, Reformation, Revolution. With the Puritans, it +was formally transplanted to the North American seaboard. Roger +Williams, Thomas Hooker, Jonathan Edwards; later, Jefferson, Madison, +Adams, carried on the great tradition with the same tools, on the same +intellectual and economic terms, that had been brought from Europe and +that had failed in Europe. It was transplanted, it was not transfigured. +But before the final defeat of the Puritan avatar—a defeat ensured by +the disappearance of our agrarian economy—the great tradition had borne +fruit in two general forms. The first was the ideological art of what +Lewis Mumford calls the Golden Day: a prophetic art of poets so diverse +as Emerson, Thoreau, Poe, whose vision was one of Possibility and whose +doom, since its premise was a disappearing world, was to remain +suspended in the thin air of aspiration. The second was within the lives +of the common people. Acceptance of the great tradition had its effect +upon their character; and this humbler achievement is recorded, perhaps +finally, in the poems of Robert Frost. + +Frost’s record (“North of Boston,” 1914; “Mountain Interval,” 1916) was +already made when the United States entered the War; and the War brought +final ruin to the American culture of “free” individuals living for the +most part on farms, whose beauty Frost recorded. The tradition which had +tempered the persons in Frost’s poems had already, before the Civil War, +sung its last high word in the old terms that were valid from Plato to +Fichte. And this, too, was fitting, for the Civil War prepared the doom, +which the World War completed, of the agrarian class culture. But the +great tradition, unbroken from Hermes Trismegistus and Moses, does not +die. In a society transfigured by new scientific and economic forces, it +must be transfigured. The literature and philosophy of the past hundred +years reveal many efforts at this transfiguration: in this common +purpose, Nietzsche and Marx are brothers. The poetry of Whitman was +still founded on the substances of the old order. The poetry of Hart +Crane is a deliberate continuance of the great tradition in terms of our +industrialized world. + +If we bear in mind this purpose of Crane’s work, we shall be better +prepared to understand his methods, his content, his obscurity. We +shall, of course, not seek the clear forms of a poet of Probability, +like Frost. But we shall also not too widely trust Crane’s kinship with +the poets of the Emersonian era, whose tradition he immediately +continues. They were all, like Crane, bards of possibility rather than +scribes of realization. Yet they relied upon inherited forms—forms +emotional, ethical, social, intellectual and religious, transplanted +from Europe and not too deliquescent for their uses. Whitman’s +apocalypse rested on the politics of Jefferson and on the economics of +the physiocrats of France. Emerson was content with the ideology of +Plato and Buddha, his own world not too radically differing from theirs. +Even Emily Dickinson based her explosive doubts upon the permanent +premise of a sheltered private garden, to which such as she could always +meditatively retire. These traditional assumptions gave to the poets of +the Golden Day an accessible, communicable form; for we, too, have been +nurtured on the words of that old order. But in Crane, none of the ideal +landmarks, none of the formal securities, survive; therefore his +language problem—the poet’s need to find words at once to create and to +communicate his vision—is acute. Crane, who began to write while Frost +was perfecting his record, lived, instinctively at first, then with +poignant awareness, in a world whose inherited outlines of person, +class, creed, value—still clear, however weak, in Emerson’s Boston, +Whitman’s New York, Poe’s Richmond—had dissolved. His vision was the +timeless One of all the seers, and it binds him to the great tradition; +but because of the time that fleshed him and that he needed to substance +his vision, he could not employ conventional concretions. In his lack of +valid terms to express his relationship with life, Crane was a true +culture-child; more completely than either Dickinson or Blake, he was a +child of modern man. + + + b. + +Harold Hart Crane was born in Garrettsville, Ohio, July 21, 1899. His +parents, Clarence Arthur Crane and Grace Hart, were of the pioneer stock +that trekked in covered wagons from New England to the Western Reserve. +But his grandparents, on both sides, had already shifted from the farm +to small-town business, and Clarence Crane, who had inherited his +father’s general store in Garrettsville, became a wealthy candy +manufacturer in Cleveland. Here the poet, an only child, lived from his +tenth year. At thirteen, he was composing verse; at sixteen, in the +words of Gorham Munson, “he was writing on a level that Amy Lowell never +rose from.” In the winter of 1916, he went with his mother, who was +separated from her husband, to the Isle of Pines, south of Cuba, where +his grandfather Hart had a fruit ranch; and this journey, which gave him +his first experience of the sea, was cardinal in his growth. The +following year, he was in New York, in contact with Margaret Anderson +and Jane Heap, editors of “The Little Review”; tutoring for college; +writing; already passionately and rather wildly living. + +At this time, two almost mutually exclusive tendencies divided the +American literary scene. One was centered in Ezra Pound, Alfred +Kreymborg, the imagists, Harriet Monroe’s “Poetry” and “The Little +Review”: the other was grouped about “The Seven Arts.” Young Crane was +in vital touch with both. He was reading Marlowe, Donne, Laforgue, +Rimbaud; but he was also finding inspiration in Whitman, Sherwood +Anderson and Melville. His action, when the United States lurched into +the war, reveals the complexity of his interests. He decided not to go +to college and by his own choice returned to Cleveland, to work as a +common laborer in a munition plant and a shipyard on the lake. He loved +machines, the earth tang of the workers. He was no poet in an ivory +tower. But also he loved music; he wanted time to write, to meditate, to +read. The conflict of desires led him, perhaps, to accept what seemed a +comfortable compromise: a job in the candy business of his father. + +The elder Crane seems to have been a man of turbulent and twisted power, +wholly loyal to the gods of Commerce. He was sincerely outraged by the +jest of fortune which had given him a poet for a son. Doubtless, he was +bitter at his one child’s siding with the mother in the family conflict. +But under all, there was a secret emotional bond between the two, making +for the ricochet of antagonism and attraction that lasted between them +until the father’s death, a year before the son’s. The candy magnate set +laboriously to work to drive the “poetry nonsense” out of his boy. Hart +became a candy salesman behind a counter, a soda-jerker, a shipping +clerk. He received a minimum wage. Trusted employees were detailed to +spy on him, lest he read “poetry books” during work hours. Hart Crane +escaped several times from the paternal yoke, usually to advertising +jobs near home or in New York. And at last, in 1920, he decided to break +with both Cleveland and his father. + +His exquisite balance of nerves was already permanently impaired. The +youthful poet, who had left a comfortable household to live with +machines and rough men, who had shouldered “the curse of sundered +parentage,” who had tasted the strong drink of literature and war, +carried within him a burden intricate and heavy—a burden hard to hold in +equilibrium. Doubtless the chaos of his personal life led him to +rationalize the accessible tangent ease from the strain of balance which +excess use of alcohol invited. Yet there was a deeper cause for the +disequilibrium which, when Crane was thirty-two, was finally to break +him from his love of life and to destroy him. Hart Crane was a mystic. +The mystic is a man who _knows_, by immediate experience, the organic +continuity of his self with the cosmos. This experience, which is the +natural fruit of sensitivity, becomes intense in one whose native energy +is great; and lest it turn into an overwhelming, shattering burden, it +must be disciplined and ordered. A stable nucleus within the self must +be achieved, to bear and finally transfigure the world’s impinging +chaos. Personally, Crane did not win this synthesis. + +But the poet was clearer and shrewder than the man. His mind sought a +poetic principle to integrate the exuberant flood of his impressions. +The early poems, collected in “White Buildings” (1926), reveal the +quest, not the finding. Allen Tate, in his Introduction to this volume, +writes: “The poems ... are facets of a single vision; they refer to a +central imagination, a single evaluating power, which is at once the +motive of the poetry and the form of its realization.” But the central +imagination, wanting a unitary principle, wavers and breaks; turns back +upon itself instead of mastering the envisaged substance of the poem. +That is why, often, a fragmentary part of a poem is greater than the +whole: and why it is, at times, impossible to transpose the series of +images into the sense-and-thought sequence that originally moved the +poet, and that must be perceived in order to move the reader. The +mediate principle, coterminous with the image logic of the poem and the +feeling logic of the poet, is imperfect. The first lines of the volume: + + As silent as a mirror is believed + Realities plunge in silence by.... + +are a superb expression of chaos and of the poet’s need to integrate +this chaos in the active mirror of self. Page after page, “realities +plunge by,” only ephemerally framed in a mirroring mood which alas! +melts, itself, into the turbulent procession. Objective reality exists +in these poems only as an oblique moving-inward to the poet’s mood. But +the mood is never, as in imagist or romantic verse, given for and as +itself. It is given only as an organic moving-outward toward the +objective world. Each lyric is a diapason between two integers of a +continuous whole. But the integers (subjective and objective) are almost +never clear. This makes of the poem an abstract, wavering, esthetic +body. There is not yet, as in the later work, a conscious substantiated +theme or principle of vision to stratify the interacting parts of the +poems into an immobile whole. + +But in the final six lyrics of this volume (“Voyages”) there is the +beginning of a synthesis. Its symbolic theme is the Sea. The turbulent +experience of Crane’s childhood and youth is fused in a litany to the +Sea. + + ... Sleep, death, desire, + Close round one instant in one floating flower. + +The sea, first source of life, first Mother, is death to man. To woo it +is to return to death’s simple singleness. This solution from the burden +of chaos is like the erotic mysticism of D. H. Lawrence. Immersion—hence +loss—of the burdened mystic self in perfect sexual union is a romantic +myth, old as the myth of the Sea. It satisfied Lawrence. But Crane was +intellectually too strong, and too robust an artist, to abide it. “White +Buildings” closes on the unitary theme of surrender. But the poet is +ready to begin his quest again. + +In 1924, the poems of “White Buildings” written but not yet published, +Crane was living in Brooklyn, in range of the harbor, the Bridge, the +sea-sounds.... + + Gongs in white surplices, beshrouded wails, + Far strum of fog horns.... + +And now, the integrating theme came to him. + + +The will of Crane in “The Bridge” is deliberately mythmaking. But this +will, as we have seen, is born of a desperate, personal need: the mystic +_must_ create order from the chaos with which his associative genius +overwhelms him. The poem retains this personal origin. The revelation of +“The Bridge,” as principle and myth, comes to an individual in the +course of his day’s journey; and that individual is the poet. In this +sense. “The Bridge” is allied to the “Commedia” of Dante, who also, in +response to desperate need, takes a journey in the course of which his +need finds consummation. + +Lest the analogy be misleading, I immediately amend it. Dante’s cosmos, +imaged in an age of cultural maturity, when the life of man was +coterminous with his vision, contains time and persons: only in the +ecstatic last scenes of the “Paradiso” are they momently merged and +lost. Therefore, the line of Dante’s poem is clear, being forth and back +in time: and the focus of the action is cogent, being the person of the +Poet with whom the reader can readily graph points of reference. Crane’s +cosmos has no time and his person-sense is vacillant and evanescent. +Crane’s journey is that of an individual unsure of his own form and lost +to time. This difference at once clarifies the disadvantageous esthetic +of “The Bridge” as compared with that of broadly analogous poems of +spiritual search, like the “Commedia” or “Don Quixote.” It exemplifies +the role played by the cultural epoch in the creation of even the most +personal work of genius. + +In “Proem,” the poet exhorts the object of his choice—the Bridge. It +shall synthesize the world of chaos. It joined city, river and sea; man +made it with his new hand, the machine. Parabola-wise, it shall now +vault the continent, and, transmuted, reach that inward heaven which is +the fulfillment of man’s need of order. Part One, “Ave Maria,” is the +vision of Columbus, mystic navigator who mapped his voyage in Isaiah, +seeking to weld the world’s riven halves into one. But this Columbus is +scarcely a person; he is suffused in his history and his ocean; his will +is more substantial than his eye. Nor does he live in time. Part Two, +“Powhatan’s Daughter” (the Indian princess is the flesh of America, the +American earth, and Mother of our dream), begins the recital of the +poet’s journey which traces in extension (as Columbus gives in essence) +the myth’s trajectory. The poet awakes in his room above the harbor, +beside his lover. Risen (taking the harbor and the sea-sounds with him), +he walks through the lowly Brooklyn streets: but walks with his cultural +past: Pizarro, Cortés, Priscilla, and now Rip Van Winkle whose eyes, +fresh from sleep, will abide the poet’s as they approach the +transfigured world of today. The poet descends the subway that tunnels +the East River (the Bridge is above); and now the subway is a river +“leaping” from Far Rockaway to Golden Gate. A river of steel rails at +first, bearing westward America’s urban, civilization (“Stick your +patent name on a signboard”) and waking as it runs the burdened trudge +of pioneers and all their worlds of factory and song. The patterning +march of the American settlers traces the body, gradually, of +Pocahontas; the flow of continent and man becomes the Great River; the +huge travail of continental life, after the white man and before him, is +borne southward, “meeting the Gulf.” Powhatan’s daughter, America’s +flesh, dances and the flesh becomes spirit. Dances the poet’s boyhood +memories of star and lake, of “sleek boat nibbling margin grass”; dances +at last into the life of an Indiana mother, home from a frustrate trek +to California for gold, who is bidding her son farewell; he is going +east again to follow the sea. (“Write me from Rio.”) + +There are no achieved persons in the universe, barely emergent from +chaos, of Hart Crane; and this first crystallization—the prairie +mother—is the first weak block in the poem’s structure. Now, with Part +Three, “Cutty Sark,” the physical course of the poet (the subway ride +has exploded into the cosmic implication of the River) returns to view, +but blurred. The poet is in South Street, Manhattan, near midnight: he +is carousing with a sailor who brings him in snatches of song Leviathan, +Plato, Stamboul—and a dim harbinger of Atlantis. “I started walking home +across the Bridge”: there, in the hallucinatory parade of clippers that +once winked round the Horn “bright skysails ticketing the Line,” the +poet is out again, now seaward. + +Part Four, “Cape Hatteras,” is the turning point of the poem. Thus far, +we have seen the individual forms of the poet’s crowded day melt into +widening, deepening cycles of association. Columbus into the destiny and +will of the Atlantic: two lovers into the harbor, the harbor into the +sea: subway into a transcontinental railroad, into a continent, into a +River; the River into the Gulf; the Indian princess into the Earth +Mother, and her dance into the tumult and traffic of the nation; ribald +South Street into a vision—while the Bridge brings the clippers that +bring China—of Atlantis. Now, the movement turns back toward +crystallization. “Cape Hatteras” at first invokes the geologic age that +lifted the Appalachians above the sea; the cosmic struggle sharpens into +the birth of the airplane—industrial America; the “red, eternal flesh of +Pocahontas” gives us, finally, Walt Whitman. “Years of the Modern! +Propulsions toward what capes?” The Saunterer on the Open Road takes the +hand of the poet. Parts Five and Six are interludes. Part Seven, “The +Tunnel,” carries the poem to its climax. The poet, in mid-air and at +midnight, leaves the Bridge; he “comes down to earth” and returns home +as he had left, by subway. This unreal collapse of bridge into subway +has meaning. The subway is the tunnel. The tunnel is America, and is a +kind of hell. But it has dynamic direction. In this plunging subway +darkness, appears Poe: + + And why do I often meet your visage here, + Your eyes like agate lanterns...? + +If the reader understand Poe, he will understand the apparition. Of all +the classic poets of the great tradition in America, Poe—perhaps the +least an artist—was the most advanced, the most prophetic, as thinker. +All, as we have noted, were content more or less with the merely +transplanted terms of an agrarian culture. Only Poe guessed the +transfiguring effect of the Machine upon the forms of human life, upon +the very concept of the person. The Tunnel gives us man in his +industrial hell which the machine—his hand and heart—has made; now let +the machine be his godlike hand to raise him! The plunging subway shall +merge with the vaulting bridge. Whitman gives the vision, Poe—however +vaguely—the method. The final part, “Atlantis,” is a transposed return +to the beginning. The Bridge, in time, has linked Atlantis with Cathay. +Now it becomes an absolute experience. Like any human event, _fully +known_, it links man instantaneously, “beyond time,” with the Truth. + + +The principle that Crane sought, to make him master of his sense of +immediate continuity with a world overwhelmingly chaotic, gave him “The +Bridge”; but in actual life it did not sustain him. The later poems, +despite their technical perfection (and with the exception of “The +Broken Tower”), mark a retreat to the mood of the last pages of “White +Buildings.” The Sea, symbol of the return to a unity of personal +abolition, had ebbed while the poet stood upon his mythic bridge; now +again it was rising. The periodicity of his excesses grew swifter; the +lucid intervening times when he could write were crowded out. Crane went +to Mexico, where individual extinction has for a thousand years inspired +a cult and a culture. On his return to New York, heart of the chaos in +his life, there was the Sea; and he could not resist it. As his boat was +bearing him from the warm waters which fifteen years before had given +him a symbol, he took off his coat, quietly, and joined the Sea forever. + + + c. + +The beauty of most of Crane’s lyrics, and of many passages of “The +Bridge,” seems to me to be inviolable. If I analyze this conviction, I +am brought first to the poetic texture. Its traditional base is complex. +Here is a music plainly related to the Elizabethan poets. And here, +also, is a sturdy lilt like the march of those equal children of the +Elizabethans—the pioneers. Although Crane describes a modern cabaret ... + + Brazen hypnotics glitter here; + Glee shifts from foot to foot ... + +always, there is the homely metronomic, linking him to his fathers. +Hence the organic soundness of his verse. Its _livingness_ it owes to +the dimension of variant emergence from the traditional music, like the +emergence of our industrial world from the base of old America. The +entire intellectual and spiritual content of Crane’s verse could be +derived from a study of his typical texture. And this is earnest of its +importance. + +The structural pattern of “The Bridge” is superb: a man moves of a +morning from Brooklyn to Manhattan, returns at midnight, each stage of +his course adumbrating by the mystic law of continuity into American +figures with cosmic overtones, and all caught up in a mythic Bridge +whose functional span is a parabola, and an immediate act, of vision. +The poem’s flaw lies in the weakness of the personal crystallization +upon which the vision rests, as the Bridge is spanned upon its piers. +This flaw gets into the idiom and texture. Sometimes the image blurs, +the sequence breaks, the plethora of words is blinding. There is even, +in the development of certain figures, a tendency toward inflation which +one is tempted to connect with the febrile, false ebullience of the +American epoch (1924–1929) in which the poem was written. Yet the +concept is sound; the poet’s genius has on the whole equaled his +ambition. Even the failings in execution help to express the epoch, for +it is in the understanding and creating of _persons_ that our rapidly +collectivizing age is weakest. + +Crane’s myth must, of course, not be confused with the myth as we find +it in Homer or the Bible or the Nibelungen. The Bridge is not a +particularized being to be popularly sung; it is a conceptual symbol to +be _used_. And the fact that this symbol begins as a man-constructed +thing is of the essence of its truth for our instrumental age. From a +machine-made entity, the poem makes the Bridge into a machine. But it +has beauty. This means that through the men who builded it, the life of +America has flowed into it—the life of our past _and our future_. A +cosmic content has given beauty to the Bridge, and must give it a poetic +function. From being a machine of matter, it becomes an instrument of +spirit. _The Bridge is matter made into human action._ + +We may confidently say that this message of “The Bridge” will be more +comprehensible in the future (not in the immediate future), when the +functionally limited materialism of our collectivist era has, through +success, grown inadequate to the deepened needs of a mankind released +from economic insecurity and prepared, by leisure, for regeneration. For +even as necessity, today and tomorrow, drives most men to think +collectively in order that they may survive; necessity, day after +tomorrow, will drive men to think personally (poetically, cosmically) in +order that their survival may have meaning. When the collectivist era +has done its work—the abolition of economic classes and of animal +want—men will turn, as only the privileged of the past could ever turn, +toward the discovery of Man. But when that time comes, the message of +“The Bridge” will be taken for granted; it will be too obvious, even as +today it is too obscure, for general interest. The revelation, in +Crane’s poems, however, of a man who through the immediate conduit of +his senses realized the organic unity between his self, the objective +world and the cosmos, will be accepted as a great human value. And the +poems whose very texture reveals and sings this man will be +remembered.[4] + + _1933_ + + + _II. AMERICAN TRAITS_ + + +1. IN DEFENSE OF OUR VULGARITY + +If refinement implies spiritual values, vulgarity might be called their +_aggressive_ absence. The values need not be individually acquired. They +may be traditional, unconscious. They are not necessarily linked to +personal traits like morality and learning. The Negro peasant in the +Alabama black belt is illiterate and often drunk. But in his native +state, he draws from the soil and sky in whose cycles he is seasoned, a +grace which is refinement even if it be unconscious like the grace of a +flower. Perhaps he is transplanted to some crude mining suburb of +Birmingham. Probably, then, he loses his refinement. But if the loss +remain passive, if it be not aggressive, he is not yet vulgar. Give him +now a shrewd head by means of which he pushes north and lands in Harlem. +Teach him that he is a free-born, American citizen on whom it is +incumbent to amuse himself in metropolitan fashion. Hand him a little +money and a good dose of our contemporary eighteenth-century notion of +Equality. Now, his absence of refinement will grow aggressive. He will +be vulgar. + +We all came from Europe with a modicum of refinement. And the collateral +descendants of our forebears have it still in the mines and farms of +Britain, in the towns of Germany and Italy, in the ghettos of Galicia. +No natural peasant of Europe is quite without it. For this refinement is +almost as widespread as vegetation—as perishable, as passive. + +Transplanted, we lost this leguminous bloom. But we were not vulgar +until we had grown conscious of being great. American vulgarity is the +sum of our spiritual loss and of our assertive energy. Were we less +lordly, our lack of spiritual values would not make us vulgar. And were +we spiritually full, our assertiveness might prove a virtue. Vulgar +people exist everywhere. We are perhaps the only nationally vulgar +people. And therein dwells not alone our predicament, but our hope. + +Surely, this vulgarity is clear in all our words and acts, from Maine to +Texas! In my optimism, I would have it no less than universal. I would +not be cheated of finding it, wherever America and Americanism wave. +Politicians of other lands may be merely corrupt or dull: ours are +vulgar. There is naught vulgar about the servant of a European lord. But +there is naught more vulgar than an American lackey at post before the +barracks of Park Avenue—save the barracks themselves, and the +millionaires they house. Our newspapers are vulgar. But so are many of +our churches. Witness their aggressiveness, their display of results, +their want of the sanctity of silence. Our evangelists are vulgar, being +void of vision and full of advertising. But the Menckenites who rail +against them are no less vulgar—for the identical reason. Chicago is +doubtless vulgar: but so is Ben Hecht who hates Chicago. And the whole +land has turned the motorcar into vulgarity’s badge: since it has become +an instrument of display, a means of elocuting at so many miles per hour +the owner’s social status up and down the country. + +Now, if you analyze this universal vulgarity of ours, you will discover +in it a constant element of _misplaced effort_. The European servant may +be quite as spiritually void as ours; but he is less vulgar because he +is less striving: what he lacks is precisely the unfounded aspiration +which makes our lackey vulgar. Our advertisements are vulgar because +they strive so commonly to be something beyond the nature of +advertisements—sermons or homilies, editorials or art. Our newspapers +are vulgar because they presume to be arbiters of taste and morals; and +our churches are vulgar because they labor for results of the spirit +with methods of factory and salesroom. + +Run down the list, and it will bear me out. This vulgarity of ours means +no intrinsic lack of spiritual will and energy; it means the failure of +that good will and energy. We dwell in a confusion of impulses and +forms. The spirit is exiled from the deed. The deed hungers vainly for +justification by the spirit. That is why we are aggressive. And the +spirit lacks body. That is why we are wistful, credulous, neurotic. High +energy we have—energy of the kind known as religious. It vaporizes for +lack of a container; or it is misapplied in the pushing of old creeds no +longer fit to house it. Emptiness grows emphatic because it strives to +be full. + +Now, all this is the due consequence of our past. For more than three +centuries, old forms of thought and life—for the most part hostile to +each other—were dumped upon our soil. Not until about 1860 had they all +rotted enough to begin to come together; rotted enough for the first +tender shoot of a true America to rise from the fecundity of decay. In +our outward life, we are still committed to forms of living which our +nascent spirit has rejected. We lug around the archaic body of +theological pioneers; and by means of it we attempt to stammer out the +rounded New World vision of a Whitman. The result, of course, is a +botch. The result, also, is a promise. This madness of ours, finding +symbols in motors, dramas in football games, art in advertisements, +morality in statutes, and sermons in tabloid papers, lacks only a +working method to become supremely sane. Deflect this misplaced will to +unity into some channel that will hold it; and we shall see how the +energy which mothers American vulgarity and American folly can father +greatness. + +Nor must we forget that all these forms of life in which today we +express vulgarity, because they are not proper conduits for the +clamorous spirit with which we endeavor to infuse them, are not American +at all—are European. We may produce 90 per cent of the motors of the +world; we may measure our progress by our physical power: but the +machine and the gold-and-iron standard of value are fundamentally and +historically of Europe. Our contribution has been not in the form, but +in the spirit which _deforms_ it. We have not made the machine: we have +made of the machine the carrier of a Dream. Mr. Henry Ford may be more +vulgar than M. Citroën of Paris, because he is a tuppenny prophet: but +it is the prophet in him, not the mechanic, which is of our land. + +The world wistfully senses this. Europe reads the book of Henry Ford and +studies the vulgarest of American expressions through a deep instinct +and a mastering hunger. It seeks new spiritual gold. It knows—although +it may not analyze the knowledge—that our vulgarity is an ore which +holds it. + + _1926_ + + +2. THE MOVIES AND THE MASSES + +The American motion picture is a truly popular art. It has more than one +audience, of course: Broadway patronizes it, and Europe, and Africa and +Asia. But whereas it could get along without these more decorative +plaudits, it depends vitally on the American masses. A film that will +please only the capitals and languish in the locals, means little to +Hollywood’s master minds. It is the people who count: the workers. + +It is, hence, fair to say that the sentiments, attitudes and dreams of +the American masses will find, if not flattery and full reflection, at +least some harmonious note on the American screen. The makers of our +movies are, of course, high middle class, with all the ideals and +prejudices of wealth. You may accuse them of “putting across” their +standards in their work. But you give them a heroism which they lack, if +you suggest that they would go to the length of imbuing their wares with +unpopular ideas, just because they believed them. Much as they love +success and armies, the makers of the movies would refrain, no doubt, +from confessing their weakness in public, if such confession weakened +their incomes. After all, these men have made money because they have +pleased the public. They will keep their money only so long as they hold +off from antagonizing their public. If you find in our motion pictures a +set of standards, a gamut of values, not only bourgeois, but actually +oligarchic, military, antiproletarian, the reason must be, not alone +that these suit the bourgeois fashioner of the films, but as well that +they do not too radically displease the proletarian patrons. + +What the tastes and standards in the movies are, is plain enough. Films +devoted to the depiction of labor or rural life are extremely rare. High +life is the average film life. Or life in the rising provincial class +which begins with a Ford and attains a Packard. Alternate with this is +the romantic cowboy world of the West. But such tales are no more +proletarian than those of Wall Street. Here also is a realm of the +picaresque, sentimental, admittedly mythic, and aspiring to the one True +Value: the money and position of the middle class. + +Run over in your mind the movies you have seen in a year. How many dealt +honestly with the life of a farmer, of a carpenter, of a factory hand? +If the hero began as a mechanic, was he not an automobile manufacturer +at the end? If he was a stableboy at the outset, did he not own the +stable or marry the girl who owned it, at the fade-out? If Reel One +found him a country bumpkin, was he not a magnate ere you left the +theatre? + +Our movie world, like any theatre of its audience, is a confessional of +the masses. And what it seems to mirror very plainly, indeed, is that +the achievement of bourgeois status is the heart’s desire of the average +toiling man and woman in our country. + +This is nothing new. But the obvious conclusion, that this is what the +masses really and positively value, is the conclusion we do not wish to +make. Worship of big guns, military, financial, social, on which the +American movie thrives, is indeed the tonal will of the moviemakers. +This is what really moves the businessmen and women who distribute, +produce, direct, compose and act our movies. But the true reason why the +masses—above all, the plastic sons and daughters of the masses—accept +such values is that they have not received a set of values of another +kind. + +The people must love, must worship, something. What school and church +provide them, as substance for their dreaming, has gone so dim that it +disappears in the brash glamour of our jungle. The movie gives an +idealization of the powers and hungers of daily American life. Empty the +people go from church and schoolroom. But the press agent of the silver +screen needs only to give a twist to the actual presences of the busy +street in order to make the shopgirl a lady and the laborer a +millionaire. + +The corruptly glamorous values of an exploiting class are absorbed by +the people, not because the people are corrupt, but because they lack +values and glamour of their own. They have no ethos, they have no myth, +they have no simplest story in which the elements of the laboring life +take on essential and intrinsic worth. Lincoln, let it not be +overlooked, became a corporation lawyer—like any movie hero. And Whitman +has not yet been translated into American speech. But when a poet does +arise, inspired to sing, as Burns did for his people, the values and +virtues of laboring men as men, rather than as aspirants to wealth, the +masses will follow him—even in the movies. + +It is significant that no one has yet given the movie audience a set of +values other than the prevailing. Has anyone tried? We suspect that such +a poet would not languish in the anterooms of all the movie magnates. + +And one reason for our confidence is the unique case of Charlie Chaplin. +The average moviegoer does not love Chaplin more than he does Doug +Fairbanks or Harold Lloyd or Lon Chaney because he thinks that Chaplin +is a greater artist. The average movie fan believes that the high art of +the screen is in such stars as Swanson or the Gishes. He is likely to be +a bit ashamed of his love for Charlie. There are a dozen more “admired” +actors. But the average American loves Chaplin most tenderly because +Chaplin on the screen is so often a poor cuss of the people who remains +one: and who “puts it over,” not by becoming a millionaire, but by +remaining a human being. Charlie as waiter, bricklayer, fireman, bank +sweeper, pawnbroker’s assistant, convict, is not at the tale’s end and +in accordance with film formula, the owner of the restaurant, the +contractor, the fire commissioner, the banker, the police lieutenant. He +remains, fragilely, wholly, triumphantly, of the people. (“The Gold +Rush,” in which Charlie strikes gold, is an exception.) He is the frail +and unutterably sweet beginning of a movie mythos in which the common +man may absorb poetic values not by changing his class, but _by becoming +himself_. And this is the true reason why the common man adores him. + +Here is a first step in our American labor and farmer movement which +remains to be taken. It consists in the creating of living values within +the life of laborer and farmer. Only so will the extrinsic values of +“getting ahead” and of “getting into another class” be displaced. When +such living values exist, the radical movements organized to put labor +into power will have something to work with. + + _1927_ + + +3. THE COMEDY OF COMMERCE + +Industrialism’s mood is tragic. In the early years, men’s wonder gave to +it the glamour of romance. Something of the delicious terror +memorialized in “The Castle of Otranto” went to men’s consideration of +these new giants fleshed of iron and belching steam. But the monsters’ +bite was too hard; too dolorous was the displacement which they brought +to good men’s lives. These were no proper prodigies like the “Gothic,” +avenging merely wrongs and rescuing the noble. So the romantic mood grew +swiftly dark. With the early socialists and anarchists, it took on the +Doom note of prophecy. Zola made it tragic. In the muckraking days of +our magazines, the tales of factory and mill were grey and ominous. They +were, indeed, replicas of the infernos of our industrial towns. +Laughter, like the hero-workman’s little girl, languished and died in +those swart caves whose breath was a blast and whose light was a sear of +fire. + +[Illustration: A busy, historical black and white photograph of a stock +exchange trading floor, with men in suits reading papers amidst +scattered ticker tape on the ground.] + +But as industrialism became more the usual circumstance, we began to +react against it. And our reaction, having as its aim recovery, was +comedic. That particular response to the grim industrial glower, which +is the Comedy of Commerce, has found perfection in America. In England, +the monsters’ bite has been too cruel. There are no spirits left, there +is no energy, for the recovering laugh. In the Latin countries, the +monsters’ sway is not bitter enough as yet to have provoked a systematic +answer. (There are signs of it in France.) In Germany, as soon as +industrialism flourished, the Teuton genius turned not to a balance of +frolic or of smiles, but to an ideal compensation. The machine was +drafted by neo-Hegelian argument into the soldierly service of Kultur. +In America, we had no such metaphysical bent. The best we could do with +our industrial tragedy was to cover it up with a surface, coruscating +and comedic. + +The symbol of this new comedy is the electric light on Broadway. It is, +of course, commercial and of industrial antecedents. It is bright, +dazzlingly. It displays power and wealth, yet it does not reveal. +Instead it covers, with its hard cold beams, the rather shoddy +buildings. It distracts the eye from the beholding of sources. It is a +light that blinds. Any artist will assure you that the electric light is +_false_—in the sense that it deforms. + +But thanks to such enterprise, it will soon be inexact to speak of our +“industrial cities.” Industry must continue, of course, to have its +home. But industry will not continue to control the tone and nature of +our dwellings. It will be disguised or hidden. It will become as the +kitchen or the plumbing system of our social house, as the bowels of our +social body. And we will be outwardly bedecked and bedizened in an +obtrusive laughter the ingredients of which, indeed, will be the results +of industry, and the purpose of which will be to deny its parent. + +Already, not alone New York among our splendid cities has cloaked this +tragic source of its greatness in the comedy of commerce. Forget the +blare of the Broadway lights, and think of the shop windows. How gaily +drugstores, hardware stores, delicatessens, shine with their myriad +cavorting forms and colors. Think of the newspapers whose columns of +dour news are plentifully (and profitably) balanced with the comedic +patter of the advertisements. In our popular magazines, the reaction is +complete. The mill town is disappearing from them; the honest workman’s +daughter languishes less in print. It is the doughty salesman, the +go-getter of commerce, with his steed a motor and his muse a flapper, +who commands the pages not already commandeered by “National +Advertisers.” Our more sophisticated books reveal the same aversion. Our +“first-line” critics must, above all, be comic—if not clowns. They must +provide the sedative of laughter. And the books they tout do likewise. +Tragedy is _nefas_. The tragic stuff about us has cowed our spirit from +the enterprise of making it a means for that joyous confrontation of +truth which is tragedy. We glance off into comedy—if not farce. And the +cleverism, the anecdote, the epigram, the swift cartoon—so close to the +heart of the salesman—clutter as well the minds of our intellectual +classes. + +It is so with the theatre. In such a typical success as “The Show-Off” +(called our best comedy by many of the reviewers) a minor role fell to +Industry. Not the boy mechanic who actually _invents_ is the hero; but +the salesman, the show-off, the man who by empty bluff and in utter +ignorance of the product he is pushing, _puts over_ the invention. The +industrial source of wealth remains wistfully indulged and sedulously +hidden beneath the noisy comedy of commerce. + +[Illustration: © _Ernst W. von Seckendorff_] + +The comedy of commerce is a comedy of display. It is a denial of the +industrial gloom by a boast of brightness. And yet its materials and its +very rhythms are conditioned tragically by the tragic world it aims to +deny. It is only a disguise; often frenetic, often wistful, never more +than momently successful. Nowhere is this more plain than in the music +of the comedy of commerce—Jazz. I do not desire to discuss the music +roots of jazz: whether they lead you back to the Barbary Coast of San +Francisco or to the Argentine or to the Congo. The product we have +naturalized is the song of our reaction from the dull throb of the +machine. Jazz syncopates the lathe-lunge, jazz shatters the +piston-thrust, jazz shreds the hum of wheels, jazz is the spark and +sudden lilt centrifugal to their incessant pulse. Jazz is a moment’s +gaiety, after which the spirit droops, cheated and unnurtured. This song +is not an escape from the Machine to limpid depths of the soul. It is +the Machine itself! It is the music of a revolt that fails. Its voice is +the mimicry of our industrial havoc. + +You will find this irony in all corners of our successful world. +Industry is the source of our power and of our sorrow. We are ashamed of +its ugliness, hurt by its cruelties. We will employ the power it gives +us to escape the sorrow. We seem so adept! We have ten thousand gay +contrivances, all born of industry, to hide it. But all of them are like +that paragon, the motor. Its chief purpose, of course, is to carry us +away from factory smoke: ourselves figuratively, and the laborers whose +Fords stand parked outside the mill, literally, when the day’s work is +done. But alas! the machine that carries us away from industrialism +carries its spirit along. The clever story in the _Satevepost_, the +bungalow, the radio, the song and dance—all the little acts of the +comedy of commerce—hold the bitter taste, essentialize the spirit and +the forms of the industrial discomfort they are supposed to combat. + +The Comedy of Commerce is a failure. It is an antidote brewed of the +poison it would save from. We must go deeper for a healing laughter. +Laughter that heals must come from health, not from the disease. It must +spring from the whole vision and whole experience of life, not from a +mere shrewd juggling and twisting of any of life’s products. + + _1925_ + + +4. JAZZ AND FOLK ART + +In “The Comedy of Commerce,” I referred to jazz, not in uncomplimentary +terms, but critically as an instance of the art of a commerce- and +industry-ridden people. Many readers gave protest. So far as I could +see, the chief point against me was that I had dared be critical of a +folk art. Jazz, went their sentimental plaint, was the expression of a +people. (I had not denied it.) Hence, hands off! Hence, down on +worshipful knees! + +There has, indeed, been abroad for a full century the curious notion +that folk art—as once the king—can do no wrong: that folk art is +necessarily good art: that the critic who dares to question folk art +commits the unpardonable sin. + +This is a point I would examine briefly, forgetting jazz as the mere +pretext for it. The notion, to begin with, seems to be quite modern. +Before Rousseau, folk art was known, of course; was appreciated; was, +indeed, taken for granted. It was neither idealized nor despised. It was +the art of the folk: the elite regarded it with the same relative eye +with which they looked upon the people. The people was the mass, the +soil, the loam, whence they had sprung; the body, if you will, for the +aristocratic spirit. It was indispensable and it was causally, if not +finally, good. No tyrant could think otherwise, without deleting the +very substance of his power. Molière, in the first act of “Le +Misanthrope,” expressed the common philosophic attitude toward folk art. +To excoriate the precious nonsense of Oronte, Alceste quotes a popular +Parisian ditty, and declares it vastly better than the sophisticate’s +sonnet. He shatters the courtier with a point which today would be +altogether lost. For he is uttering a paradox. Here, in our language, is +the gist of his attack: “This popular Parisian song—you know its +class—may not be much; but it _is_ sincere, sweet, lovely. And your +sonnet, M. Oronte, which should of course be an improvement on such +primitive traits, shows but their total loss.” + +The crowning of folk art is a corollary from Rousseau who preached a +“return to Nature”—as if civilized man were somehow miraculously out of +nature; and “a return to infancy”—as if his own doctrines had not been +the dream of a weary adult. If you accept the Rousseauistic premise, the +modern notion follows about art. The best art, then, will be the least +cultured, the most primitive, the most childlike. And poor man, addicted +hopelessly to beauty, had best pursue his weakness in the art of folk +who, thinking least, are least attainted. If, however, you reject the +creed of Rousseau—which does not mean that you deny his value and his +genius; if it seems clear to you that civilized man belongs as much to +nature as a tree does, and that man’s need to live well, to know true, +to aim high, is as healthy and as natural a function as the tree’s to +grow good roots and blossom, then this indiscriminate adoring of folk +art, merely because it _is_ folk art, is nonsense. + +Dante was once ten years old. He was a remarkable child. He babbled +sonnets and rondeaux which revealed his nature. Do you put the +prattlings he produced at ten before the “Divina Commedia” he composed +at fifty? If you are the usual folk-art worshiper, why not? Were those +lyric works of Dante’s youth not the pure Dante? the untrammeled sign +and substance of his soul? Were they not Dante’s folk art? And the +“Divina Commedia”! what alien and sophisticate and unoriginal matters +dulled the raptures of his early years to this! Aristotle, Aquinas, +Virgil, the apocalypses of Jerusalem, the pseudo epigraphia of +Alexandria—the whole theology and logic of the school-men had to +“debauch” the pure Dante, ere he was ready to write his intricate, +conscious poem. If you are a real lover of art, surely you will turn +with mild disgust from the “Commedia” to his childhood singing. + +I do not think this caricature of the folk art fad is too unjust to +sharpen a just point. It is literally true that if greatness be ever in +a man or a race, it must potentially have been there at the outset. +Therefore the beginning expressions of that man or race will hold the +germ of their significance. Most men, moreover, fail (perhaps most races +also) to fulfill their spiritual promise. The promise universally +exists. No child, no child-race is without it. Only the mature +achievement is rare. And so it follows that the search for spiritual +values among children will be, by and large, more fruitful than among +men and women. But to say that the art expression of all children gives +more than the art expression of all adults, because children all have +the germ and adults seldom the flower—only this bad logic can lead us to +conclude that child art and folk art are best, or even always good. Folk +art is the seed of great art: seeds are more numerous than flowers. To +cultivate the seed at the expense of the flower is a defeatism and a +folly we are not quite cured of. + +But folk art is not naïve in its elements, any more than are the +babblings of the “purest” child. It is, more often, the naïve mirroring +and mimicry of ideas caught from above. The emotions of folk art are +childish. Yet they are the result of unconsciously inherited ideas, +imposed by ruling classes. Take, for instance, the folk arts of medieval +Christian Europe, the spirituals of the American Negro slave. Did the +folk invent the intricate theology and philosophy on which they rested? +Rather, they vulgarized the product of intellectual minorities—Prophets, +Plato, Plotinus and the Patrists: made it a pabulum, at last, which +later intellectuals could re-employ for the creating of more cultivated +art. Another example: Russian folk music reveals traces of liturgical +and synagogical music. Now, a new group of cultivated artists—Rimsky, +Stravinsky, Ornstein—reforms this popularized pabulum of older +minorities into a fresh intellectualized music. + +[Illustration: © _Fairchild Aerial Surveys_] + +Or consider our jazz. Jazz is not so much a folk music—like the Negro +spirituals—as a folk accent in music. It expresses well a mass response +to our world of piston rods, cylinders and mechanized laws. The response +is of the folk and is passive. The nature of our world itself is due to +the work and temperament of minorities alien to the jazzmakers. Jazz +expresses a personal maladjustment to this world, righted by sheer and +shrewd compliance. And this, doubtless, is why the races at once most +flexible and most maladjusted—the Negro and the Jew—give the best jazz +masters. Since the rhythm of our age is not transfigured in jazz, as in +truly creative art, but is assimilated, the elements of the age itself +which we may disapprove will appear also in jazz. In other words, a folk +art—being so largely an art of reaction and of assimilation—will contain +the faults of the adult minorities that rule the folk, as well as the +pristine virtues of the people. + +And we have other folk arts. “The Rosary”—jazzless, European +saccharine—is as truly a folk art as any of the Berlin or Gershwin +ditties. Harold Bell Wright’s books—messes of Victorian notions in +decay—are also an American folk art. The New York “Daily News” is the +daily art of a folk numbering several millions. + +The adorers of folk art in its own divine right need but observe what +they adore. That will be enough to cure them. Nor should they forget +that in all culturally early epochs, dissatisfaction with folk art is +one of the incentives for the production of great art. + + _1926_ + + +5. STRAIGHT STREETS + +What is the meaning of our cities of rectangular streets? What is their +effect on our souls? It is plain that Nature likes curves. You may find +rough angles in rocky mountain wastes, or in the sort of creature that a +microscope makes vaguely visible. But the Nature of man and near to man +is a sinuous, rounded being. Think of our bodies and of the bodies of +animals—not a Euclidean angle in the lot. Think of the shapes of +flowers, plants, trees; of the configuration of the hills and fields; of +the sweep of waters; of the globe. Now think of our interior worlds. Our +physical dynamo has not a straight line in it. And our mental digestion +is tortuous as our intestines. Logic may proceed theoretically like a +plummet; but there’s nothing natural in such logic. Draconian justice +might be called rectilinear, but it, too, does not exist in Nature. +Uprightness when it is not tempered by the curves of mercy is repellent. +Man’s mind moves in curves. His thoughts arch, vault, melt into reverie. +Dream and sense swerve into each other. His heart, too, is full of +arcuations. And the heart’s desires are parabolas. There is naught +angular within us. Nor above us. Space, we have learned from Riemann, +has a crimp and a curve. The “straight gravitational line” of Newton +proves to be the “Einstein shift.” From the detour of solar systems back +upon themselves within a spheroid Space, to the devexities of dream, man +has a universe full of everything but angles. And yet, the American +urbanite has elected to spend his days in a gridiron. + +The towns of the Old World were and still are curved creatures. From +Iceland to the Cape of Good Hope you will not find an ancient city that +does not gyre like a heart or twist like the intestines. Indeed, the +European links angles with humanity only in his thought of death. Christ +was killed on a cross. St. Laurentius was roasted on a grid. When the +fanatical Felipe of Spain built a monastery to express his contempt for +life and his withdrawal to the grave, he patterned it after a +gridiron.[5] + +Curves rest: angles tire. How often the American abroad lets his eye +float down the gentle swerve of a street and is soothed sensuously, and +is moved as by a freshet of pleasant impulse. It is the curve! The +jolliest street in Manhattan—the one that is most human, most laughing, +most restful—is Broadway, which has a curve or two; and even at its +straightest runs diagonally to the ruthless grid, thus giving the +delusion of a flex. No wonder it has become the avenue of shows, the +road for informal saunterings clear up to Harlem. No wonder the +automobile, our pathetic symbol of escape, has made Broadway its home. + +If straight bobbed hair delights, the reason is that it sets off the +curves of our girl’s face. Her straight dress has value in so far as it +reveals the rondures of her body. American civilization has +revolutionized the shape of cities. It may yet appreciably alter the +shape of man. + +For we seem to be angularized in almost everything else. Not alone our +streets are straight and stiff. Our houses are as rigid as if they were +made of the building blocks of Brobdingnagian babes. Where else is there +a spectacle like the recently grown splendor of Park Avenue—that parade +of pompous tombs, shutting in wealth and shutting out the sun? Is it +possible that the disfavor of Riverside Drive as a residence street +among our leaders is due to the swinging rise and fall of that untypical +parkway? Our laws, like our houses, become more rectangular and upright. +Our morals are strait like the gates of Ellis Island. Even our faces.... +If there be in all the world a human countenance made of angles instead +of the immemorial curves, it must be that of Calvin Coolidge. So perhaps +biology will give way after all to the rectangular will of our American +world. Perhaps the flapper of tomorrow will have pyramidal breasts.... + +There is a reason for all this, and a good one. If you care to go to the +heart of the matter you entrain by the Santa Fé and alight in some New +Mexican pueblo. + +The Indian’s culture is prophetic of what our culture must be. His +nature is a guide to the understanding and achievement of our own. This +does not mean that we are going to give up motors, and dress in paint +and feathers, nor that the skyscraper will dwindle to the wigwam, nor +even that our women at some distant date will be swinging their papooses +across their shoulders. But it does mean that there is something deeper +than these discrepancies between the Indian and ourselves. Something +deeper, which we share. + +The Amerind was profoundly, beautifully adjusted to the land. If you +study him in his demeanor, his dance, his music, his pyramiding pueblos +or his simple tepees, in his flinted arrows, in his decorations, you +will find that the general symbol of his expression is a curve so sharp +and so severe that it barely escapes being an angle. The curve is the +way of acceptance: the angle is the way of resistance. America is a +feverish world. Its geological tempo is not like that of Europe. It is +far more terribly intense. I am certain that when the ancestors of the +Indian crossed to America from Mongolia (or Atlantis) they resisted this +atmospheric fury, as have we, with an angular restraint. That reaction +was not a culture, any more than our present reactions from Europe or +from mechanical civilization constitute a culture. The Indian culture +began when his innate spiritual and intellectual values formed a +solution with the world about him: his culture was achieved when the +responses between his soul and the world had rounded into a unified +_life_ which expressed both fully. After many ages, the Indian’s first +reactive restraint toned down, and became the subtle and fertile curve +of the Indian music, the symbolic gesture of his dance, the exquisite +reticence of his demeanor. + +Recently Dr. Jung of Zurich was in this country and made a visit to the +pueblos in which he had been rightly advised that he would find +archetypical remains of classic Indian culture. Dr. Jung had +psychoanalyzed many Americans, and found in them all (whether their +ancestry was Nordic, Latin or Semitic) a unique alliance of _wildness +and restraint_ which did not exist in the European nature. Dr. Jung’s +intuition told him that he would find this combination, so hidden in our +souls, culturally expressed in the Indian pueblo. He was right. Despite +the ponderous luggage with which we came from Europe and which so +differs from what the Indian brought along, we must inevitably go the +Indian’s way in the spirit, since we have come his way in the flesh. + +When Babbitt tells us that American towns are laid out “regular” because +it “pays,” he does not know how deeply he is right. Regularity and +angularity pay, indeed, because such is the beginning of our +self-assertion against a cosmic factor. In our straight streets, in our +jazz, in our dress, in our morals, in our lantern-jaw Puritans, in our +raillike girls, we manifest the first stage of resistance to the furious +fire which is the nature of our world. The rigid angles will smooth out, +will take on the curves of life—will become the forms of our American +culture. + + _1925_ + + + _III. IDEAS_ + + +1. SERIOUSNESS AND DADA + + (_An Exchange with Malcolm Cowley_) + + + a. + +It is possible in small space to touch but briefly, and upon one of its +phases, the complex and defunct Dada movement. Its immediate progenitors +were the Italian heirs of Athens and of Rome—they called themselves +futurists: a restless Jew whose ancestors had settled in Rumania brought +it to Paris. It had behind it, therefore, the ripe Mediterranean +littorals and the full growth of Europe. It was a salutary burst of +laughter in a world that felt itself too old. Europe was crystallized +and desired a solvent. It creaked in stratified forms and laws and +notions, and it yearned to explode. + +The War was a violent but unsatisfactory excursion of a similar sort. +The ponderous machinations of diplomacy had prepared this laughter of +young millions rushing to a bright shambles from the straitened gloom of +ordered cities and inherited farms. But the war was too superficial. +Jaded Europe learned the inconsequent effect of such inebriety as death +and murder. The deep spirit of the land was unmoved by columns of men +miles long and by guns that raked cities. It was the esthetes of +France—the solemn romanticists, the shrill Parnassians, the symbolists, +the votaries of Bergson, it was the pragmatists of Germany and the +rhetoricians of Italy, who invited the release of Dada by their +formulations, hedgings-in and dogmas. There is no doubt that the face of +Europe yearned for the smashing of a few cathedrals. But also the heart +of Europe hungered after the battering of a few spiritual laws. + +Dada was an emanation of this will of a too sober, too mature, too +sanctified rationalist church. Scampering in disarray against metrics +and the still more cloying bondages of “freedom,” imping against the +roll of such millstones as Truth, as Unity, as Beauty, Dada was as +logical as the most Freudian hallucination. It was an eruption, a +breakup, a shower: it was a jag and a reversion. And having cooled the +face of the old land and made Europe forget her uncomfortable age, it +disappeared. + +Good jokers, the Dadaists were: wistful creators, against sour sense, of +sweet absurdity. But they did nothing more ridiculous than the +installation of the Dada mood in American letters. Europe called for +Dada by antithesis: America for analogous reasons calls for the +antithesis of Dada. For America _is_ Dada. The richest mess of these +bean-spillers of Italy, Germany and France is a flat accord beside the +American chaos. Dada spans Brooklyn Bridge; it spins round Columbus +Circle; it struts with the Ku-Klux Klan; it mixes with all brands of +bootleg whisky; it prances in our shows; it preaches in our churches; it +tremolos at our political conventions. Dada is in the typical Western +university that spends $50,000 on cows and $200 on books. It is in the +esthetics of Mr. Bryan, whose favorite work of art is any old Madonna. +It is in the commercial comedy of our advertisements. (DO YOUR DUTY: +CHEW MIXLETS GUM. BE AN AMERICAN: THROW YOUR RUBBISH HERE.) It is in the +counterpoint of callow Hollywood and the immemorial desiccation of the +California desert. It is in the medley of strutting chimneys and bowed +heads, of strutting precepts and low deeds that make America. We are a +hodgepodge, a boil. We are a maze of infernos and nirvanas. Our brew of +Nigger-strut, of wailing Jew, of cantankerous Celt, of nostalgic +Anglo-Saxon, is a brew of Dada. No wonder they imported our essential +chaos to lighten the regularities of France! But we are young, and what +we need is a bit of mature action. We are fantastic ourselves, and what +we need is integrating thought. We are the most fecund joke on earth—for +the overserious others. What we need, by way of rounding our lives into +livableness, is a bit of seriousness for ourselves. + +Our complexities provoke strange paradox in our deeds. Ourselves a +spontaneous combustion of contrariety and antithesis, there grew up in +us a fear and a shame of the spontaneous. (This is, of course, a trait +of adolescence.) In order to become unspontaneous, we turned to Europe. +Our attention was caught by a lot of youths of age on a “bust” of +spontaneous laughter. In all solemnity, we artificed their spontaneity, +crowning thereby the best of the Dada jokes. But we did not create Dada +art. Dada art arose from the traditional maturity of Europe. The +intellectual stuff and stamina, in our own case, were lacking: and what +we got were weakling strains of the European pose muddled with American +incompetence and lost against the background of American bewilderment. + +A healthy reaction to our world must, of course, be the contrary of +Dada: it must be ordered and serious and thorough. Dada worked well in +overmature Europe. We, by analogue, must be fundamental, formal. That, +indeed, is the proper mood of youth. The young cutup in the literature +of our land is the bromide. We need him doubtless, but humbly in the +rank and file. To be coruscant, smart and swift in the American language +is to be platitudinous and banal. Therefore it is that the literature +which poses as most advanced in the United States is for the most part +quite the contrary—is as undifferentiate, indeed, from the common +wallow, as the Mecca Mosque on Fifty-fourth Street, as the Hearst +headlines, or as were the jokes of Josh Billings. Our cosmopolites who +think that they are emulating Aragon and Cocteau and Firbank, our local +realists and shockers who think they are reforming us, are all in +reality but sweepings of the immense centrifugal action of the American +world. Our surface twists and scintillates and shrieks. They are caught +in it, they are slavish functions of the American mass which they +profess to lead. They are the reflections of a world that is Dada and +that is in danger of becoming narcissistic: of growing infatuated with +its own twitching image. + +The first step in the absorption and control of our Dada Jungle is the +achievement of a serious, of a literally religious temper. The academies +are turned away from America: their earnestness is frivolous. The +neoclassicists are turned away from America: their nostalgia is anemic +and their grace is shallow. The realists are submerged by America. The +pragmatists are bluffed by America. The clever and decorative boys who +clutter our “serious” magazines are reflecting not even America’s +surface, but Europe’s thirsty reflection of our surface. None of this is +serious, although doubtless all of this has its place in the chemistry +of ferment.... + +If we can produce a handful of serious creators—men unafraid of +unpopular words like philosophy, profundity, saintliness, devotion—and +if we can keep them alive and at work a score of years, perhaps there’ll +be a start toward integration: and after several hundred years, we may +be mature enough to inspire a Dada of our own. + + + b. + + _Dear Mr. Frank_: + +The progress of literature (and here progress does not imply a +betterment) is largely a series of reactions, a passage from one extreme +to the other: romanticism succeeding classicism, realism against +romance, estheticism against naturalism and Dada against the esthetes. +But given the fact that every national literature starts from a +different point and follows a different course, their reactions of a +given moment can hardly be the same. For American writers to revolt from +the tradition of Remy de Gourmont or Mallarmé is empty imitation, a +gesture with no more significance than could be given to a French +protest against anticigarette laws in the state of Kansas. + +To this measure your attack, in the last issue of 1924, against a +hypothetical group of American Dadas was completely justified. It would +have been more valuable, however, less obviously biased, had you gone on +to consider that the progress of literature is also a discovery of new +principles, involving a rejection or reaffirmation of the old; and that +such principles are international. + +To call Dada “a ‘bust’ of spontaneous laughter” was absurd. You were on +safer ground when you spoke of it as a reaction against European writers +whom you listed as “the solemn romanticists, the shrill Parnassians, the +symbolists, the votaries of Bergson ... the pragmatists of Germany and +the rhetoricians of Italy”; or when you added that since few of these +schools were represented in America, a similar American reaction would +be stupid. + +But Dada was also a discovery: that nonsense may be the strongest form +of ridicule; that writing is often worst when it is most profound, +saintly or devoted and best when it is approached in a spirit of play; +that associational processes of thought often have more force than the +logical; that defiance carried to the extremes of bravado is more to be +admired than a passive mysticism.[6] Dada was the sense of exhilaration +which was born when our old shackles were tested and found to be rusted +away. + +There was nothing geographical in these discoveries. But you prefer to +play geographer. + +You have been to Paris and carry back the gossip of Monsieur X the poet +and Monsieur Y the novelist. Other American writers (I was one) have +been to Paris. Some met Paul Fort and wrote polyphonic prose in his +manner, some met Paul Valéry and became classicists, some met Soupault +or Tzara and wrote a Yankee Dada, some met Jules Romains and his little +group, studied his treatises, adopted his more solemn faults with some +of his virtues and are proud to be called the Unanimists of America. +There were a few Americans who met many writers of many schools, took +the best of each and retained enough personal force to write about their +own surroundings in their own manner, but you, Mr. Frank, are not +generally included in their number. + +Neither am I. One tries to keep free of the ten schools and two +academies, but in this day of slogans we must all be ticketed, must +possess a little slip of red, white or yellow cardboard printed with a +name. I was in doubt which name to choose, but your article decides me. +Let me therefore be considered as your butt: the clever but not +coruscant, smart or swift young man who clutters our more serious +magazines, the American Dada. + + MALCOLM COWLEY + + _Dear Mr. Cowley_: + +It was good of you to send me a copy of what you consider your answer to +my article “Seriousness and Dada,” with the invitation that I—as you +phrase it—“continue the debate.” I have read carefully what you say; and +I am forced to conclude that if there is to be a debate upon the +principles suggested in my little essay, it has yet to begin. Until it +does, I rest. + +Many questions of fact rather than of theory are brought up, it is true, +by your letter: but they are irrelevant to the issue. I might point out +that your definition of the progress of letters is a good juvenile one, +defining nothing. I might suggest, after your linking of the term +“mysticism” with the adjective “passive” that you study a mystic, taking +your choice from Hosea, Plato, Paul, Plotinus, Gabirol, Abélard, +Aquinas, Bernard, Roger Bacon, Dante, Spinoza, Pascal, Teresa, Calvin, +Blake, Dostoevski, Whitman, or any other who may appeal to you, and +explain to us why and how this mysticism is passive. Finally, I might +refer to your allusion to myself as having “been in Paris and returned +with the gossip of M. X. and M. Y.” or to your veiled reference to my +American “unanimism,” as convicting you of an impertinence which in turn +is the result of an ignorance so essential as to disqualify you in your +present temper from true intelligent discussion. + +However, all of this is aside the point of my paper which sought by no +means to destroy American Dada, but merely to put it snugly in its +little place. The one statement in your letter which has the force of +relevance is that in which you volunteer to be considered an American +Dada. Of course, one must accept you so, since you insist upon it. I +admit, however, that I for one could accept you in this guise with less +regret had not my acquaintance with your poetry convinced me that you +will be fit for better things when you achieve the moral courage to +confront the reality of our world, and the spiritual energy to take +issue with it; instead of permitting yourself to be flung off by its +centrifugal action, in the fond belief that because you fly off to +Nothing in a graceful pirouette and with a foreign oath upon your lips +you are being any the less booted and beshat by the very elements of +life which you profess to despise. + + W. F. + + + _This exchange appeared in the December issue of 1924, a little + magazine edited and published by Edwin Seaver.... Of course, out of + Dada have come the surréalistes; and the best of their leaders + (Tristan Tzara, Louis Aragon, André Breton, etc.) combine their + romantic creed with communism. Malcolm Cowley has moved in a similar + direction. At least one of the important writers associated with Dada, + Pierre Drieu La Rochelle, has moved into fascism, like Marinetti and + other earlier Italian futurists._ + + +2. MR. MENCKEN, KING OF THE PHILISTINES + +America, which protects its deer and partridges, still has perpetual +open season for philosophy hunting. Dr. Durant turned “The Story of +Philosophy” into a best seller by the shrewd device of leaving +philosophy out and putting in its place anecdotal stories, whole +chapters on nonmetaphysical authors, and his own not too subtly diffused +contempt for the entire silly business of “ultimate problems.” John +Dewey, the most characteristic American mind of his generation, has +always been an antiphilosopher at heart (with unconscious vestiges of +the poor side of Hegel). And here is Mr. Mencken, tripping upon the +autumnal scene, all decked out in leather jerkin, hunting cap, cartridge +belt, and his usual supply of automatic popguns. + +“If you want to find out,” says Mr. Mencken, “how a philosopher feels +when he is engaged in the practice of his profession, go to the nearest +zoo and watch a chimpanzee at the wearying and hopeless job of chasing +fleas. Both suffer damnably and neither can win.” The “fleas” in this +case, you realize, are truth, the absolute, any ultimate concept of the +real world, any distinction at all between reality and appearance. +Elsewhere, in the same lofty Menckenian column, the same matter is +called “bunk.” “For the absolute, of course,” he absolutely assures us, +“is a mere banshee. No such thing exists. Philosophy in the narrow +technical sense”—read, in the sense of the whole silly lineage from +Pythagoras to Whitehead—“is largely moonshine and wind music.” + +At last I know, from Mr. Mencken’s rigorous definitions, what is his +secret desire: the unsated hunger which all his literary work has +struggled to fulfill. Since, to his mind, philosophy is bunk and wind +and moonshine, is it not clear that Mr. Mencken looks upon himself as a +writer of philosophy? And if he strives to sharpshoot all the other +philosophical fellows off the field, who can blame him, since he knows +that his own particular brand of brass fanfare is the best for us? + +Let us therefore take him as a philosopher: take him seriously, I mean, +of course. And consider the matter of this “bunk” of metaphysics. A +moment’s inquiry should make clear that if the philosophical +“woolgathering” of man is to be judged merely by practical results—by +results in the way man has lived; in contrast with the metaphysicians, +the builders of temples were builders in sand, the makers of empires +were but furious blowers of bubbles. + +Of course, the findings of metaphysics—the logic of reality, and of +epistemology—the logic of knowledge, are disputed, disputable, relative, +impermanent. What is not? Even the term “eternal” is a pitiful, +anthropomorphic thing, having no life and no sense save in the mouth of +the evanescent creature who knows himself for mortal. If you will have +nothing less than the eternal, what will you do with language, music, +economics? what with religions, empires, arts? Do these outlast +philosophy? On the contrary, they rest and have ever rested upon it. + +Take the age of the Upanishads, nearly thirty centuries behind us. Do we +speak the language of that day? We speak its philosophical thought. Do +we live by its arts, its customs, its gods, its laws? Yet its +metaphysics is a cogent factor in modern psychology, in modern letters. +The era of the Upanishads is living for us, solely through its +professional philosophers—those “idle” _sitters-about_ who spent their +days spinning webs about Absolute and Will—webs so marvelously strong +that they have outlasted cities and cultures. + +What exists now of the Greece and Magna Græcia of the sixth century +before Christ? Chiefly Pythagoras: and through him a good deal of +history, ancient and modern, of science, ancient and modern, of +mathematics, of physics, of religious doctrine. From his philosophy of +number came the science of numbers: came Euclid: came the whole forever +adumbrating realm of physics and mechanics, the modern mathematics of +analysis, the modern critical realism (via other philosophers, of +course, like Descartes and Leibnitz) which in men like Mach, Einstein, +Russell, Whitehead, is once again transfiguring the world. From the +abstractions of these technical philosophers of preclassic Greece came +Plato (even as Aeschylus and Tragedy came from the Eleusinians): came +Aristotle, came Plotinus: came at last such fairly practicable +structures as the whole civilization of Christian Europe. From the +moonshine of such men as Pythagoras, Protagoras, Plato, Heraclitus, +Democritus and Zeno, tough-minded men managed to build states, churches, +sciences, atomic theories, machines. Similarly, the prophets of Israel, +the wise men of India and North Africa—questers of that Absolute which, +in their ignorance they called God or Atman, whereas Mr. Mencken in his +more modern language calls it bunk or fleas—gave to man a concept so +very real that he has dwelt in it, builded from it his art, his ethics +and his state, for many thousand years. + +Mr. Mencken probably forgets that Bacon’s preparation for modern science +was possible to him only because he rested wholly on a metaphysical +faith: the assumption of an absolute Order without which, as Hume points +out, there could be no science, because there could be no deduction from +particular to general, from appearance to Law, from passing effect to +eternal Cause. So Newton, also, rose from an intricate, profound, +world-satisfying structure of metaphysical faith which a whole lineage +of “professional flea-chasers” from Plato to Aquinas had molded at last +into the Christian Cosmos. + +Perhaps Mr. Mencken does not know that Dante, Cervantes, Shakespeare, +Goethe, had their metaphysics—had, above all, their masters, technical +and abstruse, in metaphysics. Has not his careful study of the +philosophical classics, which he assures us he “rereads every year when +the weather is too hot for serious mental work,” revealed to him that +his favorites, Conrad and Nietzsche, are romantic versions of +Schopenhauer who, in turn, rests upon Kant and the philosophers of +India? If he has no use for Kant, his disgust with the post-Kantian +idealists (Hegel, for instance) is utterly beneath words. Yet, from +these sources come psychoanalysis, Marxism, the Nietzschean +anti-Marxism: come the non-Euclidean and _n_-dimensional geometers +(Gauss, Riemann, Lobachevski, Minkowski), who in their turn nourished +Lorentz, Einstein, the critical realists—makers of the modern world. And +straight from Hegel is derived the impressionistic style in criticism +which Mr. Mencken so adorns—since it is, indeed, his own. + +It is one of the burdens of philosophy that lesser men turn its noble +doubts into dogmatic denials: chip from its high structure of critique +little stones to fling against it. In all ages, heedless people accept +what the great past bequeaths them, live by it, and betray it. The man +who is most proud of his Buick is most contemptuous of the thinker whose +intricate thought made his car possible. The man most at ease in his +Zion sneers most at the makers of the concepts which built his state and +his morals. + + _1926_ + + +3. PSEUDO LITERATURE + +The term, I believe, is Schopenhauer’s. He declared that there are two +streams of writing, for the most part indistinguishably merged save for +a very few. One of these, the effect of creative thought and of creative +vision, he called literature; and all the rest, however pleasant and +respectable, he outlawed. To go back to any flourishing epoch is to be +convinced that Schopenhauer was right and that our present status is not +essentially unique. The modish ladies of Weimar forsook Goethe for the +“more modern” Kotzebue. Pradon and Quinault outbid Racine for favor. +Alexandria, Rome, Athens, Jerusalem, had swarms of writers who were so +close to the contemporary clamor that they have died with it into as +whole a silence. The printing press and the mock crowning of demos have +merely aggravated an immemorial condition. Where only a minority could +read, only a minority could be idle readers. Now that everyone is forced +to read, the flood of words without creative source is stintless, and +there are organized for it great armies of “distributing agents,” of +which an unconsciously servile group call themselves reviewers—even +critics! The swollen plethora of pseudo literature has perhaps lowered +the visibility of the real through its sheer mass. But if this be argued +an increased deterrent to the life and health of literature it is more +than overcome by the increasing of the potential public for what is +good. The more persons who can read at all, the more may read what is +authentic. + +There is then no good ground for the friend and writer of literature to +complain. He has traditionally addressed a minority in a minority; and +it exists for him today. The new presence of hawkers and bawlers +purveying printed goods to the mob has not altered his position any more +than has the deformation of the democratic doctrine into the myth that +everybody is as good as everybody else. If the writer hungers after +enormous sales, he is the victim of confusion: unconsciously, he desires +to leave his true domain. If he feels that he is entitled to the +royalties of a Michael Arlen or to the popularity of a Fannie Hurst, the +urgence of his vision must be very weak. For it is the glorious +compensation of the wooers of beauty and of truth that all other of +life’s guerdons are by contrast dull. To have heard clear, even once, +the word of God is to hear it forever in all the calls of life. + +More serious and more concerning is another phase of this mutual +attraction between the real with its rigorous solitude and the false +with its populous cordialities. The purveyors of pseudo literature are +so many that they fall into classes. They have their snobs, too, their +social climbers. And there is among their readers an ample group +sufficiently emerged from the rest to desire “culture” even at the cost +of thrills. These persons are aware of the term “literature” and want +their share in it. Their conception, of course, is derived from shallow +study of the past. Incapable of recognizing the essence of an art, they +dwell on its external traits and manners. And the contemporary writers +who most flatter them are the emulators of these imitable parts. Such +authors are competent in style, they are elegant, they reproduce in +terms of up-to-dateness the forms and virtues of previous pioneers. Most +of them will be novelists, dramatists, even poets. But they must have +their critics. And to them falls the dangerous task of establishing a +rationale for their kind; an aggressive apologia for all their sterile +wares. + +The creative, the heroic, the religious spirit of true literature is by +such critics utterly ignored; and by repeated omission comes to be +regarded as nonexistent. The novel which flows well, the tale which is +pleasing, the construction which reflects current thought or current +passion is hailed as _good_, and the more reflective, hence passive, it +is, the higher is rated its importance. Unconsciously, it is assumed +that literature has no independent body: that its real substance is the +public taste. From this fallacy it follows that criticism becomes a +solemn discussion of secondary traits—timeliness, grace and color. The +primary creative stuff of literature without which these secondary +qualities can have no true existence is forgotten. The terms of what is +genuine are borrowed for what is false. And the confusion grows. + +What hungry common reader could dream, from contemporary criticisms of +Mr. Hergesheimer, of Mr. Cabell, of Miss Cather—supply your own names +from the current columns—that these are makers of books with an +essential lack: a lack as crucial as that which parts organic death from +life? The books of such novelists are competent in so far as they are +elegant reflections of styles in form and thought and language. As +contributions to the creative life of the mind and of the spirit, they +are inept. Their source is neither a luminous vision nor an authentic +knowledge; but rather the shrewd perusal of past masters and present +moods. Neither their purpose nor their substance adds one iota to the +experience of man. To call them literature is to degrade the name. + +And it is precisely urgent that the name “literature” be not degraded. +For there is much in a name: much directing of intelligence, much +shaping of powers. And we possess an age in which intelligence is not +small, but confused, in which powers are lavish, but debauched. A critic +of our day as aware as were Abélard and Anselm, would be as concerned as +they were with the pragmatic virtues of the Name. He would know, as they +did, that a confusion in words is the symbol of confusion in continents +and souls. Much of the dangerous condition of our time springs from the +fact that in the readjustment of social and spiritual forms, names have +become the prostituted playthings of any fool or knave who wishes to +mouth them. + +Thus, the gigantic reaches of pseudo literature from the Hearst papers +to Harold Bell Wright, being allotted their proper place, do no great +harm. They touch only the senses they appeal to; they convince only +minds incapable of conviction; there is no formidable claque to name +them other than they are. Far more pernicious is the snob class of +pseudo literature; for it sails under false colors and of late it +proceeds almost unchallenged. + +The challenge of other days was a competent tradition. Pseudo literature +has always thrived on pretension. But an audience to whom the classics, +holy or profane, were valid had an incessant standard to protect it. If +a French academician extolled Quinault, there was Euripides to answer. +If an Alexandrian put out a bad pseudepigraphia of Ezra, the Chronicles +could face him. Our situation is more arduous. In the general +liquidation of old forms, the esthetic tradition has dissolved. We must +build up a new critical standard not only within, but from the current +chaos. + + _1925_ + + +4. “UTILITARIAN ART” + +It is revealing that the notion of “art for art’s sake,” of art sprung +from itself and for itself, arose with the utilitarianism of the +nineteenth century. If you will read the conversations of Goethe, the +prefaces of Racine, the notebooks of Leonardo, the prose works of Dante, +and finally trace back to Aristotle and to Plato, you may marvel (if you +are a “modern”) at the ethical bias in all our classic art. Not alone +Milton believed that he was writing “to justify the ways of God to men.” +It is safe to say that if a respectable goldsmith of the Renaissance had +been cornered for a “reason” for his work, he would have professed some +moral or some religious purpose not too remote from that which moved the +Alexandrians and the prophets. While theology was hale, esthetics was +its handmaid. Later, art went into the service of the God of Reason; and +later still, took on the harness of metaphysics when that logic had +assumed the imperatives of revealed religion. Only when modern man has +debauched the ideal of spiritual progress—old as the Hindus and the +Hebrews—to a bare functional or mechanistic pattern do we come upon art +so divinely considered that it may have no “purpose.” + +The reason for this is not far to seek. While man’s fate was still +linked with gods or with godlike values, the arts could honorably serve. +When that fate was mechanized into some economic or utilitarian or +biological “design,” art rebelled and set up a church of its own. The +dogma of “pure poetry” and of “art for art’s sake” is a reaction from +the dogma of vulgar materialism and of “man for his belly’s sake.” Being +a reaction, it partakes of the nature of the source whence, however +obscurely, it has risen. + +The doctrine of utilitarianism had two esthetic offspring. One is +obvious: it is the art which in devious ways aims to “get results” in +actual life. The debased condition of such art is coming to be suspected +even by the bourgeoisie. The other offspring is the art of the Ivory +Tower—the art of “esthetics”—the art of “purposelessness” and of +aloofness. And I wish to make clear that these two are radically one. +However they may differ in the intelligence that makes them, they are +both utilitarian: they are both debased from art’s full function. + +The philosophy of utilitarian materialism defined life in terms of the +pursuit of specific material values. (I speak of it in the past, for it +still lingers only in the minds of tyros.) It committed the fallacy of +taking some “end” or process _within_ life—economic or sexual, personal +or biological—and setting it up as the Cause. Like all geneticisms, it +was illogical and was, indeed, refuted in the texts of the very +philosophers whose shallow disciples had invented it. Now, the same +point may, of course, be raised against the nugatory notion of +“utilitarian art.” Whereas art in its full sense is an organic event of +life, sensorily formed, autonomous and yet contingent, like any +individual, on its living context, utilitarian art disavows this +individual organism of art, and aims to reduce art’s essence to some +specific effect within the world of men. + +Examples of this class of instrumental or utilitarian art are everywhere +about us. Such is the “art” of advertisement, of exhortation: such is +the play “with a thesis,” the fiction of reformers like Upton Sinclair +or H. G. Wells. Such, too, are the industrial “arts” whose purpose is to +turn out _salable_ machines, rather than _livable_ ones, as was the +purpose of the ancient craftsmen who worked for an intimate, spiritually +harmonious client. The arts of the popular magazines are no less +utilitarian. A story which strives simply to amuse is kin to the story +which endeavors to reform. The novel that “cleaned up” the Chicago +Packingtown may have been more laudable, it was not more utilitarian +than the tale that aims merely at killing a few hours’ boredom. In both +instances, you have that organic life process called art narrowed and +debased to meet some specific sensory demand. Whether the demand be for +clean meat or a vicarious amour, esthetically your books are of one +class. + +And as “utilitarian art” must be grouped—and condemned also—the current +works of the esthetes. Mr. Cabell’s fancies may be more refined than Mr. +Sinclair’s: they are as remote from the whole province of art which can +“help” in life by no less fact than that it _is_ life. Mr. Cabell, +engineering an escape from life, is not in the lineage of the masters: +he is an epigone of the materialists who lowered the whole life process +into a “struggle” for comfort or for survival. I see no essential +esthetic difference between the schools of Mr. Cabell and Mr. Aldous +Huxley, and that of Pollyanna. In the latter case, you get sugar instead +of a whole experience of life; in the former, you get some acrid opiate. +If this is in any way the revelation of a superior taste, then the jaded +adult who adores rotted cheese is superior in taste to the child who +calls for candy. + +The organism of art is, of course, constructed of physical materials +with sensory and ideological associations, even as is the individual +life made up of physical substances. In life, these materials—chemical, +mineral, vegetable—are mysteriously organized into the unitary, +indivisible _living organism_. And in true art, the same holds. The +sensory appeals—to eye, ear, appetite, memory, emotion—are the materials +which the artist has composed into the organic whole called art: which +differs from its elements, even as life from its ingredients. A +utilitarian philosophy of life might be called one in which some group +of these materials in life is made more causative than the whole. A +utilitarian art, by analogue, is one in which the main matter (instead +of the means) is some appeal to the senses. + +Purposely, my definition lumps with the commercial, the pornographic, +the dully sensational artists, a whole school of haughty favorites: for +instance, Virginia Woolf. Analyze “Jacob’s Room,” and what do you +discover? A sensitive woman (the authoress) with deft hands picks to +pieces the banal story of an English boy. Upon her nerves, its fragments +register sensations. She is not, like James Joyce or D. H. Lawrence, +composing these sensations into organic life. _They_ are her end and she +is using them for a personal sensory delectation which her reader may +share. She is not creating at all: she is transposing. + +You may apply, for yourself, the same criterion to our music or our +painting. Is the composer building the sensory ingredients of his music +into an organic life which transcends bare sense, as life transcends +inorganic matter? or is he _using_ his theme—transposing it perhaps from +a well-known tonal to a striking dissonance—in order to get a sensory +appeal? If this is his end, even though his name be thrice Russian, he +is as completely a utilitarian artist as the man who writes a Buick +advertisement. + + _1927_ + + +5. ART IN OUR JUNGLE + +When you have done with the latest work on relativity or the theory of +quanta, and the once so solid universe has melted into a mere congeries +of spaceless, timeless, substanceless vibrations, go to some modern art +gallery and bask in the certainties of our painters. For the best of +these are men who hold to a reality or are resolved to re-establish it. + +From Picasso to Weber, from Marin to Orozco, it is amazing how +harmonious most of these painters and sculptors are, in their formal +purpose, even in their formal use of color. They are builders of +_structure_. Not of architectures or machines: not even, for the most +part, of such designs as the fugue or the canon. The structure which +they seek to produce is the answer to the chaos which they find about +them. It is as if they were plunging through a liquidated world; and as +they fall they build—in order to cease falling. + +The best of them are workers in a crisis. Confusion of fundamentals is +our atmosphere. Emergency in danger is their temper. Their response to +the carpers who expect them to be pretty and pleasant is: “We need +ground to stand on!” Would you criticize the manners of the man who +rescued you at sea? or judge by metropolitan standard the costume of the +fireman who led you from a blazing building? If not—and only then—are +you in the proper mood to appreciate the contemporary artist. + +Let us hope that the modern gallery director has interspersed a number +of pretty or “academic” paintings among the works of the creators and of +the seekers of form. They establish a curious dissonance. Who shall +quarrel with dainty ladies flimsily attired and dancing to a rose? or +with excellent gentlemen silk-hatted and promenading with a spaniel? But +what if you find them at their peaceful antics on the walls of an +embattled city? In some such way are men like Charles W. Hawthorne, +Childe Hassam, Henri Martin, most of the British, out of place in a +serious exhibition. + +The capacity of any generation for misunderstanding its art is not +mysterious: it is equal to, for it is the same thing as, each man’s +capacity for ignoring the essence of his soul. How long is it, since you +last heard the usual Wise Word about the whole esthetic movement since +Cézanne? “Oh, ho—a Saturnalia of decay! These wistful little artists, so +out of touch with the great world; reflecting their defeat, their +impotence, their despair. These inadequate anarchists glorifying their +own chaos! How lucky it is that we have Solid Science!” Well, your +too-solid scientific world has melted. Gone is the atom, gone is ether, +gone is the whole Mechanism in which, from Aristotle to Newton, man +dwelt irrelevant and complacent. The conclusions of our physicists hurl +us back, through three thousand years of certainties, to the “vagary” of +the Upanishad: our universe is but the Breath of Brahma. + +Relation, Vibration, entity of Movement, conformity of impalpable +motions into a dream called substance—these are the lean relics of our +centuries of science. And these are the precise materials with which the +contemporary artist is creating truth and beauty! + +The age which produces Picasso, Maillol, Brancusi, Derain, Braque, +Marin, Juan Gris, Rivera, Orozco, is not alone an age of art: it is an +age of classical and of religious creation. Only the labelmakers, the +“wordmen” are lacking, in order that we may know it. These artists are, +if anything, too somberly intent upon their basic purpose. Were the +saints more pure to their ideal? Man Ray extracts the essential line of +jazz, and has no time for dancing. Picasso establishes the formal +counterpoint in a woman’s body, and has no eye for the woman. Brancusi’s +Bird is the bird at its height: a sort of hero-bird which neither mates, +sleeps nor builds its nest—a bird, a bird which soars, which is sheer +soaring. One and all, these men make a demand on nature as heroic as +their own temper of salvation. One and all, they seem to say: “You, +bird; you, woman; you, farm; you, landscape—you are doomed: all of our +glamorous dream of earth, sky, men is doomed. Unless you are +transfigured—unless you will permit that our spirit of the god burn you +pure of your phenomenal dross—of your associations of sentiment, of +hierarchy—unless you go to your allotted place as parts of an essential +Whole, you are doomed. For we assure you, O bodies and sights of +nature—you do not exist save in that Whole. The old men who sought to +build up their Whole, by adding you together one by one, as you appeared +to yourselves, were wrong. You’ve crumbled and disappeared. The very +atoms of your bodies—the very words of your consciousness, have +vanished. All that remains is God. If we can reinterpret our tragic +memory of you—O bodies and colors of existence—in terms of God, perhaps +we can bring you back to life.” + +Of course, I am saying this in words: the painters are creating this in +paint. Spaniards, Frenchmen, Rumanians, Americans, Orientals, all are +tending toward a single declaration. And it would be a shallow error to +believe that this symphonic kinship is due simply to the influence of +the schools or of certain men in Paris. Paris for fifty years has been +the focus of so much modern art, because men from all the world _were +looking in one direction_. Paris is not an influence, it is a +confluence. The reason why Cézanne rediscovered El Greco, and why French +Colonials brought African sculpture to their metropolis, is aside my +point. The significant is that the arabesque or body-language of +Picasso, the plastic lyres of Maillol and Brancusi, the mosaics of +Braque and of Marin, the rituals of O’Keeffe, the revelations of Julia +Codesido and Sonia Brown, the mass equations of Derain and Walt Kuhn, +and the instinct rhapsodies of Walkowitz and Epstein, are so many +personalized departures from a common experience and toward a common +purpose. + +The common experience is that the old static formulas and bodies wherein +Western civilization dwelt are gone; that only relations and the +movements of relations are real and are immortal. The common purpose is, +to produce from these immediate experiences of relation new bodies +(unities) and new forms (faiths and ideas) wherein mankind may dwell and +thrive again. And the achievement is already of sufficient stature to +presage a modern classic art. + + _1926_ + + +6. THE ARTIST IN OUR JUNGLE + +Gilbert Seldes has revived what might be called the classic debate of +American culture: Should an American artist stay at home? Mr. Seldes +holds that the artist is at home wherever he chooses to settle. And he +cites instances in favor of his contention. He is indirectly seconding +Edmund Wilson who reproached Van Wyck Brooks for writing an admirable +book about Henry James without more than a word about the novelist. Mr. +Brooks, of course, was writing about Henry James the exile; and employed +him as a symbol in his own thesis which is contrary to that of Mr. +Seldes. It seems to me that the considerations and examples presented by +both sides have suffered, because they were neither specific nor general +enough. Perhaps the exiles of Joyce, Stravinsky, Picasso, were +successful; perhaps the pilgrimage of Henry James meant failure. If a +law or a rule is to be sketched from these instances, the elements that +enter into them should be essentially understood. One might study the +basic idiom of the arabesque which Picasso brought with him from Málaga, +or the basic folk voice with which Stravinsky came away from Russia; and +plot the intellectual transfiguration of these primary materials by the +schools of Paris. Or one might attempt to correlate the chaste designs +which Henry James desired to produce, and the American chaos from which +he escaped in order to produce them. One might at the end decide that +James was a shrewd tactician, saving his art by retreat; or that Picasso +was a brilliant culturist, enhancing his art by transplantation. Yet the +general and haunting problem of the artist in America, which +unconsciously inspires all these arguments, would be as untouched as +ever. + +This problem of the artist is, after all, not unrelated to the question +of his materials. In some manner, the successful creator organizes a +fusion between what we call his will, his vision or his experience, on +the one hand, and what we call life, on the other. Both the creative +will and the workable objective material must exist, else there will be +no art. Now with this simple idea to illumine us, let us venture into +the specific dilemma of the American artist and the American world. + +The first thought to occur is that this material of ours is still +inchoate; it has not been digested by the conceptual activity of +previous generations of American artists and thinkers; and in this it is +abysmally apart from the native material of the European. The arabesque, +for instance, has been an essential form in Andalusian life for so many +ages that Picasso must have absorbed it as instinctively as he did his +language. Ages of cultural selection have simplified the expressional +background of European peoples; these simplifications beget traits and +provide tools for the European artist which he can take with him: +moreover, the relation between these concepts in different European +countries is so close that deeply a European artist remains at home, +wherever he is, in Europe. + +A concept is an essence; and it can be transported. Or, to shift the +figure, if one belongs to a world which has culturally refined its gold, +one can leave that world yet take the gold along. But if one has had the +fortune—good or ill—to be born upon the scarce-scratched surface of an +unmined treasure, and if one indeed wants that treasure for his +own—then, it is necessary to get down and dig. + +This, it seems to me, is the very human crux of our classic problem: +Should an American artist stay at home? The answer may be left to him. +He will seek the material fitted for his creative will. To the peculiar +will of Henry James, of Whistler, of Ezra Pound, it seems clear that the +right material was best available abroad. The point of vision of these +artists was static; they required a fixed focus wherefrom to trace in +leisured sureness the Apollonian intricacies of their designs. + +The creator who yearns to weave ever more intricate glosses upon a given +fundamental statement of life is fortunate if he is born across the +water. France, for instance, will provide him with a completely +conceptualized experience which he can build on and variate forever. And +if such a man is born in America and yet feels drawn to the, after all, +not too-distant cultures of Europe, it is idle to begrudge his +departure. + +But there is another kind of artist: he who rejects the fixed limits of +any established cultural status, and whose will it is to forge the +parabolas of chaos into unitary form. This creator might broadly be +termed the religious artist, in so far as his purpose is to bind +together what appears confusion, and to make whole what strikes the +sense as multiform and diverse. + +If an artist of this kind is born in America, he is fortunate indeed. +For he inherits a world particularly apt for his purpose. The _life_ of +America is a stupendous symbol of the human chaos which such an artist +beholds in all life ere the transfiguring magic of his unitary vision +has been worked upon it. And yet the implicit _idea_ of America is +symbolic of just such a unitary will. America, in other words, is a +multiverse craving to become One; it both challenges and invites the +purpose of the religious artist. + +This American will to be One is manifest in every noble chapter of our +history. More encouraging still, it is the very theme of our follies, +the essence of our most ignoble social acts. It is the ideology +shallowly applied, of our bar on immigration. It is the unconscious +factor in our sumptuary laws, in our pathetic efforts to legislate +uniformity of morals. We are not One; and we desire to be One. The whole +American scene is, hence, a symbol on a human plane of the sort of +activity which takes place in the mind of the religious artist. It +provides him with the challenging material; it energizes him toward +creation. + +[Illustration: © _Robert Dudley Smith, R. I. Nesmith Associates_] + +The Middle Ages in central Western Europe established a similar apt +symbol for the religious artist. Europe was a turbulent chaos in +material and fact. Yet it possessed in the ideal Body of the Catholic +Church a unitary will. It was this marvelous conjunction of material and +will in the objective world, with material experience and will within +the artist, that made possible the success of Dante, of Aquinas, of the +Gothic architects, of the polyphonists—a success not equaled in the +modern European epochs, whose art has been for the most a wistful echo +or a frustrate fragmentation of that last great Synthesis. + +The American artist whose will is to join in the tristful litany over +the dissolving body of European culture does well, like T. S. Eliot, to +live abroad. The American artist who feels within himself the power to +add to the intricate glosses of that culture does well, like Ezra Pound +or Henry James, to live abroad. But the artist who is tempted to the +task of forging new organic life from chaos may bless his stars if +America is his home. For in all the world there is no symbol of this +chaos so potent and so pregnant as our American jungle. + +Moreover, the failure of artists of this high aim heretofore in our land +need dishearten no one. It is true that the athletic will of Poe was not +supported by a consonant strength of nerves. It is true that Melville +broke down. It is true perhaps that Whitman sounded little more than a +summons. But failures of a kind so heroic—and all within a century—will, +we may be sure, discourage only those whose intimate desire it is, for +their own comfort’s sake, to be discouraged. + + _1925_ + + +7. THE MACHINE AND METAPHYSICS + +At first thought there seems an insoluble difference between the machine +and the tool. The tool is passive in the hand of the workman, and by +that fact comes to express his will both intimately and directly. The +tool is, indeed, an extension of the hand. The crude laborer has a crude +tool and does crude work. The subtle craftsman becomes an artisan, an +artist: the tool holds close to his nature and works his will in ways so +immediate that the instinctive love attaching limb to mind goes over, +consciously, into the brush, the knife, the hammer. + +With the machine, this alchemy inspiriting a thing of wood or stone is +gone. The machine is set in motion and achieves therewith a somewhat +autonomous life. Moreover, the nature of this life does not depend upon +the man who works it. Its qualities and its powers are fashioned for it +and are inevitably determined, at a source to which the machinist has no +access. An inventor, abstracted from his products, designs their future +acts. The machines go forth. And the mechanic by a series of rote +behavior sets them going, runs them, stops them without for an instant +coming into creative contact with the thing by which he lives. A crude +man may work at a delicate machine: a blind or illiterate man may print +a book: a man with no sense of texture or design may run a machine which +manufactures lace or turns out decorations. And conversely, the delicate +man—the creative man—can find no immediate channel for his will in +running a machine. Whatever creativeness or delicacy it possesses has +been ordained for it and is aloof. He cannot swerve it from its stubborn +independence. All he can do is care for it. Attendant, doctor, +nurse—however you look at it, he is the slave of a creation which in its +act and its idea remains beyond him. + +Now all this is clear enough and from it philosophers deduce our woes, +rightly—and wrongly our despair. If this state of things were final, we +might forsee man’s downgoing in sterile servitude to a too-exterior, +too-permanent grandeur. For, indeed, much of our common misery has +sprung from man’s loss of tools which were his own and through which in +myriad ways he did express himself. With the tool came beauty, because +it was a subtly extended and yet obedient hand bringing between subject +and object that harmony which is beauty’s norm. With the tool came +contentment, because by means of it the humblest worker put his seal on +his craft; and came pride and those births of pride—morality and +value—since the work of the tool was the man himself, and so must be +good, and so must be regarded. Finally, with the tool came fullness: for +that man alone is unified and full who has spent himself in +self-expressive labor. And by contrast, the man is empty and disrupted +who has been spent in labor which excludes his deep co-operation. Thus +far the pessimists of the machine are right. But here their rightness +ends. Could they look back upon what must have been the experience of +man ere he mastered the tool, they might more sanguinely look forward. + +The primitive man, wielding an artifact, paddling a dugout or making an +instrument of a horse, had to undergo a profound psychological +revolution ere this element in his hands, stone or wood or flesh, could +become an extension of his personal will. He had to grow. How far he had +to grow you can see symbolized for yourself by comparing your own hand +with the paw of a dog. The step was inscrutably vast: so vast that once +man made it, he dared not look back, and soon he forgot—and still he +fights to forget. Who shall say what tragic ages went to the transition? +to what insanities and despairs men plunged with the strange tool in +their bewildered hands, with a wild horse beneath them? Surely, those +unmastered weapons must have committed follies; must have broken the +measure of men’s life; must have inspired the wiseacres of that day to +gloomy forecasts. We do not know the names of the Rousseaus of these +desperate generations in which man’s brain had not yet instinctively +grasped the tool. But nothing is more certain than that they existed. + +Now, with the machine, we are once more primitive. The tool is ours: we +have tamed it and made it part of our dominion by a step in +consciousness. Before the machine, we are still barbarian or savage even +like early man before a horse or a stone. Through a failure to make a +certain further step in consciousness, before the machine we are still +external. + +Of course, there are differences. And it is precisely they which point +to a new departure in man’s life. If the machine were merely a more +complex tool, there would not be this new element to our exciting day. +The machine is a new part of nature: one which did not, like the stone +or the horse, exist before. There is in the machine a marriage of what +we call the old elements and what we call the human. The domestic +animal, in this sense, was a tool: its elements were outside of human +nature. In dominating it, as with any other tool, we mastered a part of +external nature. And this was comparatively simple, since in our use of +the tool we did not come in conflict with any human will. But if we +dominate the machine—make it part of ourselves—we shall have won control +over a realm of nature which includes mankind; for man’s will, other +men’s wills, are constant and determining factors of the machine. We +shall have won a victory of consciousness not merely over the nature of +the external world—but over our own nature. + +The problem was one of consciousness in the days of the stone artifact; +and it is again of consciousness today. It is a problem profound as +human destiny, inscrutably complex. Yet I think the heart of it can be +thus simply stated. The animal, so far as we can see, is incapable of +the idea of any part of nature becoming part of itself. Man, with the +tool, achieved this: fused unto himself the animal and the stone. Call +the process what you may, this attitude of his toward portions of the +physical world was metaphysical. And no savage could paddle a canoe +without this metaphysical inheritance, made instinct. + +We flounder before the machine, we are features more or less groveling +of its external life, because we lack an instinctive metaphysical +consciousness to make us master and absorb it—to fuse the machine with +all its elements of will and act into our own expression. Such +consciousness, of course, must be evolved vastly beyond the childish +metaphysics beneath the use of a tool. In the machine are adumbrated the +will of the inventor, the will of the owner, the will of many workers, +the will, indeed, of an age and of a world. Only when the individual +worker experiences that these wills are not alien to him; that these +elements of life contained in the machine fuse, in a higher synthesis, +together with his own, into a unitary act—only then will his spirit in +participation be able to go out through the machine, so that it and the +whole mechanized world may once again, in his joy, in his beauty, in his +human pride, express him. + +But such a mechanic would possess the consciousness of a Spinoza? No +less! No less is needed, in order that the human world may not go down +before this new Nature—the free-spawning mechanical invention. The +modern machine converges with the wisdom of the ages to force man ahead. +From India, from Judea, from Greece, from Germany, has come the single +canon: that life is unitary, that experience is One, and that the human +consciousness in one form or another must know and be this One. The +machine will compel us, at this human crisis, to experience what +heretofore merely great men have known. The machine again makes +metaphysics man’s most practical engagement. + + _1925_ + + + + + THREE: BOOKS + + +I. POE AT LAST + +Perhaps the classic figures of American literature should be regarded +chiefly as actors in the epos of the American birth. With one or two +exceptions, they did not produce great books. Yet all of them were +heroes; were characters who in their defeats as in their victories +fleshed and fixed features of our nascent world. Their lives—like the +careers of the patriarchs of Genesis—may prove more current in our +future mind than any of their works. + +This certainly will be the case with Poe. Despite his influence abroad, +despite the range of his activity, he wrote neither verse nor prose +intrinsically great. His significance is not to be extracted from his +situation. And the construction of the creative Poe—the _true_ Poe—has +lagged, precisely because this situation was misunderstood. Poe paid +bitterly for his youthful Byronism. From his neighbors and the +Bostonians, it shrouded him in sentimental horror; from us, it has +quarantined the man in an equally blinding sentimental glamour. His +first biographer, Griswold, was incompetent. And Professor Woodberry +inherited this incompetence for all his scholarly good will since +crucial features of Poe’s life were hidden and since without them Poe’s +work, unlike organic great art, lacked an entire dimension. + +There has now been published a sheaf of letters[7] which will mark the +true birth of Poe as an authentic, working figure in our cultural world. +For the most part, they are notes written by Poe to his foster father, +with brief notations or replies by Mr. Allan. They give us at last the +young Poe, the crucial Poe, and the world which he went forth to live in +and to conquer. The first of them dates from the University of Virginia +which the poet entered at seventeen; the last reveals him, seven years +later, abandoned for the final time by Mr. Allan who has remarried and +is soon to die. The years—from seventeen to twenty-four—are the years of +Poe’s confrontation with America. Prior to them, he was a child—what +manner of child, nurtured and spoiled in the Richmond mansion of the +Allans, his words reveal. And after them, there come the open pages of +his books, of his trafficking with editors, of his relations with Mrs. +Clemm and with his wife, Virginia. These letters form the link that +makes the whole. Their appearance is a major event in American letters. + +The career of Poe becomes a scene in a symbolic drama. He is creative +will, nakedly let loose upon the American world. Who shall say America +did not summon him? He rises like an impulse from this land which cannot +act him out. Between America and Poe, as between Poe and his foster +father, are the chains of a need unrecognized. Without his adopted son +whom he bred to hyperesthesia and left to starve, whom he set high and +then cast down, John Allan would be a clod. And without John Allan, Poe +would have been altogether disembodied. In the tortuous recriminations +of these letters, there is the plea for love as well as bread. Transpose +the family quarrel into general terms, and you have the full years of +Poe: Poe, the most highly potential intellect of a land whose hour of +realization had not struck. + +In this failure there is no object lesson, no call for a morality. It is +too inevitable and too right. It is true that, with the intellectual +range of a Goethe, Poe gave forth but a few shriveled and glittering +pages. And yet, in his hour and for his hour, he gave the ultimate, +since he gave a Symbol. An imagined Poe, petted to old age in the rich +library of an adoring foster father, would have been less—far less—than +the frail, fierce, frustrate Poe we have. + +Unarmed, unguided, he went forth to create in the American desert. His +masterful will found no immediate object upon which to work. He had +absorbed haphazard the philosophers, the metaphysical poets, the +occultists and seers of the Kabala, the chroniclers of exotic journeys. +But he did not stay in _their_ world. His constant effort was to refocus +and apply this chaos of ideas to some absolute experience of life. +Witness his treatment of the values of poetry and music: his making +metaphysics out of the relation of facts or out of the forecast of +facts: his use of the machine, or airships, of mesmerism, of physiology +and mechanical contrivance, to express the widening consciousness of the +human soul. Even the wanderings of Arthur Gordon Pym end in a +revelation. Of course, Poe failed. Grub Street in Baltimore and New +York—this remained the stage for his apocalypse. And the hazard crumbs +from the intellectual banquets of Asia and of Europe were but manna, in +no wise transfiguring the Wilderness which for forty years he wandered. + +Yet the lofty impulse of his work is lodged, forever. Poe’s theory of +pure poetry holds the intuition of a great esthetic. His “Eureka” gives +the glimpse of a vision deep as that which is imagined in the Kalpa and +the Brahma of the Hindus. A half dozen of his tales, “Eleonora,” +“Ligeia,” “Morella,” “The Fall of the House of Usher,” etc., are +variants of a single theme which envisions the mystery of the Person as +close as any prophecy of Blake. Hard, shut, shrunken work it is: and yet +it holds a vaster sense of life than do the amplitudes of Whitman or of +Emerson. Holds it, however, as a seed the tree. In Whitman and Melville +there is life’s blossoming. Poe belongs less with the creators of art +than with its prophets. + +His creative impulse, first to last, was metaphysical and religious. +Behind these horrid trips to Ulalume and Usher, these dogmatic +repetitions of telltale hearts and reincarnate lovers, is the man’s will +for a world timeless and absolute. That his materials were the shoddy +“seconds” of the romantic Gothic, we may leave to the pedants to assure +us. Poe’s impulse was no more romantic than was Goethe’s. He had a flair +for the Real: he lacked the power to establish this reality from the +world about him. Hence his defeated flights to other realms. But in his +Poetics and in “Eureka,” it stands proved that the glancings-off which +constitute his “works” were but his trial flights: that Poe was resolved +to found his revelation within the visible, audible, beating world. +Unlike the Bostonians, Poe was no transcendentalist by choice or reason. +The confrontation of experience and then the act of alchemy upon it, by +virtue of his vision, was beyond his powers. And was beyond him not, as +seemed manifest, because of his harried and brief life: was beyond him +symbolically, inevitably, since it was beyond the America of which he +was so high, so near, so unachieved an impulse. + +Let us make _this_ Poe ours. Let us not twang semi-sentimental plaints +about his failures. Let us not fool ourselves as to his triumphs. Let us +not blame the symbolical Mr. Allan for acting so well his ungrateful +role in a Scene so vastly without his canny ken. Let us, above all, not +split Poe—as is the fashion of the day—into pseudo-scientific fragments +of psychologic and sociologic terms. Let us take him whole—the man and +his work: Poe the embodied impulse of an Organism which holds not only +him, but us; Poe the impulse of America to transfigure the worlds within +it into a world more real. And let us proceed to the Adventure. + + _1925_ + + +2. FRANCE AND THOREAU + +Since Bernardin de Saint-Pierre, French literature has come variously to +America for materials and forms wherewith to re-create itself. The +greatest instance is still perhaps that of Chateaubriand whose +impossible Indians may outlast the too-possible Frenchmen of Flaubert. +The sustenance which Stendhal won from contemplation of our scene for +the esthetic of his novel of the modern will is less widely recognized. +We are aware, however, of how the symbolists transfigured Poe; and more +recently of the enthusiastic creation by the Dadaists of a romantic +America of cowboys, skyscrapers and jazz. Romantic movements in +classicist France are ever forages for nurture rather than voyages of +discovery. Like Greece, France is omnivorous and egocentric. In every +period of influences her writers are like a family consuming beefsteak. +That beefsteak will become, let us say, part of a lanky father, a fat +mother, a bad pagan boy, and a noble Christian sister. At this moment, +we may behold America turn into Louis Aragon, Valéry Larbaud, and +Bazalgette.... + +Bazalgette’s translation and biography of Whitman had a dynamic share in +the slow stirring of French letters, away from the Narcissus mood which +led to the masterworks of Claudel, Valéry, Proust, toward a new gesture +of spiritual excursion whence a good range of fresh romantic stuffs will +accrue for the young classicists to work on. His Whitman was a biography +that held fairly close to the narrative form, save that a lyrism +illumined it and made it speak with emphasis and fervor to the +imagination of the French. In “Henry Thoreau,” however, Bazalgette +stands revealed more clearly: a poet himself, and a prophet, he employs +a certain spiritual experience made manifest in America because less +assimilated here than the experience of Rousseau and of Tolstoi in their +lands; and he makes of it his own spiritual Word for France. This +technical analogy between Bazalgette in sophisticated Paris writing of +Thoreau, and Chateaubriand in rationalist Paris dreaming of our virgin +forests must not be strained too far. Bazalgette is less a poet than +Napoleon’s noble hater, but he is more historian and critic. His book +has the lilt and passage and effect of a packed personal paean; and yet +it is perhaps the best of all pictures of our great New England. There +is no phenomenal relation between Chateaubriand’s America—or that of the +Dadaists—and ourselves. Their work is, therefore, not negotiable beyond +their immediate needs. But clad in the fine English of Van Wyck Brooks, +Bazalgette’s “Thoreau” responds to our experience. It becomes an +American classic as surely as it is a French one. + +The method is not narrative: it is a composite of allusiveness, +colloquy, lyrical projection and dramatic scening. A hard method to +follow unflagging through three hundred pages; and at first the frail +figure of Thoreau seems insufficient for it. The author has sustained +his tone with ruthless logic that at times may pall. One would +occasionally welcome passages in a more direct, conventional prose. But +the consequence of the author’s lack of mercy is an esthetic form the +more remarkable when one considers the, after all, comparative +slightness of Thoreau’s stuff and the frustrate colors of his milieu. At +the end, one realizes that this unsparing method was the inevitable +right one for the subject. Thoreau’s greatness did not loom like +Whitman’s. It was the consequence of impacts on a small living nucleus, +of the organic yet reactive growth of that nucleus within an inchoate +social envelope. When he created his Whitman, Bazalgette had but to +follow Whitman. Hence his use of narrative was correct. Even the Civil +War fell into place as a sort of objective scene for the hero’s +progress. Creating Thoreau, Bazalgette creates primarily the New England +town, and the woods and the rivers and the birds, creates the astringent +air of Emerson and Alcott, creates Mr. Greeley and his _Tribune_, John +Brown and his raiders, lyceum audiences and village ne’er-do-wells. A +superb massivity of America bounding Thoreau gives him his dimensions by +indirection and by the dynamism of the man’s responses. It was a subtle +task, and Bazalgette has done it. It required a complete mastery of the +American scene; and the extent to which this Frenchman who has never +visited our land knows it—its past, its present, _and_ its future—is +uncanny. Where did he learn what a New England village feels like, what +winter is in a Canadian wood? How did he catch this scent of the +Emersonian family, this shuttling rhythm of Broadway, this dark deluvial +stain in the Judge’s house in Staten Island? No mere thorough +scholarship can explain it. Chateaubriand’s Indians, Baudelaire’s Poe, +are alien and exotic. Bazalgette possesses a true intuition of America. +Strange as it may seem, he loves us—loves our promise, our struggle to +evolve it. But his love is clairvoyant: his mind has stratified his +vision of us with analytic understanding. He knows the heartbreaking +husk of social and psychic life in which our promise stifles. Bazalgette +is a Roussinean romanticist in that he chooses to bring to Paris our +Thoreau as a reality _for it_, from the New England town. But he is no +romanticizer of the town. Nor of Thoreau who emerges from the book as a +true hero almost by a process of survival. Thoreau is a hero of his age, +we gather, because his age was otherwise unheroic. + +The book is a new type of novel, if you please, rather than biography in +the strict French sense. There is a new novel form—the Proustian—in +which the hero is literally “I.” An example of it in our language is +Sherwood Anderson’s “Story Teller’s Story.” Here is another kind of +novel—a sort of Crocean history—in which a real personage is drawn +ruthlessly as regards the facts and yet with Dionysian freedom in +spiritual emphasis and in esthetic. + +A work like this dares to contain anything: and there is to be found +here a bit of literary criticism so original in form that it must be +mentioned. Thoreau and Whitman meet. Their talk is a failure. Walt is +distrustful of this highbrow Yankee who has so consciously turned away +from Harvard. Bazalgette records the futile dialogue and adds to it, by +way of antistrophe, an imagined dialogue consisting of responses gleaned +from the two men’s work. The effect is powerful and convincing: a +contrapuntal fugue that does more to prove the nuclear energy of the +American mind and its unity, in variety, of direction, than a score of +essays. + +Mr. Brooks’s translation has a tendency toward “toning down.” The +original title, as an instance, reads “Henry Thoreau, Sauvage.” This +might be faithfully Englished as Henry Thoreau, the Untamed. Mr. Brooks +has preferred to substitute Emerson’s “bachelor of Nature.” Perhaps he +shares somewhat Emerson’s Apollonian attitude toward this nature-drunk, +nature-sweet, neoprimitive neighbor. But the translation is very far, +indeed, from a betrayal. It is the process whereby Bazalgette’s book +becomes indigenous and takes its place in our American literature +between the old and the new. Thoreau stands with Whitman and with +Melville for the creative transitional gesture between that new America, +inheritor of Old World forms, and our old America, creator of a new +world. Of this hazardous long birth-hour in whose travail we persist, +there is no lovelier expression than the prose of Van Wyck Brooks. + + _1927_ + + +3. FAIRY TALES FOR THE OLD + +Our country was not young from the beginning. It had to achieve youth. +From the Old World came old shoots: the transplantation as often as not +aggravated their antiquity. Ere we could be young, our elements had to +rot and to be remingled. This took time. And it may broadly be said that +only with the opening of the West and the demise, in civil war, of our +old sectional cultures, did America become at last a single sprawling +infant. + +Even then, the sectional elderships persisted. They took many forms. +None more pleasant than the glowing second childhood of New England +which stands expressed in the stories of Sarah Orne Jewett. These are +tales mostly of Maine in the later decades of the nineteenth century. +And rightly enough the best of them are about old women. The occasional +story of a child is sicklied over with an aged cast: for instance, +Sylvia of “A White Heron” is an old woman’s child, and lives with an old +woman. And when there is a wooing in “The Country of the Pointed Firs” +the maid has grown grey in service of her mother; the man—son of the +almost centenarian Mrs. Blackett—is a simpleton past fifty. But whether +the scene be the Poor Farm or a spruce island home or the tiny palace of +Queen Victoria’s Twin, there is ever a single glamorous illusion making +the substance and life of these sweet tales. And it is the manner of +illusion that dwells in the hearts of folks who have grown sweetly +childish, rather than sour, in their senility. + +It is not necessary to insist that the farms painted by Miss Jewett are +about as “realistic” as the England of “Alice in Wonderland” or of +Tennyson’s “Idylls.” Yet these uniformly charming people, so pure of +thought, so innocuous in action, so redolent of lavender and lace, are +true, although the theatre of their verity is the poetic fancy of Miss +Jewett. We may all snatch from our coming decrepit days the nodding wish +to turn from the rot of our world into a sweet-scented realm of senile +wishes, in order to enjoy Miss Jewett. + +The Maine of a mature mind, contemporary with these stories, must have +revealed men and women more like the persons of Robert Frost, more like +those one feels, rather by reaction than by direct creation, in the +works of Thoreau, Hawthorne, Margaret Fuller, Melville. And yet these +kind and well-groomed vagaries of Miss Jewett’s are no less a result of +the crass facts—no less respectable. The spirit of them is a sort of +iridescent mist rising from the shut pools of that life. + +Of course, stories with substance so wistful and so misty cannot rank +high as art: and we must not permit the present mood of American +reminiscence to which are due so many biographies, so many re-editions, +so many reconstructions, to blind us to their frail value. The fairy +tales of youth have greater destiny, because they have harder substance. +The child transcends his world: his ebullient vaulting energy despises a +mere unmastered round of fact and with parabolic power brings Mystery to +earth. But with second childhood, reality is too much and is avoided by +a sharp reduction. Energy, exhausted, draws back in catatonic gesture; +re-creates smallnesses to dwell in as a comfortable offset to the no +longer challengeable world. + +Willa Cather, a feeble daughter of Miss Jewett, has had the fondness to +compare her tales with “Huckleberry Finn” (a fairy tale of youth) and +“The Scarlet Letter”—one of the maturest dreams of American romance. But +these perfumed pictures of the land of pointed firs are a gross +reduction of the truth. All the primary lines, colors, forms, are +missing. Indeed, all life-welling passion, all organic substance, have +been mulcted out by the desire for Peace: and what remains is a +predigested brew of natural descriptions and carefully balanced +converse—a true diet, indeed, for old and toothless gums. + +Yet, although their stuff be small, these tales have loveliness. And one +rereads them, after all these years, marveling at the grace with which +their frailties have aged. The scenes of nature are good lyrics. +Although Miss Jewett’s sea has become strangely gentle, like a parlor +pet, it is still living: it is captured somewhat as life is captured in +certain two-dimensional prints from old Japan. The dialect has the mark +of absolute perfection; and yet is musically mannered so that none of +the conscious stress on veracity is there to irk one. But above +all—those women, those adorable, impossible old ladies, brewing tea, +gossiping, sewing! They are there, not like our grandmothers, but like +our childish vision of them—like what our grandmothers would have liked +to be, to our rapt young love. Even this sentimental splendor is reduced +to a kind of loophole glimpse. And yet the lens is never blurred and the +effect has all the negotiability of art. + +There was a strength in old New England which passed maturity without +losing all its power. There are wild flowers still in these rock-bound +fields that go to seed hardily: they do not scatter or fall with the +first turning away of the summer sun; but wraithlike they stand aloft +upon their stems and let the autumn air run through them. Something of +this prowess is in Miss Jewett’s stories. For all their simplification, +for all their romantic refusal of the true stuff of tragedy—finally, +hence, for all their subtle denigration of New England which deserves +greater and more athletic art, these tales bear well. They may be tales +of senescence—of a soul’s twilight: but this is a soul not impotent even +in decay. + +Most of them appeared in magazines well over forty years ago. As one +measures them with what has followed, one is dismayed. For hidden in +their glamour is a sinister seed. True enough are tales which spring +from a felt illusion. But it is only the lie which has brought forth +progeny. The hallucination of Miss Jewett, making her see such paragons +of peace and sweetness in the New England farms, causing her in all +solemnity to compare the “Bowdoin reunion” with “a company of Greeks +going to celebrate a victory, or to worship the god of harvest”—this +peculiar magic of old age could not be copied and has not been +transmitted. Only the trick of reduction, only the simplification, only +the falsehood. And the consequence, patented and standard, swarms within +our fiction magazines and in our novels. + +The fairy tale turned formula—the fairy tale without the motive of youth +or of old age—becomes the harsh, cold, mechanical, nugatory art which +makes up most of our current “competence” in fiction. It marks the +extension into literature of the processes of mass production which +belong to an industrial age. It is responsible for the factories and +sweatshops whence reading matter is turned out for the million. How it +came to be born you can trace in the soft, warm, gradually shallowing +and self-repeating art of Sarah Orne Jewett. + + _1925_ + + +4. DUSK AND DAWN + +The basis for any criticism of a book by Lewis Mumford must be respect +for the author and thankfulness that he is at work in our country. Rare, +indeed, are American critics who, like him, venture into the realm of +general ideas; and rarer are the men who, with his good will, possess +his rounded equipment. For Mr. Mumford tries to be no specialist save in +the task of seeing and interpreting life whole. No less than all the +works of men shall be his laboratory; no less than the search of values +for “the good life” his aim. He can write of archaic Utopias and future +city plannings, of modern books and ancient pictures and medieval +guilds; he is at home in all subjects since he has gained awareness that +all of them are one. + +Mr. Mumford’s “The Golden Day” sustains this sense of him. It is in many +ways a beautiful book. It flows easy, brilliant, poetical, from the +store of its maker. It has style, it has form. There is no reason to +doubt that it will take its place in the sparse critical literature of +our uncertain era. + +Mr. Mumford has written an essay in interpretation of the American past. +With this purpose, he has utilized an analysis of our customs, of our +ideals, principally through the medium of our writers. But the +standpoint of his study is the present. He has not written history; he +has established, as his focus, not alone our day, but as well our need. +His retrospect receives its dynamic rhythm, one might almost say its +_life_, from the author’s mastering interest in “What next?” + +The general theme, viewed as a series of facts, is plain enough and has +been proposed in similar terms, before. Europe’s state since the Middle +Ages is regarded as a disintegration. Of this profound breakup America +is a conspicuous symptom and expression. America was colonized by forces +of Europe’s decomposition; and America itself, determining such states +of mind as pioneering, hastened the deliquescence of that spiritual +world which man raised up in Europe and whose tearing down had no deeper +symbol than the emigrations. Howsoever, before the final breakup of +Europe in the American West, new shoots of the transplanted European +culture rose on our Eastern seaboard. In the Golden Day of Emerson, +Thoreau, Whitman, they reached a splendor fresh and unparalleled in the +contemporary hour of a Europe less swiftly, but as essentially decadent. +Thereafter, the American West, in which the disintegrated force of the +Old World and the barbarizing condition of the New came to a climax, +gradually prevailed. Already, with Hawthorne, Melville, Poe, the Golden +Day was waning: the good elements of old Europe were rotted by +unconscious “new” American factors. The “pragmatic acquiescence” marks +America’s rationalized slump into the barbaric mood of the industrial +pioneer. William James, John Dewey, are good men ennobling the sterile +cause. The descent, now, is swift. The muckrakers are social critics +themselves submerged in the muck, failing of any principle to catapult +them free. Novelists socially and spiritually submerged are Mark Twain, +Jack London, Theodore Dreiser—scavengers whose true function is to pick +to pieces what still remains of a once noble structure. And not deeply +otherwise are the wistful “pillagers of the past” of whom the finest are +Henry James and George Santayana; their retreat into Europe or to +“philosophy” is motived by as forceless an acceptance of the barbaric +day as the rationalization of the pragmatists. Finally, Mr. Mumford +brings us to ourselves. After this ebb, we are sunk so low that naught +could remain but a new rising. Mr. Mumford is hopeful, one feels, for +sheerly tidal reasons. + +Of course, to state in a paragraph what the author himself has +athletically stripped to but three hundred pages is to leave out much +and to denature more. This book, it seems to me, is chiefly a personal +essay—a confession by a significant man. You will find, here, excellent +pages on the “romanticism” of the pioneer, on the genius of Emerson, on +the limitations of Dewey and Santayana. You will find other pages less +adequate: as the discussions of Whitman, Melville, Poe and Dreiser. What +interests me most in “The Golden Day” is not its assemblage of +interpretations, but its focus. + +This focus is external. Mr. Mumford is outside his own book. He depicts +superbly the Platonic, pagan and mystical glories which in America’s +Golden Day were called Emerson, Thoreau, Whitman. But they are +experientially remote from Mr. Mumford: as remote as Dante and Aquinas. +Ideally, of course, we share all greatness and find its recognition in +our souls. Yet those medieval worlds were not actually ours: their +source, their form and their behavior differ. Mr. Mumford depicts, also, +and with no less eloquence, the horrors of the American scene: the +barbaric frontier, the Protestant decadence, the tyranny of the machine +and of the job, the fallacies of materialism, utilitarianism, +experimentalism, pragmatism. But he is outside the experience of these +also. When he praises the age of Emerson, there is an aloofness of +elegy. When he exhorts the young men, his contemporaries: “Allons. The +road is before us!” there is an aloofness of rhetoric. What is the +matter with Mr. Mumford? + +The matter is that he has considered us, rather than experienced us. He +has gone deep to behold our past greatness, our present miseries; but +not deep enough to establish the vital connection between them, and +between them and himself. America is an organic subject. Mr. Mumford, +for all his studies in causation, treats as a series of isolate +manifestations, “good” or “bad,” “tasteful” or “disgusting,” what are +really acts of a single spiritual Organism, yet immature, yet basally +“in the making.” The Golden Day whereof the author so wistfully sings +was not a day at all: it was not even a dawn: it was, if you insist on +solar terms, _a_ dusk of Europe. But only in its ideologies and cultural +forms! More accurately, it was a moment in the American childhood when +the spirit spoke lyrically, before the whelming demands of body—of +nutrition and of growth—plunged America more fully into chaos. The fact +that this age was not a Day is plain in its shimmering, surface passage +over the American mind: and in the sequence when America transformed the +idealism of its transcendentalists and poets into immediate adolescent +matters of expansion and of self-indulgence. Mr. Mumford makes Emerson +the hero of this “day.” Yet if ever a man was a congeries of lovely +echoes, of wistful longings, of fleeting and unfleshed intuitions, +Emerson was he! His intimations of immortality were almost literally +those which the great Wordsworth beheld on the visage of a babe! Emerson +_was_ such an intimation on America’s huge child face. He was our first, +unfleshed, undifferentiate glimpse of manhood—of a manhood still very +far ahead. + +In Whitman this intimation is no longer the tremorous glimpse so well +symbolized in Emerson’s frail and evanescent prose. It is a roar of +adolescence: a true hunger call: no more. Now, note Mr. Mumford’s basic +misunderstanding of Poe and Melville. These men were the first to try to +_flesh_ what we might style the Emersonian intuition in American life. +Mr. Mumford calls them figures of the twilight. And yet, from the +standpoint of a study of the American Organism, they are more advanced +than such more successful artists as Whitman and Thoreau. Poe’s mystical +attitude toward the mechanism and applied science, his marvelous attempt +to add a dimensional sense to the inherited experience of life; and +Melville’s tragic effort to wed God and whaling—these are the first +organic _acts_ after the childhood intimations of the men whom Mr. +Mumford esteems as makers of our Noon.[8] And the author fails to +recognize them, because he has no organic experience in America to guide +him. He is in love with the gesture, the dream, the childhood faëry of +our past: yet he rejects the _body_—our present interim of the Machine +and of the romanticisms of the Machine—whereby alone this promise from +our past may be organized into a living future. + +Therefore, finally, his book brings the flavor of a plaint: his envoi is +wistful and vague, his call to future action has no ring. For American +future spiritual action must rise organically from the facts of our +hideous present, since these facts are an insuperable sequence from our +past ideals. Mr. Mumford, in this book, is a man sincerely, +prophetically in love with the sweet spirit of childhood; yet turning +from the physical, often bestial process whereby alone the child can +grow in order to express that spirit. When the child America lisps +purities half understood, Mr. Mumford blesses. But when the child +America gulps food, wallows in mud, slugs and robs comrades, adventures, +bullies, cheats—Mr. Mumford merely scolds. + + _1926_ + + +5. ELEGY FOR ANARCHISM + + + a. + +I hoped to glean from the autobiography of Emma Goldman four +experiences, each of them worth while: the intimate life story of a +remarkable woman, the history of her ideals and thoughts as an +anarchist, a portrait of toiling America during the past four decades, +and an account of the years of military communism in the U.S.S.R. I got +what I wanted, although in each case the net gain in light is different +from what I had supposed it would be—different, I feel certain, from +what Emma Goldman herself believes her book has given. + +The most enlightening point, for me, in the first volume where the +author describes her girlhood, her marriage, her entrance into the +anarchist ranks after the Chicago executions, her love affairs, her +friendships with Johann Most and Alexander Berkman, is that her +narrative is almost bare of experience and ideas. The pages fly with +gusto, Emma Goldman holds back nothing. But she has, rather amazingly, +almost nothing inward to give! Intimately, for all her good will, she +appears to remember little of her own sensations; and if there was a +period of doubt and inquiry before she accepted Kropotkin and Bakunin, +she takes her own thoughts for granted, giving us the bare conclusion. I +had a sense of Emma Goldman writing these pages of her youth; but it was +a sense of the mature woman the author, not of the young woman the +subject. And this very fact: that Emma Goldman describing her loves, her +factories and sweatshops, her cities, her encounters with magnates and +policemen, gives no direct experience of her feelings and thoughts, +helps to reveal the nature of the woman. One must make one’s own +deductions, as one might if one were actually speaking with the author. +For Emma Goldman is a presence in her book—a deep, hearty presence. She +is never the analyst or integrator of her story. + +Her chief traits are goodness and energy. There is something abstract in +her élan vital, since she is unaware of causes. The Freudians would +doubtless call her career a flight from a cruel father (who became +symbolized as authority and the state). More obviously, her life was a +simple escape from the intolerable pain of inhibitions (personal and +social) and a blind rush toward that freedom which the word “anarchism” +convincingly evoked. In a life so purely dynamic, there is no pause for +thought, hence her book’s total lack of ideology; there is no room for +emotional contemplation, hence its author’s want of vivid memory. Emma +Goldman cannot be said to remember her girlhood, and its record, +pictorial or sensory, is absent from her pages. Which is to say, that +her first thirty or forty years were lived not on an intellectual, not +even on an emotional, plane; but were instinctive. Instinctive action +(if I may use this obsolete term) is automatic, and leaves no memory. + +But Miss Goldman’s instinctivism must not be confused with that of +others. It is paradoxical, being extremely good and brave. Most women +who live on this level are self-indulgent, cowardly, shallow. Miss +Goldman, although she seems never to have thought, has a nature both +good and profound. At any moment of her youth, it is clear that she was +ready to give herself to her Cause. Even her sex life, one feels, was +the response of a motherly heart rather than of a lusting body. And if +she followed the dictates of her body, the wonder is that even selfish +impulse moved her to constant sacrifice and the acceptance of suffering. + +This paradox convinces me that there are really persons in the world +like the “free souls” on whose actual existence Rousseau, Proudhon and +the other romantic anarchists based their theories. No wonder Emma +Goldman was an anarchist—and without having to think about it. Her +innocent nature predicates and incarnates the anarchist creed. Even in +her appetites, she is a woman instinctively good and pure: a woman whose +blithe spirit only the alien contacts of official law could poison. + +The pages are, of course, full of references to anarchist comrades. +Directly, she analyzes them no more than herself; but her own vitality +imbues with life her portraits of men like Berkman, Reitman, Brady and +Most. Like the author, these figures belong to the romantic movement. +They are an issue of the same social forces which gave the Atalas, +Renés, Adolphes and Werthers. The key to these characters is a +deliberate return to “self”—a return which is a reaction from a system, +social and intellectual, that was losing its vitality: so that the +romantic return to “self” was literally the escape of “life” from the +old Western order. In the profounder romantics (Rousseau, Blake, +Beethoven, Stendhal, Balzac, Whitman, Nietzsche, etc.), this return to +“self” was sufficiently thorough to reveal the self’s cosmic +implications and therewith the nucleus of a whole new social fabric. +Intellectually weaker romantics did not go so far. They discovered their +own yearning ego, and loved it, and regarded the world as a mere bar to +its divine trajectory. Their ideas of social justice were +rationalizations of their lyric need of freedom. They were the +anarchists. They knew nothing of the objective world, save that it got +in their way. They knew nothing even of each other, since in the last +analysis they knew nothing of themselves. They were “pure being,” and +since “pure being” is a rationalized fantasy, their own lives have an +abstract air, a lack of body and of reason. + +This _unreality_ of the anarchists is perfectly revealed by Emma +Goldman. It is epitomized in the _attentat_ on Frick by her lifelong +comrade Berkman. Young Berkman (a very different man from the mature +Berkman of later years) is as good as his girl friend. He _knows_ +nothing, either: not how to make a bomb, not how to speak English, not +the crucial differences between an American magnate and the lords of +Tsarist Russia; not (at the end) how to aim a pistol. His act is a “pure +act” in a cruel, complex world that has thrown him off, so that he wills +to destroy it. The anarchist is a tangential force from the social +center, but in his naïve egoism he conceives himself as the center. +Thus, by immediate logic, the legalized social world becomes the +centrifugal tangent—and he erects a philosophy or builds a bomb, to wipe +it out. + +Volume One of Emma Goldman’s story might, then, be called the premise of +anarchism: there are really born in the world persons instinctively +good, whom the complex tissue of laws tortures and maims. Volume Two is +the conclusion of anarchism: the fate of such persons in the real world +that persists. In her record of the past ten or fifteen years, the +author is closer to the subject. We no longer have a woman of sixty +trying to re-create a girl. We know what the young Miss Goldman was, by +what she failed to record: we have the contemporary in a more positive +record. For this other woman has been forced, by her frustrations, from +the instinctive rush of her élan vital to the emotional plane. The +natural mother blindly fighting for her children becomes the +contemplative mother who can no longer wield arms, who can only suffer. +The bud of the young woman’s goodness blooms into a dark flower of pain. +Now Emma Goldman has memory. Her last pages, in which she gives us a War +America and a Russia of her own, are suffused with tragic light. + + + b. + +I do not wish to appear to minimize the intellectual contribution of the +great anarchist writers. They established a theory of the state which +Marx accepted. Indeed, the bitter war between anarchism and communism is +one of methods toward a common goal—the classless and stateless society. +As anarchism evolved, however, it became an unrealistic fixation on the +end, whereas the Marxists assumed the task of establishing the +ideological and technical means that might bring the end into existence. +The anarchists (in the contemporary jargon) became a dissociation from +the context of life: they represented that extreme of social suffering +which touches madness in so far as madness is a dislocation from the +whole. And against them, Marx brought his organic rationale to the cause +of revolution. He counteracted the instinctive anarchist flight from an +unjust world by making reasonable the relation between the rebellious +impulse and the capitalist system, and by integrating social revolution +as an organic (dialectic) issue of our social order. In this effort, it +is natural that all the leading Marxists—Engels, Plekhanov, Lenin, +etc.—should have made conscious war against the anarchists. But it is a +beautiful stroke of fortune which led a leading anarchist, like Emma +Goldman, into articulate contact with the first Marxist nation. + +Her bitter rejection of bolshevism is well known. She went to Russia in +1920, ready to defend and to collaborate. A year and a half later, she +and Berkman left, heartbroken by what she names the betrayal of the +Cause for which she has given her life. Her record is full, and is—for +reasons unknown to herself—the most significant part of her book. It is +the final revelation of the utter unreality of her own kind of +revolution. Emma Goldman found in Russia a ruthless state employing +repression of all kinds—censorship, imprisonment, execution—in the +effort to survive both the inherited chaos of the Tsarist regime and the +seventeen White armies that were attacking it. This was enough for Miss +Goldman: the old hated state at its old methods. She had never stopped, +in her assaults on bourgeois society, to understand it; why, now, should +she stop to understand the real problems of the proletarian dictatorship +in Russia? Contexts are beyond Emma Goldman, whether they be White or +Red. The whole activity of relations is beyond her. + +Her book, in its finality, becomes the tragedy of good will and a good +heart unguided by a sense of the Whole. The impulse that had made her a +rebel was generous; her methods of rebellion were brave and pure. But +rebellion became the automatic habit of her life; her one positive +response to the objective world of men and of values. If she had +_understood_ the evils of bourgeois society, she would have understood +the inevitability of their survival in the transition period which she +witnessed in Russia. Her descriptions of what she saw are factual +enough: Emma Goldman is incapable of deliberate falsehood. But she is +also incapable of truth, which is the placing of facts in their vital +context. + +Her failure to understand Russia is the anarchist failure to understand +and hence to work upon the world. Her story of a great anarchist (there +is something about this woman that is great) becomes the most eloquent +defense of communism. If the revolutionary impulse can go so far astray +through blind emotion, become so hysterical, so impotent, so unjust, and +finally so destructive, the Marxian method is imperative. + +But if the lesson of this book went no further, it would scarcely +deserve the space that I have given it. Anarchism as a system and method +of revolution is dead: communism has killed it. What remains in the +revolutionary world is the menace of a fixation, different but as deadly +as that which in a hundred years turned the fertile beginnings of Godwin +and Proudhon into so pitiful an end. Anarchism has died of intellectual +dry rot induced by its eccentric emotionalism. There are signs that +orthodox communism is threatened by a dogmatic rationalistic creed (by +no means discoverable in Marx) whose inadequate depth and breadth would +ultimately exclude the creative energies of mankind. + +The intelligent communist will not gloat over the tragic story of Emma +Goldman. He will bear in mind that a revolutionary cause must be +constantly Creative, and that to this end it must be vigilant against +mental or emotional habits that exclude the right of fresh discoveries. +To bring a new mankind into the world is a long act of birth menaced at +every instant by the nearness of death. + + _1931_ + + +6. THE BOOK OF LEO STEIN + +The man whose conversations about art have gone into the nurture of most +of the important artists of our day in Paris has written a book. For one +who knows the author, it will be hard to dissociate these printed pages +from the voice of the man who wrote them. To have had acquaintance with +this tireless seeker, watched the beautiful curves of his mind moving +for hours of uninterrupted discourse upon a mental action, and to have +relished his piquant admixture of spiritual humbleness, intellectual +passion and ascetic distrust of all passions, is not the sort of +experience to be overlooked, just because one of the best talkers of our +day has turned to writing. Mr. Stein’s work is, moreover, in the best +sense, conversation. From beginning to end, his curt and quiet tone is a +manner of speaking. The color of the man stands in his most abstracted +thought. He has written a volume in which all thinking and all topics +are so securely focused to a personal rhythm, that—whatever else—his +essay is a work of art. + +Mr. Stein has a poor opinion of philosophy, and of what esthetics, at +its hand, has suffered. Mr. Stein, moreover, has loved art. He has, in +consequence, attempted what might be called a “rescue.” The sentimental +mists of philosophic thought must be cut away from his beloved; the +basis of the esthetic act must be presented in simple, matter-of-fact, +assumptionless terms. This is the program. Actually, what Mr. Stein has +achieved is a statement as subjective as Amiel’s journal: a +self-portrayal which is both beautiful and significant, since its hero +is so archetypical of his time. + +With the purely technical part of his examination of esthetics, there +can be no quarrel. It is superb. Mr. Stein has studied the _picture_ +with a combined sensitivity and intelligence of which I, at least, can +name no even approximate equal. To read his discussion of focus, +interval, the physiology and analogies of rhythm, distortion, tension, +composition, is to be aware of mastery and to know what sentimental +perfume most literary art appreciation—from Goethe to Elie +Faure—consists of. Mr. Stein’s technique for the practical taste of art +seems to me to be perfect. His chapter, for example, on “Pictorial +Seeing,” in which he makes clear how the eyes can turn a dish into a +picture, how this ideal act is the basis of esthetics and must +inevitably determine the distorting, flattening and focalizing, is a +masterpiece; and the man who understands it is ready to see pictures. +Moreover, the book is filled with apophthegmatic observations on life, +the ego, civilization (which, to Mr. Stein, is yet far from dawning), +that should make his volume precious to all lovers of delicious talk. +Indeed, the work is so complete in its foreground—the physiology of the +esthetic object—that its utter lack of background—the matrix, causality +and dynamics of art—becomes the clearer. Mr. Stein makes plain how in a +picture it is upon the depth dimension that esthetic success hinges: +how, indeed, much European art has failed because of the failure to +throw the focus organically back and to make alive the planes which +support and enact the forward action. And in this criticism he has given +the measure of himself. + +If, having so amply learned from Leo Stein how to transform the dish +before our eyes into a picture, one were to ask him: (a) why one should +do this; (b) why anyone has ever done this; (c) why and how this act is +universally linked with the entire history of man’s spirit; (d) why +feeling and value accrue from this act, and (e) what is the nature of +this process whereby the self is enhanced, one would receive no answer. +As I have said, Mr. Stein is “against” all philosophy and metaphysics. +He takes furious pride in telling us that he has never been able to +understand the writers on these subjects: and he makes clear that, if +you think you have understood them, you are suffering from a delusion. +“Philosophy,” he tells us, “is a pseudo-knowledge which attempts to add +a dimension to human capacity.” “Mysticism,” he adds, “is sentimentality +taken seriously.” The entire effort to establish truth from facts, or +the real from our complex of thought and sense and act, being +“philosophical” or “mystic,” is inadequate and acrimoniously barred from +his discussion of esthetics. “Esthetics gives us fact, not truth,” he +tells us. The work of art is a cognitive object, an object by means of +which men may know but which they must “stay outside of.” + +Mr. Stein sticks about as heroically to his backgroundless thesis as he +could, without becoming inarticulate altogether. What value exists in +that rhythmic synthesis of ingredients intercepted by self, and called +art, unless the unity achieved conveys an experience beyond the matters +abstracted? Why should we care to know a Cezanne landscape, if this +especial focusing of hills and houses is a mere unification of +themselves? Mr. Stein, in refusing to ask such questions or to place his +facts in a context that inherently transcends them, dislocates every +fact, every question he discusses; as assuredly as he would dislocate a +dish (in a picture) if he essayed to represent its planes without the +planes that intersect them. + +To render art intelligible by isolating it from those causes and +associations which invade the philosophic realm is just about as wise as +it would be to employ a language after abstracting the meaning of the +words. (This, by the way, is not far from the method of Mr. Stein’s +illustrious and ridiculous sister, Gertrude.) In his fear of unproved +assumptions, Leo Stein has made a two-dimensional picture of esthetics. +For the expert, his study of the traits of art in analytical cross +section is instructive. But for the reader who is really seeking an +alphabet of esthetics, the result is arid. + +Leo Stein represents, in his attitude, the philosophical defeatism of +our day. Because so many little boys have burned their fingers, he will +eschew fire and live cold. There is something positively heroic in this +spectacle of a man aborting the creative process of his mind, because so +many births in the past (as he sees it) have been abortions. Even worse, +Leo Stein, having no sympathy with the birth pangs of the world, decides +there shall be no more birth at all. To this end, the work of art is +reduced to a mere rationally cognitive object, with self as a static +co-ordinate of the cognition; and that entire process of dynamic osmosis +between self and not-self, _which is the history of culture_, is put +away as sentimental nonsense. + +His subject has its revenge upon him. You cannot trace more than a +diagram of the means of esthetics, unless you know that the +configuration of facts in any work of art establishes for both artist +and observer an experienced entity called truth, which as radically +differs from these facts as water does from H_{2} and O, or as a human +body differs from the sum of inorganic chemicals within it. +And—unfortunately for Mr. Stein—you cannot talk about anything with +perseverance, without having to choose between a philosophy of your own +(which is at least alive and yours) and a philosophy that is unconscious +and not yours and uncontrolled. + +This is the fate of the antiphilosophic Leo Stein. He says, for +instance: “Some believe there are quite a lot of emotions. Some believe +there are only three. I doubt very much that there is more than one, +which is just emotion.” This sounds like a brave refusal to “assume.” It +is really an assumption based on an atomistic philosophy whose tenet was +that you must split up psychic states just as physicists split up matter +into atoms. I might respond that there are no emotions—only organic +contexts from which the mind may abstract analytic elements which +partake solely of the mind process and which it has called emotions. I +don’t say my organic philosophy would be truer. The point is that Mr. +Stein, in disagreeing with me, is as philosophical as I am. + +Throughout his book, such unconscious philosophical assumptions are +present: and they are inadmissible because _he_ does not admit them. He +says, for instance: + + Esthetics gives us fact, not truth. But fact to be interesting to + adults in the long run must be true. Only science and practice can + judge validity beyond the mere aspect. The world as it is + scientifically known is not a whole world, but the nature of that + world is such that it can find in science a partial reflection that is + true enough to work. Our esthetic perception of the world must not + contradict this knowledge. + +If this is not philosophy—philosophy of a very classic mold—then +Aristotle was a landscape painter. + +I have here no space to isolate the assumptions which color the esthetic +of Leo Stein; nor to work out the inadequacy of his definition of art as +a cognitive object. The task would be the more difficult, in that he +forbears from the method of statement of his first principles—a method +which makes it so easy to attack the systematic thinkers. I detect, +under Mr. Stein’s abnegation of first principles about the “real” and +the “true” and the “good,” the cowardice of our epoch. Every man who +lives should know that his _life_ is an assumed, rationally unproved +first principle. The real and the true are categories of our existence +and enter as functions into all our acts. Our sole choice is between a +creative and a passive attitude toward the first principles thus +_given_. So far as I know, the one honest, if vain, effort to reject +first principles is suicide. Much of the brilliant intellectual activity +of our day is a comfortable surrogate for self-destruction. + + _1927_ + + +7. REFLECTIONS ON SPENGLER + +Oswald Spengler’s “The Decline of the West,” from 1918 to 1926, sold in +Germany almost a hundred thousand copies. It would be inspiriting to +believe that a profound historical and philosophical work could have so +large a sale in any modern land. But the originality of Spengler does +not reside in his erudition; it is poetic. The book’s metaphysics is +eclectic rather than sound; its historical research is vast rather than +uniformly deep. “Der Untergang des Abendlandes” is an epos, a myth. So, +if Germany has not bought a hundred thousand copies of a great +philosophic work, it has at least welcomed a personal mythos of deep +interest: one whose elements are philosophy, history, esthetics: one +whose comprehension requires of the reader a great familiarity with +comparative history and comparative religion. + +I think at once of “The Outline of History” of H. G. Wells, which had an +analogous popular appeal in America and England. Wells, like Spengler, +under the guise of writing history, offered a thesis and a myth. Here +the analogy stops. The story in Wells is a vulgar, obvious narrative of +“events”: his thesis is the most illiterate notion of “human progress” +and his myth is a mere flatulent, optimistic dream. Spengler’s work is +formally beautiful. He builds, not by storytelling, but by the +presentation and analysis of analogies. And he concludes on a note as +darkly glamorous as it is pessimistic. The Winter is upon us, he +declares in doom words that are closer to the note of the prophets than +he would care to admit. Our salvation is to perform, nobly and +perfectly, the work of Winter: to understand ourselves, to set down as +the Seal of our glorious dying life a ruthless scrutiny of what we were. + +I shall criticize Spengler harshly enough. Let it be, however, always +clear that Spengler has written a work of heroic poetic power. The land +that dared to welcome such a volume still possesses culture. + + +The book’s main thesis seems to be disguised in the title. “The Decline +of the West”—is it not a misnomer? Has not Spengler really written a +history and a morphology of Cultures? But no. Though the title may +mislead—may, indeed, have misled its author and its readers, it is a +true self-confession of the poet’s veritable purpose. Spengler has +composed this erudite, overpoweringly brilliant thesis on the anatomy +and physiology of cultures, in order to prove that _his_ Culture (the +Culture of the West) is dying. This is where his heart lies. He has +written a swan song. And since he is a citizen of the world whose most +valid mythic material is no longer the personal legend, the hero, the +war, the romance; is, on the other hand, metaphysics, history, +epistemology and science, Spengler has employed these elements to make +his tragic tale. + +And the value of the book lies not in its thesis and its proof. This +decline of the West is obvious enough. Spengler shares his conviction of +it with a great measure of good Europeans. For several generations the +disaster has been in the air. The Great War was but an episode. Rousseau +had some ideas on the subject. No sooner had the Germans after Kant +invented the notions of Culture, Progress, Spirit, than the critics rose +to prove that their culture was moribund and their spirit sleeping. +Since Schopenhauer and Nietzsche, Europe’s religious decline has been +taken for granted. Tolstoi and Nordau from contrary directions met in +calling modern art the herald of the fall. Rimbaud, Blake, Dostoevski, +Whitman, were the sort of prophets who declared the death of Western +Europe, although it was to predict a new spiritual rise. Long past its +zenith is the myth that the “modern age” is a height rather than a +decline from the medieval. The notion that the Middle Ages were “Dark +Ages” is relegated to Chautauqua. + +Spengler’s value (and it is very real) lies in his attitude toward this +decline of the West and in the method whereby he establishes it. His +attitude is poetic. He despises the Superman construction whereby +Nietzsche cheated his despair of tomorrow: he is closer to the marvelous +poet Rimbaud who accepted the complete negation of all values, without +hope of heavens or nirvanas, and who, yet, made of his acceptance a last +song. Spengler is in love with winter. So bitter-passionate is his +embrace of the death he feels in his own soul that he has written a vast +book to prove the inevitability of his love. The romantic “proves” the +perfection of his lady by showing how the birds and the trees and the +winds sing her praises. Thus has Spengler bent the art and mathematics +of the Greeks, the religion of the Jews and Arabs, the cultures of +Egypt, India and China to his one loved purpose: he has made them over +into ineluctable signs of the winter upon Europe. + +Before such thorough passion one must be respectful. This is a song—a +death song the Prussian is singing. The work of art is a matter of +focus. Here a man with the whole world’s learning in his hand has +_focused_ it to make refrain for a great downgoing. He has seen mankind +whole, in order to make that whole the accomplice of his own particular +end. He has warped history, maimed philosophy, chain-ganged science, +perverted art. But he is an artist himself. He has written a book which +is poor history, worse anthropology, perhaps. So was Dante’s “Divina +Commedia.” + + +Spengler, I have said, is a poet, his metaphysics eclectic rather than +sound, his historical research vast rather than uniformly deep. +Spengler’s masters, as regards the material with which he works out his +conception, are almost legion, nor has he always done them justice. The +notion of a culture-organism, independent, impenetrable, yet somehow +mirroring the universe within its autonomous self, and moved only by God +in the mysterious shape of Destiny, is very close to Leibnitz with his +Monads. Spengler, indeed, is an instance, with Whitehead and Bertrand +Russell, of the revival of Leibnitz, whose realistic, pluralistic +universe was for a time submerged under the idealistic waves of Kant and +Hegel. To this Leibnitzian base, Spengler adds a good measure of Hegel. +His treatment of mathematics, science, history, all the attributes of +culture from geometry to esthetics, as expressions of Spirit and as +subjective, is Hegelian or Kantian idealism. On the other hand, his +radical differentiation of mathematical time (which is reversible) from +the irreversible Time which he calls Destiny brings to mind Bergson who +opposed creative Time, the signature of Life, to the false, spatial, +materialistic time which he condemns as a constructed figment of the +intellect. Spengler’s anti-intellectualism, whereas it is as logical as +Hegel, springs from Bergson, as does, likewise, his hostility to the +geneticisms of Darwin and of Marx. His treatment, however, of the +art-phenomena of any age as physiognomic traits of its people is a +brilliant evolution of what Taine and Renan themselves derived from +Hegel. + +Spengler avows Goethe as his master. He is forever quoting Goethe, +appealing to him as the scientific and philosophic source of his +conception. And he is right, in so far as both these men are poets. +Spengler is very far from the ideas of Goethe; but in his use of ideas +toward an absolute, mythmaking end, he is allied to the creator of +Faust. + +Goethe’s philosophic master was Spinoza. This manifest fact would be +inadmissible to Spengler who regards Goethe as the last master of the +Faustian soul and Spinoza as an anomalous survival, out of time and out +of place, from the alien Magian or Arabian culture. Spengler’s thesis of +intact, autonomous culture-organisms does not allow that a master from +one culture can do more than impede the evolution of another. Spinoza, +he declares, shows his strangeness from Western (Faustian) Culture in +that he lacks the _force-element_ which is that culture’s primary trait. +Faust denotes force tending toward the infinite. But why cannot the same +be said of the personal nature of any of the Hebrew prophets or of +Prometheus? In Spinoza, it is true that this trait of personal force is +assimilated—or, rather, it is equated—in that balance of individual +wills whose sum is God. The point is that whereas Goethe as artist +depicted personal force in Faust, he transcended it as a philosopher +precisely in his acceptance of the Spinozistic synthesis of forces. +Goethe, maturing as a thinker, transcended the concept of personal will +as ultimate. Spengler has taken Goethe’s esthetic creation of the +individual, _willing_ Faust, and made of it a philosophic symbol for an +entire culture. + + +Let us take Spengler for a while, as he demands to be taken, critically. +My notes of specific disagreements with the Spenglerian presentation of +facts and of conclusions would cover many pages. This is no place to +print them. Yet I cannot avoid some minimum of analytical discussion. + +The major thesis is the critical issue. Spengler considers the culture +as an organism. He discerns in history a number of such cultures. He +examines the Chinese, the Egyptian, the Indian (Hindu), the Classical +(Greek and Roman), the Magian (Jewish-Persian—early Christian-Arab), and +the Western or Faustian (roughly Western Europe since 900 C.E.). He +discovers in each of these cultures a regular life span of four seasons: +spring, summer, autumn, winter. They sum to about one thousand years. +The form and length of this course never varies. Each culture has a +_soul_: this it expresses through a chief spiritual attitude, through an +individual vision of life and through a specific symbol. The +mathematics, science, art, religion, political, financial and economic +forms of every culture express its soul, its vision—are symbols of its +attitude toward life. These expressions go, with the culture itself, +through the seasons to decrepitude from youth. Each epoch in any culture +is strictly homogeneous with the “contemporary” epoch of any other +culture. In the spring, that is, of Classical culture, you will find +manifestations in every activity of man which are analogous to those of +the spring of Western or of Chinese culture. Each culture lives out its +own destiny, dies its own death. No other culture can do more than +impede it, even as one tree may impede another’s sunlight. There is no +interpenetration. There is no mutual understanding. It is an illusion on +the part of the Western soul to believe it understands the Chinese, the +Arabian, the Greek. The inherent growth of each culture is a matter not +of geneticisms and material evolutions, but of Destiny. There is no +cause and effect; there are monadlike cultural units, mapped through +irreversible Time from birth to death. + +Now, the trouble with these organisms is that they are placed _in +vacuo_. They are described as evolving their destiny sheerly out of +themselves, without relational struggle, drama, reaction, interference. +And yet they are also described as having the nature of biologic +organisms: i. e., they have youth, maturity, old age; they have a +specific lifespan. But no organisms known to man exist in this utter +isolation. One and all, they arise from other organisms like them, they +live in a continuum of interaction with other organisms like them, they +give birth before death or in death to other organisms like them. The +culture-organisms of Spengler do not seem to be really alive: they are +mere synthetic constructions of the author. In order to prove them +alive, Spengler has been forced to a progressive and virtuosic deforming +of the facts. + +When I say that the Spenglerian culture-organism, absolute, monadlike, +impenetrable, does not exist, I do not mean that there is no valid view +of cultures as organic within their rise and fall. Before I can come to +this, I must examine in at least one detail the Spenglerian proof. + +Each culture, Spengler undertakes to show, has a soul unique and +radically different from that of any other culture. (If this is so, why +is there such strict analogy in the forms, seasons and lifespan of all +cultures?) This soul’s Weltanschauung is its own. And its prime symbol +is its idea of space or of extension. From this symbol each culture-soul +constructs its mathematics, its sciences, its religion, its +architecture, etc. They are all expressions of the prime symbol. +Therefore every mathematics, science system, religion, etc., differs +radically from every other. Moreover, there is no one mathematics, no +one system of physics, etc. There are as many as there are cultures. +Each is true, and true uniquely for _its_ culture. + +To prove his thesis of the individual prime symbol of each culture, +Spengler bravely ventures to establish that Greek “number” and “space” +and “mathematics” differ radically from the Western. The Classical prime +symbol is the finite unit, the entity, the _here and now_. It denies +infinitude, past, future. It considers space as the mere emptiness +between objects. Therefore it looks on number (Pythagoras) as the +essence of all things: and by all things it means literally things +perceptible to the senses. From this prime symbol has come the Classical +esthetic unit—the human body: the Greek tragedy of episode and exterior +fate: the political unit, a small city (polis): the coin, etc. But the +Western (Faustian) soul has infinity as its prime symbol. Space for it +is infinite and comes prior to the objects which have their being +_within_ it. Western mathematics is, therefore, one of function, +analysis, relation. Its geometry is non-Euclidean. Its State is a cosmic +empire. Its money is credit, not the coin. Its signal art is not +sculpture but atmospheric painting and contrapuntal music. Its +architecture is not the interiorless Greek temple, but the infinitely +soaring Gothic church. + +To make his thesis absolute instead of merely suggestive, Spengler is +forced to explain away the Dionysian (anti-Apollonian) element in Greek +culture and the Renaissance in Western Europe: to ignore the mystical in +Pythagoras and Plato, together with the Aristotelian elements of +medieval thought and modern science. The idea of the infinite and of +aspiration toward it existed, indeed, in Greece. It came over, +organically, from Egypt. Classic Greece did not lose it, but formed it, +rather; and transformed it. Moreover, the modern mathematics is +different from the classic and the Newtonian only in so far as it is a +growth. Infinity was a problem evaded by the classical geometers: +admitted as insoluble by the Cartesians: and _eliminated as solved_ by +the non-Euclidean mathematicians of the nineteenth century. The +Classical attitude toward ultimate problems was a status of childhood. +It admitted only the object and the material. So it evolved +materialistic systems like those of Thales, Democritus, Heraclitus; or +turned the abstractions of ideas into quasi materials called essences, +as in Plato. The Faustian attitude was one of adolescence. It stressed +the unsolved and aspirational: the concept of infinite space, the +autonomy of the personal will. Faust is a growth from Œdipus; even as +the Cathedral is a growth from the Temple. To differentiate the prime +symbols of cultures which so obviously were interpenetrated, not alone +one by the other, but each by still other cultures (such as the Egyptian +and the Hebrew), is to do them violence. It is an unnecessary +abstraction. Why Spengler wanted to make this abstraction we shall see +in the sequel. + + +Here is a book packed with intricate allusions. To criticize it in +detail would take almost page for page. I must confine myself to one +more example. One of the cultures discussed by Spengler is the +Arabian—the culture of the Magian soul. Its prime space-symbol is the +_world-cave_. It lacks the force element of the Faustian, and the +unit-object notion of the Greek. The individual, here, is a mere passive +emanation within God, as within an aloof yet immanent and defining Cave. +The Arab arch, the mosque-dome, the mosaic painting, are alike +expressions of this symbol. As are also algebra (the arithmetic of +indefinite number), the arguments of Talmudry, the fatalism of the +Moslem. The Magian culture-soul was born about the first year of our +era. Precultural to it was the whole pre-Christian history of Judea, +Persia, Arabia. Now, as “springtime scriptures,” come the Gospels, come +the philosophies of Origen, Philo, Plotinus, Iamblichus, Mani. With +Augustine and the Nestorians we are at the summer. Mohammed marks the +decline into the autumnal dryness whose strawlike flowers are the Arab +and Judaic thinkers of Babylon and Spain. + +Perhaps this amazing violence done to such various spirits as ancient +Hebrew prophet, Berber mystic, Alexandrian pseudepigraphist, Arab Moslem +and Granadan Moor, in the attempt to enclose them all within one organic +cultural conception, born at the birth of Christ, reaching summer about +400, drooping in 800 and dead with the _rigor mortis_ of “civilization” +at the year 1,000, will most briefly prove the dangers of the +Spenglerian method. + +Of course, there are analogies between St. Augustine and Ibn Gabirol. +Are there, then, none between Faust and Job? between the writers of the +Upanishads and Whitman? between the sculptors of Egypt and the painters +of Spain? If Maimonides is a “Magian Winter man,” why is Aquinas a +“Faustian Spring man”? If kinship of “prime symbol” bring Philo, +Plotinus, Mohammed, Rabbi Akiba and Jehuda Halevi together as seasonal +expressions of a single culture, why not prove for the entire world one +spiritual Body, one organic culture—with its systoles and diastoles, of +course, its tides, its shifts, and yet as well with its deep unity of +purpose, its continuity of form and of method of creation? + + +Death is a breaking up; a lapse from unity into multiplicity. When a +human being dies, only his unity is gone. Disease means _dis-wholeness_. +Spengler breaks up the world into these absolute cultures which are +really fragments, because there is the tendency toward death—toward +disunity—in his own high Prussian soul. _He_ is breaking and so is his +particular portion of the world. Let him, therefore, make conscription +of all the wisdom of his world to prove that his experience is the Law. + +Nowhere is the man’s will to see crooked plainer than in his virtual +ignoring of the Jews. The whole Scriptural era before the Gospels is set +aside as “inorganic”—not cultural at all. Now, Spengler’s thesis is that +the pure mystical religious ethos is the trait of the birth of a +culture. Legalism, materialism, socialism, communism, the various +systems of utilitarianism, mark that culture’s end and herald the “state +of suspended death” which he calls civilization and which, with all its +wintry signs, he declares now to be upon the European and American +worlds. But if, hypothetically, he had deigned to consider the Hebrews +and Jews as a culture, what would he have found? Mosaism (read: +materialism, legalism, utilitarianism) came first! “Civilization” or +death came before culture or birth. And from this winter a gradual +unfolding toward the spring of the prophets. He would have found matter +even more disquieting than that. For this “organism” of the Jews is +hopelessly irregular: its seasons and states recur and are intermingled. +Nor does Spengler’s millennial limit for the entire story tell one-half +of its creative tale. He would have found, moreover, that this +hypothetic culture interpenetrated with others: revived and created +others, was revived by others. + +And, looking from the Jews back to his Greeks and Faustians, he would +have found a similar intricate story. He would have found, in other +words, hope in lieu of his dear despair. Wherefore he looked elsewhere, +reasoned otherwise. + + +The culture-organism is a notion abstracted from human life. It _is_ an +abstraction. And abstractions are needed for intellectual work. They are +right when they are fruitful. To regard the life of Greece as a strict +cultural whole is wrong: yet pragmatically it may be correct to do so, +since it enables us to get the results which observation in isolated +status alone brings. The danger rises when we forget that abstractions +are of use qua abstractions. Take them for real and they turn monsters. + +Indeed, the idea of the periodic rise and fall of man is probably a +similar abstraction. Yet it is justified so long as we employ it either +to criticize the past or to envisage a greater future. Both of these +acts require the analytic method: and analysis _is_ abstraction. And now +we are at the root of what ails Spengler. His “cultures” are counters of +the analyst. And these he has turned into a poet’s bodies. This is why +his book, although its impulse is poetic, cannot rank as great poetic +art. He tells us a good deal about the cultures which have filled the +world. And much of what he says is true and is profound. Nowhere, for +instance, have I encountered better comment on German music, on the deep +significances of Classic and Gothic architecture. Yet the cultures +themselves, whereof he speaks as breathing entities, do not become +plastically real. We learn much in detail about their traits. _They_ +neither breathe for us nor move. They cannot. For they are not persons +of a drama: they are tools of an argument. + +Human spirit takes forms, of course, and all forms die. But the +_constant_ is the human spirit. And it is poor philosophy to take its +forms as really abstracted from each other. Even the painter of a group +of persons must relate them, one and all, upon his canvas if he aims to +achieve esthetic truth. + +Among the forms of human spirit are the arts which rise and fall; are +social entities like state and city, which are builded and broken. But +the Spenglerian assumption that the human spirit has no other life than +in the splendor of great buildings, great realms, great arts, is a +profanation. To prove that the abstraction called Rome was “decadent” in +the year 400 is not to prove that Man, then, was less great than in the +days when Caesar strutted. It may require a peculiar conjunction of +poetic genius and social readiness to produce a Vergil. But there are +other ways to the light. And some of them are always open. + +Spengler feels death in his own soul. Wherefore he marshals a whole +retrospect of life to funeral him in true Prussian glory. But human +history is subtler. Man is a variable constant. He can achieve greatness +with the ruins of a world as his sole instruments, as well as with the +aid of outward fortune. Here, too, the evidence of the Jew might have +saved Spengler—from the writing of his book! Variant circumstance has +infinitely varied the expressions of this people. They have been warlike +and humble; unphilosophical and, later, abstruse beyond the Greeks and +Hindus. They have had no drama and flooded the stage: no worldly arts at +all, and later supplied such arts for all the world. They have been +pastoral, and adverse from the soil. They have been creators, +politically, of Greek polis, of Oriental empires, and of invisible, +Platonic Zions. + +Only in so far as Man remained alive among the Jews was Jewish culture a +constant. And this is true of any culture. The undying kernel is +humanity: this is the locus of organic growth and of organic permanence +which Spengler should have studied. For cultures are never isolate. Cut +them off from their immersion in other cultures—in Life, they will die +uprooted. They move upon and within each other: they fall to rise, fade +to be transfigured. + +Above all, the human spirit, in any cultural body, is capable of +_unprecedented transformation_, provided an unprecedented new element of +life comes fertilely upon it. This is the destiny of evolution. And +evolution is true, however discarded the mechanistic form of it may be +which Darwin degraded from Lamarck. _And this crucial fact—that the +culture, if to be regarded as an organism at all, must be taken as a +transforming organism; an organism related to the genus, not to the +individual, to the possibly infinite genus, not to the sharply delimited +and mortal person—is entirely ignored by Spengler._ + +Look on cultures, not as biologic bodies with their youth and age, but +as indefinite series like those in mathematics, and you have a fertile +abstraction in lieu of a dead one. These series have, each, their inner +laws, perhaps, but they are intertwined and any figure belonging in one +place to one series may differently occupy other series. Paul, then, who +in the Spenglerian sense was a “winter man” for the Jews, could be a +“spring man” for Western Europe. And Jesus, his strict contemporary in +time and race, could have in him all seasons. + +Or take America. Spengler would rightly say that America was born of the +dying of European culture. So he condemns us to the _rigor mortis_ of +civilization; to a noisier Egyptian fellahdom. But what of the new +mythmakers, the springtime men, those creatures of pure ethos—Whitman, +Lincoln, Melville, Thoreau? In an organic body, shut by Destiny, they +have no place, and Spengler doubtless would deny them. In a life series, +self-contained yet indefinitely progressing, they are in place. For with +such a series each integer is at once the conclusion of what came before +and the outset of an infinity beyond.... + + _1926_ + + +8. THE MODERN DISTEMPER + +(_A diagnosis through Joseph Wood Krutch and Bertrand Russell_) + + + a. + +In the days when all men of a nation shared a view of life—worshiping +Jehovah and obeying Torah, dwelling within the cosmos of the Catholic +Church, accepting the divine right of their king or of their reason—it +was possible for the author and critic to make his individual +contribution without explicitly stating the philosophic ground on which +he rested. The base of his point of view was common, and was commonly +understood. The personal variation was what mattered. This, of course, +is the contrary of our modern state. It is precisely the foundations of +human vision—hence of human thought and of language—that have shifted. +In place of essential harmony in the premises of intellectual action, +there is chaos. But the American writer, despite this obvious fact, +seldom honors his public with a clear-cut statement of what his +philosophy and his religion are. He may even go so far as to deny that +he possesses any, and make of his lack a virtue. + +Yet, however negative and confused, each human being must possess an +attitude toward life. Every thought is a judgment, every act is a +judgment, the interpretation of every word is a judgment: and judgment +implies a standard. If that standard is not stated, it may function +contrary to the conscious will of its possessor. But it functions +nevertheless. Current literary work is for the most part the expression +of a philosophy and a religion that are not stated at all. The essential +implications never come to light. The student could, of course, go to +the complete works of each writer and discover the traits of his +_Weltanschauung_; but most readers possess neither time nor power for +such research. They are therefore constantly taking in, under cover of a +stream of articles, biographies, poems, novels, plays, an attitude +toward life of which they never become aware. And this hidden attitude +works in them; shapes and nourishes, or corrupts them. + +Joseph Wood Krutch is a well-known American critic. He is neither more +able, nor less so, than a dozen others who write in our liberal +magazines. But he has done what all of his fellows should have realized +the need of doing; and what most of them have shamefully neglected to +do. He has written a book, entitled “The Modern Temper,” in which, with +all the clarity and honesty at his command, he has set forth the +philosophy behind his judgments—the _measure_ of life that determines +his specific critical responses. How far he is justified in calling his +mood _the_ modern temper, we shall see. Certainly, his is _a_ modern +temper, widespread and hence significant. His book therefore offers an +occasion, exceptionally concise, to study the philosophy and spirit of +some of the men who write our books and who review them. + +In order to take fair advantage of this occasion, I must begin by +setting forth in some detail what Mr. Krutch has said. In my summary I +shall, without criticism, follow the line of the book in its exact +progression, using wherever possible the words of the author. + + _Chapter 1._ (a) Freud says that the unborn babe is the happiest of + creatures; into his consciousness has entered no conflict, nor is + there any limitation upon his desires, (b) As the babe grows up and + experience and knowledge make life miserable, he invents myths of all + sorts to recapture or protect his infant bliss. The realm of poetry, + mythology, religion, represents the world as a man would like to have + it, while science represents the world as it is. (c) Connections + between parts of life, explanations of life, reasons for + life—relations between the parts—are supplied by the imagination. + Which means, they are illusions, (d) Only man has rationality; the + universe is not rational, (e) Therefore man is an alien in the + universe. His rationality, being “unnatural,” is hence an illusion, + (f) Our morality and emotional lives are adjusted to a world which no + longer exists—because it has been destroyed by reason (science being + the reasoning from facts). + + _Chapter 2._ (a) The social virtues of the humanists—serving one’s + children and posterity, living for society, etc.—are really animal + traits, (b) Don Juan is the real type of human, (c) An individualism + that is antagonistic to and destructive of the social virtues is the + highest human value, (d) Human individualism, the real human value, is + perfect separatism of each soul, (e) Nature reveals no ends only means + for its own self-perpetuation, (f) Man in civilization strives for + ends, and turns means (sex, thought, etc.) into ends. Therefore man is + unnatural, (g) Apotheosis of the ant, as the ideal of nature; since + the ant has no individualistic ends, living entirely for the anthill, + (h) The antithesis between natural means and human ends is + irreconcilable, for when man makes his own thought or sensation or + life an end, he neglects the procreation of the species, (i) + Therefore, all cultures no sooner ripen than they rot. (j) The + alternatives for man are an antlike stable group, or recurrent death + at the top. (k) Humanism is riddled with mutually destructive + contradictions. + + _Chapter 3._ (a) The generation of Huxley, Tennyson, etc., was sure + that science was going to disclose a world in which man is perfectly + and regally at home, (b) But science has revealed only a vast + emptiness, in which, lost like Milton’s Satan, we wing our way. (c) + Scientific mastery of the inner life, the soul, leads likewise to no + real mastery of it, but only to more confusion. (d) There is no ethics + or morals. Anthropology and psychology reveal merely a variety of + ethics and morals. (e) Yet man persists in being an ethical, moral + creature. (f) There is no royal reason. (g) The reason in which + Aristotle, Shakespeare, Spinoza, believed is revealed by science to be + mere rationalization. (h) Science itself is doubtful. 2,000 years of + epistemology have made it dubious if man can know any reality outside + himself. (i) Science gives us one table—consisting of nothing but + electrons. Our senses give us another table. The former we know as + truth; but the second only can be of use to us in our experience. (j) + Science gives us the real universe. (k) Huxley, etc., were deluded, + thinking we could make this universe ours. (l) There is no relation + between the outer world of science and the inner world of man’s needs + and emotions. + + _Chapter 4._ (a) Love is defined as the sexuality of the individual + separate ego. It is a discontinuous, physical phenomenon with no + implications in reality beyond its naked self. (b) Since science and + modern freedom have freed love of the old taboos and of the religious + and poetic myths, love, as more than naked sexuality, turns out to be + illusion. (c) Sex is a mere physical need, and hence has no values + whatsoever. Man is simply cursed with this need and must make his + peace with it, as he can. (d) We shall have to get used to a loveless + as well as to a godless world. + + _Chapter 5._ (a) Tragedy is based on noble action, and noble action is + based on the belief (as Sophocles and Shakespeare had it) in the + dignity of man’s soul. (b) This dignity is an illusion; for it derives + from the notion that man is the center of the universe, or at least + that he belongs to the universe, and that his deeds have some + universal import. (c) With the going of this illusion has gone man’s + dignity, his possibility of noble action—and Tragedy. (d) The art of + the present can only distrust its own thoughts, despise its own + passions, realize man’s impotent unimportance in the universe, and + tell no story except such as makes it more acutely aware of its + trivial miseries. (e) Yet with the passing of Tragedy, our need of + Tragedy (i.e., of dignity, noble actions, etc.) has not passed. + + _Chapter 6._ (a) To medievalism, life was an exact science. The laws, + rules, etc., of that science have broken. (b) Life regarded as a + science is now and forevermore intellectually indefensible. (c) The + modern mind, realizing that there is no Peace unless each life is made + into some self-sufficient pattern or order or whole of its own, + strives to achieve this. Strives, that is, to make life an art. (d) + For in science, there is only one Truth; but in art, there may be many + truths. Many men have striven to make their lives an art: e.g., + Cellini, St. Francis, the heroes of Henry James’s novels, Anatole + France. (e) In art, there is no standard except the artistic + perfection of the individual work, according to its own rules. As an + artistic creation, Othello is no better than Iago. (f) In art, there + is no ethics. (g) To conceive of life as a group of works of art + means, therefore, anarchy. (h) No society can five by such a scheme. + Life lived as an art is pragmatically impossible, from the standpoint + of mankind. + + _Chapter 7._ (a) What progress did philosophy or religion ever make? + None. It was only when the thinker discovered how small are the things + he can do, that he did anything at all: only when he renounced looking + for the key to heaven, that he was able to keep chimneys from smoking. + (b) The world grows more comfortable, as man ceases to strive for + anything beyond comfort. (c) But now, despite this progress, behold + metaphysics is reborn! (d) It is typified by the neo-Catholicism of + France, and the neo-Anglicanism of England. (e) Its essence is + expressed by T. E. Hulme, who wrote: “One of the main achievements of + the nineteenth century was ... the principle of _continuity_. The + destruction of this conception is, on the contrary, an urgent + necessity of the present.” The premise of the new metaphysicians is + therefore _dualism_, or discontinuity. It says: “There are two worlds: + one, the empty spaces of materialism and science, and two, the world + of man—spirit, faith, ethic, value, emotion, God. And there is + discontinuity between them.” (f) But there is nothing of which we are + so sure as of the _continuity_ taught by science. To earlier, naïve + men, the important thing about _living matter_ was that it _lived_: + but science can only be sure that it is _matter_. (g) We believe in + matter, accepting _its_ continuity, wiping out the merely hypothetic + world of spirit, value, etc.—the world of the modern metaphysicians. + (h) Metaphysics is but another petty effort to make life an art: it is + a confession of its own despair and failure. + + _Chapter 8._ (a) It is not by thought that men live. The less they + think, the better they live. The more they think, the more willing + they are to die. (b) The very need of thought proves that man’s + vitality is ebbing. An animal, a barbarian, has no such need. (c) + Civilizations, constructed on thought, reach death; then the naïve + barbarians rush in, the man begins anew. (d) The fresh hordes of + barbarians destined to renew us are perhaps the Russians. (e) + Communism, despite its sophisticated phraseology, is a new barbarism. + In communism the individual does not count, only the anthill counts. + No religious speculation is allowed. Life is perpetuated, + unquestioningly, for its own blind sake. (f) But the inevitable + despair of the modern man who, having learned to think, has learned + the hopeless abyss between himself and nature, is not so bad after + all: since he has physical comfort. Philosophical pessimism is not so + hard to bear as cold or hunger. Ours is a lost cause, but we should + rather die (in comfort) as men, than live as animals. + + + b. + +Our next step is to examine the various elements of Mr. Krutch’s +philosophy of life: to test their quality, their typicality, and to +compare them; to measure their cogency as the cause of such desperate +conclusions. The references are to the divisions of his argument, as +catalogued, omitting repetitions and minor points. + +_Chapter 1._ (a) states with apparent sympathy that a prenatal, +vegetable life, bereft of struggle or aspiration, is a possible +desideratum. (b) asserts that there is a dualistic conflict between art, +which is an illusory world, and science, which is the real world. Here +is the author’s doctrine: the relation between the unborn babe and the +womb in which it lives is real; but the relation between the born man +and the world in which he lives is illusion. Therefore, since life in +any individual consists of the relation between it and its environment, +and since no man could live an instant without some relation with the +air and the world, what Mr. Krutch is really saying is: the life of the +unborn babe is real; the life of the born man is an illusion. (c) +implies that relations and connections between man and the universe, +such as imagination supplies, are necessary for his welfare. But they +are illusory, since the imagination is delusion. Yet Mr. Krutch has not +even attempted to prove that imagination is delusion. This is his +premise, so that, of course, this must be his conclusion. (d) and (e) +invalidate man’s reason, since the universe has no reason. Yet the +author employs his reason to prove his alienness in the universe. +Virtually, he says: “My reason is invalid, since the universe is not +rational. Yet my reason is, miraculously, valid enough to _prove_ that +no relation between me and the universe exists.” What he should have +said, logically, from the premises, is this: “I declare my reason to be +exclusively mine. Therefore it is not a cogent measure to determine any +relation outside myself. To discover if I belong in the universe, I must +employ some measure common to both me and it: some measure that I can +move from myself to the universe.” Of course, if he had relied on some +such measure—a measure of mass, for instance, or of causation—he would +have found _continuity_ between man and the universe. Conclusion: the +chapter assumes that continuity between man and the universe is +desirable, but that absolute discontinuity exists. The assumptions are +sustained by means of indefensible logic. + +_Chapter 2._ (a) states that since man’s social virtues are found also +in animals, they cannot be human. This is tantamount to asserting +absolute discontinuity between animal and man. Darwin, evolution, modern +biology, are therefore flouted. The author unconsciously assumes an +attitude more close to the early ascetic Christian and neo-Platonic +concept of an abyss between man and brute. (b) and (c) lift up an old +Spanish myth as the real human type. Don Juan was a “man” who could make +love to countless women without ever becoming tired, without ever +becoming attached, without ever changing, without ever feeling. +Psychologists class him as the archetype of “fixated adolescent” and +agree that he never existed, outside the realms of pathology. This +insulate human “atom,” the “perfect individualist,” with no social +relations or connections, this abstract fiction of infantile will, is +the human ideal of our author. (e) and (f) carry on the thesis of +discontinuity. Nature has no ends and is not moral: man has ends and is +persistently a moral creature. The traits of nature are determined by +studying the ant, etc.: they are by no means to be determined by +studying man. For the ant, by some inscrutable right, belongs to nature, +whereas man does not. This is really the premise of the argument: Mr. +Krutch makes it the conclusion. His syllogism in its pure form is this: +“Man is not part of nature: man has certain traits: hence these traits +are not part of nature. Therefore man, possessing these (unnatural) +traits, is not part of nature.” However, let us grant the premises that +the ant is in nature, man is not. The conclusion must be that man is +different from the ant. From this, our author is inspired to conclude +that man, to _succeed as man_, must behave like an ant! Man, to succeed +like a man, must build anthills and—nothing else. Conclusion: the +chapter declares, in the face of anthropology, biology, sociology, +psychology, that man is utterly apart from nature and from animals, and +that (even as the old ascetics and transcendentalists insisted) he is a +separate creation. Here is the syllogism, transposed for clarity: “A +tree is made of wood. Apples are not wood. Therefore, apples cannot +belong on trees.” But despite the organic difference between man and +“natural creatures,” he must behave—if he would succeed—just like the +creatures whom he in no way resembles! (Here, the ascetics were more +logical. Having posited man as different from the brute, they mapped out +for him a totally separate course.) Assuming the organic difference, our +author insists that the two relationless entities must go the same way. +He builds up the definitions of his humanism upon illogical +contradictions; and then dismisses “humanism” as full of the +contradictions of his own bad thinking. + +_Chapter 3._ (a) and (b) are repetitions. (c) looks for science to +“master” the soul—and looks in vain. Pure science attempts merely to +measure, from the outside. For instance, it weighs the sun and names its +elements. It has no mastery of the sun, in the sense of controlling the +sun. To a slight degree, science has similarly tried to “measure” the +soul: i.e., to analyze its components. Pure science has never attempted +more, leaving the application of its discoveries to education and +religion. The modern effort in these fields is unknown to our author. +(d) comes down to this: science has found that _noses_ are not alike, in +any two parts of the world. Negro, Eskimo, Malay, Nordic, have decidedly +different noses. Ergo, science has discovered that _noses do not +exist_!... To prove that morals and ethics do not exist, it would be +necessary to prove that the sense of right does not exist or is at least +very rare. But anthropology shows that this sense is universal. Its +diversity of ethical and moral forms, of course, is due to the fact that +morals are a product of the interplay between men and their environment. +To say that morals vary is simply to say that men vary. To say that +morals do not exist, because they do not agree, is to say that men do +not exist because men do not agree. Chapter 1 revealed the genesis of +the author’s mood as the result of an exorbitant faith in reason. Now +(f) and (g) call reason a bad name, and dismiss it. Chapter 1 +illogically employed human reason to establish the preponderance of an +external, irrational universe over man. Now the evidence of the mind is +declared to be poor: the universe itself may be but the projection of +that poor human’s reason which (in another part) has no existence within +the universe. Mr. Krutch has said: the table of science is real. The +table of his senses, like the neo-Platonist dwelling in Tyre or Batanaea +in the year 300, he rejects as unreal. But the old Tyrian was logical. +He lived where his faith was: he utterly declined to follow his senses. +This is too athletic for our modern. With one breath, he gives credence +to the table of electrons; with the next, he confesses that the false +table is the only one he ever hopes to live with! But the lack here is +greater than merely one of logic. Mr. Krutch has the most childish +notion of what science _means_, when it states that the table is a +congeries of electrons.... The language of science is mathematics; and +mathematics is a logic of _forms_. Everything that cannot be expressed +in symbols of mass and motion is nonexistent within the realm of +mathematics. Now, pictured in so far as it exists within the domain of +science, i.e., in so far as it is a congeries of mass in motion, a +table, of course, can be nothing but a congeries of mass in motion: a +chart of electrons. In the precise same way a living body, pictured in +terms of anatomy, can be nothing but an anatomical structure. But there +are other domains; for instance, human behavior, which has qualities +that the language of mathematics does not cover. In this domain, the +description of the chair as a group of electrons will not work: but the +notion of the child who has never heard of electrons, but who wants to +sit down in the chair, works very well, indeed. To say that science is +the _whole_ truth, because it prophesies an event like an eclipse, is +just as reasonable as to say that the ideas of the child are the _whole_ +truth, because the child prophesies that it is going to sit in that +chair, and straightway does so. The eclipse takes place in a realm where +human quality is largely extracted: so we are right to deal with +eclipses in the logic of science. But man’s experience of beauty, for +instance, before that eclipse is largely in the realm of human value. +Here, the language of poetry is more adequate than that of mathematics. +To deny one of these measures in absolute favor of the other is as +reasonable as it would be to say that the architect’s blueprint is more +real than the house. Mathematicians of high order, of course, are aware +of the limitations of their language and therefore of the realm which +their language expresses. It is only the weakling, desperately in need +of an absolute Word, who speaks like Mr. Krutch, of the “certitudes of +science.” Not Poincaré, not Einstein. Not the typical Eddington who +says: “There is a constant unknowable in science.... Scientific laws are +merely truistic measurements of a single physical condition.... So long +as the electron is not reacting with the rest of the universe, we cannot +be aware of it.... A particle may have position or it may have velocity, +but it cannot in any exact sense have both. An association of exact +position with exact momentum can never be discovered by us, because +there is no such thing in nature.”... All of which is tantamount to +saying, that the mathematical electron is an abstraction, that it is a +mere plausible symbol; and that certitude can never exist in a field +which is built up on the assumption of discrete, separate parts; since +these parts do not exist—cannot exist in a continuum; and could not be +observed by man, even if they existed. + +_Chapter 4._ A display of the same dualism and an assumption of the same +discontinuity between the various functions of man, and between man and +his world. The author’s attitude toward sex is worthy of the hermit in +the Egyptian desert. Sex, as an energy expressing the whole man and +woman, linking them in a full human relation, mobilizing their creative +as well as their possessive nature, is unreal for the author. But unlike +the antique gymnosophist whose rejection of sex he shares (while +ignoring his science of self-control and despising his God), Mr. Krutch +has not the courage or the will to carry out his own convictions. He +considers himself superior to his sex; but he is quite willing to +capitulate before it. + +_Chapter 5._ The finest writing of the book is here. Mr. Krutch +discourses on Tragedy “as it once was” with discernment and fervor. It +is plain that he is attached to Tragedy, “dead child of fallacy and +illusion”; he can write with loving observation about the body of a +“fraud.” (a) and (b) assume discontinuity, once more. (c) and (d) +misread the modern status of literary art. Human dignity still exists, +noble action and noble lives still persevere. The disappearance of the +anthropocentric cosmos and of the personal heaven have enhanced man’s +sense of dignity within himself. He is responsible now, not as the child +of a mythic Father, but as the father of himself. Yet more is needed +than dignity and noble action for the production of Tragedy. Tragedy is +a social form. It must enact man’s dignity in communicable, common +terms. These terms are wanting. The modern conscience of the world has +not yet bridged from private into public symbols. There is nothing +discouraging in this. There were ages of social preparation, also, +before Sophocles and before Shakespeare: ages in which individual men +had dignity, in which men lived nobly, and yet in which no great Tragedy +was written. + +_Chapter 6._ (a) begins with a dubious statement. The medieval science +of life was inexact; it was, indeed, founded upon self-contradictory +laws, and the dualism of these laws, which were supposed to conform to +life but did not, eventually disrupted medieval science. In “The +Re-Discovery of America,” I have gone into this question at some length. +Here it is not centrally cogent, so we let it pass. (d) and (e) again +imply discontinuity and discreteness not alone between man and the +universe, but between man and man. Men, says the author, have so little +relation among themselves that (f) if each man lived his truth according +to his essence, these multiple truths would sum to anarchy! If men are +essentially related, if the reality or truth of each is a focus of the +interplay of the whole (as philosophy, psychology and social sciences +agree), then their living by the light of their individual reality and +truth would bring them into active relation with one another, and would +result in harmony. These premises are denied by Mr. Krutch. The rest of +the chapter is less essential. It is interesting to note, however, that +it implies the impossibility of man’s ever achieving any inner principle +of order or control, whereby he might integrate his life within the +vicissitudes of the world. The chapter is the final admission of man’s +impotence. The artist is the creator of a kind of order. Man can be an +artist, says the author, when he deals with words or pigment or marble. +When he deals with life, man can be only an amoeba. + + + c. + +But the reader has had enough of this dissection of a dreary argument. +Let him give one final backward glance to Chapter 7, and I shall insist +no more. There he will discover that Mr. Krutch, after desperately +building upon the premise of _discontinuity_ (of absolute separation +between man and nature, between man and man, between certain traits in +man and certain others), refutes the “new metaphysicians” on the ground +that _they are the discontinuists_; while he falls back on the +continuity of science! The reader will agree that Mr. Krutch has now +sufficiently revealed himself as a befuddled man. If he were a thorough +pessimist like Schopenhauer or Gautama, if he were a thorough +transcendentalist like St. Paul, if he were a thorough materialist like +Haeckel, if he were a thorough individualist like Rousseau, we could +disagree with him and yet respect him. But he is thoroughly nothing, +except confused. His thinking quavers between contradictory extremes of +which he is not even aware; his values are a crazy-quilt of fragments +pieced together from the worn creeds of Manichaeism, Puritanism, +Rousseauism, Nietzscheanism, Haeckelian monism, etc., etc. His emotions +are infantile. His spirit is an aggressive fear that would deny to +others the dignity it lacks. He has nonetheless been worth our scrutiny. +For his argument contains most of the clichés and most of the +implications of our current “culture.” It shows the distemper of the +modern mind, unable to bear the chaos of three centuries of ideological +destruction, and unschooled to reform that chaos. If the average pundit +in “The Nation,” “The New Republic,” “Harper’s,” “The Atlantic Monthly,” +“The Dial,” were to put down, with a like candor, his philosophy of +life, it would turn out a no less pitiful confusion. If our current +literary arts were analyzed, they, too, would reveal a message as +ill-founded. Behind the stubborn bewilderment of Theodore Dreiser, +behind the lyric bewilderment of Sherwood Anderson, behind the bravado +of Hemingway, behind the dandified despairs of Cabell and the earlier T. +S. Eliot, behind the dainty froth of Thornton Wilder and of Carl Van +Vechten—behind the materialism, the cynicism, the indifferentism, the +impertinence, the impotence of most of our popular writing[9]—exists a +failure to think straight from the facts, and to feel straight, not +identical with the failure of Mr. Krutch, but essentially related. + +The key to the situation—perhaps the basic cause of the “modern +temper”—is suggested in Chapter 7 of Mr. Krutch’s book. What the author +calls the “new metaphysic” is merely the old transcendentalism. These +men whom he attacks—neo-Catholics, sentimental mysticalists, +spiritualists, deniers of the “flesh” in one way or another—answer the +“certitudes of science” by declaring that there is _another world_—their +world of value, spirit and religion. Here, you have transcendentalism +defined. And Mr. Krutch rejects it on the proper ground of +discontinuity. But he does not see that his own argument—the +separateness of parts and traits of man from other parts, and of man +from men, and of men from nature—is discontinuity no less. And he does +not see that he has blinded himself to the discontinuity of his own +thought by the naïve method of calling _his favorite part of reality the +Whole_. + +Like the two ladies in Kipling’s jingle, transcendentalist and +materialist are “sisters under the skin.” The transcendentalist +(Platonist, Christian, Christian Scientist, etc.) starts by dividing the +world into (1) spirit-value-quality-soul and into (2) matter-body-evil. +Having begun this dualistically, he cannot go on. Unknown to himself, +_he must reduce this duality into a whole_. This he does by denying the +part he does not like—by denying matter. (He may be subtle about it, +like the followers of Henri Massis, or crude, like the disciples of Mrs. +Eddy.) Now, he has his Whole, which is all life, all good—which is All. +But this All will not bear the buffets of the world: for it is really a +fragment. And the transcendentalist begins his endless labor of +corrupting reality, in order to make it fit his figment.... The +materialist starts likewise. He, too, divides the world into (1) +measurable matter and (2) the unmeasurable qualities of certain kinds of +matter—good, value, love, spirit, color, poetry, dream, etc., etc. He, +too, cannot abide this dualism, and must somehow manage to resolve it +into a One. He simply rejects what the transcendentalist exalts, and +takes what the other refuses. He sacrifices everything that is not +measurable matter. Whatever cannot be measured, he says, does not exist. +But the part of the Whole which he has legislated into nullity still +“functions” in him. He wears himself out, denying the domains of emotion +and thought which his petty “whole” has no room for. He becomes the +tired cynic, like Mr. Krutch; or the arrogant pseudo-scientific clown, +like Dr. Watson. + +(Of these two sisters, it must be avowed that the transcendentalist is +less foolish. Both find “living matter.” The one rejects matter and +retains the abstract living: the other accepts matter and denies life. +But it is plain that we are more sure of the undifferentiate quality of +_living_ than we are of matter. Living without form does not exist, of +course: living-matter cannot be divided. But there is a difference of +degree in the folly of the camps.) + +Between dogmatic transcendentalist and dogmatic materialist—each +hoisting his “part” into a Whole—stands the agnostic, of whom Bertrand +Russell is an illustrious instance. Mr. Russell understands the +limitations of the language of mathematics, and how they must limit the +scientific universe which mathematics symbolizes. He says that there are +two general logics: the logic of quantity and the logic of quality or +feeling. He says that both are right.[10] But since the logic of +quantity (measurement and science) is within the mind of the observer +who personally must follow the logic of feeling, Mr. Russell concludes +that there is no way of measuring the _measure_ value. So he decides +that it is all no use: man can never know anything since in order to do +so he would have to “get out of himself.” And of this agnosticism he +makes a dogmatic virtue. + +The agnostic is not so different, after all, from the other two. He also +has begun wrong: he has arbitrarily divided the world into two parts, of +which one theoretically is “the truth,” and its expression into two +languages or logics. Having made this dualism, he also irresistibly is +driven to seek his Whole: and this he does, not by the sacrifice of one +part _to_ the other, but—since he cannot separate them—by the sacrifice +of both! For the Zero of the agnostic is a kind of Whole: nescience is +an assumed omniscience. The man who _knows_ that we cannot know is +dogmatic also. Again, in this agnosticism,[11] there is the same false +premise: the dividing of reality into two parts. Wherever this is done, +there must ineluctably follow confusion and falsehood, agnosticism or +despair.... + + + d. + +The voices of confusion, agnosticism, despair, are the popular voices of +today. The average American reader of the so-called educated classes has +been brought up on literature and science that were crassly dualistic. +He probably left a dualistic church when he was young. He has fallen at +once into the camp of Rousseau (the individual as a separate, perfect +atom), or into the camp of dogmatic science (only measurable matter +exists), or into some allied camp like that of vulgar collectivism +(society is real, but its individual integers are not). These +statements, of course, are caricatures: that is why they express the +distorting effect of modern doctrine on the average mind. + +The consequence has been that the common reader of books (the kind that +calls himself an intellectual) is helplessly lost and helplessly +confused. For his doctrine and the world will not go together. “Feeling” +draws him imperiously one way; “knowing” another. He is miserable. And +misery loves company. The literary art which makes that misery +respectable by “proof” that there is no other course, and by decking out +impotence in gracious gestures, becomes the popular art. Books have +engendered the modern distemper. The least they can do, now, is to +justify it. + +The curative, recreative task is very hard. It is the work of the ages +before us. And those of us who choose it for our own will have to labor +in the cold of an unfrequented dawn. Yet, although it is the task of +generations—of armies of artists, of corps of truly scientific +thinkers—the essence of it can be stated very simply. + +We have seen how even the dualist and discontinuist is irresistibly +drawn to believe in a Whole, and to create a Whole (out of his favorite +fragment). The concept of wholeness, the experience of wholeness, the +living of wholeness are the unavoidable aspiration of human life.[12] +This is so inevitable that even the intellectual denier of wholeness in +the effort of his thought and deed belies his rejection. The right +beginning, therefore, of our task must be to conceive a Whole _that will +be the Whole_. Let us passionately refuse all dualism, all denials, at +the outset. If science is so foolish as to say: “There is no color in +the colored thing,” let us challenge that science. If religion is so +foolish as to say: “Man’s soul is separate from his body,” let us +challenge that religion. If mathematics is so foolish as to say: “_x_ +and _y_, although they are in the universe, are not joined, but are +discrete and separate,” let us challenge that mathematics. Let us say: + +“There is one and only one irrefutable truth: _the universe exists_. Men +differ about what it is, men differ about where it is. Some say it is +all ‘matter,’ and outside; some say it is all ‘thought,’ and within. All +must agree that it _is_. + +“There is, to this one truth, one corollary that is irrefutable also: +_the universe, for each of us, is focused from the self_. Self—whatever +it is—looks out, or looks in, on the universe. Men differ about that. +Yet must agree that self _is_ that focus of the universe which knows the +universe exists. Self, therefore, is _of_ the universe (it may be the +whole of it, of course) which self asserts. + +“All my words, all my thought, all my action, shall be determined by +this single common truth—this single common premise of existence. My +words will be such that when they point to a ‘thing’ or a ‘state’ (as +all words do) they will imply the tentative existence of the thing or +state, within the certain Whole. For the thing is vague and fleeting: +only the universe is certain.... My thought will be such, that when it +represents a ‘thing’ or a ‘state’ or an ‘action,’ as all thought must, +it will imply its tentative existence within the certain Whole; and its +valuation of the ‘thing’ or the ‘state’ will be the relating of it with +the universe which alone is certain.... And my action will be such, that +it expresses this relationship of self and of all things involved, +within the Whole that is the premise of all thought and all behavior.” + +If these few words, necessarily insufficient, suggest the revolutionary +task that challenges human life—the re-creating of language, of society +and of man in the image of the Whole which is God—they will have served +their purpose. But the task is not impossible. The ant is born with the +capacity to fulfill his function. Savage man was born with the capacity +to fulfill his. Why should historic man alone, of all creatures in the +world, be born without the capacity to realize himself? All history +attests that man’s nature is a striving toward the divine achievement: +the focusing of the Whole in his thought, the enacting of the Whole +(this is called holiness) in his deed. But whereas all art, all science, +all religion, are the striving toward this consummation, they have +always been too weak: so they have broken. Dualism, with its rejections, +its denials, its corruptions, is the symbol of this breakdown. Dualism, +in its twin forms of transcendentalism and materialism, has always +brought a temporary death to man’s immortal effort. History is a short +tale. It has been just long enough to tell us what, as men, we have to +do. + +But let us Americans not delude ourselves. Only the Remnant lives. And +this is so, because the way of death is easier than life. Mr. Krutch has +stated well the inevitable end to which the dualist—whether he calls +himself materialist or transcendentalist or agnostic—is ineluctably +brought. “Ours is a lost cause,” he closes, “and there is no place for +us in the natural universe.” So he elects to die. This is the death, +indeed, of the race of men who look upon themselves as alien from the +remotest star, and who put their loyalty in life upon one jot less than +the Whole which is God. Let them die.... And for the race, still at its +dawn, let Spinoza speak: + + _A free man thinks of nothing less than of death, and his wisdom is + not a meditation upon death, but upon life._ + + _1929_ + + +9. THE “UNIVERSE” OF T. S. ELIOT + +The collected essays of Mr. Eliot provide a portrait of a mind that for +the past twelve years has prominently played on the American literary +scene. The volume contains theoretical chapters from “The Sacred Wood,” +eleven papers on the Elizabethan dramatists, the entire brochure on +Dante, essays on the Metaphysical Poets and on Dryden, Blake, +Baudelaire, Swinburne. It represents Mr. Eliot’s social and theological +position in the studies of Lancelot Andrewes, in “Thoughts after +Lambeth,” and in the two essays on Babbitt et al., which did so much +more to discomfit the new humanists than the lunges of their foes. And +finally, it reveals the more casual man—delightfully—on topics like +poetry in drama, Wilkie Collins, Dickens and Marie Lloyd. The book +portrays a sensitive, finely endowed person. Itself an accumulation of +comments on many matters, it suggests a review of like nature: one is +tempted to pass from page to page detailing, comparing, dissenting. But +the place of Mr. Eliot as a literary influence in our time, and the +cultural crisis of our time, make this method inadvisable. It is +important to employ the book as a means for seeing the man whole; and, +having done so, to deduce a measure of his values as a leader and +thereby a measure of the time which took him as a leader. + +The first revelation is of a man with an exquisite, almost infallible, +taste for the stuffs of literary art. Whether he touches a line of Dante +or of Swinburne, a melodrama of Cyril Tourneur or of Wilkie Collins, the +prosody of Baudelaire or of Blake, Mr. Eliot evinces an esthetic delight +which implies true contact with his subject. This first trait is +particularly distinguished in an age in which the field of literary +discussion has been almost monopolized by writers who may know something +of baseball or economics but who ignore the nature of literary art. The +second trait of Mr. Eliot, not less pervasive but more subtly entextured +in his book, is his moral sense; and this, coupled with his first, is +even more rare. We have had plenty of moralists—More, Mencken, Lewisohn, +are examples—writing on literature and totally insensitive to literary +esthetics; we have had a few “estheticians” disclaiming the moral sense +(as if esthetic form were some kind of insubstantial absolute and not an +organic configuration of ordinary human experience and motive), and +therefore writing with even worse futility on books. When Mr. Eliot +compares lines in Massinger and Shakespeare, contrasts tropes in Dryden +and Milton, draws a prosodic sequence from Donne to Shelley, he reveals, +in his taste and judgment, the moral integer: he knows the _human +nature_ of esthetics. This moral sense is organic in the man; it is no +mere acceptance of rules, it is not moralistic. Being the permeation, +within his specific literary experience, of his general view of life, +the moral quality in Mr. Eliot is religious. Everywhere, although he may +be discussing merely a choice of verbs in Middleton, he reveals a +general and definite attitude toward existence taken as a whole: and +this attitude, when logically formed, becomes religion. + +T. S. Eliot, then, is portrayed by this book as a man with a sense of +the whole, with a conviction of his place in the whole, as a man engaged +in an activity (literature) for which he is fitted and to which he gives +his entire equipment. Such a crystallization comes close to what +Nietzsche meant by a cultural act; and in an epoch whose literary +critics have been insensitive and incompetent men, it makes Mr. Eliot an +exceedingly welcome figure. If, however, we turn from those +contemporaries in contrast with whose nullity he looms, and measure him +rather by his own subjects and by the literary exigencies of our epoch, +Mr. Eliot dwindles. No single major essay in this book, for instance, +can be said to be organic either as a presentation of its subject or as +a literary essay. Consider the “Dante” in whose study he is at his best: +every observation is exact, many a phrase stands forth a luminous gem; +but the observations merely mount arithmetically into so many pages of +running comment. Dante and his work are never objectified, never +dimensionally re-created either in the world of Dante or in the world of +T. S. Eliot. Or consider the justly admired pages on the Elizabethans: +they contain glimpses both precise and profound into the art of the +theatre, into the poets and their world. But none of the plays, none of +the dramatists, is made to stand whole, either in the epoch, in the +drama, or in some total conception of the critic. + +If, then, as I have stated, there is wholeness in Mr. Eliot, we are led +to question what kind of wholeness it must be that can focus so superbly +on details in a dozen poets and a dozen epochs, and yet fail to envelop +any one of them. It is true that this failure is not always complete. In +the “Baudelaire,” for instance, or the “Swinburne,” we obtain a kind of +two-dimensional cross section, built from the prosodic study, which we +can place for ourselves in the organic milieu of the nineteenth century. +But in the essays on the more cosmic men there are no dimensions beyond +mere points of light. And in the studies of dynamic but little-discussed +figures, the failure is disastrous. The pages on Bradley, for example, +proceed without the faintest evocation of the two ideological +worlds—Hegelianism and English individualism—which Bradley sought to +synthesize. The chapter on Lancelot Andrewes is a mere ringing of +personal responses to the old priest’s music, which become sentimental +and pretentious, since there is no effort to place this music in the +symphony of Roman Catholic, Jewish and Arabic exegesis, from which it +was never truly independent. + +T. S. Eliot, it becomes plain, is a man of integrity in the real sense +of the word; but his vision is such that it can never hold more than +details; and his energy is too weak to give organic form either to his +subjects or to his essays. Unlike most of his fellows, who suffer in a +chaos, he lives in a “universe.” But this “universe” of Mr. Eliot’s is +evidently small and minor. It is achieved by huge and deliberate +exclusions. It scarcely contacts with the modern world—the world whose +radical transformations in physics, psychology and economics have +dissolved all the old formal values. Nor does it really embrace the past +worlds with which Mr. Eliot is so sympathetic: Dantean Europe or +Jacobean England. This failure of mastery even on Mr. Eliot’s chosen +ground is revealing. No one can understand a living past who is not +actively engaged in the living present. For any past age is an integer +in the creating of today, and only by conscious sharing of this creation +can the past, as part of it, be understood. Fundamentally, Mr. Eliot’s +subjective love of the Anglo-Catholic tradition leaves him as remote +from what England really was as his distaste for modern problems leaves +him remote from us—and for the same reason. + +That reason brings us to the heart of our portrait. Any living world, +whether it be Seneca’s or Shakespeare’s or our own, in so far as it +lives, is dynamic; and Mr. Eliot’s world is static. Wherefore, in +confrontation with a chaos of dynamic forces like our modern era, a +chaos which our dynamic will must meet, grapple with, and mold, Mr. +Eliot can only ignore; and in confrontation with dynamic worlds of the +past, he can only rather sentimentally adore. His own static vision +picks out details, reflects them and variates them into a kind of +series, like the stills of a cinema, whose total effect may be sensitive +and delightful, but cannot be organic. + +This same static quality explains Mr. Eliot’s loyalty to a class and a +class creed. A static universe does not evolve, cannot believe in +evolving. It does, however, accumulate, and its “additions” make a +quantitative change—the one kind of change and of cultural contribution +which Mr. Eliot admits (see his essays on “Tradition,” “Individual +Talent” and “The Function of Criticism”). In a static universe, +transfiguration and revelation, and the capacity for these, are all +stratified in the past. And this is another way of saying that Mr. +Eliot’s spiritual experiences, from which issue his moral and esthetic +taste, although they are real, have the form not of life, but of an +inherited convention. Thus Mr. Eliot, with a religious sense, conceives +of no religion except the orthodox Christian; with a tragic sense, +conceives of man’s struggle exclusively in the cant meanings of Original +Sin; with a sense of the spirit’s need of discipline and order—both in +society and in the person—dreams of no method but that of a moneyed +class ruling through church and state. + +Are such views valid, in the sense of having a relationship with +reality? Is there a position from which the universe is static; in which +transfiguration and revelation are past; in which Good, Evil, and the +given political and economic forms are absolute? The answer is Yes, in +the sense that death, being real, is valid. The living world of the mind +is as dynamic as the material world (they are one); there, too, the +individual life must partake of the dynamism of the whole, and when it +is severed from that dynamism we call it dead. The only difference is, +that in the world of the mind we do not commonly employ the term +“death”; we prefer to say conventional, dogmatic, static. Mr. Eliot’s +position is that of a man who has withdrawn from growth—in our meaning, +withdrawn from life. _He_ is static, his soul’s transfiguration is past, +whatever progress he conceives must be a mere consolidation of himself +into forms already uttered. His intellectual, spiritual and poetic +“life” is a rationalization of this death deep within him. + + +We hold now, I believe, the key to T. S. Eliot. He is a man who has +abdicated; but since he has been deeply sensitized to life, the +articulation of his experience remains an exquisite, lingering echo. +Such abdicated men have always existed, and have never been vital: even +in periods of cultural stability (like that of Dante, for example), the +cultural whole had constantly to be re-created by dynamic men. But in +our age, where stability has foundered into chaos, and where the need +for spiritual growth has become absolutely identified with the bare +struggle for survival, the discrepancy between a man like Mr. Eliot and +adequate leadership becomes enormous. + +What we have really defined in our portrait of T. S. Eliot is a type of +minor poet. He is in the tradition, neither of our major poets—Poe, +Whitman, Melville—nor of the great Victorians. He is close to a +cultivated and popular figure like Thomas Gray; and his “Waste Land” is +a poem as good, and of the same nature, as the “Elegy.” Gray also was a +technical innovator with an immense appeal because he foreshadowed, +unconsciously, what was to become the dominant appetite of Europe: +closeness to nature. From the energy of this appetite, Titans were to +evolve the method for absorbing and controlling nature. But in Gray, the +motion took a reactionary form: a sentimental harking back to the values +of Puritanism (and to the language of Milton). The analogy with “The +Waste Land” is complete. Here, too, is technical innovation together +with a vague foreshadowing of what is _now_ the dominant need of the +world: the need of an organic, a livable Whole in which all men and all +man may function. This foreshadowed need gives to the poem its pathos, +its unity and its importance. But, as in Gray, it is negatively stated +by an evocation of a sentimental memory and by the use of old +materials—in Mr. Eliot’s case, more diffused and catholic, since no +strong Milton stands immediately behind him. + + +The questions remain: why has Mr. Eliot been a leader and what does his +leadership reveal about our literary generation? The questions are +swiftly answered. Even in an age of confused standards, there is +recognition of literary merit. Mr. Eliot’s clarity, it is true, is +achieved not by integrating the chaos that has bewildered us, but by +withdrawal. Yet to the men whom the cultural dissolution has frightened +and weakened (the majority of men), these limitations make him only more +acceptable. A long time ago, I wrote of what I called “the comfort of +the limit,” and explained its appeal to many types of mind lost in our +modern chaos. Only athletic souls can face a world that has become, +perhaps more than any other era, an overwhelmingly open and darkened +future. The temptation to limit this world, either by rationalistically +charting its future (a disguised reactionism) or by merely advocating +its reform in an image of the past, is great and manifold. + +All the dogmatisms of our day are really such “limits”—such +simplifications of the real. There is the dogmatism of science (the +comfort of limiting reality and its mastery to problems of mechanics and +addition); there is the dogmatism of cynical despair (the comfort of +giving up hope and therefore struggle); there is the dogmatism of a +pseudo-Marxian dialectic (the comfort of explaining the human tragedy in +terms solely of a simple, solvable class struggle). And, for the weakly +poetic, there is the haven of an elegiac past, like Mr. Eliot’s, in +which great poets still sing and sure priests thunder. + +The one way of life that has no limit and affords no comfort is the way +ahead—into the bitter and dark and bloody dawn of a new world, wherein +mankind shall integrate without loss the stormy elements that make the +chaos of our day, and its promise. + + _1932_ + + + + + FOUR: SOME PRACTICAL CONCLUSIONS FOR THE SURVIVAL OF MAN + + +[Illustration: © _F. Allan Morgan, A.R.P.S._] + + +1. SOLIDARITY IS NOT ENOUGH + + (_Notes written in the Great Textile Strike of 1934_) + + + a. + +At dawn, they are all outside the mills: men, girls, mothers with +children. The huge structure, submerged in mist, leaps suddenly with +lights; the gates swing open; nobody goes in. The men talk in lively +groups, the mothers smile, the girls have put on their glad rags and +there is song in their throats. At the doors stand a few guards, glumly. +In half an hour, they swing the gates shut and the lights snap out. The +crowd of strikers, sure of its strength, strolls up the long flank of +the mill, stretches in the morning sun; idles down to the next mill +where stands another crowd before shut doors. + +The strike has begun gaily. Men and women have joy of themselves in +their common purpose, like a young animal discovering the health of its +body. + +Over on the North Side, before the open gates of a mill stands the crowd +of strikers. Half a dozen girls pass forward, their heads low, their +shoulders hunched. They are going to work. As the guards let them in, +women call after them: “Ain’t you ashamed!”; men mutter angry and then +ugly words. The thousand strikers understand the six disloyal girls; a +sharp doubt stirs in them all, particularly the women. “We need the +money too ... maybe they’re right. Maybe we’ll lose and only the girls +will win.... Rent ... milk ... coal ... winter coats for the children.” +The strikers are murmuring against their own fears ... the faithful +presence of poverty and cold ... which they see personified in the six +girls. The girls are at work now. The mill has become the form of their +betrayal, and of the fear of the strikers. Already the holiday mood is +gone. + + + b. + +Fall River molders in the ruins of an industrial era. Small mills, built +like castles with Colonial windows and with ivy on the brick, have been +abandoned to the sweatshop rats. And the wood houses of the workers have +died into festering shanties, the streets rank as rotten teeth. A man +climbs the outside stair of one of these dead houses and enters a room +at dawn. A mother stands at the stove; three men bend over a mimeograph +machine in the far corner; and from two cots four children eagerly look +up at the comrade. + +He takes a leaflet, reads it, and nods. “Here’s another we need at +once.” The children hear the words: “... the independent unions ... +because they hate the U.T.W. they won’t come out. We got to show ’em +that they must come out. We got to make ’em see, even if the A.F.L. did +doublecross ’em, we must stick together....” + +The men huddle again over the mimeograph machine. One of them is +Portuguese, the first shaft of sun lights his fine hard mouth; another +is a French Canadian, lumberly, musical, a Northern spruce walking the +world. The man who has come in with the text of the new leaflet is a +Yankee with the lantern jaw and gangling limbs of his Puritan +forefathers. + +“Here, you drink coffee first,” sings the mother. + +“No time——” + +“You drink coffee first,” she insists. + + + c. + +Back in the South Side of New Bedford, five thousand strikers gather +round the bandstand in a park to hear their leaders. Near by the harbor +waters dance in the morning sun, dance up to the silent shadow of the +mills. But a little along there is a line of mills athrob with labor: +the great tire-fabric plants called the Fisk and the Devon, which +recognize no union and worked clear through the six months’ strike of +1928. + +William Batty, chairman of the strike committee of the U.T.W., gets to +his feet. He is a burly fellow with a sharp nose and piercing eyes in +his red face. He praises the strikers, he praises the President, he +hurls his contempt and hate at the “Reds who are trying to make +trouble.” One gets the impression, as he talks, that the strike belongs +to him and to the other leaders: the workers are accessories and +servants. “Leave it all to us,” is the burden of his message. +“Washington”—sacrosanct word; “Strike headquarters in the Carpenters +Building”—a Temple which only U.T.W. leaders are good enough to enter. +The man has power, and has shrewdness. No doubt of that. Look at the +heavy shoulders, the thin-lipped mouth. But where does he belong? He is +standing on the bandstand a bit above the workers, he is talking a good +deal down to them: one hears, in the rumble of his hatred for communists +and shop committees, the echo of other voices, more shrewd, more potent: +voices of politics and Money. + +After Batty comes Ferdinand Sylvia, U.T.W. organizer and local favorite, +who is running for State Representative on the Democratic ticket. A +little, passionate Portuguese he is, and clever; the hard black eyes are +nobody’s fool. How he praises the workers! “I’m proud of you. You’re +making history today. We got a great friend in the White House who will +help us against the bosses.... All you got to do is stick together. +We’ll go back to Washington and do the rest.” There is no personal +enthusiasm in the crowd for these leaders. But there is devotion to the +cause which these men lead; and above all, there is the will, tense and +a little wistful, to believe that they are truly leaders. + +Sylvia speaks of the tire-fabric mills that are still working and +holding New Bedford from a 100 per cent tie-up. “Go down and picket,” he +cries. “Get ’em all out!” The mass, five thousand strong, moves quiet +down the harbor. + + + d. + +A youth with the high forehead of a poet, the Socialist Minister Glen +Trimble, starts the picket line before the Fisk and Devon plants. Batty +waves the crowd on the opposite side of the street to join; a couple of +hundred men, women, girls, are soon patrolling. They are having a good +time. They sing “Who’s Afraid of the Big, Bad Wolf” and, in lesser +number, the old I.W.W. “Solidarity” song. Down from the windows peer the +workers who refuse to strike. In the eyes of some is a defensive +disdain: “If I can despise the strikers. I’ll not feel the need to join +them.” Others are torn in conflict. Some of the boys and girls look down +in veritable terror: not terror at the pickets, but at something in +themselves that holds them back ... that makes them fear to join their +sisters and their brothers. _Fear of their own fear_—the beginning of +wisdom. + +I slip into the office and ask for the manager. He says he’ll talk to +me, provided I do not disclose his name for publication (I do not blame +him). The same stale line about his “happy family of workers,” and the +conscientious refusal to let “outside and alien organizers interfere in +our affairs.” “We figure,” he says, “we can run our plant best with our +own men. We give better minimum wages than NRA has asked for.” + +“But,” I ask, “aside from the issue of wages, don’t you recognize a +democratic, an American, a human issue? Labor is struggling to organize, +like the bosses and business. Aren’t you working against the American +spirit by discouraging your men from getting together? You admit +conditions are bad in other mills. Why don’t you encourage these workers +to help their brothers by joining the same union?” + +The managerial eye grows cold and blank; the hands twitch. Then, +obliquely: “I don’t get you. What good would it do if these men struck +with the others? If one is starving, is it better that two starve?” + +I realize the hopelessness of making a class-bound man hear the theme of +loyalty and dignity in another class—in the class which he must exploit +and degrade in order to survive. I expected no better. But as I return +to the town center (while the pickets march) for a bite to eat, I find +that the waitress is on the side of the strikers; the barkeep across +from the best hotel, mixing me an excellent Tom Collins, says: “Sure, +the tire-fabric mills should strike!” and the garage mechanic who fills +my tank is warmly and openly with the strikers. This was not the case +four years ago at the last great strike. Even a cop on the corner +confidentially leans to me and says: “I guess the boys’ve got it!” + +Up in the Labor Temple sits a little Scot, Abraham Binns, and runs the +works. Dispatches pickets to hesitant outlying mills; phones Washington, +puffs his pipe, and wonders, if Federal Relief backs down, where the +funds will come from to feed the strikers. A sincere old-timer, he is, +with a good eye for the detail of the battle and no vaguest notion of +what, _really_, the battle is about. A thirty-hour week, a minimum wage? +Sure! But that a world is breaking and has to be replaced by another +lest the heart of mankind perish?... + +I ask him about the National Textile Workers Union. + +“They’re communists,” he burrs, as if to say: “They’ve got the +smallpox.” + +The workers think they can force the bosses to abolish the stretch-out. +Binns sees that, and he’ll fight for it, too. But he does not guess that +what the workers really want is to live, and _that they must create a +new world to live in_. What chance has such a leader against Capital, +the shrewdly conscious foe that knows, indeed, it is fighting _to live_ +and for its world to live in? + + + e. + +Yonder in Hazelwood Park, a young woman is talking: she knows what Binns +and Batty have never dreamed of. + +It is dusk of the first day. Seventeen thousand of the twenty thousand +textile workers of New Bedford have come out; the exceptions being the +tire-fabric mills. The talker is Ann Burlak, organizer of the N.T.W., +herself a weaver and the child of Ukrainian workers of Northern +Pennsylvania. The Boston and local papers have put the spotlight on Ann. +She is the “red flame”; she is reputed to be “in hiding in the tenements +of the South Side,” and the police announce they will run her in “on the +slightest provocation.” + +Ann is a tall blond girl in her early twenties. Her body bespeaks +tenderness and grace; you feel that, were it not for a stronger love, +she’d spend a lot of her time dancing. The firm jaw, the clear eye, the +intelligent brow, make you understand why there’s so little time for +dancing. On the bandstand, all around her, is a bunch of kids. They +frolic about, none too silent, in the way of children; and I wonder how +she manages to keep her mind, and her hearers’ minds, on her subject. +The local N.T.W. organizer, Walter Burke, has the same concern; and he +tries to shoo away the kids. But he is far too gentle about it; the kids +refuse to go; and when Burke observes that they are not troubling Ann he +gives up. Then it comes to me, that far from disturbing this reputed +“fireeater,” the gathered children give Ann Burlak the appropriate +setting. Truly, she is speaking for them; of the gay young world they +can inherit, if their parent-workers know what they want, and fight for +it, and know how to fight. + +How different her tone from the U.T.W. leaders who harangued their crowd +from the same stand! Ann Burlak appears to have faith in the workers and +to be pleading with them to take hold of their own battle. She has to go +easy. If she tells them straight what their leaders are up to, dickering +with politicians and capitalists, they will scare. If she tells them +straight what her motherly heart is full of: that the bosses cannot lose +under capitalism, that the workers under capitalism cannot win, they +will turn pale, and glance about them and cease to listen. It is a +subtle task, this leading of the ignorant American workers to the +realization of their own needs, of their own powers, of their own +nature. And Ann Burlak does it well. Gradually, unobtrusively, she draws +her hearers to the facts about “arbitration,” to the shortcomings of the +U.T.W., to the single devotedness of the slandered “Reds.” The men and +women listen. They have come, many of them, to have a look at the “red +flame”; a good show for nothing. “They say she’s hot stuff,” explain the +boys in the bench before me. Curiosity and frivolity fade, as the tall +young woman gives her sensible heart and her motherly mind to her +hearers. Mothers find themselves face to face with the truth: the bare +cupboards of their homes, the bare bodies, the bare futures, of their +children. Men see with their eyes what for long their hearts, despite +the palaver of journal and politics, have known: that they, the workers, +live in an enemy country! Latin, Slav or Yankee, they live in a land +possessed and ruled by foes who are sworn to exploit and to degrade +them. + +At the close of her pleading to the workers to know themselves, to +respect themselves, to be themselves, Ann Burlak tries to lead them in +song. The men and women pitifully follow. And I am minded of the singing +at a camp meeting which I recently attended. How the words rang for +Christ’s second coming! Surely, had Christ been in his heaven, he must +have answered these splendid ringing voices. And the thought came: When +the workers of America learn to sing the coming of their world on earth +as their fathers, the Christians, sang for their world in heaven, the +Revolution will not tarry. + + + f. + +It is midnight, after the first day. Around the Fisk and Devon mills, +gravid with lights and labor, stand battalions of police: the +comparatively kindly town constables with clubs and the sinister +khaki-clad motor-cops with guns in their holsters and tear gas in +reserve. On the park side are massed the strikers, a good ten thousand. +Glen Trimble harangues them. + +“They won’t let us picket? We’ll see about that. All of you here at the +crack of dawn. And when the workers file in to work, we’ll have a picket +line for them to pass through.” + +A Negro in the crowd, in a quiet penetrant voice, says: “Why wait till +tomorrow? Why not picket now?” + +The crowd turns toward the mill; Trimble accepts the challenge. The +police clubs stop them. The picket line halts, wavers, turns. And its +repressed energy gathers in hands behind. Stones fly from the park side, +and smash the mill windows. The police press forward. + +Seven hours later, huge shut vans roll up to the red buildings and +disgorge officers. Far off, beyond an empty lot, fully a fifth of a mile +from the mills, stands the crowd and boos as the tire-fabric workers +pass through to their jobs. Near the gates, they form hesitant knots. A +man stays behind, while his wife enters. A girl looks up at a bevy of +her sisters beckoning from a top mill window, grasps her bag and joins +them. The police, guns swinging, slide across the empty lot, and the +workers fade in the grey background of the harbor. + +“There’ll be no picket line,” shouts the police chief at Batty and +Sylvia. “We had enough last night. Look at them windows. Just you let +your men come up, and we’ll take care of ’em.” + +But while the clubs and the guns mass at the Devon side of the huge +block, and the crowds die before them, another corps of workers comes to +birth on the farther slope of the mills; a line forms ... marches. + +The sun rises, the mill throbs. The clusters of hesitant workers have +vanished, either inside to the machines or away. Suddenly, a gate swings +open. The crowd rises in voice: “THEY’RE COMING OUT”: and forward, four +abreast, march the Fisk workers to join their brothers and sisters. + +Sylvia crows like a cock. “I’m proud of you!” And to Mary Vorse and me: +“Tell ’em in Washington and New York, New Bedford has the world’s best +workers.” Even the cops smile. The walk-out is 100 per cent. Now +what?... + +I think of the heroic tiny groups of revolutionary organizers throughout +the nation: individuals, isolated, threatened, resourceless save for +their own luminous spirit. Pleading with the workers, against the +workers, to know themselves, to be themselves, to fight the good fight; +while the official leaders and the pack of papers and the towns and the +churches vomit their fear of the new world in the form of insults and +lies. Workers, like everyone else, get the leaders they deserve. The +workers are pitifully ignorant. Ignorance is the mother of misleaders. + +I think of the great show of strength that the Textile Strike—like San +Francisco yesterday—has summoned. And, while Ignorance is in the saddle, +of the inevitable betrayal! + +When the American workers _know_ what they are, there’ll be a different +story. + +That is the task of all young men and women: let thousands, each in his +own way, go among the people, and humbly, quietly explain the cause of +Life, which is the cause of Revolution. + +Solidarity is not enough.[13] + + +2. WITH MARX, SPINOZA.... + + + a. + +This essay would not have been written at this hour had it not been for +the dark hour of the German Jews. But their catastrophe is the +deepening, within the crisis of the world, of a threat that for two +centuries has gathered against Jewry. Judaism has never solved the +challenge of the modern world; and this challenge is now a crisis—one of +those historic crises from which Jewry must be reborn, if at all, +through the threshold of death. + +I do not stop to swell the lamentations that the fate of half a million +highly cultured Jews has aroused in all sane people. My object is more +stern. It is to analyze the response of the Jews in the United States to +Hitler: to expose and study from the response certain traits of modern +Jewry. There has been, in all the tears and rage, one constant refrain. +“Why are we persecuted?” cry the leaders. “We are not different from you +Gentiles—not in any point of thought, conduct or allegiance, that +_counts_. In Germany, we are good Germans; in America, we are good +Americans. There is no reason for this persecution.” Now, Jews have +often suffered persecution; although I suspect never by such ruthlessly +efficient methods as the German. But Jews have always known why they +were maltreated. It was because they were different; in thought, in +conduct, in allegiance, in all that counted, a peculiar people. It was +because they were Jews. This might cause great sacrifice. But since +Jewishness was the treasure of their lives, source of their beauty and +joy, they deemed even the price of persecution not too great to pay for +being Jewish. They took the persecution for granted, meeting it as +shrewdly as they could. The stress of their energy and will was focused, +not on avoiding or denying reasons for persecution, but on being Jews. +Here, then, is an enormous difference. For the first time in a history +of three thousand years, the leaders of Jewry do not know why they are +persecuted: for the first time they disclaim any reason for persecution. + +This sheds new light on the German Jewish disaster. Are these half +million victims to be considered undifferentially as suffering human +beings? Then they deserve no more pity and help—no more and, of course, +no less—than the millions of other sufferers of our dark age: than the +Negroes of our South, for instance; than the countless families broken +by unemployment; than the communists whom Hitler and the Balkan sadists +are torturing and maiming. But such pooled pity does not satisfy the +Jewish leaders. In their appeals and reports they are careful to +separate their cause from others. They imply that German Jewry calls for +more than its quantitative share of the concern of a world riven with +anguish; they assume, indeed, that a great people, whose value to +mankind is high, is being menaced. Now this claim, on the evidence of +the past, can be denied by no intelligent man. The Jews have through the +centuries made contributions to the Western world that are inestimable, +and organic. But are not the contemporary leaders confused in time? +Should the Jews be saved today for what they were in the past? Such a +plea runs counter to all natural law. What is there _alive_ in +contemporary Jewry to distinguish it from any other quantitative group +of human beings? + +The answer, alas! is, there is nothing. There are still, it is true, +traditional Jewish communes in Eastern Europe and North Africa. But we +do not hear from them; they provide no Jewish leaders. Indeed, the +modern world no longer gives them nurture or function, and they are +doomed by their own archaic form. The Jewry that protests against +Hitlerism and is menaced by it the world over, and that assumes its past +worth as argument for its present survival, is a “progressive” Jewry, +freed from that past. It is the Jewry that cries: Why are we persecuted? +Let us examine it, then, for Jewishness—and in its most prosperous +member, the Jews of the United States. + +First, I must define the Jew; and this, fortunately, can be done without +raising the old problems of race and nation. To be a Jew has always +meant _to live a certain way of life_: a way which, evolving with the +ages and with the cultural-economic conditions of the lands, was yet an +organic growth from a single tradition. This tradition was one; and the +Jewish groups made it organic with their lives. Other nations had +prophets, the Jews enacted theirs. Other nations had arts, the Jews +lived theirs. Other peoples had high standards for personal, communal +and cosmic relations: the Jews, by the minutiae of their 613 +commandments, made flesh and bone of their vision of the divine and the +eternal. The defining Jewish trait is _unification_ of values, personal +and communal, into an organic body of behavior. The defining Jewish term +is _action_. + +The Jewish principle—unity of value and deed, harmony of person and +group—has always had a dual form. That the values of the person shall be +fulfilled in the community, there must be _social justice_. And that +within the cosmos there shall be preserved and furthered the values of +men and of Man, there must be _God_. Social justice, of course, was an +aspiration limited by the economy of the particular land and +era—limited, that is, by _possibility_. What did God mean to the Jew? At +first by miracle and confusedly, then rationally, God meant the dynamic +immanence, in the world of matter and of man, of what the person most +deeply recognized as his own truth and worth. God meant the principle of +order, the will to unity, in an otherwise chaotic multiverse. God meant +_value in Being_. The Jews, as a people, were the first to understand +that this Value-in-Being could not be abstract, not diffuse, not +impersonal, although it transcended individuals; but was myriadly +focused and fleshed in human lives. This means that for the Jew every +man and woman holds a purposive and creative place in life’s dynamic +process. + +Now, bearing this definition in mind, where—outside the vanishing Old +World ghettoes of our East Side—are the Jews? Where in New York, in +Cincinnati, in Chicago, in San Francisco? The American Jew is as divided +in his ideals and his behavior as any Gentile. His amusements and his +arts, his family life and his business methods, his loyalties to class, +state and God, are the same tissue of contradictions. Like any Gentile, +he scrambles for the dollar, lives for his belly, shares in the stampede +for cheap delights. As businessman, he also exploits his brother; as +citizen, he votes for the same liars, crude or gilded. He shouts the +same chauvinistic phrases and is ready, with the rest, in time of war, +to rush with the courage of Gadarene swine to his destruction. He enjoys +(and writes) the same inane novels, movies. In a society whose crucial +trait is the abyss between ideal and deed, he—the Jew—is +indistinguishable from his neighbor. Is the “Jewishness” of these modern +Jews a dynamic pattern of action? or is it a mere moldering heap of +sentiment, vanity and habit? + +I am speaking of the prosperous American Jew; not yet of the rank and +file, the humble clerks and clothing workers, artisans and mechanics. +These, as Jews, are passive. And in so far as they have Jewish leaders +to make them act (as contradistinguished from labor leaders, for +example), they choose the very type who have grown great by shrewd +collaboration with a world that is the antithesis, in every value, to +what is Jewish. This is a cardinal point in the lethal condition of +American Jewry. Its leaders and spokesmen, in their loyalty to the +exploiting class, have dangerously identified the Jew with a bourgeoisie +that is degenerate and doomed. In the Middle Ages, the Jew was allied +functionally with the rising burgher class whose destiny it was to break +the feudal system. This alliance was one reason for the Jew’s survival. +But burgherdom, in medieval Europe, played a different moral part from +the grande bourgeoisie of today. In the realm of practicable action, the +burgherdom stood for social justice and intellectual freedom, as against +the exploiting landowning gentry and the landowning church. Technically, +the profit system always meant exploitation of labor. But socially, this +early bourgeois exploitation was in the direction of justice, since it +was a departure from slavery and spread the margin of leisure whereby +man’s culture could alone advance. Until the invention of the machine, +some exploitation of men was needed in order that a privileged portion +of mankind could think—and at last, by perfecting the machine, and +spreading possible leisure to all humanity, abolish the need of human +exploitation altogether. The alliance of medieval Jewry with burgherdom +was therefore within the rhythm of advancing social justice, and hence +harmonious with Jewishness. But today, the dominant bourgeoisie is the +power of stratified social injustice: it is the power of war, of +spiritual death and intellectual ruin. + +The intensity of American Jewish allegiance to the exploiting class can +be measured by the lives of the prominent Jewish leaders. + +Almost without exception they are lawyers, judges, merchants, bankers, +proprietors of newspapers and other vast affairs; men who have grown +great in the American game of grab, men indistinguishable in spirit, +mind and action from thousands of other divided men who (with like +shamelessness) call themselves Christian. In a few instances, they are +writers and rabbis—apologists, rank or subtle, of the exploiting +classes. + +Since their deeds are contradictions of their ideals, are such leaders +Jews? Is a folk that such men lead, a Jewish folk? From the Jewish +premise that value and vision must become action, a trait of Jewry has +ever been to create true Jewish leaders. + +But it may be said, there are other Jews, greater than these: not +necessarily American, yet the real leaders of Jewry. There are Albert +Einstein, Sigmund Freud, Alfred Stieglitz, Henri Bergson, Leon +Trotsky ... others. These men are great, and are leaders, and are Jews. +But they are not leaders of Jews. They are leaders of scientists, +philosophers, artists, revolutionists. They and other great Jewish men +of our times are products of Jewish life; but modern Jewry cannot claim +them. They are the offspring of the old communal Jewry which still +existed in their formative years. And the fact that they have been +forced to function quite outside modern Jewry is another proof of its +present dissolution. The Jewish world no longer holds its men of genius; +the highest products of its spirit, of its intellectual discipline and +of its sense of life, leave the parent body. And the world of Jews, in +deadly division from the Jewish spirit, chooses leaders who hasten its +death. + +Consider now the pitiful, the ironical condition of the Jew. To suffer +for a cause that our soul loves is bearable: is, indeed—since we must +suffer—man’s most enviable destiny. But to suffer for nothing! To be +hated and ruined as a Jew, when one’s life is not Jewish! The Jews of +Germany, taken as a whole, exist _inertially_ because their past way was +Jewish and because it takes more than a generation to destroy a way of +life so strong and so vital. If two hundred years ago, they had ceased +living as Jews, Hitler and the Nazis, who are ignorant men, would +probably not have heard of them. Hitler persecutes them now because in a +confused way he has inherited what was a real reason, then, for a German +in revolt against Western civilization to dislike real Jews who had so +much to do with its creating. + +But that is only half the picture. The Jews are allied with an agonizing +and desperate middle class. When that class flourished, the Jews, +functioning in it, were tolerated by it. Now that it droops and its +spoils dwindle, it turns—like a man in a panic—against its weaker +neighbor. It is the principle of “every man for himself”—the basic law +of bourgeois life. Oh, the ironical confusion in the fate of the modern +Jew! He is persecuted by barbarous and desperate men because of ideals +that he no longer lives: and he is persecuted by a class to which, in +the main, he is loyal, because he is a rival of its barbarous way of +life—a way that contradicts his own ideals! + +This is Germany today: who doubts that with variations it may be America +tomorrow? that it may be any capitalistic country where the Jew, _in his +present_, is a minority factor in a desperate middle class and _in his +past_ a reminder of the liberal culture of the Western world, against +which that desperate class is in revolt? + + + b. + +Now for the final questions: How can the Jew survive in the modern +world, _and why should he survive_? To answer clearly, I must first +state some of the reasons why he survived in the past. And since the +kaleidoscope of Jewish generations is so great, I take the latest period +of undisputed Jewish health: the Middle Ages (which lasted for the Jews +until the eighteenth century), when the Jews lived, harmonious and +whole, within a Europe of violent divisions, and often savagely hostile. + + 1. Jewry’s strict unity of ideal and conduct made the community, + although small and surrounded, an efficient body. All its energy was + conserved for itself and applied functionally for survival; whereas in + a greater community where value and deed are divided, there is + conflict, loss of energy, disease. + + 2. In Judaism, both ideally and actively, there was no separation + between man and group. Although infiltrations from Alexandrian and + Platonized Egypt corrupted the ancient Hebrew knowledge that there is + no personal immortality, this superstition of a surviving individual + soul (the deepest cause of the failure of European cultures) was never + strong against the healthy Jewish unification of individual and + commune. Therefore, medieval Jewry had no destructive egoism—no “great + men”—to mislead it for discordant personal ends. (The egoistic leader + battens on the accumulated egoisms of his rabble.) In Jewry, the + leaders were as organic to the commune as an eye or a brain to the + body. Moreover, these leaders were not soldiers, not megalomaniacs of + fame and money: they were the seers and the thinkers. Here, then, was + a social body whose eyes and brain literally led it—in contrast to our + modern world in which the eye and the brain often appear to be + discards or decorations. + + 3. Jewry had, despite theological and cultural differences, a deep + community of values with Christian cultural leaders. These recognized + the worth of the Jewish ethic; the beauty of the Jews’ concept of + Godhead as immanent in human action. The best in Christian Europe at + all times respected, and often learned from, the “hated” Jews. And + during the ages when the church was strong, it had enough influence to + defend the Jews against extremities of persecution. + + 4. Through these times, _Jewry had an economic function_. Its + activities in international commerce, banking, exchange, and in the + practical sciences of communication and of navigation, did a necessary + work in feudal Europe. And this allied Jewry with the struggling + middle class—the burghers who were to inherit and transform feudal + Europe. Without this function and the alliance with a rising economic + class, Jewry’s inner harmony of action could not have saved it. For + there would have been lacking a harmony of function within the larger + body of the Gentile world. + +To return, now, to our time; the Jew obviously can survive, if the +immutable essence of the Jewish social organism can somehow be +transformed to function in the modern world. And obviously, the Jew +should survive, if this essential Jewish nature still has a part to play +before mankind. These questions are the subject for a book—which I shall +write, if I live long enough. Here, I can but sketch my answer. + +The Jewish principle of value-in-Being, of God and social justice, of +the _enactment_ of value by individual and group, did not exist _in +vacuo_. It existed within a matrix. And this matrix was the agrarian +economic-cultural world—a world so basally static that the +eighteenth-century Galician Jew shared it, fundamentally unchanged, with +Amos and Isaiah. So long as the matrix held, the Jew could follow the +commandments of his prophets _as interpreted by twenty centuries of +fathers_. + +We may now see why the Jewish organism broke in the impact with the +modern world. Modern industrialism destroyed the simple, paternalistic +economy under which the Jewish commune _approximated_ social justice. +And modern thought and science corroded the theologic-ethic form under +which the Jew knew God. To survive, the Jewish principle must be +transfigured into modern terms. Judaism must embrace an again workable +program approximating social justice: and that means the unequivocal +destruction of the unjust anarchy called industrial capitalism. And +Judaism must redefine what it has always meant—or meant to mean—by God. + +Now, let the reader answer: Is the principle of social justice needed +today? And that _Man_ may live, must there be, not an anthill system, +but a living social form that nurtures the inward need of every human +being to create and to share his inward vision and value? If your answer +is Yes, then there is need in the world of what has been, for nearly +thirty hundred years, the Jewish principle. And as if history urged that +this cardinal dual need of the world may yet be the peculiar business of +the Jewish people (there have always been, in all nations, saintly and +isolated men who lived and died for it, as greatly as any Jew), the need +stands most forcibly answered in the work of two Jews—Jews of a “new +remnant,” Marx and Spinoza. + +I place Marx first, because in the perspective of function he comes +first—although Spinoza lived two centuries before him and profoundly +influenced his thinking. Marx, from the Jewish premise of history as an +organism evolving toward “good,” has given to the industrial world a +realistic logic and a technique of social justice. Time, of course, has +amended or refuted many details of his plan; yet it is nonetheless +categorical that every man who wants to _enact_ social justice in the +modern world must be a Marxist in spirit although he may reject certain +Marxist dogmas. The modern Jew, if he is to exist, must interpret Marx +as a prophet as surely as his forebears interpreted Moses and Isaiah. +Marx (despite chronology) comes before Spinoza, because the social +discord is a disease immediately threatening the survival of civilized +mankind; and because collective consciousness comes before mature +self-consciousness. Marx without Spinoza is an imperative, immediate, +primitive first step in action. Spinoza, without Marx, remains an +abstract philosophy, removed from possible action. + +But as Marx is the man who most surely projected the prophetic +aspiration of social justice into a workable modern program, Spinoza is +the prophet who has completed the purifying of the knowledge of God into +the God of inwardness, of substance and of action. If Marx carries on +Moses and Ezra, Spinoza carries on Isaiah and Jesus. It is he who has +best established the organic being of God _in_ matter and in human +thought; who has made rational the ancient mystic intuition that the +cosmic dwells within the man in so far as the man grows self-conscious. +By giving value to matter in a form acceptable to the age of science, +Spinoza will crown the work of Marx, who gives reality to a program of +social justice in the age of machines. + +Now, it may be that Spinoza and Marx are the swan song of Jewry: the +final message of a great people before its ultimate death. It may be +that the work of unifying and enacting their contributions shall fall to +other peoples. There is a Soviet Union in the world, and China, and the +two Americas; from such virgin soil may come the fulfillment of the +prophets. I do not know. But I do know that, if the Jew is to survive as +an organic group, he must enact his modern prophets as his fathers +(after rejecting them, also) enacted the prophets of Scripture. And I +conclude by broadly sketching what the modern Jewish way of living must +be. + +To begin with (for, I repeat—in the field of action, Marx comes before +Spinoza), the Jew must renounce loyalty to the exploiting class. Without +that, all his “service” is a “vain oblation.” Today, as twenty-six +centuries ago, the word of the prophet is true: + + Bring no more vain oblations; + It is an offering of abomination unto Me; + New moon and sabbath, the holding of convocations— + I cannot endure iniquity along with solemn assembly.... + Cease to do evil; + Learn to do well; + Seek justice.... + +“_Learn_ to do well!” In our industrial world, this means active +allegiance to the class whose historic function it is to abolish +economic exploitation—the base of social injustice and of war—by doing +away with economic classes altogether. This new allegiance will not be +easy; since the Jews for centuries have been forced to earn their bread +within the middle class, it will have the value, by itself, of a +religious conversion. But this new loyalty as a group does not mean that +the Jew will be submerged in the working class or in any proletarian +body like the communists. He must fight for the workers (and the farmer +and the intellectual, too, are workers), help them with his brain and +body; but he may be detached from them, at least at present, because of +his particular stewardship of values—“the realm of God,” in each man, +with which the harried and hungry worker has not had time to grow +familiar. + +The revolutionary proletariat cannot trouble about God. There are good +functional reasons for the atheism of most Marxists. The word “God” has +been monopolized so long by the apologists of the class of exploitation: +theologians, philosophers, poets! To detach (as Spinoza did) the reality +in God from all the accumulated lies is a problem that calls for +subtlety beyond the present anguished state of the masses; for energy +that the masses and their immediate leaders _cannot spare_ from the +day’s struggle. It is unhistorical to expect the active revolutionist of +our time to do more than reject the false “God” of the churches and the +synagogues. Yet the true experience of God must not die even in the heat +of revolutionary battle. The first Marxist ends cannot be won and man be +raised from animal penury and fear into the human stage of security and +leisure unless the individual finds life good: and this can be only +through the Spinozistic sense of God. The experience of the divine in +mortal life must be preserved. Wherefore, there is need today of a +people, scattered through the nations, that know and nurture the +experience of God. By the tradition of ages, by their ancient prophets +and their modern thinkers, the Jews have inherited the challenge and the +_right_ to be such a people. + +This Jewish “remnant”—and only the remnant, through the ages, has +preserved the Jew—will be loyal to the class of social revolution; but +through its consciousness of God it will be still separate, and must +remain so. It will understand the functional “atheism” of many +simple-minded revolutionists, and not demand that it be understood in +return. The God in man will be the still secret treasure it must +lovingly preserve against the day when men, free of fear and hunger, +learn to look within themselves where God is. Thus, the Jews will still +be a peculiar people. And they will be subject to the dislike and +distrust of the zealot for whom the word “God” is anathema; although it +was in the name of God that his values of social justice and individual +dignity were preserved and prepared, through the barbaric ages. + +Now, a majority cannot rise to so high a challenge of rebirth. Bankers, +merchants, lawyers, professional men and politicians, even artisans and +mechanics among the Jews, will not yield their old allegiance to the +middle class, although that class turns (as it is turning!) against +them. And these will disappear in the general human welter, as Jews have +disappeared in Assyria, Babylon, Alexandria and Rome. But what a +magnificent remnant there may be! The teacher, the doctor, the engineer, +the clear-eyed man of commerce who knows and hates the rottenness of +capitalist commerce, the Jewish worker and the student—above all, the +Jewish student! Already, these are on the side of the productive class +that alone holds the energy to remake the world. Already, they accept +Marx. Let them fulfill this knowledge with devotion to the inward +value—the God whom Spinoza has explored in man and in matter—and there +will be again, in the world, a Jewish remnant! + +Persecution? It is already here, even in America; and as the +capitalistic era shrinks, darkens and despairs, it will grow worse. The +lesson of Hitler, in offering the Jew as the traditional scapegoat for +the accumulated rage of a bewildered people, is bound to be learned; +already we have our little Hitlers, profiteers of suffering stupidity +and blindness. The Jewish people are going to suffer. And for those who +are individually and innocently hurt, and who know not why, there can be +no soothing words. Before their anguish, we can only bow our heads, +humbly, as they enact the world-old mystery of pain. But at least, for +the conscious Jew, the real Jew, there will again be reason for +Jewishness, reason to bear his persecution; and comrades to help him +bear it. And if individual Jews die, their death will be in the cause of +humane life; no man can ask a higher guerdon. And the history of the +Jews will hearten them with knowledge, that when a people is ready to be +persecuted and to die for a good cause, the cause lives—and the people. + + _Postscript_: + + This article, which appeared in “The New Republic” in 1933 and was + reprinted in many journals, is itself an abbreviated form of an essay + published in French by “Europe,” of Paris, and in Spanish by “Sur,” of + Buenos Aires. I have used it here, rather than the longer version, + because both are a project or programmatic abstract of the essay I + must someday write, in which all the terms of my argument will be more + fully and fundamentally defined. Recent attacks on socialism and + communism by prominent Jews—rich men, shallow, slavish, scared, of the + kind I have described, or by truckling labor leaders, make the writing + of this essay an imperative duty. + + I trust it is clear in my conclusion about the possible leadership + of a Jewish “remnant” in our recreative task, that I have not + mentioned the like necessary role of a Christian “remnant,” only + because this paper deals specifically with the Jews. That the + prophetic-revolutionary strain is not dead in the American + Protestant churches is proved by the labors of such men as Reinhold + Niebuhr—one of the truly creative minds of America. + + +3. FROM MANY MESSAGES TO MANY PEOPLE + + + _i. War Is with Us Now +To the First United States Congress Against War, Held in New York, 1933_ + +Two thousand delegates from every part of the country, and of every +shade of progressive opinion, are meeting in New York in a Congress +Against War. A most laudable enterprise; and a most needed. For war +threatens the world; and with war, civilization, still staggering from +the blows of the last conflict, may definitely founder. The crisis is +immediate and tragic. But no congress of good men can avert it. All that +this congress can do is to bring men’s consciousness to focus upon the +present danger; and to raise men’s consciousness to the pitch of +intensity where it becomes action. + +Before everything else, we must become aware that _war is already here_! +The political and economic setup of the modern nations IS war. Battles +on land and sea, millions of lives destroyed, cities and fields laid +waste, are but a concentrated form of the jungle anarchy that is called +“government” in the metropolis, that is called “diplomacy” in the +embassies, that is called “business” in factories, mills, mines and +markets. + +So long as we have nations playing the lone game of power and +aggression, or banding together like packs of wolves in “alliance” +against other nations, we have war—_war in peace_. And all the +congresses of the world will not prevail against the inevitable, +periodic outbreak of this constant war into pitched battles. + +So long as we have a social system within each nation that divides the +citizens into classes whose economic basis is exploiter and exploited; a +social system in which success means power gained at the expense of +others and enjoyed to the exclusion of others, we have war—_civil war_ +in peace, within each nation. The small ruling class is brutalized by +its success in enslaving others; the large classes are brutalized by +their slavery—brutalized the more if they are not conscious of +enslavement. In such a social system (and all the “planned economics” of +capitalism can only make it more dangerous by disguising it), it is +inevitable that the state and the nation will reflect, on a large scale, +the jungle spirit of individual men. It is inevitable that the jungle +greed of such a state and nation will come into conflict with the greed +of other nations where the same system prevails. It is inevitable that +this _normal_ state of conflict shall break out, from time to time, in +formal warfare. + +But our present condition of war is even deeper! So long as war prevails +in the internal economic structure of each nation, it will prevail as +well in the internal psychic structure of the men and women who +constitute the nation. A society that is a rationalized jungle of greed +and violence, encourages the lust for individual power in all men and +women and atrophies the social instinct in all men and women. The +members of such a society war upon each other in their individual lives: +and each individual soul is itself the seat of warfare. Of course, such +divided men band together in gangs, classes, nations, to make war upon +other gangs, classes, nations. + +War has been the constant condition of what we call civilization. War +between individuals, war between classes, war between peoples—each +seeking profit and power at the expense of others. But there is a new +factor in the situation of today. + +Modern science has made war deadlier than it has ever been: so that war +now threatens—not only persons and individual nations, but all mankind. +And this new factor of science, by its potentiality of large-scale +production and co-operation, has also made the old systems of +exploitation and rivalry no longer needed. + +This is the crucial state of the world—its mortal danger and its hope. +War, as never before, is a menace to human survival. And war (military, +economic, social war) has been made unnecessary, as never before, by our +modern mastery of means of production, distribution, communication, +whereby it is feasible today _for all men_ to live in plenty and with +leisure, without enslaving or exploiting others. + +The United States Congress Against War represents a good impulse. But +men’s protest against war is not a new event in the so-called Christian +world. It has been futile, throughout the ages, _because war was organic +in men’s way of living_. Similarly, this congress will not pass the +limits of “good intentions” unless it writes down formally in its record +that the abolition of war means revolution. Fundamental revolution. +Revolution in the social structure of the nations, and revolution in the +souls of men and women. + + + _ii. To the Students of Cuba_ + (_April, 1931_) + +I am following with deep emotion your struggle to renovate—indeed to +re-create—the life of Cuba. I am poignantly aware of the terrible +dilemma that confronts you. Your government is the slave of +irresponsible financial interests of the United States, and of the State +Department at Washington which with cynical hypocrisy is launched on a +deliberate campaign to imperialize the entire Caribbean. If your +prostitute government remains in office, Cuba will continue to be a +“factory” for American investments, a “factory” protected by no laws +such as limit exploitation on American soil; since you Cubans are not +citizens of the United States and your political “independence” more and +more is coming to mean the privilege of our exploiters to work in your +country with a ruthless irresponsibility which they would not dare to +display in their own. Yet, if you overthrow this government, it may mean +the landing of American marines in Havana and the swift setting up of a +new rule which will be the replica of Machado’s—the other horn of the +dilemma! + +What can you do? What can a citizen of the United States urge you to do? +In a way I am ashamed to speak to you, ashamed to mention my own sorrow +and my shame, as a native of the oppressor country, who is helpless to +help you. Men like myself in the United States are powerless. There is +no enlightened public opinion here with any _punch_ to it. Most of our +good will is Platonic, in the bad sense of the word. And who, here, is +interested in a _students’_ revolutionary movement? Our intellectuals, +as a body, have lost contact with the spiritual, the _human_ source of +art; our student groups are too pampered and too infantile to get +excited over anything but football.[14] You are alone in your fight, +alone with the student bodies and the workers of other Hispano-American +countries who, for the most part, are as dispossessed as you. You are +alone with the truth! + +Yet I can say to you: Go on! If for no other reason, _go on because only +then will you be happy_. Do not let so-called practical affairs and +worldly wisdom compromise your ideal. Look at the men who have made +these “necessary compromises”: the successful men, the rulers of the +world. See what ugly, misshapen, miserable men they are. Look well at +the “practical” men, and do not go the hideous way which they have gone, +and of which the ignoble shambles of the modern world is the result. +Even if you are imprisoned, even if you are shot down (as some of you +have been), you must have the satisfaction of knowing that you are +living the sole way that makes life tolerable. The enemies who have sold +themselves for dollars are not happy; the indifferent ones, in Cuba, in +the United States, who follow opportunism—for success, for pleasure, for +power—are not happy. They must drug themselves with ever more success, +more pleasure, more power, lest they awake to the intolerableness of +their way of living. And that is why they hate you: because you are the +constant revealers to themselves of their own nullity. They must deny +their nullity; and by a common psychologic mechanism they do so by +denying _you_ who make them cognizant of it. + +I cannot promise you success in your present endeavor to free Cuba and +to bring Cuba to real independence. It would be false to promise it. +_You_ may not succeed in actually overthrowing the hideous anarchy of +which men like Machado are mere minor servants. So to do requires more +than your good will; it requires method, technique and long hard work. +But this triumphant method can come only from such will as yours. Before +you achieve it, perhaps you individually will be crushed, since the +ordered anarchy and greed of the modern world _has_ method. But even if +this is so—this worst which must be bravely envisaged, it makes no +difference in what you must do, not merely from a sense of duty, but in +order to be happy! You must go on struggling to free and to reorganize +your country; knowing that that labor is its own reward; that the man +who gives his life for freedom, by that fact is alive and is free. + +You know that your problem as Cubans struggling for independence is not +apart from that of most of the other nations of America Hispana. Yet you +are divided from your allies, not alone by mountains and deserts and +seas, but by proud persistent nationalisms, by differences of race and +culture—the differences of Indian, Negro, mestizo, criollo. You are all +rich in plunder, and the imperialist power feeds on it the better by +exciting the disunities between you. But you are profoundly gifted +peoples; your resources of the spirit are as great as the resources of +your lands—greater, surely, than the difficulties inherited from your +historic pasts. You will help yourselves and one another, synchronously, +by deeper self-understanding. For brothers who fulfill themselves +achieve thereby not homogeneity, but harmony. Without harmony, both your +lands and your cultures would be taken from you. But you are already far +on the way to achieving this organic unity among you, in cultural terms +and in terms of political aspiration. + +The imperialist power exploits you and incites you to fratricidal war, +because it has allies within your borders: your own capitalists and +their servants, the politicians. If you effectively fight the domestic +enemy, the foreign enemy will at last be helpless against you, even as +he was helpless against revolutionary Russia. I know that your task is +more complex than was Russia’s, because you are not politically united. +But, essentially, it is one problem. + +And it is our problem, too. We in the United States fight the same foe +as you. This, when we attain a conscious intelligentsia and a conscious +working class, will serve to unite us. + +Only from the platform of War Against Capitalism can you effectively +meet your national problem. For your foe is only superficially an alien +government; more deeply it is the capitalist power with its twin heads: +the Machados at home, the armed Dollar abroad. Most deeply, it is the +ignorance of all the people—in Cuba, in America Hispana, in the United +States. + +Students of Cuba, you have come out into the clear air of action; you +have created leaders for yourselves, and a program. You are blessed in +this. I find myself almost envying you, rather than pitying you despite +your anguish and your struggles. My heart and my mind are with you. If I +could feel that my word warmed you in the slightest degree, heartened +your perseverance, it would be for me an inexpressible joy, who am alone +here in this great country—alone, and unable to act for and with men +like you who stand for everything I cherish. + + NOTE: _This is one of many messages by the author clandestinely + introduced, printed in pamphlet form, and distributed, in + Latin-American countries under brutal dictatorships. It has been + re-Englished from the Spanish text._ + + + _iii. The Touchstone_ + _on the anniversary of the October Revolution, 1935_ + +More than ever, in this day of spiritual and social confusion, the +attitude of men toward Soviet Russia is a touchstone of the quality of +their good will. By this criterion three large groups stand forth. + +There are, first, the enemies of the Soviet Union: and these are the +souls whose true love, despite all their fine words of God and Man and +Freedom, is for their pocket-books. Their real nature is manifest in +their leaders, archetypes of human ugliness and degeneration—the +Hearsts, the Hitlers, the Hoovers. A second group consists of the +“liberals,” the “socialists,” the idealistic “revolutionaries” who are +so busy deploring the mistakes and injustices committed in the Soviet +Union that they have no time to understand or to defend it. These are +men (when they are sincere) so infatuated with their own private notion +of what truth and justice should look like that the spectacle of a great +nation, heroically serving truth and justice with the humble tools of +humble human nature, leaves them cold. Essentially, these are men +devoted to their own egos: men whose professional love for mankind masks +a childish and shallow and ill-tempered self-adoration. + +The third group consists of those who know that in the Soviet Union a +people is dedicated to the task for which in all ages the inspired +few—the prophets and the poets—have given their lives: the task of +founding upon earth, at last, a culture not of slaves but of men, a +society of universal justice, in which human truths shall be sought and +expressed by the common and communal life of all men and women. They +know that this people consists not of gods, but of humans. They know +that this people must meet and overcome, in their great undertaking, the +obstacles of a hostile world and, no less, the obstacles of their own +enslaved past and of their faulty natures as human beings. They know +that the labor of the Soviet Union is the more precious because it is +the work of humble men and women, subject to trial and error; and that +those who reject this labor because of its failures and imperfections +are at heart cowards. They know that if the dark years, in which we have +lived since the Great War, shall appear in the perspective of history as +the time of a great Dawning, the reason is the light that has come since +1917 from Russia. + +These sincere men and women, today more than ever, while the clouds of +aggressive ignorance and ill will gather upon the world, must declare +their devotion to the Cause of the Soviet Union. + + + _iv. To Romain Rolland on His Seventieth Birthday_ + +Your seventieth birthday comes at a time when France holds in her hands +the immediate destiny of the Western world. The result of the struggle +for power in France between the elements of reaction typified by the +Croix de Feu, which are the forces of death, and the elements of +re-creation typified by the Front Uni, which are the forces of life, may +well determine the result, at least as it affects those still living, of +the same struggle throughout the Occident. If France fails, Great +Britain fails; the sinister forces in the United States, emboldened by a +century of capitalist anarchy, may sweep America into the same disaster. +If France fails, Western man may fail: a period of overwhelming darkness +may intervene for us all, before that future time when our progeny once +again takes up the Torch, held aloft meanwhile—who knows for how +long?—by the Soviet Union and perhaps by certain parts of China, India, +America Hispana that prove inaccessible to fascist armies. + +In this crucial scene of mankind, as so often in the past, France plays +a leading role. And we, who celebrate your seventieth birthday, Romain +Rolland, perforce look upon you as the symbol of our hope in your great +country. You are a great man, a great _person_, Romain Rolland, because +you are a symbol; because a world spirit speaks _through_ you. At this +hour of crisis and of celebration, for many in my country, you incarnate +the genius which for eight centuries has sustained French culture. + +This genius is a kind of “common sense,” rare alas!—both individually +and collectively rare. It is “common” only as essence, as the universal, +is common. It is compounded of a ruthless clarity in meeting the Real +and in relating its parts together; of an invincible courage in +following whither the Real leads at whatever sacrifice of individual +peace and comfort; and of a creative vision in so mastering the facts +that they may ever more closely conform with man’s intuition of his +dignity and destiny. + +As I look about me at the world in which I have now lived for over forty +years, meeting men of all qualities of mind and temperament and talent, +I am appalled at the rarity of this “common sense”; and I am no longer +amazed at the cruel and dolorous pass to which the world has come. Men +of genius in the usual sense of the word are not rare; nor men of +physical courage, nor men of imagination. But terribly rare is the man +who, capable of knowing the truth, continues to serve the truth beyond +the point at which such service begins to make him suffer; terribly rare +is the man of imagination who, finding that he can sell his gifts at +high price unto the prostitutes and exploiters who rule the world, +elects still to give his gifts into the hands of his humble brothers; +terribly rare is the man who, possessing courage, does not get drunk +with it and lose his control of reality, finding it easier to move +armies or mobs than to master his own ego. + +Men of this rare “common sense” will, perhaps, someday be more common; +this, then, will be a different world. But until that time of maturity +arrives, these men are historic. You are one of them, Romain Rolland. In +you, there is no break between conviction and action; between +recognition of the truth and every word and deed within your power to +fulfill it; between the responsibility you feel for your dignity as an +heir of Man and the responsibility you feel for your dignity as a +servant of men. Ten years ago, I called you a _whole man_, Romain +Rolland. I cannot improve this term, today. The whole man is he who +possesses this common sense I speak of. + +I pray that France may duly celebrate the seventieth birthday of her +great son and heir to those intellectual and ethical qualities which +have made France great. If she does so, it will have to be by her +actions. France knows where the truth lies: will she have the common +sense to serve it? She knows that truth lies first of all in fearless +realization of the collective economic freedom which can alone make +_true_ those principles of _Egalité_, _Fraternité_, _Liberté_, which now +for a hundred years she has flaunted on all her public buildings. To +this end, the people of France must grimly sever from their loyalty to +_La Patrie_ those greeds and inertias and self-indulgences of class +which are the germs of fascism and of death. The hour has come when +France must accomplish the promise of her great tradition to herself and +to the world. She must mature into realization. It will hurt, it will be +heroic. But if France fails now, she goes down; she commits that suicide +of the spirit which ever precedes decomposition of the body. + +Great nations mirror their powers and their vision in the lives of their +great men. Let France, today, look to herself by looking to you, Romain +Rolland. Let her study the clear progress of your thought from the +humanitarian idealism of your bourgeois youth, through the trial of war +which schooled you to find the truth in _facts_, and to the strong +revolutionary realism which is your deed, today. What France sees, in +studying you, let her understand to be the symbol of her own ineluctable +course, if she would continue to be France. + +... This prayer to France, this challenge to France, this confidence in +France, is my way, Romain Rolland, of celebrating your seventieth +birthday. + + _January, 1936_ + + NOTE: _This letter, before publication, was read at the great mass + meeting held in the Paris Trocadéro, on Romain Rolland’s birthday._ + + + _v. To the Premier of France_ + +Dear Léon Blum: I presume to address you in this personal form because +you are more than the head of a French government, you are more than +leader of the People’s Front of the French nation: historic circumstance +has made you arbiter of the present destiny of Europe, perhaps of us +all. To fulfill your role, only a true man can suffice. And it is to the +man that I am speaking. + +All the world knows just what is happening in Spain. The Spanish people +last February by a great majority chose a government of their +own—somewhat similar to the one you are now leading. Having created a +government of their own, they proceeded by means moderate and legal to +create a Spain of their own. And as their program began to take effect, +the enemies of the people of Spain, they who hate the people because +they exploit them and because their privilege depends on the continued +degradation of the people, took arms against the nation. Alone, these +reactionaries would have failed, for they had almost a whole nation +against them. Even with the trained mercenaries of the army, with the +resources of vested property and vested superstition, they would have +failed. But there were allies at hand—groups of the same kind, some in +power and in possession of their respective countries, dealers in +falsehood and blood, manipulators of ignorance and confusion. With the +military and economic aid of these enemies of the Spanish people, and of +their own peoples, Spain is being invaded, Spain’s democracy is being +crushed, the world is being forced to stand by day after day while the +machines manned by mercenaries and by the lusters after power destroy +the naked body of a nation. + +Léon Blum, this is no civil war of Spain; this is the conquest of the +Spanish people by an armed international class to whom the destruction +of life in the defense of property is an everyday routine. This class +knows no frontiers. Its henchmen, called Hitler, Mussolini, Franco, the +Tories of Great Britain and America, may mouth national slogans, but +they are of one brotherhood, they adore one Baal and one Mammon. Was the +conquest of Ethiopia a civil war? Plenty of African troops fought with +Mussolini against the Negus who to them was a local exploiter less +desirable perhaps than the Italian. But who fights against the loyalists +in Spain? A military caste traditionally removed from sympathy with the +people, a clerical caste trained to submission to the powers that be, +all the dupes and victims of these castes—in other words, the forces, +whether in Spain, in Italy, in France or in Britain, who are the sworn +enemies of you, your party and your allies. + +This is not a civil war in Spain; this is the civil war of Europe. This +is a war of attempted conquest, Léon Blum, waged by all the elements you +have devoted your life to combat against all the values you hold dear. +It is your war, Léon Blum; it is our war. + +The fascists of Italy and Germany know this. They know that the fascists +of Spain are fighting _their_ battle of conquest. Therefore they are +giving aid to their own kind. And the reactionaries of Japan, the United +States, of every nation where money or privilege is in power, by the +force of credits and propaganda are helping the men of their own stamp +in Spain in order that their machines may prevail against a defense of +mere human flesh and blood. + +This, Léon Blum, is the war in which you have declared that France must +remain neutral. + +In all Europe there are three governments that can claim with validity +to represent the interests of the entire people. They are Spain, which +is fighting for life; your government, and the Soviet Union. The +U.S.S.R., far removed from the immediate scene of battle and menaced by +the two most aggressive militarist states of the world, Germany and +Japan, cannot act alone; cannot act at all without regard to the +decision of its sole ally, the French Republic. If the Soviet Union made +legal its overwhelming sympathy for the Spanish nation as against your +neutrality pact, you, Léon Blum, would fall; the People’s Front of +France would fall; there would be chaos in France to match Spain’s, and +perhaps a similar fascist uprising. + +What does this mean, Léon Blum? It means that yours is the decision. In +all Europe, France alone can act; France by the unified nature of its +government and by the immediate threat to it both east and south, must +act. + +The world knows where your heart lies in this struggle. We know that if +you could purchase victory for Spain with your life, you would gladly +give your life. We know that what holds you back is the refusal of the +British government to join you, is the criminal leadership of English +Labor, is—in a word—your fear of war waged against the lives of your +people by the united fascists. Yes, that is the superiority of the +fascists over men and women of the democracies. The fascists, despising +life, readily risk it; despising the lives of others, readily mislead +and destroy them; whereas at the Left are they who hesitate because they +think, because they feel, because they are more wholly human. + +But, Léon Blum, it is a true saying: He who hesitates is lost. There is +another old saying: He who loses his life shall find it. The words +originally had a supernatural meaning. We can give to them a modern, +psychological, rational form. We can say: “He who through fear of losing +what he values dares not run risks is sure to lose what he values.” You +fear war if you aid the Spanish people; you fear to alienate Britain; +you fear to provoke the enemy who are giving aid to their factions by +every means in their power. And your fear is helping the enemy; your +fear is making more hopeless the cause of the people not only in Spain +but in Germany and Italy, who need encouragement to rise against their +executioners. Your fear is making more assured the position of the +fascists when at last, made mad by their successes, they choose to +unleash their war against you. Your fear—if need be—to risk war now is +making war inevitable; and meantime your hesitancy and caution are +throwing to the fascists the first battles. + +Léon Blum, we who in everything human know ourselves superior to the +fascists must equal them in daring and in resolution. Otherwise, our +hatred of war and love of humanity will defeat us and deliver the world +to the war makers. There are times when the best strategy is to get +one’s eye on the goal and to move toward it. This is the strategy of the +fascists, and it has been victorious in Ethiopia, on the Rhine and +elsewhere. It is a strategy not every nation is able to pursue. Britain +is too divided to pursue it. France has the power, the perspective, the +government—and the incentive!—to pursue it. + +Already the aid of the fascists to their kind in Spain, while France +rigidly and solitarily remains neutral, is demoralizing the masses of +all countries. They say to themselves, in England, in France, in Brazil, +in the United States: “The fascists help their gangs; we leave our +people to be massacred and their cities to be bombed.” The masses do not +understand that the U.S.S.R. must act with France, must uphold _your_ +hand, Léon Blum. None of us understands what holds you back. Your +“neutrality” is breaking the heart and spirit of the peoples, +everywhere, who soon or late must fight _your_ battle. + +If I have presumed to address this letter to you, Léon Blum, it is +because I know that my anguish is that of millions before the tragedy of +Spain; and that my expectation of your leadership is that of millions +everywhere—not excluding those in Italy and Germany—who cannot act +alone, but who are waiting to follow. + +We implore you: Recognize the facts in Spain. Recognize that _there is +no neutrality_ in this irrepressible conflict between the two possible +futures of mankind—the way forward to human dignity, the way backward to +slavery. Open the frontiers of France for aid to the legitimate +government of Spain before it is too late! Help them with food, guns, +planes, credit, and above all with the moral force that will be theirs +when they know that the French are their comrades. If you do this, at +once, you will be doing merely what one legitimate government should do +for another; you will be doing merely what the fascists, the world over, +are doing for their conspirators in Spain. + +If you do less than this, Léon Blum, you are betraying what your country +represents, what your People’s Front gave you the mandate to perform. +You will be betraying mankind. + + _October, 1936_ + + + _vi. Values of the Revolutionary Writer_ + + (_This address was read at the first session of the American Writers + Congress held in New York in April, 1935._) + + + 1. _Definitions_ + +The world stands at the crossways. It goes forward into the socialist +order, or human culture, not as we know it but as we aspire to create +it, will perish. I do not say the way forward is certain. The life of +man is at issue; and with man the alternatives are present, at all +times, of life or of death. They are present now. But this is certain. +To agonize within the present system, to refuse to get clear by the +social revolution of the working classes, means the plunge of Western +man into a darkness to which his productive and his intellectual forces, +if they continue uncontrolled, must doom him: a darkness from which even +the intimations of light that have made our present, will have vanished. +This makes clear that the cause of the socialist society is not, +finally, a political-economic problem: it is a cultural problem: it is +_the_ human problem. + +I propose to show the specific value, in this crisis, of the literary +work of art—not as a chorus of revolutionary politics, not as an echo to +action: but as _an autonomous kind of action_. I propose to show that +above all in America today, owing to our peculiar cultural conditions, +the revolutionary writer must not be a “fellow traveler”: that his art +must be co-ordinate with, not subordinate to, the political-economic +aspects of the re-creation of mankind. + +This requires some definition of history and of literary art (for we are +engaged in making history). Fortunately, I may point to the historic +sense of mankind, implicit in Marx, as of a body which, like all organic +life, evolves by reason of inward assimilations of an objective world +from which it wins sustenance and on which it reacts—all according to a +pattern which is the nature of the organism: a pattern which in man is +capable of great variations chiefly through the process of what, +vaguely, we call consciousness. + +The part of consciousness, or if you prefer, of _experience_, in +historic evolution is important for us because it leads straight to the +social function of art. The work of art is a means (among other things) +for extending, deepening, our experience of relationship with life as +this organic whole. The feeling of intimate kinship with any part of the +objective world is what we mean by beauty. As this relationship expands +to an inclusive social form, it is what we mean by culture. The basic +social function of art is _so to condition men that they will, as a +social body, be the medium for the actions of growth and change required +by their needs_. These social actions, to be healthy, must be performed +within the true experience of _the whole of life involved_—and the +conveying, the naturalizing, of this experience is the especial function +of art. + +I will make this plain. Suppose a man needs to hammer nails for his new +house. He must hit the nails square on the head. But in order to do +this, the man must be in good general condition. If his eyes are poor, +if his brain is dizzy, all his technical skill of wrist-action won’t +save him from hammering nails badly. No man, it is obvious, is in shape +for even an act so simple as hitting a nail on the head unless his body +and mind are a fit _medium_ for the job. No society of men or class of +men is in shape for any needed action, save in so far as it has been +conditioned to become the _effective medium_ for that action. + +In simple societies, the prime conditioning arts are lyrical: they are +music, the song, the dance. By means of the experience absorbed and +sustained through them, the folk becomes the effective medium for the +kind of action its emotional and economic needs, and the needs of its +rulers, call for. In our world where a chaos of forces is breaking down +the life of man before our eyes, the chief conditioning art—although all +arts have their place—must be one to synthesize our complex pasts and +present, and to direct them. This is the art of words, by which man +captures the worlds and selves that have borne him, and renders them +alive with his own vision. + +We know now, roughly, the kind of social action to demand of our +literary art. It is in general to condition men for the multitude of +direct actions of which their life consists: it is, with us, the crucial +task of conditioning our readers—who we hope will be the workers, the +farmers, and their allies, to become the effective medium of revolution. + +This subtle process of _conditioning_ is not to be confused with the +work of direct _preparation_ for daily struggle: work which falls +primarily to the teachers, the theorists, the organizers of party and of +union, who are largely conditioned by the accumulated work of writers. +And it must be clear that this work of conditioning the social body, +however invisible it seems, is the direct action of the writers. Words, +of course, are also instruments for “preparation”: reportage, pamphlets, +slogans, manifestoes (this paper is a kind of manifesto), have their +legitimate uses in political work. But only in so far as the need of the +revolutionary _medium_ is understood; and as the main function of +literary art, _which is to create this medium_, prevails. The writer who +forgets this, in order to bend his art to some seemingly more immediate +task, weakens the organic health and progress of mankind by betraying +his integral part in it. And in a world full of hunger, of hideous +injustice, of threatening war, only a clarity rare, hard and heroic, +will hold the literary artist to his own often thankless, often +obscured, yet fundamental, action. + + + 2. _The American Writer Under Capitalism_ + +I apply at once these definitions to the special problems of the +American revolutionary writer. To this end, we must first glance at the +general state of readers and writers in our country. + +We have never lacked literary talents. But the economic soil in which +they rooted was washed away ere the roots could hold. We have had great +writers. They have been influential abroad, where an organic cultural +life possessing what we still lack—memory and consciousness—could employ +them. Here, a Poe, a Whitman, a Thoreau, a Melville, could win only +sentimental disciples because the discontinuity of ethnic and industrial +conditions made their message obsolete more quickly than a generation +could mature to hear them. We Americans are weak—infinitely weaker than +the peasants of China, America Hispana, or old Russia—in that intuitive +connection with soil and self and human past, which makes of a folk an +effective medium for creative action. In this, our common state of +cultural malnutrition, the need of sound literary art cries aloud. But +our writers have been attainted by the disease they must help to cure. A +sense of impotence, derived from their unconnectedness with the vital +classes of the American world, has delivered them up to a succession of +European fads and dogmas; and their reflections of foreign literary +styles, like the shallow glints of a kaleidoscope, have added up to +nothing. When they have turned to our world, our writers have been +unable to resist the overpowering pulls of the capitalist system. They +have been entertainers, purveyors of candy and cocktails. When at the +end of the War, they began to rebel in numbers, their revolt was hollow: +an exhibitionistic beating of drums or a snarl and a sneer. + +Now the deepest cause of their subjection as writers, and of their +impotence, is the hidden ideology of the American system, which—liberal +and conservative alike—most of our writers have absorbed. _And this is +painfully to the point_, because—whether they know it or not—the same +ideology prevails among our revolutionary writers. Far too many of us +have taken over the philosophy of the American capitalist culture that +we are sworn to overthrow. + + + 3. _The American Revolutionary Writer_ + +This American ideology, which has ruled from the beginning—from the time +of those prophets of bourgeois business: Benjamin Franklin and Alexander +Hamilton, the true masters of our way of life—is a shallow, static +rationalism derived from the thinnest, not the deepest, +eighteenth-century minds of France and Britain: an empirical rationalism +based on fact-worship, on a fetishism (both unscientific and unpoetic) +of the finished cut-and-dried report of the five senses, which is not +remotely related to the organic rationalism explicit in Spinoza and +implicit in the historical dialectic of Marx. Had this vulgar +rationalism ruled in seventeenth-century England and France, there would +be no modern science. It is, since it ignores the organic and evolving +nature of man, by definition the foe of all creative work: the foe, +therefore, however hidden, of art and revolution. + +Briefly, I will disclose symptoms and attitudes in our revolutionary +writers, which reveal (although the writers know it not) this sterile +philosophy.... + +(1) Disbelief in the autonomy of the writer’s art; in its integral place +_as art_ in the organic growth of man and specifically in the +revolutionary movement. This self-distrust makes the writer capitulate +_as artist_: leads him to take orders, _as artist_, from political +leaders—much to the dismay of the more intelligent of said political +leaders. It moves the American writer to misapply in his art borrowed +foreign definitions of values which have cogence in their place and time +of origin; but are meaningless here. This is a carry-over of the faddism +of middle-class American writing. + +(2) From the same inorganic view of life and hence of art, comes the +servile or passive concept of revolutionary literature as primarily +“informational,” “reflective,” “propaganda.” This is, of course, +borrowed from the mid-Victorian, middle-class idea of utilitarian or +moralistic art. There is no reason why good literature should not be of +high documentary importance, and have a strong political appeal. Indeed, +in a dynamic age like ours, a profound literary art, insofar as it must +reveal the deepest evolving forces of man at the time, must be +“propaganda” for these forces and for the goal of these forces. But this +kind of propaganda derives from the work’s effectiveness as literary art +and is dependent on it. + +(3) What murders the effectiveness of so much of our revolutionary +writing? The clue is the word “murder.” We all know that murder is a +conspicuous American trait: there are more murders, we are told, in the +United States in a day than in some European countries in a month. Now +murder is a sort of short cut: it is an oversimplified solution of a +problem—say, a nagging wife or husband—by simply getting rid of them. It +eliminates the _life_ of which the problem is a factor. What murder is +to the art of life, this dead philosophy is to knowledge; and translated +into literary terms it becomes “oversimplification.” Call it, if you +prefer, a kind of misplaced or _forced_ direct action. Here are some of +its results: + + (a) Novels, aiming to reveal the revolutionary portent and substance + of our world, which are stuffed with stereotypes ... or imitate the + spiced journalese of newspaper reports of surface events ... or echo + the bravado (hiding weakness) of the Hemingway-Dashiell Hammett + school ... or borrow the drab pedestrian effects of Victorian + realism—as if these were adequate to convey the body—tragic, farcical, + explosive, corybantic, tender, deep as hell and high as heaven, of + American life! + + (b) Proletarian tales and poems which portray the workers as half-dead + people devoid of the imagination, soaring wills and laughter, which + are the springs of creation—and of revolution. + + (c) Laborious essays in criticism and literary history in which the + organic bodies of the works of poets and prosemen are mangled and + flattened to become mere wallpapering for the structure of a political + argument.[15] + +(4) In these refusals, often by men of genuine literary gift, to +recognize the material for a deep revolutionary art, lies the one +ideological taint. Its final evil is to turn Marxism itself into a +dogmatically, mechanically _shut_ philosophy. And the effect of this, +were it to prevail on our eager, unschooled and sensitive youth (workers +as well as writers), would be to repel them: indeed, to drive many of +them (and not the worst because the worst bewildered) to seek a home in +reactionary schools of thought which do lip service to old forms of +man’s organic intuitions. + +If the youth of America are drawn by the decayed loyalties of +nationalism and church into the ranks of fascism, it will be _in part_ +because our revolutionary writers have been thwarted, by this dead +rationalism implicit in the dying capitalist culture, from making clear +that life today—in the depths that call for sacrifice, loyalty and +love—is on the side of revolution. + + +The American revolutionary writer ... to act his part, which is to +create the cultural medium for revolution ... must see life whole. He +will have a political creed; if he is a generous man, it will be hard +for him to forgo some share of the daily political-industrial struggle. +But his political orientation must be within, must arise from, his +orientation to life as an artist. Any course of action, any creed, lives +within the dynamic substance of life itself: _and this substance, in all +its attributes, is the business of the artist_. Therefore it is proper +to state that the artist’s vision of life IS the material of his art. + +There is much confusion among us as to “material” and “subject.” The +subject of a book is a mere label or container; it may mislead or be +empty. Our revolutionary poet or proseman, by his loyalty to the working +class (whether born in it or not) and by his natural selection of +strong, expressive subjects, will write more and more of the struggles +of farmer and worker. But if his vision be sound, it will make—_whatever +his subject_—the material for revolutionary art. The term “proletarian” +applied to art should refer to the key and vision in which the work is +conceived, rather than to subject. It should be a qualitative, not a +quantitative, term. A story of middle-class or intellectual life, or +even of mythological figures, if it is alight with revolutionary vision, +is more effective proletarian art—and more effective art for +proletarians—than a shelf full of dull novels about stereotyped workers. + +I wish to characterize two of our specific problems. + +We writers have two highways for reaching mastery of our material. We +must go into life ... in persons and in self. These two ways are really +one; and the writer must follow them together, else he will make headway +in neither. If we look upon persons or classes, save with the eye of +self-knowledge, we will not see them; and if we look inward upon self, +save with an eye disciplined by objective understanding, we will see +only the mists of egoism which are the tree self’s denial. Even more +complex is this double way we must take, and never cease from taking. If +we look upon persons of one class we will not know them unless we see +the class opposing. If we look upon the present of any scene, we will +not know it unless we see within it the past ... and its dynamic +direction: its future. _This is the dialectic of the artist._ + +Because classes are in mortal conflict, _and because we have taken +sides_, does not mean they have nothing in common: it means they have +life in common. The class struggle, for us, is a focus of light, a +modern form, by which timeless ingredients of human nature common to +every person are revealed. It is not a substitute for understanding, but +a kind of _spectrum_ wherein hunger, passion, love, pity, envy, worship, +dream, fear, despair and ecstasy receive a dynamic modern order. + +The other branch of our simultaneous highway is the self. Self is the +integer of value and of social action, the norm and form of life as man +may know it. The revolutionary writer must understand the _person_, or +his portraits of social struggle will be flat and ephemeral as the +poster on a billboard. As early as Shakespeare, Cervantes and Racine, +the artists were creating the image of the “lonely Soul,” the “atomic +will”—an image which served to make the _medium_ in which the +Protestant-bourgeois, individualist economy could flourish. We must have +poets to sing the image of the new and truer person: the person who +knows his integration with group and cosmos; the person through whom the +Whole speaks. + +Only by bringing home the timeless human values in the class struggle to +every member of the exploited classes and to the sensitive of all +classes (for under capitalism all decent men and women are oppressed) +can the writer stimulate the will to revolutionary action. Only by +deepening his comprehension of cultural historic forms, such as +religion, in which, however faultily and impurely, man’s profoundest +intuitions of his organic nature were embodied, can the writer touch the +_spirit_ of the American worker and farmer and middle class, to release +their spirit from obsolete forms into new creative channels. And only +thus can we save them from the decayed devotions which are the +treacherous bait of the fascists. + +Thus, for the American revolutionary writer to give less than the whole +picture is poor philosophy, poor art—and poor strategy. + +We are aware there is war; we have declared this war to be ours; and we +know that in war strategy is important. But this is a war whose +battleground is the world—the world of extension and, no less, the world +of inward depth. In this battle are countless separate struggles. Many, +engaged on their particular fronts, are forced by the crisis of their +position to ignore its relativity in the whole; or to misprize and +forget values which do not appear to apply to their one urgent need. +Therefore we writers must know the breadth and depth of the whole +struggle: know its background and its foreground: know its ultimate +values within its immediate aims: in order that, by the common +experience of our work, the balance and unity be kept; that in the fever +of struggle no human heritage of truth and freedom languish; and that +the great war for Man move, without error or blindness, to its issue. + +_Our_ special work is the universal. In our field there can be no +strategy but the whole truth. + +If a writer doubts this, I doubt he is an artist. + +If we believe that communism is the organic next step of the world to be +released by freeing the world’s forces of health, we must believe in the +art revealing man’s depths which bear this destiny. We will embody in +our work the substance of life: the blood, the bone, the eye, the +conscious embrace of necessity whose child is freedom—knowing that in so +far as we create this truth, we are moving, and moving those who hear +us, toward the Revolution. + + + _vii. The Writer’s Part in Social Revolution_ + + (_An address to the International Congress of Writers for the Defence + of Culture, held at Paris, June 21–25, 1935._) + +We are all here, not as Frenchmen, Germans, Americans, but as men of +letters who conceive their art as an articulation of the human spirit. +Each of us bespeaks his class and his country only in so far as he +voices deeply his self, and thereby voices mankind. This is the +irreducible character of the artist. Whether he knows it or not (and in +our day, most do not know it, whence the fragmentary and corrupted +nature of their works and of themselves as men), the artist is one who +acts on the premise that the universal lives in the particular; that +cosmos lives in the person. This is the meaning of the mysterious words +“beauty” and “truth” applied to art. As we share the universal in a +particular form—a painting of a tree, a story of a beggar—we call it the +experience of beauty. We feel the unity between self and some other +object, a unity which (far from destroying) heightens and _makes true_ +the particularity of both the self and the object. And whether we know +it or not, we value this experience of truth and beauty; we love it as +somehow good. This is another irreducible trait, beneath our +differences, of us all. The conflicts of our actual existence may so +weary and confuse us that we believe we long for death; may fill us with +distrust and despair: it is love of life, none the less because wounded +and twisted, that writes the darkest of our pages. In so far as a man +seeks beauty, he knows that life _is_ value; for the recognition of +beauty is nothing but the joyous acceptance of our part and our +participation in the body of living. + +In periods of normal cultural rhythm, when the social body moves +moderately well in all its organs, this act of conscious participation +in life as a whole, the essential act of the artist, can remain implicit +in the quiet body of his story or song or picture. Such times see no +Congress of Writers such as this one. But today the forms and modes of +human existence, unevenly evolved, have broken the equilibrium which is +life itself. Today, the active and aggressive faith in life, the +revelation of its intricate harmony, which is the sole science of the +artist, is so at variance with the actual world that we feel the need of +a direct action, transcending the solid, quiet, slow certainty of art, +to reinforce our love and our vision in the experience of the people. + +All this may seem to you irrelevant esthetics. But you must pardon me, +for the application I wish to draw from it (my brief message to this +Congress) is relevant. + +The revolutionary hour in which we live is but the present phase of the +process, centuries old and destined to outlast almost the memory of +economic conflict, whereby man (not a privileged, exploiting class, but +man as a whole) will emerge into a conscious culture; even as the child +at a certain physiologic stage must become adult or go down into +degeneration. The key of the present phase of the long process is +economic; therefore the importance of the class struggle and the +imperative of entering it on the side of the workers. But the process +itself, now as ever, is organic. By which I mean that _the whole of +man_, heart and mind, subtlest sense and deepest intuition, as well as +belly and loin, must partake of it—or it miscarries. + +The orthodox revolutionary creeds, which are the technique of the +transition of this crucial hour, do not comprehend the whole man. They +stress, rightly, the aspects of mass social-economic action. They slight +other parts of man: the intuitive, the intimate, the personal which +leads to the cosmic—phases which are the concern of the creative writer. +But since the process of man’s growth must at all times be complete, +these phases too must enter the revolutionary movement. Since they lag, +blame not the political leaders but the writers. Since in consequence +even the immediate economic aspect of the whole process lags, and +threatens to miscarry, again blame (at least in part) the writers. + +Excluding the hordes of parasites and peddlers who dare call themselves +“writers” only in a world where illiteracy thinks it can “read,” we +might divide our writers into two groups. The first stress the sensuous, +the personal; strive perhaps after the mystic; ignore utterly the masses +of men, and that vast region of each man’s life involved in economic +forces. The other group, often recruited or converted from the first, in +the enthusiasm perhaps of their discovery of the social-economic factor +limit themselves to it or at least permit their awareness of the +intimate, infinite dimensions of human life to become dulled. Their +work, like the first group’s, is inorganic. And what is worse, the great +Cause—man’s rebirth—to which they are devoted continues, because of +them, deprived of elements needed to make it whole and to make it live. + +Of course, the values of the creative writer, as I have named them, are +of the very stuff of the Revolution which, indeed, is the expression in +terms of urgent human need of just these values. At the heart of +socialism and communism, bequeathed to it direct by romantics like +Rousseau who saved it from the contradictory theological impedimenta of +the church, lies a view of men and of man which the degenerate humanisms +of the eighteenth century and the sectarian Protestant creeds had +abandoned. It is the view of human history as one organic body, growing +by tragic effort toward consciousness and justice; it is the view of the +individual (in so far as he is _real_) as an integer of this body, so +that the health of the whole and the health of every part are one; it is +the view that universal meaning is inherent in material behavior, and +therefore, that society becomes by its actions the immanent presence of +timeless value. This view, which I call the _organic_ view, is implicit +in every major artist, however dissident may be his intellectual +convictions. It runs with infallible continuity from the Egyptian +sculptors and the Hebrew prophets through the patrists, through the +builders of the Gothic, through the great sixteenth- and +seventeenth-century founders of modern science, through the systems of +Spinoza and Hegel—ineluctably leading to the historical-prophetic vision +of Karl Marx. + +But in the eighteenth century there had grown strong a countercurrent in +the thought of Europe. So successful was the conquest of facts about +material bodies, the capture of their movements in the laws of +mechanics, that certain men, hungry like all men for simplifications, +cut down the organic humanisms of Erasmus and Rabelais, the organic +rationalisms of Spinoza and Newton, to a dogmatic empiricism of the five +senses. Theirs was a “universe” containing everything that moved by +mechanical law—everything, that is, except life. And the victories of +applied science were so great that these shallow empiricists swelled in +prestige; while the organic view grew enfeebled, being confined to +artists with no “scientific” magic to win them credence, to mystics +overburdened with theologies that contradicted their intuitions, and to +simple men and simple women with no intellectual weapons. + +The nineteenth century, of course, brought giants who, in philosophy, +literature and the sciences, revived the organic view. In Marx, who +belongs to his century’s great tradition, the organic view of man is +fundamental, and is complete as in perhaps no other modern thinker +except Spinoza and Goethe. But this shallow empiricism was in the air. +Marx, overanxious to attack theological creeds and theological +metaphysics, at times fell into the use of easy terms borrowed from the +vulgar materialists whom he despised as much as he hated the idealists +against whom he aimed them. There are contradictions in Marx—great +prophet, great historical philosopher, great economist, but too harried +a man to be a complete logician. Often on the same page with an +unsurpassed word about man’s primal unity, in thought and deed, with the +dynamic principle of all life, one will find uncritical outcroppings of +sensationalism, phrases from the eighteenth-century materialists whom he +rejected, implicit denials of the validity and primacy of man’s +intuitive organic sense—all of which betray the premise of the Marxist +dialectic. These flaws in his work have been stressed as virtues in our +Western world by sterile men to whom a dogmatic reduction of life to the +report of the five senses offers comfort; and it has been a blight upon +our revolutionary growth. + +I have no time, nor need, to expatiate upon the symptoms of this blight. +The course of socialism in nineteenth- and twentieth-century Germany, +France, England, America, is full of them. Witness the degradation, one +might almost say the disappearance, of the _true person_ from +revolutionary letters as the individual is shrunk from an organic +integer of cosmos to a mere quantitative factor of the collective mass, +possessing no inwardness—in consequence of which the human mass likewise +becomes denatured. Witness the simplification of the human being to a +passive product of environment—a fallacy which any man who has ever +planted a carrot seed next to a pea in a garden knows enough to laugh +at. And the failure, in judging the course, both hideous and heroic, of +contemporary events, to allow, in some adequate modern term, for what +our fathers fancifully called the demonic and the angelic aspects of +human nature. Witness the degradation of literature from being an +integral part of life’s creative process to a mere reflection of events +falsely conceived as “objective” or to a mere instrument for some +surface action. Witness, in such poor thought as this, the decay of +logic and the decay of metaphysics. Witness, above all, the dangerous +failure to distinguish between the true essence of religion—its creative +role in human culture—its major role, indeed, in the genesis of +socialism, and religion’s outworn theological and class superstructures. + +All such systems indicate the contempt for human life and destiny which +comes when man is cut off from his primitive participation in the cosmos +without finding a conscious synthesis (the task of the writers!) to +replace it: all, regnant in the vulgar revolutionary thought of Western +Europe and America, strike at the very heart of revolutionary meaning. + +In agricultural lands, such as Russia, China, great sections of America +Hispana, the folk have not lost that immediate integration with life, +through soil and self, which is the organic sense in its first phase. +The revolutionary doctrines of the West, even with their present +limitations, tend to free these peoples from the imposed dualism of +their priestcraft, to discipline them for technical advance against the +cloudy helplessness in which their misery has mired them, and to release +their instinctive monism so that it should flow with ease into the +organic view and form of a communist order. This procedure is +particularly plain in the Soviet Union where, despite an orthodox +terminology which frequently sounds mechanistic or traditionally +dogmatic, the true foundations of organic Marxism are understood and are +being passionately enacted by the people. + +In our industrialized countries, the case is different. Science, +prostituted and misapplied, has for a hundred years plowed down the +primitive monistic intuitions of the masses: the same vulgar empiricism +which attaints our literature flouts its obscene excesses in every penny +paper, every school, every church. The stress on the “environmental,” +the “behavioristic,” the “economic” man, the failure to appeal, in +revolutionary terms, to _the whole man_, stimulates the mechanolatry to +which we are already enslaved; dims further our enfeebled sense of +wholeness from which alone fertility and power issue; and threatens our +whole birth-period with disaster. + +I do not deny the economic-political causes of fascism. But only +psychological and cultural factors in all the people can explain its +spread. Among these factors, pre-eminently in Germany, was the failure +of both great revolutionary parties to lead forward into fresh forms of +loyalty and action those primordial intuitive energies of man which, +balked of their future, flow back into the rotted channels of church, +state, race, devotion to a Fuehrer mouthing decayed loyalties—there, of +course, to be exploited by the sinister high priests of Money. + +I do not mean that the revolutionary cause in its present form fails to +enlist the heroic loyalties of numbers of men and women. The +concentration camps of Hitler give the lie to such a statement, as does +every industrial struggle of the world from the Saar to California, +where you will find them: the young crusaders for Man, the geniuses of +social vision, clear-eyed, quiet of soul. These are the gifted vanguard +who, of their own lyric health, absorb and express what is deeply +organic in the revolutionary movement. But the world cause cannot rely +exclusively on heroes or on the natural poets of action. Its Word must +be such as to fire also the more cautious, the more conservatively +rooted. And the more subjectively sensitive must also be entrained, +those hosts of men and women (teachers, poets, mothers, subtle and +humble craftsmen) whose religious and esthetic instincts are balked by +the antireligious and antiesthetic conventions of most Marxists. For +each youth who is driven into the fascist ranks because he finds it easy +to adore his own petty ego magnified in a Fuehrer or a Duce, there are a +score of men and women too decent and intelligent to be tempted by these +obscene gestures, who yet remain unmoved while the world cries for them, +because the appeal of Revolution _seems_ to deny those very depths of +man, secret and mysterious, whence the creative will and energy must +issue. + +The New World of which the old world is in travail is like an embryon. +Until it be whole, it cannot be born. What intimate _knowing_ moves the +embryon, long after its organs and muscles are complete? This knowing of +completeness is the final phase of completion. When it is there, and not +before, the being issues forth; a new life breathes.... I sometimes feel +that all the organs, the limbs, the brain and nervous system, of the New +World exist. They are the laws of science, the methods of production and +communication, the treasures of literature, art, religious wisdom; and, +embodying these, the mass of workers possessed of the will and the +power, together with their indispensable leaders, drawn from all +classes, the intellectuals, the teachers, and technicians. Why, in this +hour of travail, when death threatens the generations of man, does not +the new life issue? The final integrality is lacking ... the final +completeness which is organic consciousness, the _knowing_ harmony of +all the parts, making them move to life, making them breathe together. +This, within the ready social body, is the function of the writer. + + +4. TERRE HAUTE HOTEL + +Outside the nine cells[16] of our ward runs a corridor which is left +open part of the day, and through its barred windows I can see the +country. Right under my eye is the mellow muddy river that Theodore +Dreiser’s brother sang, long ago. On the banks of the Wabash I see a +huge pile of discarded cars, rust-rotted fragments of machines, shanties +paintless and broken-roofed, the homes of human discards among the +industrial refuse. This view outside the jail makes me feel at home in +the jail. The bars shut me into, rather than out of, a familiar world. + +The men in the ward enhance my feeling of having come more close to the +America that put me here. There are details, of course, inanimate or +crawling, to which I am not used; but like the iron-barred windows, the +grated doors, these separating elements are superficial; they do not +avail against the growing knowledge that to be in this jail, among these +men, and with the police and the chamber of commerce outside, is to be +at the heart of a common experience and (given the society we live in) +to be in the right place. + +The men of our ward have set up a “kangaroo court” to deal with their +day-by-day needs, problems primarily of supplementing the vile, scant +prison food, of bringing in tobacco, of keeping the ward comparatively +clean. The chief of the court is a big fellow whom I’ll call Jack, a +natural leader. Jack’s boyhood was rooted in the shanties along the +banks of the Wabash; joy for him, from the earliest days, meant escape +from everything familiar—and the best means to it, whisky. Jack found a +good job in a local gymnasium. One night of payday, he left a bootleg +dive and was attacked by a gang who knew that he had dollars in his +pocket. There was a fight; a policeman butted in, and a chance blow of +Jack’s great fist sent him to the pavement, fracturing his skull. The +cop died, and when Jack got out of jail, the police hounded him and no +more jobs were open. Jack had to eat, he had to drink, he had to have a +girl; so he became a bootlegger. From then on, he has spent half his +time in jail. When he’s out, he falls inevitably back into the one way +he can think of to make a living: a way of disorder, of course. + +But here in jail (where he has more essential freedom than outside), +Jack is an orderly man. His cell is clean, his clothes, his toilet +articles, his library of magazines, are arranged in shipshape fashion. +With a Flit can, he holds the bugs in abeyance. And with his authority +as chief of the kangaroo court, he keeps order in the ward, teaching the +newcomers and the vags who are let in for the night their duties and +their places. Jack is a great reader, and if what he reads is trash, the +reason is that trash is all he knows—a point in common with the +vigilantes. He is the kind of taciturn man who, when he talks, talks +well. I note, in his description of his friendship with the little +children of his brother, the tenderness that is in him, the kind of +tenderness that I have often felt in preadolescent boys for very little +children. Utterly wanting in Jack is a critical sense of the society he +lives in, is a concept for understanding and bettering his place. +Mentally, spiritually, he is a child, because he has been stopped from +growing; but in his fixedness of immaturity certain virtues of the boy +remain untarnished. I observe this, when he comes into my cell, of his +own accord, and shows me the trick of driving the bedbugs to cover. And +I shall not forget his bringing out to me, as a spread for my bread, his +jar of peach preserve, a homemade gift from his mother; and his +sensitive lie, when he feels my hesitation (I know already what good +food means in jail): “Go ahead, eat all you want—I don’t eat that stuff +much.” + +Jack’s right-hand man is Pop, who supervises the ward’s housework, +cooking, cleaning, laundry; an old man of sixty doing time for perjury. +Pop’s grey face has a beauty difficult to decipher, until one catches +its two main elements: a childlike, animal gaiety impervious to +experience and an old man’s pain, the two transfused into a mask, sly, +ironic, covering them both. Pop also is a child; he’d play treacherous +tricks on you if he chose; that is clear. But it is also clear that if +you touch his emotions decently, he may not choose. He’s a child brought +up among hostile and undiscerning masters. He does not question their +authority, nor does he conform. He escapes by remaining in the limbo of +his boyhood, a psychological place beyond good and evil but saturated +with feeling and humor. + +Tony is the kind of chap who affects white buck shoes, and even in stir +tries to keep them polished if not clean. He wears a saffron necktie and +his blond hair is pushed up from his vague blue eyes in a pompadour. +Tony is being held for manslaughter—killing a truckman while driving his +car in a state of intoxication. He used to be an iron molder; but +molding jobs have run thin in the mills since the production of capital +machines has dwindled; and bad times have reduced him to the status of a +common laborer. He likes the boys in jail; he’s having a good time doing +nothing. + +In this, he is like the farm boy from the Kentucky border—Willie—who +denies the grand larceny charge that has put him here, but visibly +enjoys his moratorium from cribbing corn and milking. Willie, with +brand-new blue overalls, curled-up amber hair, baby blue eyes, could +take the part of the farmer’s son in the melodrama, the youth smelling +of clover who comes to the big city to reclaim his girl lured by the +wicked traveling salesman. Willie is handsome, nonchalant, illiterate, +with many a childish virtue. Back on the farm he has a wife and two +kids. He is glad to be free of them for a while, and time for him does +not go beyond the vague measure of a season. + +When night falls, the lock on the door frequently grinds and the +homeless men are turned in for a night’s lodging. Not to dull my story +(which has a point, if you’ll be patient), I’ll describe but two of +these night-guests. One is an old man, dweller in the filthiest shanties +of the Wabash, an aged human body clad in squalor. Sam has been south, +picking cotton, and he tells us it doesn’t pay. That’s why he’s back +home. He hails the tin dish of malodorous slop called supper with +delight; although he has no teeth, the pork chop gets gnawed to the +bone. + +Beside Sam is a riveter, a young South Indianan who has helped build +bridges from Bayonne to St. Louis. He’s broke, but he expects a job +tomorrow. Meantime, he shows us where a molten rivet missed his pail and +caught him in the belly; his clothes ablaze, he jumped to the elevator, +dropped to a tank of water and then spent three months in a hospital +bed. But he’s all right now: to prove it he takes hold of a steel butt +on the ceiling with the forward half of his fingers and chins himself +six times. Old Sam jumps up, and chins himself twice, giggling with +pride. Sam’s body is still gamy and beneath his dirty unshaved beard is +the bland face of a boy, a face essentially sweet.... + +Do not judge that I am sentimentalizing this common, typical group of +failures. There are, of course, vicious men in jails, just as there are +vicious men out of jail. They are the exception in both categories, and +I’m sure I do not know in which one will find relatively more. Perhaps +the vicious among convicts are as rare as the Mellons, Rockefellers, +duPonts, among businessmen; as the Hearsts among journalists; as the +Hitlers and Huey Longs and Coughlins among politicians. Every broad +social group has certain basic traits; in the criminal group not +viciousness is such a trait, but _childishness_. Without a doubt, the +percentage of rotten men among criminals is so small it is no wonder +that every single man in my ward of the jail happens to be a decent +person. + + +That they were all childish was not accidental. It may help to explain +why I liked these men. I have always felt at ease among children. And +perhaps this means that I am something of a child myself. And this draws +me closer to the point of my story. + +Two inmates of our ward, mugged and fingerprinted like the rest of us, I +have not yet named. They are the communist organizers, Andrew Remes and +Charles Stadtfelt. Stadtfelt is a young man with a playboy’s smile and a +body pitifully invaded by tuberculosis. So slight is Stadtfelt’s +resistance that every hour or so he must dive into his lousy bunk, under +mine, for a rest. When he emerges, there is a cigarette in his mouth, a +laugh in his eyes and a jest on his tongue. Stadtfelt’s way of curing +his consumption is to forget it, and devote his life to bringing on the +Revolution. There is no feverish strain in his good humor; it comes from +a harmony of the whole man which tubercular bacilli have not yet broken. +The second communist, Remes, is studious and unsmiling. Brought in later +than I, the first thing he does is to ask me for an explanation of why +the Soviet Union does not officially help the Spaniards. Back and forth +in the corridor we walked, while he put his questions. But the sobriety +of Comrade Remes is not objectionable to the camaraderie of the others. +His intellectual preoccupations trouble them no more than his working +out the crossword puzzles in the old papers (while they hunt tales of +daring gunmen and passionate lovers). Instinctively, they are aware that +Remes looks at the bosses with eyes parallel to theirs. + +These bosses are the symbolic “fathers” who keep the boys behind bars. +They have tools. Lowest are the turnkeys, for the most part men +brutalized by long practice of mechanical repression without +understanding; men dehumanized to the bare repressive function. A little +less low are the police, dull incarnations of conformity to the rules +the criminals break; professional opponents, players of the same game as +the lawless but on the other side of the line and held in contempt by +the crooks, who instinctively sense that to obey the rules of our +society means less fantasy, less generosity, less feeling, than to break +them. The true fathers are rarely seen by their unfortunate children: +they are the respectable citizens, the taxpayers, the makers of the +rules, the builders of the courts and jails, the dealers of prison +terms. Implicitly, men like Jack, Pop, old Sam and Tony regard them as +children regard grownups. + +These pillars of society are less childlike than the jailbirds. But they +are not the mature men fathers should be. If they were mature (and the +crooks instinctively know this), there would be less filth in jail, +there would be no need of jail at all, there would be less misery, +corruption, injustice, in the chaotic outer world which the jail’s false +order impotently strives to correct. The lawbreakers are children; the +sustainers of the legalized anarchy called the capitalist system are +neither children nor grown men. Call them men in a transition between +infancy and adulthood: that will explain their natural selection for +eminence by a society that is itself an epoch of transition. Capitalism +is a transition age between the naïve childhood of the race and that +mastering maturity in which alone the dreams, values, inventions of +childhood, transfigured, may flower. + +This explains why the “children” are in jail; why the men who have not +grown up build the jail and place the “children” in it: it explains also +why the communists, who are creating a form for maturity, are in jail +with the “children.” The two communists in our ward (not to mention the +leading communist in a ward belowstairs) legitimately stand for a will, +a discipline, a method, whereby men may outgrow the irrational chaos of +capitalism, may mature to a society for both grown men and children. By +this truth, symbolically, the communists belong in jail. For the values +which they strive, through changing the laws, to bring to normal life +are kin to the values which the criminals, by breaking the laws, +impotently struggle to retain. The mature man rounds the cycle, giving +organic form to the lyric impulses of childhood—the need for joy, for +play, for freedom, which man outgrows at his peril. + +But this natural conjunction of child and mature man in a jail, as +against the halfmen who put them in jail, may be still further +broadened. After we had been released, Chief of Police Yates came up to +us. Yates is a jaunty young man, smooth and hard-eyed, half a machine, a +type too common in this world, without whom fascism could not function. +He is simply the shallow young man, wanting to get along in a hurry, who +sells out to the forces in immediate power—the owners of the Machine; +and who wants for his reward, not so much a fat pay envelope as freedom +to give play to his desires, less destroyed than repressed into sadism +by the dull business world of which he also is a victim. + +Yates saunters up to us, and tells us with pride of the congratulatory +cable he has received from Berlin. Capitalist society has already driven +back into infantilism the weakest members of the working class; and you +will find some of them in jail. Fascism is a method for finishing the +process! Fascism would _infantilize_ all the workers; not in order to +put them into jail if they are good boys, but to put them into a brown, +black or silver shirt, and stick a slogan in their mouths and call them +the fatherland’s army. Fascism is the program for the forced regimented +infantilization of the people; implicit or explicit, it must be the +program of all rulers under capitalism, since these rulers, by the +nature of their transitional order, are themselves caught in a +transition before maturity, are not men enough to lead men or to work +with men, and are compelled, before the threatening maturity of the +masses, to drive them all—through force, falsehood, ill nurture—down to +a morbid, regressive, infantile level. + +Either down to infantilism or forward to the revolutionary beginning of +a human order in which normal men may normally mature: that was the +choice, palpable as human bodies, within our ward’s barred windows. In +the Terre Haute jail I had our world with me: the atavistic, careless +and abnormal; the future, striving to be; the dolorous, dangerous +present. I felt at home there.... + + _1936_ + + + + + INDEX + + + Abélard, Peter, 134 + + Absolutists, 88 + + Adams, John, 96 + + Aeschylus, 137 + + Agnosticism, 216 _et seq._ + + Agrarian class culture, 96 _et seq._ + + Akiba, Rabbi, 197 + + Alcott, Louisa May, 167 + + Alexander, S., 84 + + “Alice in Wonderland,” Lewis Carroll, 169 + + Allan, John, 162, 164 + + Anarchism, 181 _et seq._ + + Anarchists, 179 _et seq._ + + Anderson, Margaret, 99 + + Anderson, Sherwood, 93–96, 99, 214 + + Andrewes, Lancelot, 221, 223 + + Aquinas, St. Thomas, 82, 121, 134, 153, 174, 197 + + Aragon, Louis, 131, 135, 165 + + Aristotle, 121, 137, 143, 204 + + Arlen, Michael, 140 + + Arrast, Harry d’, 67, 70 + + Art, 142 _et seq._, 149 _et seq._, 186 + folk, 119 + modern, 146 + organism, 145 + utilitarian, 142 + + Artists, American, abroad, 149 _et seq._ + religious, 152 + + “Atlantic Monthly, The,” 214 + + “Atlantis,” Hart Crane, 106 + + Attitude toward life, 202 + + Augustine, St., 196, 197 + + Automobile, 48 _et seq._ + + “Ave Maria,” Hart Crane, 103 + + + Bach, Johann, Sebastian, 83 + + Bacon, Roger, 134, 137 + + Bakunin, Mikhail, 177 + + Balzac, Honoré de, 5, 82, 179 + + Bancroft (ballplayer), 23 + + Baseball, 21, 38, 40 + + Batty, William, 233, 234, 236, 239 + + Baudelaire, Charles, 167, 220 + + “Baudelaire,” T. S. Eliot, 223 + + Bazalgette, Léon, 165 _et seq._ + + Beethoven, Ludwig van, 82, 179 + + Bergman, Henry, 63, 67 + + Bergson, Henri, 84, 128, 191, 245 + + Berkman, Alexander, 177, 179, 180 + + Bernard, St., 134 + + Billings, Josh, 131 + + Binns, Abraham, 235, 236 + + Blake, William, 82, 98, 134, 163, 179, 190, 220 + + Blum, Léon, appeal to, 265–269 + + Bourne, Randolph, 59 _et seq._ + + Bradley, George G., 223 + + Brady, Edward, 179 + + Brancusi, Constantin, 148, 149 + + Braque, Georges, 148, 149 + + Breton, André, 135 + + “Bridge, The,” Hart Crane, 102 _et seq._, 106 + + “Broken Tower, The,” Hart Crane, 106 + + Brooks, Van Wyck, 150, 166, 168 + + Broun, Heywood, 39 + + Browder, Earl, 287 _n._ + + Brown, John, 167 + + Brown, Sonia, 149 + + Bryan, William Jennings, 129 + + Buddha, 84, 98 + + Burke, Edmund, 78 + + Burke, Walter, 236 + + Burlak, Ann, 236, 237 + + Burns, Robert, 114 + + + Cabell, James Branch, 141, 144, 145, 214 + + Calverton, V. F., 276 + + Calvin, John, 134 + + “Calvin Coolidge. His First Biography,” 45 + + “Cape Hatteras,” Hart Crane, 105 + + “Capital,” Karl Marx, 85 + + “Castle of Otranto, The,” Hugh Walpole, 116 + + Cather, Willa, 141, 170 + + Cellini, Benvenuto, 205 + + Cervantes, Miguel de, 138, 276 + + Cézanne, Paul, 83, 147, 149 + + Chaney, Lon, 115 + + Chaplin, Charles, 61–73, 115 + “Circus, The,” 73 + clothes, 67 + “Gold Rush, The,” 115 + mementos, 62 + reserve, 63 _et seq._, 72 + studio, 67 + working habits, 66 _et seq._ + + Chasseloup, Comte de, 62 + + Chateaubriand, François René, 165, 166, 167 + + Christians, 215 + + Christian Scientists, 215 + + Citroën, M., 112 + + Civil War, 97 + + Claudel, Paul, 165 + + Clemm, Mrs., 162 + + Clive, Henry, 67 + + Cobb, Ty, 23 + + Cocteau, Jean, 131 + + Codesido, Julia, 149 + + “Collected Poems of Hart Crane, The,” 108 _n._ + + Collins, Wilkie, 221 + + Communism, 181 _et seq._ + + Comte, Auguste, 82 + + “Confessions of Rousseau,” 85 + + Congress Against War, 254–256 + + Conrad, Joseph, 138 + + Coolidge, Calvin, 45 _et seq._, 125 + + Coolidge, Mrs. (mother of Calvin), 45 _et seq._ + + Cooper, James Fenimore, 5 + + “Country of the Pointed Firs, The,” Sara Orne Jewett, 169 + + Cowley, Malcolm, 128, 135 + letter to Waldo Frank, 131 + + Crane, Clarence Arthur, 98 _et seq._ + + Crane, Hart, 96–108 + ancestry, 98 + birth, 98 + death, 106 + employed in candy business, 99 + literary associations, 99 + mystic, 100 + purpose of work, 97 + + Crime, 35 _et seq._ + (_see also_ Murder) + + Critics, 139, 141 _et seq._, 202 + + Crocker, Harry, 67, 70 + + Croly, Herbert, 75 _et seq._ + + Crossword puzzle, 27 + + Cuban independence, message to Cuban students, 256–260 + + Cultures, 193 _et seq._ + + “Cutty Sark,” Hart Crane, 104 + + + Dada movement, 128 _et seq._, 165 + in America, 129 _et seq._ + in Europe, 128 _et seq._ + + _Daily News_, New York, 123 + + Dante, 82, 102 _et seq._, 121, 134, 138, 142, 153, 174, 220, 225 + + “Dante,” T. S. Eliot, 222 + + Darwin, Charles Robert, 83, 84, 86, 90, 191, 200, 207 + + Davies, Marion, 63 + + “Decline of the West, The,” Oswald Spengler, 188–201 + + Delacroix, Ferdinand V. Eugène, 83 + + Democritus, 137, 195 + + Dempsey, Jack, 30, 32 + (_see also_ Prize fighting) + + Derain, André, 148, 149 + + Descartes, René, 83, 137 + + Dewey, John, 79, 135, 174, 216 + + “Dewey’s Suppressed Psychology,” Scudder Klyce, 216 _n._ + + “Dial, The” (magazine), 214 + + Dickens, Charles, 5, 221 + + Dickinson, Emily, 96, 98 + + “Divina Commedia,” Dante, 102 _et seq._, 121, 191 + + Donne, John, 99 + + “Don Quixote,” Cervantes, 73, 103 + + Dostoevski, Feodor M., 76, 82, 83, 86, 92, 134, 190 + + Dreiser, Theodore, 174, 214, 287 + + Dryden, John, 220 + + Durant, Will, 135 + + + Eddington, Sir Arthur, 211 + + Eddy, Mary Baker, 215 + + “Edgar Allan Poe Letters Till Now Unpublished,” 161 _n._ + + Edwards, Jonathan, 96 + + Einstein, Albert, 137, 138, 211, 245 + + “Elegy,” Thomas Gray, 226 + + “Eleonora,” Edgar Allan Poe, 163 + + Eleusinians, 137 + + El Greco, 149 + + Eliot, T. S., 153, 214, 220–227 + leadership, 226 + lives in static world, 224 _et seq._ + traits, 221 _et seq._ + + Emerson, Ralph Waldo, 77, 97, 98, 163, 167, 168, 173 _et seq._ + + Engels, Friedrich, 181 + + Epstein, Jacob, 149 + + Erasmus, Desiderius, 283 + + Esthetics, 187 + + Ethiopia, conquest of, 266 + + Euclid, 137 + + “Eureka,” Edgar Allan Poe, 163, 164 + + Euripides, 142 + + “Europe” (magazine), 253 + + + Fairbanks, Douglas, 65, 115 + + Fairy tales, 170, 172 + + “Fall of the House of Usher, The,” Edgar Allan Poe, 163 + + Fascism, 285, 294 + + Fascists, 266 _et seq._ + + Faure, Elie, 184 + + Felipe of Spain, 124 + + Fichte, Johann Gottlieb, 97 + + Firbank, Arthur, 131 + + Firpo, Luis, 32 + + Flaubert, Gustave, 165 + + Florida, 41 _et seq._ + + Folk art (_see_ Art) + + Ford, Henry, 55, 112 + + Fort, Paul, 133 + + France, Anatole, 15, 205 + + Francis, St., 82, 205 + + Franco, General, 266 + + Franklin, Benjamin, 77, 274 + + Freud, Sigmund, 82–93, 203, 245 + began as physician, 84 + dream interpretation, 86 + family, 83, 89 + follower of Kant, 88 + scientific value of work, 88 + + Freudian system, indictment of, 91 _et seq._ + + Frick, Henry Clay, 180 + + Frost, Robert, 97, 170 + + Fuller, Margaret, 170 + + “Function of Criticism, The,” T. S. Eliot, 224 + + + Gabirol, Ibn, 134, 197 + + Gauss, Karl Friedrich, 138 + + Gide, André, 84 + + Gish, Dorothy, 115 + + Gish, Lillian, 115 + + Gladstone, William E., 78 + + Godwin, William, 183 + + Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von, 138, 139, 142, 164, 184, 192, 283 + + “Golden Day, The,” Lewis Mumford, 173 _et seq._ + + Goldman, Emma, 177–183 + rejects bolshevism, 181 _et seq._ + traits, 178 + + Gourmont, Remy de, 132 + + Gray, Thomas, 226 + + “Great Tradition, The,” Granville Hicks, 276 _n._ + + Greeley, Horace, 167 + + Griffith, David Mark, 65 + + Gris, Juan, 148 + + Griswold, Rufus W., 161 + + + Haeckel, Ernst Heinrich, 213 + + Halevi, Jehuda, 197 + + Hamilton, Alexander, 274 + + Hammett, Dashiell, 275 + + “Harper’s,” 214 + + Hart, Grace, 98 + + Hart, William, 65 + + Hassam, Childe, 147 + + Hawthorne, Charles W., 147 + + Hawthorne, Nathaniel, 170, 173 + + Heap, Jane, 99 + + Hearst, William Randolph, 63 + + Hecht, Ben, 110 + + Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich, 82, 135, 138, 191, 283 + + Hemingway, Ernest, 94, 214, 275 + + “Henry Thoreau, Bachelor of Nature,” Bazalgette, trans. by Van Wyck + Brooks, 165, 166, 168 + + Heraclitus, 137, 195 + + Hergesheimer, Joseph, 141 + + Hennes Trismegistus, 97 + + Hicks, Granville, 276 + + Hitler, Adolf, 240 _et seq._, 246, 253, 266, 286 + + Hollywood, 61, 68 + + Holmes, Oliver Wendell, 5 + + Homer, 5 + + Hooker, Thomas, 96 + + Hosea, 134 + + “Huckleberry Finn,” Mark Twain, 170 + + Hulme, T. E., 205 + + Hume, David, 138 + + Hurst, Fannie, 140 + + Huxley, Aldous, 145, 203, 204 + + Hylan, Mayor, 40 + + + Iamblichus, 196 + + Ibsen, Henrik, 7 + + “Idylls,” Tennyson, 169 + + Ikinilik, 91 + + Indian, American, 125 + + “Individual Talent,” T. S. Eliot, 224 + + Industrialism, 116 _et seq._ + + Ingres, Jean Auguste Dominique, 83 + + “Interpretation of Dreams, The,” Sigmund Freud, 85 + + + “Jacob’s Room,” Virginia Woolf, 145 + + James, Henry, 150, 151, 153, 174, 205 + + James, William, 174 + + Jazz, 118, 119 _et seq._ + + Jefferson, Thomas, 96, 98 + + Jewett, Sara Orne, 169 _et seq._ + + Jewry, 123, 240–253 + American, 243 + defined, 242 + economic function in Middle Ages, 247 + German, 240, 245 + leaders, 244 + persecution, 240, 253 + and social justice, 248 + + Johnson, Walter, 40 + + Joyce, James, 145, 150 + + Jung, Carl, 92, 126 + + + Kafka, Franz, 84 + + Kant, Immanuel, 82, 138, 190, 191 + + Klyce, Scudder, 216 _n._ + + Kotzebue, August von, 139 + + Kreymborg, Alfred, 99 + + Kropotkin, Peter Alexeivitch, 177 + + Krutch, Joseph Wood, 201–220 + + Kuhn, Walt, 149 + + + Laforgue, Jules, 99 + + Lajoie, Napoleon, 23, 32 + + Lamarck, Jean de, 200 + + Landis, Kenesaw M., 23 + + Larbaud, Valéry, 165 + + Lardner, Ring, 71 + + Laurentius, St., 124 + + Lawrence, D. H., 74 _et seq._, 102, 145 + + “Leaves of Grass,” Walt Whitman, 5 + + Leibnitz, Gottfried Wilhelm, 90, 137, 191 + + Lenin, Nikolai, 72 _n._, 181 + + “Leonardo da Vinci,” Sigmund Freud, 85 + + Lewisohn, Ludwig, 221 + + “Liberation of American Literature, The,” V. F. Calverton, 276 _n._ + + “Ligeia,” Edgar Allan Poe, 163 + + Lincoln, Abraham, 114, 201 + + Literature, pseudo, 139 _et seq._, 141 + progress of, 131, 134 + + “Little Review, The” (magazine), 99 + + Lloyd, Harold, 115 + + Lloyd, Marie, 221 + + Lobachevski, Nikolai, 138 + + London, Jack, 174 + + Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth, 5, 6 + + Lorentz, Hendrik, 138 + + Lowell, Amy, 99 + + Lowell, James Russell, 5 + + + Mach, Ernst, 137 + + Machado, Gerardo, 257, 258 + + Machine, 153 _et seq._ + + Madison, James, 96 + + Maillol, Aristide, 148, 149 + + Maimonides, 197 + + Mallarmé, Stéphane, 132 + + Mani, 196 + + Marin, John, 146, 148, 149 + + Marinetti, Filippo Tommaso, 135 + + Marlowe, Christopher, 99 + + Marriott (ballplayer), 23 + + Martin, Henri, 147 + + Marx, Karl, 83, 84, 85, 90, 97, 181, 249 _et seq._, 270, 274, 283 + + Massis, Henri, 215 + + Materialism, 215 _et seq._ + + Melville, Herman, 94, 99, 153, 163, 168, 170, 173, 174, 176, 201, 226, + 272 + + Mencken, H. L., 38, 135–139, 221 + + Menjou, Adolphe, 67 + + Metaphysics, 136 + + Milton, John, 143, 203, 226 + + Minkowski, Hermann, 138 + + “Misanthrope, Le,” Molière, 120 + + “Modern Temper, The,” Joseph Wood Krutch, 202 _et seq._ + analysis, 206 _et seq._ + summary, 203–206 + + Mohammed, 196, 197 + + Molière, 120 + + Mom, Arturo, 72 _n._ + + Monroe, Harriet, 99 + + “Morella,” Edgar Allan Poe, 163 + + Moses, 97 + + Most, Johann, 177, 179 + + Motion pictures, 111 _et seq._ + + “Mountain Interval,” Robert Frost, 97 + + Moussorgsky, Modest P., 82 + + Mumford, Lewis, 96, 172–177 + + Munson, Gorham, 99 + + Murder, 25 _et seq._, 275 + + Musset, Alfred de, 71 + + Mussolini, Benito, 266 + + + “Nation, The” (magazine), 214 + + National Textile Workers Union, 235 + + Nazis, 246 + + Negroes, 109, 122 + + Neurosis (_see_ Psychoanalysis) + + “New Republic, The” (magazine), 214, 253 _n._ + + “New Series of Introductory Lectures, A,” Sigmund Freud, 90 + + Newspapers, 38 _et seq._ + + Newton, Sir Isaac, 124, 138, 283 + + Niebuhr, Reinhold, 253 _n._ + + Nietzsche, Friederich Wilhelm, 8, 84, 97, 138, 179, 190, 222 + + “1924” (magazine), 135 + + Nordau, Max, 190 + + “North of Boston,” Robert Frost, 97 + + “Notes from Underground,” Feodor M. Dostoevski, 85 + + + O’Keeffe, Georgia, 149 + + “O Pioneers,” Walt Whitman, 5 + + Origen, 196 + + Ornstein, Leo, 122 + + Orozco, José Clemente, 146, 148 + + “Our America,” 176 _n._ + + “Outline of History,” H. G. Wells, 188 + + + Pageant of Freedom (Philadelphia), 33 + + “Paradiso,” Dante, 103 + + Pascal, Blaise, 90, 134 + + Paul, St., 134, 213 + + Philo, 196, 197 + + Philosophy, 135 _et seq._, 187 + + Picasso, Pablo, 146, 148, 149, 150, 151 + + Pickford, Mary, 65 + + Plato, 97, 98, 122, 134, 137, 143, 195 + + Platonist, 215 + + Plekhanov, George V., 181 + + Plotinus, 122, 134, 137, 196, 197 + + Poe, Edgar Allan, 5, 7, 94, 97, 98, 105, 153, 161–164, 165, 173, 174, + 176, 226, 272 + + Poe, Virginia, 162 + + “Poetry” (magazine), 99 + + Poincaré, Raymond, 211 + + Polo Grounds, 21 + + Pound, Ezra, 99, 151, 153 + + “Powhatan’s Daughter,” Hart Crane, 103 + + Pradon, Nicolas, 139 + + Prize fighting, 29 _et seq._ + Dempsey-Firpo fight, 32 + Dempsey-Tunney fight, 29 _et seq._ + + “Proem,” Hart Crane, 103 + + “Promise of American Life, The,” Herbert Croly, 77, 79 + + Protagoras, 137 + + Proudhon, Pierre Joseph, 179, 183 + + Proust, Joseph Louis, 165 + + Psychoanalysis, 85, 88 + + “Psychopathology of Everyday Life,” Sigmund Freud, 85 + + Pythagoras, 136, 137, 195 + + + Quinault, Philippe, 139, 142 + + + Rabelais, François, 283 + + Racine, Jean, 83, 139, 142, 276 + + Rasmussen, Knud, 91 + + Ray, Man, 148 + + Reeves, Alf, 67 + + “Re-discovery of America, The,” Waldo Frank, 212, _notes on_ 96, 214, + 216, 218 + + Refinement, 109 + + Reitman, Ben, 179 + + Remes, Andrew, 291 _et seq._ + + Renan, Joseph Ernest, 191 + + Reviewers, 139 + + Rickard, Tex, 30, 31, 33 + + Riemann, Georg, 124, 138 + + Rimbaud, Jean Arthur, 83, 84, 99, 190 + + Rimsky-Korsakov, Nikolai, 122 + + Rivera, Diego, 148 + + Robinson, Carl, 67 + + Rochelle, Pierre Drieu La, 135 + + Rolland, Romain, 262–264 + + Romains, Jules, 133 + + Roosevelt, Theodore, 78 _et seq._ + + “Rosary, The” (song), 123 + + Rousseau, Jean-Jacques, 71, 82, 120, 165, 179, 190, 213, 217 + + Russell, Bertrand, 132 _n._, 137, 191, 201, 216 + + Ruth, Babe, 22, 32, 40 + + + “Sacred Wood, The,” T. S. Eliot, 220 + + Saint-Pierre, Bernardin de, 165 + + Sandburg, Carl, 13 + + Santayana, George, 174 + + “Scarlet Letter, The,” Nathaniel + + Hawthorne, 170 + + Schopenhauer, Arthur, 82, 83, 84, 138, 139, 190, 213 + + Seaver, Edwin, 135 + + Seldes, Gilbert, 149 + + “Seven Arts, The” (magazine), 99 + + Shakespeare, William, 138, 204, 212, 278 + + “Show-Off, The” (play), 118 + + Sinclair, Upton, 144 + + “Sins of Science,” Scudder Klyce, 216 _n._ + + Sisler, George, 23, 40 + + Sophocles, 204, 212 + + Soupault, Philippe, 133 + + Soviet Russia, 260 _et seq._, 285 + + Spain, war in, 265 _et seq._ + + Spencer, Herbert, 82, 84 + + Spengler, Oswald, 188–201 + ignores Jews, 197 + masters, 191 + theory of cultures, 193 + value, 190 + + Spinoza, Baruch, 134, 192, 204, 220, 249 _et seq._, 274, 282, 283 + + Stadtfelt, Charles, 291 _et seq._ + + Stanard, Mary Newton, 161 _n._ + + Stein, Gertrude, 186 + + Stein, Leo, 183–188 + literary style, 183 + + Stendhal, 165, 179 + + Stieglitz, Alfred, 245 + + “Story of Philosophy,” Will Durant, 135 + + “Story Teller’s Story, A,” Sherwood Anderson, 93, 95, 167 + + Strachey, John, 276 _n._ + + Stravinsky, Igor, 122, 150 + + Streets, 124 _et seq._ + + “Sur” (magazine), 253 + + Surréalistes, 135 + + Swanson, Gloria, 115 + + Swinburne, Algernon Charles, 220 + + “Swinburne,” T. S. Eliot, 223 + + Sylvia, Ferdinand, 233 _et seq._, 239 + + + Taine, Hippolyte Adolphe, 191 + + Talley, Marion, 39 + + Tate, Allen, 101 + + Tennyson, Alfred Lord, 203 + + Teresa, St., 134 + + Terre Haute jail, 287–294 + + Textile strike, 231–240 + + Thales, 195 + + Therapy, 88 _et seq._ + + Thoreau, Henry David, 77, 94, 97, 166, 170, 173, 174, 176, 201, 272 + + “Thoughts after Lambeth,” T. S. Eliot, 221 + + “Thus Spake Zarathustra,” Nietzsche, 85 + + Tolstoi, Count Leo Nikolaievitch, 5, 7, 165, 190 + + Tool, 153 _et seq._ + + “Totem and Taboo,” Sigmund Freud, 85 + + Totheroh, Roland, 67 + + “Tradition,” T. S. Eliot, 224 + + Transcendentalism, 214 _et seq._ + + Trimble, Glen, 234, 238 + + Trotsky, Leon, 245 + + “Tunnel, The,” Hart Crane, 105 + + Tunney, Gene, 29 + + Twain, Mark, 174 + + Tzara, Tristan, 133, 135 + + + United Artists, 65 + + “Universe,” Scudder Klyce, 216 _n._ + + + Valéry, Paul, 133, 165 + + Vance, Arthur C., 40 + + Van Vechten, Carl, 214 + + Vinci, Leonardo da, 85, 142 + + Virgil, 121 + + Vorse, Mary Heaton, 239 + + “Voyages,” Hart Crane, 102 + + Vulgarity, 109 _et seq._ + + + Wagner, John Henry (“Honus”), 23 + + Wagner, Richard, 82, 83 + + Walker, Mayor, 38 + + Walkowitz, Abram, 149 + + War, 265 _et seq._ + World, 97, 128 + (_see also_ Congress Against War) + + “Waste Land, The,” T. S. Eliot, 226 + + Weber, Max, 146 + + Wells, H. G., 144 + + Whistler, James Abbott McNeill, 151 + + “White Buildings,” Hart Crane, 101, 102, 106 + + Whitehead, Alfred N., 84, 92, 136, 137, 191 + + “White Heron, A,” Sara Orne Jewett, 169 + + Whitman, Walt, 5, 6, 76, 77, 94, 97 _et seq._, 105, 111, 114, 134, 153, + 163, 165, 166, 168, 173, 174, 176, 179, 190, 197, 201, 226, 272 + + Wilder, Thornton, 214 + + Williams, Roger, 77, 96 + + Wilson, Edmund, 150 + + “Winesburg, Ohio,” Sherwood Anderson, 93 + + Woodberry, George E., 161 + + Woolf, Virginia, 145 + + Wordsworth, William, 175 + + “World as Will and Idea, The,” Schopenhauer, 85 + + Wright, Harold Bell, 123, 142 + + Writers, American revolutionary, 273 _et seq._ + American, under capitalism, 272 _et seq._ + part in Social Revolution, 279 _et seq._ + revolutionary, 269–272 + two groups, 281 + + Writers’ Congress, American, 269 _et seq._ + + Writers, International Congress of, 279 + + + Yates, chief of police, 293 _et seq._ + + + Zeno, 137 + + Zola, Emile, 7, 116 + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + + + + + _by Waldo Frank_ + + + STORY + + THE UNWELCOME MAN (1917) + THE DARK MOTHER (1920) + RAHAB (1922) + CITY BLOCK (1922) + HOLIDAY (1923) + CHALK FACE (1924) + THE DEATH AND BIRTH OF DAVID MARKAND (1934) + + + HISTORY + + OUR AMERICA (1919) + VIRGIN SPAIN (1926) + THE RE-DISCOVERY OF AMERICA (1929) + AMERICA HISPANA (1931) + + + CRITICISM + + THE ART OF THE VIEUX COLOMBIER (1918) + + SALVOS (1924) + + PRIMER MENSAJE À LA AMÉRICA HISPANA (1930) + (_published only in Spanish—Madrid and Buenos Aires_) + + DAWN IN RUSSIA (1932) + + IN THE AMERICAN JUNGLE (1937) + + + THEATRE + + NEW YEAR’S EVE (1930) + +----- + +Footnote 1: + + Arturo Mom, the Argentinian writer, tells us that Lenin once said: + “Chaplin is the only man in the world I want to meet.” It is a story + readily believed. Chaplin’s art expresses the germinal seed of the + revolt—tender and ruthless, romantic and realistic—which Lenin’s + technique attempted to fulfill. Chaplin and Lenin—they are probably + the two most potential spirits of our age. Bring them together—pure + individualist and pure collectivist—into a single force, and you have + a vision of tomorrow. + +Footnote 2: + + The year of his trouble with his second wife, the truth about which + has not been told. + +Footnote 3: + + See “The Re-discovery of America,” 1928. + +Footnote 4: + + This is a short version of the Introduction to “The Collected Poems of + Hart Crane.” + +Footnote 5: + + El Escorial. + +Footnote 6: + + Bertrand Russell says, “Traditional mysticism has been contemplative, + convinced of the unreality of time, and essentially a lazy man’s + philosophy.” It has always seemed to me that the mysticism of Mr. + Frank’s novels was of this traditional type. + +Footnote 7: + + “Edgar Allan Poe Letters Till Now Unpublished,” in the Valentine + Museum at Richmond, Virginia; with introductory essay and commentary + by Mary Newton Stanard. + +Footnote 8: + + I feel moved to recall that in “Our America,” a work with a kindred + theme published in 1919, Poe receives even unfairer treatment than + that accorded him by Mr. Mumford; and Melville is utterly ignored. + +Footnote 9: + + The reader of “The Re-Discovery of America” will know that I find + important exceptions to this general statement. + +Footnote 10: + + We have in America a logician who, obscurely and unaided, is working + out the fundamental problem of the dualistic languages of modern + culture, and who is relating them into a logic of the Whole. His name + is Scudder Klyce and he resides in Winchester, Massachusetts. He has + published three books: “Universe,” “Sins of Science,” “Dewey’s + Suppressed Psychology.” In the first (which I have not yet read), he + attempts to establish continuity, or the Whole, in purely empirical + terms and to construct a logic to express it. In the second, he + exposes (often brilliantly and at times wildly) the contradictory + dualisms in modern thought. The third volume, as invaluable as it is + unwieldy, reveals the failure of John Dewey to carry his own “infinite + pluralism” to its logical conclusion: an explicit philosophy of the + Whole.... So it goes in our America. Just as one is getting ready to + despair of the current tendencies, along comes a man like Klyce who is + doing work as essential and great as any I know in the contemporary + world. I was not aware of Klyce when I wrote “The Re-Discovery of + America.” That is my excuse for not mentioning his contribution and + its organic part in what I call the Great American Tradition. + + P.S. Since the writing of this note, Scudder Klyce has died. The first + work to acknowledge the greatness of his contribution has yet to be + published. But it will come! + +Footnote 11: + + Not to be confused, of course, with the athletic _skepticism_ that is + the servant of positive knowledge. + +Footnote 12: + + The reader will find a development of this idea in “The Re-Discovery + of America.” + +Footnote 13: + + A short time after this article was written and published, the five + hundred thousand textile strikers were sold out by their “leaders” in + Washington. + +Footnote 14: + + Since this was written, a strong revolutionary students’ movement has + sprung up in the United States. + +Footnote 15: + + I have read only three volumes of Marxist literary criticism in the + English language: “The Liberation of American Literature,” by V. F. + Calverton; “The Great Tradition,” by Granville Hicks; and a short book + by John Strachey. All three are of this category. + +Footnote 16: + + The author accompanied Earl Browder, communist candidate for President + of the United States, on a tour of Midwest industrial cities as a + newspaper correspondent and was jailed with him in Terre Haute. + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + + + + + TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES + + + ● Fixed typos; non-standard spelling and dialect retained. + ● Renumbered footnotes and moved them all to the end of the final + chapter. + ● Enclosed italics font in _underscores_. + ● Subscripts are shown using an underscore (_) with curly braces { }, + as in H_{2}O. + ● Images without captions use the HTML alt text supplied by the + transcriber in place of a caption. + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 78957 *** |