{"collection":"philosophy-ethics","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_22303/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_22303","id":"gutenberg_22303","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/22303","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Art","Category: Essays, Letters & Speeches","Category: Philosophy & Ethics","English literature -- 20th century -- History and criticism","Literature"],"text":"+-----------------------------------------------------------+\n    | Transcriber's Note:                                       |\n    |                                                           |\n    | Inconsistent hyphenation in the original document has     |\n    | been preserved.                                           |\n    |                                                           |\n    | Obvious typographical errors have been corrected. For     |\n    | a complete list, please see the end of this document.     |\n    |                                                           |\n    +-----------------------------------------------------------+\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n\n\nMARTIN SECKER'S SERIES OF MODERN MONOGRAPHS\n\n  J.M. SYNGE                           By P.P. Howe\n  HENRIK IBSEN                   By R. Ellis Roberts\n  WALTER PATER                      By Edward Thomas\n  THOMAS HARDY              By Lascelles Abercrombie\n  GEORGE GISSING                 By Frank Swinnerton\n  WALT WHITMAN                By Basil de S\u00e9lincourt\n  WILLIAM MORRIS                  By John Drinkwater\n  A.C. SWINBURNE                    By Edward Thomas\n\nEach volume Demy Octavo, Cloth Gilt, with a Frontispiece in\nPhotogravure. Price 7s. 6d. net\n\n    _The Athen\u00e6um_ says: \"We congratulate the publisher.\"\n\n    _The Spectator_ says: \"Mr. Secker's excellent series of critical\n    studies.\"\n\n    _The Yorkshire Observer_ says: \"Mr. Secker's admirable series.\"\n\n    _The Manchester Courier_ says: \"This excellent series.\"\n\n    _The Illustrated London News_ says: \"Mr. Martin Secker's series\n    of critical studies does justice to the publisher's sense of\n    pleasant format. The volumes are a delight to eye and hand, and\n    make a welcome addition to the bookshelf.\"\n\nMARTIN SECKER PUBLISHER\nNUMBER FIVE   JOHN STREET   ADELPHI\n\n\n\n\nAUTUMN BOOKS\n\n    The Complete Dramatic Works of Gerhart Hauptmann. 6 vols. 5s.\n        net each.\n\n    Vie de Boh\u00e8me: A Patch of Romantic Paris. By Orlo Williams.\n        15s. net.\n\n    The Art of Silhouette. By Desmond Coke. 10s. net.\n\n    Walt Whitman: A Critical Study. By Basil de S\u00e9lincourt. 7s.\n        6d. net.\n\n    Walter Pater: A Critical Study. By Edward Thomas. 7s. 6d. net.\n\n    Speculative Dialogues. By Lascelles Abercrombie. 5s. net.\n\n    Dramatic Portraits. By P.P. Howe. 5s. net.\n\n\n\n\nPERSONALITY IN LITERATURE\n\n\n\n\n_BY THE SAME AUTHOR_\n\nMODERNISM AND ROMANCE\n\n\n\n\nPERSONALITY\nIN LITERATURE\n\nBY R.A. SCOTT-JAMES\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nLONDON: MARTIN SECKER\nNUMBER FIVE  JOHN STREET  ADELPHI\n\n\n\n\n_First published 1913_\n\nWILLIAM BRENDON AND SON, LTD., PRINTERS, PLYMOUTH.\n\n\n\n\nCONTENTS\n\n\nPART ONE: LITERATURE AND ART\n                                                        PAGE\n  THE DEGRADATION OF BEAUTY                                3\n\n  LITERATURE A FINE ART                                   14\n\n  PASSIONS SPIN THE PLOT                                  42\n\n  THE POPULAR TASTE                                       55\n\n\nPART TWO: LITERATURE AND MODERN LIFE\n\n  TO-DAY AND YESTERDAY                                    81\n\n  PROFESSIONAL POLITICS                                   96\n\n  SPECIALISM IN RELIGION                                 103\n\n  SPECIALISM IN WAR                                      109\n\n  SPECIALISM IN LITERATURE                               115\n\n  PHILOSOPHY AND JUSTICE                                 121\n\n\nPART THREE: LITERATURE AND MEN\n\n  BERNARD SHAW                                           131\n\n  H.G. WELLS                                             151\n\n  ARNOLD BENNETT                                         170\n\n  GILBERT CHESTERTON                                     187\n\n  SOME MODERN POETS                                      196\n\n  J.M. SYNGE                                             222\n\n  THE SHRAMANA EKAI KAWAGUCHI                            226\n\n  FRANCIS THOMPSON                                       235\n\n\n\n\nPART ONE\n\nLITERATURE AND ART\n\n\n\n\nI\n\nTHE DEGRADATION OF BEAUTY\n\n\nSome time ago I found myself at an exhibition of Post-Impressionist\npictures, under the \u00e6gis of an artist who was himself of that\npersuasion. Indeed, he was one of the exhibitors, and I was\nconstrained to express my opinions in the form of questions. We passed\nbefore a picture which to my untutored eyes was formless, meaningless\nand ugly. It was by a well-known artist, and my instructor admired it.\nHe said it was the head of a woman, and he indicated certain hook-like\nmarks in the painting which to him distinctly suggested the nose, the\nmouth and the neck of a woman, reduced to their simplest terms. After\nhe had fully explained the picture, I asked him if the result was in\nany sense beautiful to him.\n\n\"Beautiful!\" he exclaimed, with something of disdain in his voice.\n\"Why should it be beautiful? I do not require that a picture should be\nbeautiful.\"\n\nHe had not finished, but I was relieved by the first part of his\nreply. As I cannot hope to appreciate more than a certain number of\nthings in the world, I am willing, so far as pictures are concerned,\nto be limited to beautiful pictures, and to be proved ignorant and\nobtuse in regard to all others. For the same reason I have long since\nreconciled myself to the fact that there are some branches of science\nand natural history which I shall never master. I shall always\nendeavour to follow clever writers like Shaw and Brieux whose plays\nhave, as the former puts it, \"a really scientific natural history\" for\ntheir basis. But I cannot hope to acquire the whole of knowledge or\nreform the whole of the world, and there are books which contain a\ngreat deal of sound knowledge and urgent opinion for which I have no\nuse. Moreover, I deny Mr. Shaw's right to interfere with my enjoyment\nif I turn to literature which teaches nothing and serves no\nutilitarian or reforming purpose. It is only when I am in the\nscientific frame of mind that I desire accurate natural history, or\nwhen I am in the reforming frame of mind that I desire earnest\nexhortations to improve society. In the same way I am only drawn to\nthe Post-Impressionists when I want, not beautiful pictures, but an\nagreeable sense of the impudence and imbecility of professional\ncraftsmen. But when I am in the mood for literature and art, I demand\nsomething that shall appeal to my sense of beauty; and I refuse to be\nshamed into believing that I ought to prefer scientific knowledge, or\nethical suasion, or those particular kinds of ugliness admired by some\nRealists and some Post-Impressionists.\n\nBut I was a little disconcerted when my Post-Impressionist artist\nconcluded with the remark: \"I have never yet found anyone who could\ntell me what he meant by beauty.\"\n\nCertainly I had not asked him for an exact definition, or any\ndefinition of Beauty in the abstract. I should have been satisfied if,\nfor the moment, he had taken it on trust, as most of us take the law\nof gravity, the postulates of Euclid, and the evidence of our senses.\nI was not dismayed because a single Post-Impressionist thought that\n\"beautiful\" is a word that has no meaning; but because the reply came\nso pat upon his lips;--he was repeating, parrot-like, a current view;\nhe was adopting the fashionable attitude of scorn towards what is\nregarded as an ancient tyranny, long since indicted and exploded. This\nbland acceptance of the meaninglessness and the inefficacy of beauty\nis habitual to most young professionals who wield pen or pencil. They\nhave learnt it from Mr. Shaw, forgetting that when Mr. Shaw demands\ncomplete freedom for the writer he also demands objective truth; or\nthey have learnt it from Mr. Roger Fry, forgetting that even Mr. Fry\ndemands some kind of subjective truth. Every young artist like my\nacquaintance at the Grafton Gallery, every young novelist like Mr.\nGilbert Cannan,[1] is encouraged by the intellectuals to accept\nformlessness and anarchy as evidence of a magnanimous and enlightened\nspirit.\n\nBut it is not necessary to expose this falsity in its crude and most\nviolent forms. For we may find it expressed in an almost academic way,\nwith philosophical aloofness, a show of nice reasoning, and a kind of\nEpicurean sweetness in a Romanes lecture delivered by Mr. Arthur James\nBalfour and published under the title _Criticism and Beauty_. It is\nworth while to study so responsible a writer, for we may be sure that\nhe will weigh his words, that he will not over-state his case, or be\nled away by passion or fanaticism. And it is assuredly interesting to\nexamine the argument for anarchy as stated and defended by a\nConservative statesman.\n\nIndeed, it is hard to believe that the author of this essay is the\nsame Mr. Balfour whom we know as the leader of the Conservative party.\nA statesman ostensibly so consistent in upholding order and authority\nin the Church, in adhering to time-honoured standards of government,\nand in trusting the judgment of men \"trained in the tradition of\npolitics,\" might have been expected to hold views somewhat similar in\nmatters of art. We should have expected him to believe in the\nexistence, not perhaps of artistic canons, but of artistic standards;\nto be convinced that in \u00e6sthetics there is an \u00e6sthetic right and\nwrong; to attach weight to the judgment of men of \"trained\nsensibility.\" But it is not so. He holds in the most extreme form the\nancient doctrine that _seeming_ is _being_. Art, as such, has for him\nnothing to do with truth. He recognises no valid standard of\nexcellence. The only excellence in a work of art is to afford \u00e6sthetic\npleasure, and the pleasure which a boy derives from a blood-curdling\nadventure-book or the public from a popular melodrama is, in Mr.\nBalfour's view, no less \"\u00e6sthetic\" than the pleasure which another may\nderive from contemplating a statue by Michelangelo. There is no\nuniversal standard; no criterion; no excellence in art except such as\neach man accepts for himself.\n\nMr. Balfour does, indeed, make a proper distinction between art as\n\"technical dexterity\" and art as related to the \"sublime,\" the\n\"beautiful,\" the \"pathetic,\" the \"humorous,\" the \"melodious,\" and\nadmits that it is possible to apply an \"objective test\" to technical\nskill--to decide that this line scans, that this rhyme is flawless,\nthat these bars in music are in such-and-such a key. But he will allow\nno objective grounds of excellence to art in the more important sense.\nIf you say that this poem is beautiful or sublime, you are asserting\nwhat is only true for you, a mere personal preference which others\nneed not be expected to share. Not only do men of \"trained\nsensibility\" differ from the uncultured, but they differ equally from\none another. He cites the evidence of Greek music to show how widely\nthe cultured of one nation and epoch may differ from the cultured of\nother nations and epochs. Having laid it down as an axiom that our\n\u00e6sthetic judgments are \"for the most part immediate, and, so to speak,\nintuitive,\" and observing that the fastidious differ among themselves,\nand that their delight in fine objects is no more intense than the\ndelight of the vulgar in coarser themes, he proceeds to the conclusion\nthat there can be no valid right or wrong in taste, no absolute\nstandard of beauty. He even maintains that art is not based upon any\nspecial faculty for perceiving the true. \"I can find no justification\nin experience for associating great art with penetrating insight.\"\n\nBefore going further it is necessary to hint at a curious confusion in\nwhich he here involves himself--a surely rather crude confusion\nbetween \u00e6sthetic, and moral, right and wrong. Being concerned to\ndisprove the existence of the former, he for a moment identifies it\nwith the latter. It is either, as I have taken it, a crude confusion\nof thought, or an equivocating device more often used in political\ncontroversy than in the domain of art criticism--that of identifying\nthe opinion attacked with another of an ignominious character. The\nview which he is rejecting is thus set forth. \"An artist is deemed to\nbe more than the maker of beautiful things. He is a seer, a moralist,\na prophet.\" Surely he must realise that there are many who would most\nfervently hold that an artist must be a seer or even a prophet, who\nwould ridicule the idea that he must be that very different sort of\nthing, a moralist. And in the same way, when he has declared\ncategorically: \"I can find no justification in experience for\nassociating great art with penetrating insight,\" he almost ludicrously\nadds, \"or good art with good morals.\"\n\nIt is this confusion of the aim of the artist with the aims of other\nexpounders--the moralist, the philosopher, the theologian--that\nvitiates his argument against the insight of the great artists. Why\ndoes he deny them this \"penetrating insight?\" Because they have\ncherished opposite convictions about fundamental matters. \"Optimism\nand pessimism; materialism and spiritualism; theism, pantheism,\natheism, morality and immorality; religion and irreligion; lofty\nresignation and passionate revolt--each and all have inspired or\nhelped to inspire the creators of artistic beauty.\" The _non\nsequitur_ of this argument lies in the fact that he only shows that\nartists have differed in respect of what is not essential to art. If\nhe had shown that some artists have created the beautiful, and others\nhave created the ugly, he would have produced evidence fatal to his\nopponents. As it is he has denied perception of the beautiful to\nartists because they differ in respect of that which has no necessary\nconnection with beauty.\n\nBut to leave this technical, though not wholly unreal, disputation.\nThere is this merit in Mr. Balfour's essay: that it states in its most\nextreme form a view for which there is something to be said and which\nhas been gaining in favour in modern times. It is a reaction against\nthe view which became established in the course of the last century.\nIt was the habit of the eighteenth century to judge poetry by its form\nalone; the nineteenth judged it by the spirit which inspired it, by\nthat which, as De Quincey puts it, was \"incarnated\" in a work of art.\nWilliam Blake literally believed that there was a real world of the\nimagination which was opened up to the artist in his visions, and that\nwas why he said: \"Learn to see _through_, not _with_, the eye.\"\nColeridge, too, asserted the primacy of Reason and imagination; and\nfor Wordsworth poetry was \"Reason in her most exalted form,\" just as\nfor Keats \"Beauty is truth, truth Beauty.\" Even so logical and prosaic\na thinker as John Stuart Mill recognised that supremacy of the artist\nto which he himself could not attain; the artist, as he said in a\nletter to Carlyle, perceives truth immediately, by intuition, and it\nwas his own humble function to translate the truths discerned by the\nartist into logic. \"Is not the distinction between mysticism, the\nmysticism which is of truth, and mere dreamery, or the institution of\nimaginations for realities, exactly this, that mysticism may be\ntranslated into logic?\" Logic, for Mill, was only the hand-servant of\nthat art which is concerned, not with \"imaginations\" only, but with\nrealities. And it was in the same spirit that Matthew Arnold laid down\nhis decisive verdict that literature is a criticism of life, that it\nmay be subjected to a \"universal\" estimate, and that the standard is\n\"the best that has been said and thought in the world.\"\n\nBut in recent years there has been a revolt against the idea of\nstandards or authority in art. Art has always been conceived as\nsomething which affords pleasure; but now it is conceived as that\nwhich affords pleasure to anyone. The democracy, now that it has\nbecome literate, claims the right of private judgment, equality for\nits members even in matters of art. And in a sense it is right.\nNothing should be or can be acclaimed as beautiful unless it appears\nbeautiful to the spectator. There is no criterion of beauty outside\nthe perception of beauty. For each man, that only is beautiful which\naffords him the experience of beauty; and whatever does afford him\nthat experience has given him the \u00e6sthetic pleasure which is the true\npleasure of art. But there are many pleasurable thrills which have\nnothing to do with beauty or with art. That is why Mr. Balfour surely\nis wrong when he suggests that the youthful delight in blood-curdling\nadventures is an \"enjoyment of what is Art, and nothing but Art.\" But\nI agree that we are confronted with an antinomy which seems hard\nenough to overcome--on the one hand art is only good because some\npeople have judged or felt it to be good; on the other hand all\nsincere critics are convinced that some works are absolutely good,\nthat their excellence is beyond reasonable challenge, and that those\nwho do not perceive this excellence are lacking in fineness of\nperception.\n\nThe anarchistic side of the paradox is put in its crudest form by Mr.\nBalfour. It has been put in perhaps its finest and truest form by Mr.\nHenry James:\n\n    Art is the one corner of human life in which we may take our\n    ease. To justify our presence there the only thing demanded of\n    us is that we shall have felt the representational impulse. In\n    other connections our impulses are conditioned and embarrassed;\n    we are allowed to have only so many as are consistent with those\n    of our neighbours; with their convenience and well-being, with\n    their convictions and prejudices, their rules and regulations.\n    Art means an escape from all this. Wherever her shining standard\n    floats the need for apology and compromise is over; there it is\n    enough simply that we please or are pleased. There the tree is\n    judged only by its fruits. If these are sweet the tree is\n    justified--and not less so the consumer.... Differences here are\n    not iniquity and righteousness; they are simply variations of\n    temperament, kinds of curiosity. We are not under theological\n    government.\n\nIt is true; in art, at least, we are \"not under theological\ngovernment,\" and that was a maxim worth asserting at a time when the\n_dicta_ of Matthew Arnold and Ruskin were being converted into\nshibboleths. It is necessary for happiness no less than for honesty\nthat we should realise that poetry, music, and pictures are personal\nthings; that what they are worth to us is their sole measure of value.\nAnd here it must be mentioned that Mr. Balfour puts forth two hints\nwhich are inconclusive enough, but which do dimly suggest a truer way\nof escape than that to which his argument leads. He notes, first of\nall, that art is disinterested; that it is not a means, but an end in\nitself. And, secondly, we feel towards beautiful things as we feel\ntowards persons; if they are congenial we may like or love them,\nthough we can assign no ground for our preference.\n\nIf the analogy were pursued it might lead to something like a solution\nof the difficulty. For all fine art is beautiful expression; it is\nself-expression; it is the expression of something which the artist\nperceives. If it strikes an answering chord in us we are satisfied;\nand that fact of response means a community of perception, of \u00e6sthetic\nknowledge, between the artist and the recipient, something perhaps\nwhich is dragged from the depths of our duller natures but which burst\nforth in expression from the artist with his quicker and more apt\nperception. But let it be noted that there could be no such response\nor sympathy conveyed from one to another by a symbol unless there were\nsome real bond, some existent principle possessed in common. Art is\ncommunicative, but not surely a communication of nothing. It\ncommunicates something which is not the less real because it is\nintangible and mysterious. If it inexplicably affords us--as it\ndoes--an experience which some persons describe as transcendent, then\nthat quality in it, which we call the \"sublime\" or the \"beautiful,\"\nhas at least to this extent a definite reality, that it affords us\nunique experiences. It is this question which I shall examine in the\nfollowing chapter.\n\nSome men have not been so made that they can respond to the beauty\nwhich is summoned by art, just as some men, born blind, are not\ntouched by the light of the sun. But it is of no moment to say that\ntastes differ. Men may differ about their friends, but they do not\ndiffer about friendship. They may have different codes of honour, but\na sense of honour is the same thing for a savage as it is for a\nbishop. And so not all things are called beautiful by the same men,\nbut beauty is the same for all.\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[1] See Preface to _Round the Corner_. (Martin Secker.)\n\n\n\n\nII\n\nLITERATURE A FINE ART\n\n\nThere are many people of my acquaintance who think it almost indecent\nto talk of literature as a fine art. They have the same distaste for\nthe word \"art\" as others have for the name of God. It has indeed been\nmisused in certain \u00e6sthetic circles and discussed almost unctuously,\nso that it is often associated with long hair and cant, and seems\nnonsensical if not disreputable to plain and honest men. I remember an\nOxford don, chiefly noted for his cricket and his knowledge of Homer,\nand in later life for his dyspepsia, abusing a distinguished Austrian\ncritic who visited the University--\"These foreigners are always\ntalking about Art!\" Foreigners and long-haired \u00e6sthetes were one and\nthe same thing to my atrabilious instructor. The latter was an exact\nman. No wonder he detested a word which is used so vaguely and in so\nmany contrary senses; which is sometimes applied to a poem or a novel\nas if its \"art\" were an ornamental thing _separate_ from the poem or\nthe novel; or as if it were a mere synonym for style or adherence to\nsome technical formula.\n\nYet we cannot very well get on without the word, and we certainly\ncannot avoid its connotation. No man in his senses can deny that there\nis such a thing as the \"art of literature,\" though it may seem absurd\nto talk about it. No one, however healthy in his tastes, would refuse\nto distinguish the statement \"This is a very good book\"--which may\nmean only that it is instructive, or useful for certain purposes--from\nthe statement \"This, anyhow, is literature\"--which means something\nquite specific, namely, that this is a work of art. The very word\nwould become less offensive if we could be a little less vague about\nit, if we could make up our minds what it is that it does mean or that\nwe wish it to mean. We all of us distinguish between good and bad in\nliterature, even if we regard our own judgments as fallible. We are\nall disposed to mistrust the opinions of our contemporaries, though we\nhave a childlike faith in the verdict of posterity. Well, what is it\nthat will satisfy posterity, and that ought, _a fortiori_, to satisfy\nus? What is it, in the domain of the delightful, as opposed to the\nmerely knowable, which has value for the future, and therefore should\nhave more value for the present? And what is it--an even more\nimportant question--which may have this kind of value for us, whether\nposterity choose to value it or not? That is the main point. We want\nto find what that quality is, in literature or any of the fine arts,\nwhich makes it a matter of so great consideration to us. What do we\nexpect and demand from it, if it is to be something of real moment?\nThat is one side of the question. And putting the question from the\nother side--What sort of process is implied in the writing of\nliterature, and what is the sanction of the writer? It seems we are\ncompelled to form some provisional theory of art before we can make\nthe most modest pretensions to discuss literature. For such a theory\nis implied in every literary discussion, in every review of a book,\nand in every appreciative or antagonistic reading of a book. I myself\nhave written hundreds of reviews of books, and I certainly do not\nthink it more presumptuous to set down what it is that I require, or\nbelieve that I require, in creative literature, and what that\nrequirement presupposes in the artist, than to have written those\nhundreds of reviews.\n\nI begin, then, from the side of our actual requirements, and I lay it\ndown as a self-evident proposition, that if we mean anything at all by\ncreative literature, or literature regarded as a fine art, we must\nmean something which provides us with an addition to experience, an\nexperience _sui generis_. We demand that it should be something which\nwill occupy us and engage our faculties, something not to be\napproached carelessly and indolently, but with energy and alertness of\nthe mind; not because it is abstruse or difficult, but because we are\ndemanding something which will give full play to the spirit, which\nwill come profoundly in contact with us when we are in fullest\npossession of ourselves, which will not merely stir us, but stir us to\nactivity.\n\nThat I would take as an axiom. If we are going to regard fiction, for\nexample, as a fine art, the artistic novel will be a book which we\napproach not for mere distraction, but for activity, mental and\nspiritual, for the opportunity it affords of putting forth energy, of\ngiving full play to the vitality, of going through a vital experience.\nJust as the keen golfer delights in the skilful use of eye and limb,\nand is exhilarated by the difficulties and the physical exertion of\nthe game, so the keen reader of a book enjoys the strenuous mental\nexercise it affords him. To some extent the mind is more elastic than\nthe body. Even when it is tired it can sometimes be whipped into\nenergy by thought, or reading, or talk, whereas the body in its\ncorresponding state cannot so readily respond with accuracy and\neffectiveness. But the mind too--Heaven knows--may be dulled to fine\nissues; and it is only when it is in well-balanced activity that it\ncan do full justice to a work of art; and that is no work of art which\nthe jaded intelligence can wholly grasp. Anyone who enjoys pictures,\nand does not care to look at them perfunctorily or in a \"sightseeing\"\nspirit, knows well that he can only appreciate a picture when he\nallows eyes and imagination to concentrate upon it, so that he\n_perceives_ as well as sees it, and derives a complex impression from\nit akin to that which the artist felt at the moment when he conceived\nit. And in the same way with every work of art worthy of the name,\nwhether it be a picture, a statue, a poem, a play or a novel, it is\npart of its excellence to call forth _activity_ in the mind which\napprehends it.\n\nBut we must note that it not only calls forth activity, but\n_disinterested_ activity--and by that I mean an activity of the kind\nwhich is especially called forth in the fine arts, and not that which\nscience, or religion, or ethics might call forth without the aid of\nthe arts. To preserve the analogy of golf, it may happen--and\ngenerally does happen--that the playing of golf makes the limbs more\nelastic and promotes general health. But to take an interest in golf\nis not the same thing as to take an interest in the health-producing\nresults of golf. The true golfer is he who plays golf for its own sake\nand without any ulterior end, without thought of consequences,\nalthough consequences of some kind are inevitable. In the same way the\nactivity called forth in all art, both in the artist at the time of\ncreation and in the man who is appreciating it, is disinterested; he\nis, in proportion as he is an artist or an appreciator of art,\nconcerned at the moment in nothing but the subject-matter of the\nartist, and the treatment; in making or receiving a certain effect,\nwithout thought of the possible practical consequences which may\nfollow through some inference drawn from the work or some\npsychological result attending upon it. This is not a re-statement of\nthe much-abused theory of \"Art for Art's sake,\" for that theory has\nalways tended to minimise the importance of subject-matter, and to\nrepresent Beauty as something aloof from the rest of life, instead of\nbeing inseparable from the warp and woof of things social, moral,\nintellectual, religious, and physical. When I say that the activity of\nthe artist is disinterested, I do not mean that he may not be\nconcerned with any conceivable theme under the sun, but that his\nbusiness is to provide us with an experience, and that any end he may\nhave beyond making that experience vivid and complete is an alien end,\ndestroying his singleness of purpose, wholly disruptive of his art\nand destructive to its energy.\n\nAnd here we must abandon the analogy of a game of skill, for whereas\ngolf-balls have no interest except as things to be knocked about, the\nobjects with which poet, dramatist or novelist deals are ideas,\npersons, associated things, having character and interest of their\nown. The experience he is to provide is primarily a spiritual\nexperience, an affair of the mind and the emotions. And being, as it\nmust clearly be, an experience _sui generis_, it is obviously not\nderived from a mere reproduction of life; for life cannot be\nreproduced excepting in life itself, whereas art claims no more than\nto be an imitation, or an envisagement, of nature, and its life is its\nown. What we demand of it is that it should put into its picture\nsomething that is and is not in nature--something, in other words,\nthat is only there for those who choose to see it, but which the\nartist makes clearer, awakening the perceptions to that aspect of\ntruth which he has in view. In a book called _The Ascending Effort_,\nMr. George Bourne urged that the art of life consists in the\nrealisation of \"choice ideas\"; meaning by \"choice ideas\" those which\nare refined out of the commonplace and the meagre; the ideas which are\napprehended most actively, with all the mind and all the perceptions;\nthe ideas which admit of relation to all other ideas, which come into\nsome sort of harmony with such schemes of life as we have made. If\nthis is true of the art of life, _a fortiori_ is it true of the fine\narts from which the analogy is drawn. In other words, the artist's aim\nis not to reproduce the facts which make up the mass of our ordinary\nand undigested life, but to substitute for the dishevelled commonplace\nthe \"choiceness\" of an ordered interpretation. Only in this way can\nart give us an experience _sui generis_; only by the refinement and\nre-energising of the treatment can it give us emotions vivid enough to\ncompete in some measure with the vividness of nature.\n\nImplicitly all great artists must have accepted this general view of\ntheir function, and many in one way or another have explicitly stated\nit. \"As light to the eye, even such is beauty to the mind,\" said\nColeridge, whose meaning was philosophically definite, but in no way\nat variance with Shakespeare's too hackneyed but ever memorable words:\n\n          Spirits are not finely touched,\n    But to fine issues.\n\nThe \"fine\": the \"alight\" or \"luminous\": the \"choice\"--here are three\nways of qualifying the objects which artists seek to present. Matthew\nArnold was captivated by the simile of light, and having repeated\nAmiel's passionate cry for \"more light,\" used \"sweetness and light\" as\na refrain in all his criticism. Walter Pater, to whom the beauty of\nthe human form, and therefore of sculpture, was especially appealing,\nloved to use such terms as \"shapely,\" \"comely,\" \"blythe,\" \"gracious,\"\n\"engaging,\" to express the fine flavour[2] of a work of art. The\nquality may be manifested primarily through the intellect, as with\nMeredith; through the senses, as with Swinburne; through the\nperceptions, as with Turgeniev, Flaubert and Joseph Conrad; or through\nintellect and perceptions acutely balanced, as with Mr. Henry James\n(who gives us \"curiosity\" as the keynote); but in any case it is that\nwhich we require an artist to bring with him--\"fineness,\" \"light,\"\n\"choiceness,\" \"comeliness,\" \"graciousness\"--when he visualises or\nfocusses his object. Does not that untranslatable \u03bb\u03b9\u03c0\u03b1\u03c1\u1f78\u03c2 \u03b1\u1f30\u03b8\u03ae\u03c1 of\nHomer--the shining upper air--suggest not only the physical atmosphere\nbreathed by the gods of Olympus and the great-hearted Odysseus, but\nalso the poetic atmosphere of the Odyssey itself?\n\nWe have, then, added a third term to our generalisation about art. We\nnow require, as it seems, that it should provide us with an energetic\nexperience; that it should be disinterested in the sense that it\ncannot aim at any competing, alien end; and thirdly, that this\nexperience should come from objects made beautiful in the sense of\nbeing shown in a certain light, or made alight--in a manner which\ndemands further inquiry. And here indeed is the difficulty. For we\nmust endeavour to examine the question from the artist's standpoint,\nand seek counsel from him.\n\nIt would be no less futile than presumptuous to lay down exact formul\u00e6\nas to what the artist ought and ought not to do. No modern critic is\nlikely to waste his time in framing rules and canons, which can be so\neasily handled by the pedant and stand condemned by the first great\nman who defies them. Aristotle did it once and for all for the Greek\ndrama, and when the perspective of life widened and new forms of\nliterature grew up to compete with drama, his rules were destined\neither to shackle literature or to be thrown ruthlessly overboard in\nthe violent revulsion against Classicism. Shakespeare fortunately was\nguiltless of any exact knowledge of Aristotle, and the fact that\nCorneille and Racine, who had no French Shakespeare to precede them,\nwere in bondage to that influential philosopher, had a lasting effect\nupon French literature which the mighty influence of Hugo was\ninsufficient to destroy. But at least the example of these Classicist\nwriters has proved that literature itself is not only profoundly\naffected, but made and unmade, by theories of literature. And\nCorneille and Racine bestowed at any rate this immeasurable benefit on\ntheir countrymen: they taught them the lesson of form and technique--a\nlesson which they have never forgotten, which is illustrated as much\nin fiction as in drama--in Merim\u00e9e, Flaubert, Maupassant and Anatole\nFrance. Shakespeare, on the contrary, whose influence on English\nliterature has been supreme since the beginning of the Romantic\nmovement, provided no obvious model for the student of form. To the\ncasual reader his very imagination seems to be lawlessness and\nextravagance, carrying him tempestuously and recklessly into the m\u00eal\u00e9e\nof poetry. But every careful reader knows that Shakespeare was not so\nreckless as he seems; observe how rigidly he conformed to the\nconditions prescribed by the Elizabethan theatre and audience; it is\nto the credit of his technique that he complied with these exacting\nconditions without cramping the finer issues of poetry and drama. And\nin the broader sense of the term Shakespeare's form was precisely\nproportionate to his genius, though it is seen rather in the\ntranscendence of his poetry and the management by which his persons\nare swept along on their own characters than in those more obvious\nelements of form--structure of plot, the subservience of dialogue and\nincident to the dramatic purpose, and all the minor probabilities and\nproprieties. But it is just the obvious elements which are most\nnoticeable to those who study form in a superficial way; for those who\nimitate Shakespeare, or are influenced by him, his careless freedom\nand extravagance often bulk larger than the expression of genius which\nmade trifles of these defects. A result is that throughout the\nnineteenth century Shakespeare has been for English authors not always\nan inspiration, but a national pretext for decrying technique.\n\nAnd yet those who had the insight and the power to restore Shakespeare\nin all his fulness to English readers were wholly free from this\nignorance--conspicuously Charles Lamb and S.T. Coleridge. Coleridge\nwas indeed the first of Englishmen to think out anything like a\ncomplete and satisfactory theory of poetry and the fine arts. The\nsupreme value of his theory comes from the fact that he was one of the\nfew who had actually experienced those creative impulses which as a\ntheorist he endeavoured to account for. He had had the inspiration of\npoetry; he had achieved it; and to that extent he had indisputable\nevidence before him. If only on the one hand he had extended his\nmethod a little further than he did, and taken into consideration that\nformal side of art which is dear to classicism, and on the other hand\nbeen more confident--or shall I say less shy?--when he considered the\norigin of the creative imagination, the ideal conceiver and creator of\n_Natura Naturata_, then his scheme would have been complete--probably\ntoo complete. On the latter subject, however, he threw out hints which\nwere broad enough, and did not wholly shun the controversial sphere of\nmetaphysics. The critic who would avoid the heights and depths of\nmysticism would do well to imitate his reserve, and exceed him in\nmetaphysical diffidence.\n\n\"_Good Sense_ is the _Body_ of poetic genius,\" said Coleridge,\n\"_Fancy_ its _Drapery_, _Motion_ its _Life_, and _Imagination_ the\n_Soul_ that is everywhere, and in each; and forms all into one\ngraceful and intelligent whole.\" It is by that \"synthetic and magical\npower\" which he calls \"imagination\" that the poet \"brings the whole\nsoul of man into activity,\" and \"diffuses a tone and spirit of unity.\"\nColeridge's theory of the Fine Arts presupposes his metaphysic; and it\nasserts the primacy of the reason. \"Of all we see, hear, feel and\ntouch the substance is and must be in ourselves: and therefore there\nis no alternative in reason between the dreary (and, thank Heaven!\nalmost impossible) belief that everything around us is but a phantom,\nor that the life which is in us is in them likewise.... The artist\nmust imitate that which is within the thing, that which is active\nthrough form and figure, and discourses to us by symbols.\"\n\nHe defines the beautiful as \"that in which the _many_, still seen as\nmany, becomes one,\" and takes as an instance: \"The frost on the\nwindowpane has by accident crystallised into a striking resemblance of\na tree or a sea-weed. With what pleasure we trace the parts, and their\nrelation to each other and to the whole.\" \"The beautiful arises from\nthe perceived harmony of an object, whether sight or sound, with the\ninborn and constitutive rules of the judgment and imagination, and it\nis always intuitive.\" It is that which \"calls on the soul\" (\u03ba\u03b1\u03bb\u03cc\u03bd\nquasi \u03ba\u03b1\u03bb\u03bf\u1fe6\u03bd). He conceives it to be the function of the human reason\nto discover the unifying idea which underlies all the variety of\nnature; and thus it is that when manifold objects of sense are reduced\nby the imagination to order and unity the soul is satisfied, and its\nexperience is an experience of what is called the beautiful. It is\nwith this discovering of order in the seemingly chaotic, in other\nwords the discovering of beauty, that the creative artist is\nconcerned. It is his business to inform matter with idea; and matter\nsymbolically used becomes the expression of the artist's thought just\nas for the theologian the world of nature is an expression of the\nthought of God. \"To make the external internal, the internal external,\nto make nature thought, and thought nature--this is the mystery of\ngenius in the Fine Arts.\" And he goes on significantly: \"Dare I add\nthat the genius must act on the feeling, that body is but a striving\nto become mind--that it is mind in its essence?\" And in all the\n_Biographia Literaria_ there is perhaps no more striking suggestion\nthan: \"Remark the seeming identity of body and mind in infants, and\nthence the loveliness of the former.\"\n\nIt should be observed that Coleridge's philosophy presupposes \"a bond\nbetween nature in the higher sense and the soul of a man,\"\npresupposes, that is, that the spirit of the artist \"has the same\nground with nature,\" whose unspoken language he must learn \"in its\nmain radicals.\" It is only by reason of this bond that external\nnature, the manifestation of _Natura naturans_, lends itself to the\nartist so that he too may manifest himself. To attain this end the\nartist will imitate nature but not copy her. (\"What idle rivalry!\" he\nexclaims. Is not a copy of nature like a wax-work figure, which shocks\nbecause it lacks \"the motion and the life which we expected?\") The\nartist imitates what he perceives to be essential in nature; he takes\nthe images which life affords him and so disposes of them as to bring\nto light the unities which the spirit loves; it is he who brings order\nout of disorder, imposing upon matter a form which the imagination has\nconceived.\n\nFor the purposes of the general critic of art, Coleridge has given us\ntoo much and too little. He gives us too much: for the acceptance of\nhis theory in its completeness is only possible for those who can also\naccept his metaphysic (his artist stands in a special relationship to\nthat _Natura naturans_ which is a name for God). It is indeed clear to\nme that no complete conception of the operations of art can be formed\nwithout a complete metaphysical theory; but both are difficult to\nattain. Both lead to speculation, controversy, and a thousand\nopportunities of error. And any systematically complete theory of\nart, seeking as it must to account for infinity, must, like all\nmetaphysical systems, fall short of the truth by precisely the\ndifference between infinite thought and the thought of one man--by the\ndifference between the Universe and You or Me. Those who are anxious\nto learn what can be learnt about the creative process, and to explain\nit to themselves, not in terms of abstract thought, but in terms of\nthe humanly intelligible and appreciable, may be satisfied with a\nlower degree of truth, with something more certain though not fully\nexplained. We may be content if we can hit upon some least common\ndenominator free from the controversies of metaphysics.\n\nIf that is our object, Coleridge has given us too much. But he has\nalso given us too little. So generalised is his treatment that we are\nled to the conclusion that his perfect artist (who cannot exist) ought\nto express nothing less than the whole of himself in one single\ncomprehensive work of art, as the divine Creator is conceived to have\nproduced one harmonious expression of Himself in the Universe. What he\ndoes not sufficiently discuss is the imperfect artist--the only artist\nthat has yet been given to the world. It is true the great genius in\nletters, or any other kind of art, can never rest content until he has\nbodied forth in a multitude of works all of that complex which is his\nconception of life. But he works under the conditions of time and\nspace. His conception of life has been modified before he has had time\nto vanquish time. In practice, at any given moment, he is at work upon\na single aspect of life, upon one part only of his general\nconception, so that the most immediate task before him is not that of\n_unifying_ nature, but of _separating_, of _selecting_; and only when\nhe has thus separated and selected can he proceed to make a unity\nwithin that restricted sphere of nature--his particular subject. On\nthis practical question, this problem, not of perfection but of\nimperfection, Coleridge is characteristically silent.\n\nBut at least we must follow him in his view that the great artist is\nengaged in the attempt to body forth, through the symbols which\nexternal nature provides him, his fundamental conceptions about life.\nWere this not so, art would not be concerned, as it claims to be, with\nwhat is most important in the world, or at least most important to the\nartist. \"No man was ever yet a great poet,\" he insisted, \"without\nbeing at the same time a profound philosopher.\" We may recall the\ndictum of Meredith: \"If we do not speedily embrace philosophy in\nfiction, the Art is doomed to extinction.\" But there is a great\ndifference between the two views. A work of art which is broad enough\nto embrace philosophy is not the same thing as a work of art which is\nembraced by philosophy, and is a complete product of the philosophical\nimagination. Meredith extolled the intellect, which works\ndiscursively; Coleridge extolled the reason, which apprehends\nintuitively. For Coleridge, the intellect was only the organ by which\nrational conceptions and intuitions are logically applied, and adapted\nto circumstance. From his point of view we might conclude that the\ngenius of Meredith missed the greatest effects because, applying his\nintellect _discursively_ to life, he so often refused to make it\nsubservient to any central conception or intuition. However that may\nbe, it is impossible to resist at least this conclusion, that the\nartist in whose work we feel a _background_, whose work suggests more\nthan it directly is, being capable of arousing numberless feelings and\nassociations in the mind, so that it stands veritably as a symbol of\nthe whole of life, is the artist _par excellence_. Much of this effect\nmay be produced by an _unconscious_ activity which Coleridge\nrecognised as a part of the activity of genius. Nevertheless, whether\nthe activity is conscious or unconscious, it cannot do more than\nexpress what arises in, or passes through, the imagination of the\nartist; it is his complex conception of life and the significance of\nlife, his definite individual outlook, which accounts for this\nbackground to a work of art, for this suggestiveness which makes it\nappealing and awakening, for these associations which it has cunningly\nbrought before us. And whether or not we are going to allow that\nsomething less than this can be called art, that the merely shapely\n(shapely as if by accident) ought to be included in its category,\nnevertheless, it is this which holds the highest place. The answer is\ngiven by all the great authors of the world who have left their\nindividual stamp upon their art, who created images representative of\nlife as they conceived it essentially to be.\n\nBut I am far from holding that those central conceptions which the\nartist embodies through the forms of his art are metaphysical\nconceptions. This is where I should disagree with Mr. Lascelles\nAbercrombie, who wrote some profoundly interesting chapters on this\nsubject in a book on Thomas Hardy. Mr. Abercrombie laid it down that\nevery great artist must have a metaphysic, and that in bringing his\nsubject-matter under the form conceived by his imagination his\nmetaphysic is throughout the work consistently represented (of course\nimplicitly, not explicitly); and he suggested that we may apply a\ndefinite standard of criticism by asking: How far does a work of art\ncorrespond with the artist's philosophical view of life?--this being\nfor him another way of saying: How far has the artist succeeded in\nimposing the desired form upon his material? With the latter mode of\nstating the question I should have no quarrel. But the former implies\nthat the artist has devoted himself to metaphysical studies. Mr.\nAbercrombie may have meant only that every work of art presupposes a\nmetaphysic; but so does everything in the world. The remark would\nscarcely have been worth making. So I suppose him to have meant that\nevery great artist must have subdued his mind to a definite\nphilosophical interpretation of the Universe, and that in his works he\nshows nature and human life as parts of the cosmic scheme definitely\nconceived by him. As it happened, the particular novelist whom he was\nconsidering, Mr. Thomas Hardy, exactly answers to this description. So\ndoes Sophocles, so does Milton--authors specially esteemed by Mr.\nAbercrombie. Homer, too, might perhaps be accounted for in this way;\nfor he had at any rate a perfectly definite conception of the relation\nof men to the gods of Olympus and to the ghosts who trod the mead of\nAsphodel; and to the perfect spontaneity, the unhesitating certainty\nwith which Homer bodies forth the conviction of pantheism is due much\nof the charm and infinite delight of the Epics. Perhaps with ingenuity\none might discover a metaphysic for Shakespeare--and even if we could\nnot discover it, none the less it may have been there. But how about\nHerrick, Robert Burns, or even Mr. Henry James? Are we to equip them\nwith a metaphysic, or exclude them from the portals of art? Shall we\nnot gain more by requiring from an artist something, definite indeed,\nbut less exacting and elusive than a definite scheme of the Universe;\nsomething which would admit, for example, Calverley; which would take\nsome heed of the simplest of songs, and account for Lewis Carroll in\nthe same way that we can account for Sophocles or Milton?\n\nThere is surely something more essential to a man even than his\ncodification of himself in the final terms of philosophy. It is that\nkernel of personality which inclines him in this direction or that. It\nis this kernel of personality which turns him in the first place to\nphilosophy, if he be a philosopher; or which makes him detest abstract\nspeculation, if he is another kind of man. It is prior to philosophy.\nIt is a condition of its being. It determines, surely, even the\ncharacter of a man's metaphysic, setting him, not to range like an\naimless ghost of thought across the Universe, but to express himself\naccurately; to express himself, with the help of his intellect,\nconsistently. Now the artist, or imaginative person, is not seeking to\nexpress himself, like the philosopher, in terms of logical notions;\nand he is under no obligation to express himself, to himself,\nlogically, before he proceeds to express himself imaginatively. All\nthat is essential is that the kernel of his personality, that which\ndetermines philosophies as it determines every other achievement,\nshould be directly, immediately, expressed in the figurative language\nof his art. This is the central, the all-important thing, that final,\n_essential_, and therefore indefinable entity which has thrust itself\nupon us when we say of a man that he has an \"interesting personality.\"\nThe more powerful and energetic a man is, the more distinctive become\nhis ways of looking at things, his ways of thinking, observing,\nappreciating; we discover a kind of centre of gravity in him, or a\nkernel which has been developed by active experience and reflection.\nThis kernel of his character is to the rest of him, the accidental or\ninessential, what in the language of modern philosophy the \"real will\"\nof an individual is to the variety of his particular desires. The less\nhe concentrates, the less is his real personality expressed; the\nweaker the will, the more evident the inessential and slovenly parts\nof his nature; the weaker the intelligence, the less adequate is his\nattempt to express himself.\n\nThe artist has not necessarily that \"strong personality\" which\nattempts to assert itself by influencing the action of others. His is\nthe personality which wishes to express imaginatively. And by\nimagination I mean the making of images--I mean that stretching out of\nthe _essential_ personality towards nature, so that it may touch\nnature at as many points as possible, fashioning it into images,\nbinding itself to nature, and nature to itself, ever seeking to expand\nin this contact or sympathy, so that as far as possible the whole\nessential personality may be expressed through as much as possible of\nnature. The artistic impulse, the poetic or creative impulse, is that\nwhich impels him to the expression of what is most really and\ncentrally himself. The world of nature as perceived by him when he is\nin full possession of himself assumes a form schemed by his\nimagination; and it is this which he endeavours to body forth when he\nselects now these and now those objects to represent his conception of\nlife.\n\nWe may, then, take it that the first essential to an artist is the\nimaginative impulse which makes him desire to express himself in terms\nof life. And the second is that energetic quality by which he\nendeavours to express what is central to his personality, that part of\nhim which is his \"real self.\" This is what is meant by \"sincerity\" in\nart. And a third surely is a sort of self-detachment, or sympathy, or\nknowledge, by means of which he is able to estimate the material in\nwhich he works. The two last mentioned qualities, taken together,\nimply a sense of form, in accordance with which the idea is embodied\nin the finished work of art, and technique--the professional knowledge\nby the help of which this embodiment is accomplished.\n\nThe objection may be raised that the man who has an essentially\ndistorted or meagre personality and succeeds exactly in expressing\nhimself is, according to my estimate, entitled to the same artistic\ncredit as a man of the loftiest ideas. To that I reply that though the\nclue to his work is to be found, in the last resort, in his\npersonality, it is not by his personality that he is to be judged; he\nis to be judged by his works; and in producing these works he\nexpresses himself, not in terms of himself, but in terms of external\nobjects, in terms of life known to all of us; and that if he perfectly\nexpresses distorted or meagre views of life, the representation of\nlife which he gives to us will itself be palpably distorted and\nmeagre. We are all capable of detecting the falsity if the facts of\nlife are distorted before our eyes, or represented in so dull or\nmeagre a way that they afford us no vivid experience whatsoever. An\nartist stands self-condemned if his interpretation fails to correspond\nwith that outward life to which our senses are a sufficient guide.\n\nIndeed we have already demanded, as a self-evident axiom, that the\nartist should afford us a vivid experience, and that which directly\ncontradicts the truth of common sense can produce no experience except\nthat of confusion or disgust. It belongs to the first rudiments of\nart--the mere grammar--that an artist's convictions, as bodied forth\nin sense-given symbols, should not palpably and shockingly contradict\nthe conditions of the sensible world; his is the far more difficult\nand delicate task of expressing himself, not by violation, but by\nselection, emphasis, reconstruction. The penalty he must pay if he\nrefuses these terms is that of being unintelligible.\n\nBut granted that the artist has obeyed this law, which is obvious to\nthe majority of the sane, we further demand from him that his work\nshould be \"sincere,\" that is to say, that it should be consistent with\nhis own clearest conceptions, his most urgent convictions, his most\npenetrating intuitions--in a word, consistent with that central thing\nwhich I have called the kernel of his personality. An artist is in\nthis sense insincere whenever, for example, he inserts anything in his\nwork which exists solely for the sake of convention--some of\nShakespeare's clown scenes were often put in solely because an\nElizabethan audience demanded them, and they were to that extent a\ntruckling to convention, an insincerity. They do not express the real\nShakespeare. Any artist not capable of entirely direct and spontaneous\nexpression (and probably no great art was ever completely spontaneous)\nmust make up his mind about himself, about what is temperamentally\nreal in him, about that which is his primary _raison d'\u00eatre_; and in\naccordance with, and out of this kernel of himself he must interpret\nall that he touches. By this means alone can he introduce order, form,\nunity into the indeterminate chaos of life. By this means alone can\nlife assume coherent shape under his hands, and it is coherence and\nshape which alone can give us the impression of beauty, of that\ncoherent shapeliness of matter drawn into the semblance of a living\norganism.\n\nIt may be a very simple unity, this microcosm of art, like a cell\ncompounded from protoplasm, yet it will give us its corresponding\npleasure, so long as it is made with the sincerity of the imagination.\nIf it is merely the informing of life with the spirit of light\nlaughter--as in Calverley--it affords its proper pleasure--it is the\nspectacle of life drawn up into that kind of imagination to which\nlaughter belongs. Lewis Carroll's _Alice_ is in the same sense a work\nof art. Is there not throughout those two most charming of children's\nbooks an entirely consistent spirit of bonhomie and exquisite\nrationality--rationality of an order high enough to produce those\ndelightful expositions of the irrational and the absurd? That the\nauthor of _Alice in Wonderland_ was a mathematician is exactly what we\nmight have expected--though he was, what mathematicians rarely are,\nthe artist-mathematician, who understood the world intuitively as well\nas logically, and thus manifested his spirit of laughter and logic\nthrough an inverted world of contradiction.\n\nAnd so again, if we take a modern author of a very different type,\nsuch a one as Henry James, whose concern it is to state life, with a\nview to throwing into relief the finer shades, we shall observe that\nmost of his work is characterised by a kind of intensive culture, as\nopposed to that extensive method which through lack of form was abused\nin Dickens, and through obedience to form was satisfactorily applied\nby the poet Swinburne at his best. We may safely say that when\nSwinburne was at his best, when he was \"himself,\" his world was a\nworld of rhythmical energy, of impetuous freedom and sensuous\nactivity, which, translated into poetry, was expressed through the\nsymbols of love and sea-foam and battle; to be true to the genius\nwhich was central to himself, he required no pregnancy or subtle\nsuggestiveness of phrase; he needed no more than rhyme, rhythm and\nonomatop\u0153ic words, and with these he gave all he had to give--the\nsense of energy remembered, the sensuous delight of physical activity,\na world of divinely glorified sensation. Mature readers do not seek\nhim often, for there are only a few moods which he can satisfy. A\nwriter such as Mr. Henry James stands at the exactly opposite pole. It\nwas the proper business of such a man as Swinburne merely to affirm\nsensation, and he could do it perfectly. It is the proper business of\nMr. James, not to assert sensation or any experience--he could not do\nit with sincerity--but to question sensation, to question emotion and\nsentiment; it is his proper business to examine experience with the\namused, searching gaze of one who expects the unexpected. It is his\nbusiness to make experience interesting, not, like Swinburne, by\nmultiplication, but rather by division--by the method of the\nmicroscope which reveals in a fly's wing some unsuspected fineness of\npattern and variegated brilliance of colour. He himself is fond of the\nword \"curiosity\"; it defines something that is central to his\npersonality; this, brought into activity by the \"representational\nimpulse\" (which in his opinion is the one justification for the\nartist), takes form in the intricate and delicately woven patterns of\nhuman temperament which are the objects of his curiosity.\n\nAnd now we begin to see why every critic, when considering an author's\nworks, almost invariably, and instinctively, examines not only his\nfinished works, but also whatever may be known about him as a man. I\nadmit, as all would admit, that his works must stand or fall solely on\ntheir own account; but the critic finds that in seeking to discover\nthe central interest and significance of an author's art his task is\nfacilitated if once he can find the clue to his temperament. This\nbackstairs knowledge does the trick for him. The bond between the man\nand his art is so necessary and immediate that no objectiveness of\nmethod can conceal it. It was by realising this fact, and applying his\nexceptionally fine critical intuition to this task, that Professor\nRaleigh, considering the _essentials_, was able to draw a very much\nmore convincing picture of the personality of Shakespeare than that\nwhich was drawn, brilliantly indeed, by Mr. Frank Harris; but Mr.\nHarris, I think, devoted his attention to qualities in Shakespeare\nwhich--whether in any sense real or not--were in any case secondary\nand inessential elements in the dramatist's character. And this is why\nhis criticism, in spite of its brilliance, was comparatively\nunimportant.\n\nI must not be supposed to mean that the artist begins with an abstract\nconception, and that he then proceeds to search for objects suitable\nto its concrete representation. There are, I know, brilliant novelists\nand painters who have proceeded in that manner; but the result, to my\nmind, seldom reveals that complete unity of object and idea which men\nrequire; for this method is so dependent upon the intellectual fitting\nof facts to idea that either the facts are forced and made unreal, or\nthe idea is sacrificed. I am told that in the case of Mr. Joseph\nConrad the process is reversed; he perceives, as by vision, some\nintense single situation--that picture, for instance, in _Lord Jim_,\nwhere the Captain looking over the side of his ship is tempted to\ndesert his crew. Such a situation, a focal point in a story, is for\nthe artist object and idea in one, simultaneously presented by the\nimagination; the union of matter and spirit is already there at the\nmoment of creation; and in that way, I imagine, most of the finest\npictures, poems, dramas and stories have been first conceived. When\nonce that focal point has been presented in all its vividness and\nsignificance by the imagination, it remains for the artist to mass his\ndetail in and around it as appropriately as his invention and\ntechnique permit.\n\nWe have now reached conclusions which were approached from two\ndistinct points of view. Starting from certain axioms or self-evident\npropositions, and looking at art from the outside, I suggested that it\nmust provide us with an energetic experience which we value for its\nown sake without thought of consequences or alien interests, an\nexperience which has a fineness or an illuming quality of its own. And\nexamining the same question from the inside--from the side of the\nmental processes implied in the act of creation--I have tried to adapt\nthe conclusions of Coleridge to a view which should not pre-suppose\nhis metaphysic, and have asked what is implied in this fineness or\nilluming quality in a work of art, this which is called beautiful. And\nwhen we learnt that all creative art comes from the imagination of the\nartist projecting itself upon the material of life, I concluded that\nthe two things essential to the creative imagination were knowledge\nand sincerity--knowledge of life itself, so that the artist can use an\nintelligible language and speak in terms of things real to\neveryone--and sincerity, meaning conformity with that which is\nessential or central in the artist himself. Art is thus a\nrepresentation of actual life in terms of the artist. It must be real,\nand it must be ideal. It is the act of genius to be able to give us in\none and the same creation a representation of nature and an expression\nof the artist's personality. This is the new thing which genius\nconstantly adds to the sum-total of human experience--it is the old\nstuff of life quickened and illuminated by the new incarnation. And\nthus the stuff of life itself is increased, and succeeding artists\nstart with a wider range of material.\n\nWe shall not find any actual artist completely satisfying the demand.\nFor the difficulties of form are endless, and sounds, colours, words\nare obstinate materials when they are to be made the vehicle of ideas;\nand even the artist in the full tide of the creative impulse must\nalways find that he has expressed something less than his intention\nand has strayed into the pathless wastes of the inessential. But it is\nthe business of the critic to give him credit for all that is\nattempted in the sincere spirit of the imagination, and at the same\ntime, in sympathy with the actualities of nature; for on the union of\nthese two depends the truth which is the beauty of art.\n\nBut the artist himself is not necessarily concerned with these\ntheories. His main business is intercourse with life, and also the\nenvisaging of life rather \"by meditation\" as Coleridge says, \"than by\nobservation.\" He has to beware of the facts which overcame Coleridge\nhimself, when he sacrificed the divinity of his art to that philosophy\nwhich banished the god. \"Well were it for me,\" he exclaims, \"if I had\ncontinued to pluck the flowers and reap the harvest from the\ncultivated surface, instead of delving in the unwholesome quicksilver\nmines of metaphysic depths.\" The \"shaping spirit of imagination\" which\nimpelled him to unrivalled poetry in his youth was starved in him, not\nonly because of his ill-health, his poverty, his drugs and laziness,\nbut equally because he denied expression to \"fancy, and the love of\nnature and the sense of beauty in forms and sounds.\" For him perhaps\nit was a poor compensation that through this denial he was able to\nleave us a unique interpretation of his \u00e6sthetic and creative\nexperience.\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[2] The word \"flavour\" in this connection was constantly used by the\nlate Canon Ainger.\n\n\n\n\nIII\n\nPASSIONS SPIN THE PLOT\n\n\nIf the reader has borne with my audacity in generalising about the\nmain functions of imaginative literature, he will be willing to pursue\na further and plainer question concerning its subject-matter. It is\ntime to discuss a little more fully what I mean by that \"energetic\nexperience \"which a work of art can give us. For the sake of\nsimplicity I will confine myself to a single issue--to that kind of\nenergetic experience invariably afforded by that small body of\nimaginative literature which the world has agreed to regard as\nsupreme. If we can understand how literature in its greatest examples\nprovides us with an \"addition to life,\" we can, if we are in the mind\nto do so, extend the inquiry to the lighter and less intense\nexperiences of secondary literature.\n\nBy \"supreme\" literature I mean the literature which has proved itself\nto be supreme--supreme by virtue of its conquest over time and over\nchanges in thought and environment. The Iliad and the Odyssey are in a\nlanguage which we should have to learn if only for the sake of these\ntwo epics; they still profoundly interest us, they present emotions\nwhich can still move us; without Homer, the society which they\ndescribe would have vanished from human knowledge; through Homer, it\nis an intimate and cherished part of our experience. This kind of\nsupremacy belongs, I think, to \u00c6schylus and Sophocles, and might\nperhaps be attributed to the Gospel of S. Mark, if that book may be\nconsidered as imaginative literature. Virgil and Dante--in part at\nleast--are of this order, as also are Milton, in _Samson Agonistes_\nand the earlier books of _Paradise Lost_, and Goethe in the first part\nof _Faust_. And there are few besides Mr. Shaw who would deny such\nsupremacy to the tragedies of Shakespeare.\n\nNow these authors have survived, and are likely to survive, for a\nvariety of reasons. But what is common to them all, and what makes us\nset especial store on them, is not merely that they have in large\nmeasure achieved what they set out to do (lesser artists have done\nthat), but that they have set out to do a big thing, to give us the\nmost intense kind of experience that we can have. In other words, they\nhave produced the fineness which emerges through the intensity of\nhuman passion, and it is in proportion to their fine realisation of\npassion that we find them most moving.\n\nI am not, of course, using the word \"passion\" in its modern vulgarised\nsense. For just as the word \"romance\" is often degraded to signify no\nmore than a petty love affair, so the word \"passion\" has been\nappropriated to the amorous, sexual pre-occupation which is the only\nintense feeling of many jaded moderns. Humanity, however devitalised,\nhowever incapable of varied passions, does not lose the love passion\nso long as it has the animal instinct of the fly and the rudimentary\nhuman instinct to idealise. But a race must be strangely incurious if\nthe only romance it can conceive is the romance of a youth and a maid,\nand its only passion the passion of sexual desire. Yet such is the\nstate of mind--to judge by the common usage of words--of the major\nportion of modern society.\n\nNeedless to say, I am not wishing to disparage the literature of love,\nwhether it be poetry, fiction, or of any other kind. English people\nleast of all can afford to belittle it, for if we eliminated it half\nof our best lyrical poetry would go. For we count it a distinction in\nEnglish poetry that upon this theme the changes have been rung so\nfinely and to such exquisite effect. But much of the fineness of love\npoetry is to be distinguished from the fineness of the emotion of\nlove. Lovelace declares to his Lucasta:\n\n    True, a new mistress now I chase,\n      The first foe in the field;\n    And with a stronger faith embrace\n      A sword, a horse, a shield.\n\nThat is in the true spirit of English love poetry, which does not so\nidealise the amorous passion as to make it, in the modern emasculate\nmanner, a substitute for valour, faith, honour; it is not opposed to\nthe manly virtues; it may be the song which a warrior sings to the\nclank of \"a sword, a horse, a shield.\"\n\nBut let us for a moment examine this matter of passion with which\ngreat creative literature is so evidently concerned. No acute physical\npain or thrilling sensuous delight is ever dignified with the name of\npassion, in the significant sense of the word; the essence of passion\nis mental, or spiritual; emotion made intense by idealism turned in a\ndefinite direction, that is to say, by the idealising of an object\nwhich a man has set before himself. The meaning the word has acquired\nis almost the opposite of passivity; it implies a state of the soul in\nunrest, a state requiring action. Passion is a suffering where the\nmind assails the body and torments it with an ideal imperative; and it\nis the double tragedy of passion that the will may not be strong\nenough, as in the case of Hamlet, to translate that imperative into\naction; and second, as we have it in _Faust_, that the object, when\nattained, proves to be not the thing that was desired. In a great\npassion the mind is set upon an object which it idealises beyond the\npossibility of complete satisfaction, and there is suffering because\nthe will is thwarted and cheated of its ideal. Macbeth's passionate\nambition to be a king, encouraged in him by the witches' chant, is an\nambition for something that no being a king can satisfy; and the\ntragedy of his passion lies in the painful effort by which he wins his\nobject and the painful disillusion when it turns to dust.\n\nThe passions with which literature deals run side by side with actions\nthat are impelled by ideals. The richest mind is that which can\nidealise every kind of activity, which can see what we call poetry in\nevery commonplace, which can read destiny in apparently petty desires,\nwhich widens the vision of life by seeing in every action man in\nrelation to the Universe. In art and in life passions are limited by\nthe bounds of our perceptive imagination; by the extent to which we\nare capable of seeing and feeling things intensely. If we only see or\nfeel ambition as a petty and sordid thing, in a petty and sordid\nperson, we cannot make a tragic passion of ambition; if jealousy is a\nlittle vice with no more than small results it cannot be the theme of\nimaginative literature; if the religious ideal cannot be conceived as\npossessing the whole soul, we cannot appreciate the religious passion\nof a John Inglesant; if revenge is no more than spite there can be no\nHamlet, nor a Lear if arrogance is unmixed with love and honour. If,\nto-day, the passion of love is treated more often than any other\nemotion, that is probably because the one capacity for intense\nexperience, which never seems to desert the human race, is the\ncapacity to identify the sex impulse with an ideal. The great artist\nis not confined to this one channel of idealism. He sees branching out\nin every direction all the human activities intensified or refined by\na spirituality which the lesser person sees only under the stress of\nlove. But this fact is to be noticed, that whether it is love of a\nwoman, whether it is ambition, whether it is love of humanity, whether\nit is religious zeal, revenge, or anything else whatsoever on a great\nscale, passion implies idealism, an object set before the mind in its\nspiritual or imaginative capacity, and that the intensity of the\npassion is enhanced by the difficulty of the quest.\n\nGreat passion, then, is a kind of critical union, or rather\nhalf-union, of body and soul. It is the perpetual effort of the body\nto become soul, the real to become ideal; the painful and ever\nfrustrated effort of the individual to become universal; or\nconversely, the painful condition of the human soul which sees its\nideal shattered and its glory reduced to dust and ashes. Its character\nis a problem for religion no less than for \u00e6sthetics. It is Browning\nwho declares:\n\n                          But priests\n      Should study passion; how else cure mankind,\n    Who come for help in passionate extremes?\n\nThe dramatist and the novelist need no more than the power to create\nsuch a passion; for the greater includes the less; it is not achieved\nin art, unless plot, narrative, style, and all the subsidiary devices\nhave served to expose it in its reality and its intensity. This is\npresumably what Dumas _p\u00e8re_ meant in the lines which Henley quotes\nfrom him: \"All _he_ wanted was 'four trestles, four boards, two\nactors, and a passion.'\" The passionate hero either strains towards an\nidealised object, or he still proclaims his yearning after the ideal\nby the lamentations with which he curses his ill-fate. Throughout\nGreek tragedy there is an undercurrent of protest against inexorable\nFate which is set against the realisation of the ideal. The passion of\nPrometheus sums up the perpetual agony of the human race in its\nperpetual striving to rise beyond its limitations. The tragic irony of\nthe Greeks is but the expression of the tragedy of passion in its\npitiful reaction from hope, the intensity of feeling with which men\nsee desire defeated and ideal unattainable. So, too, in the most\nintense moments the characters of Shakespeare become ironical:\n\n          Misery makes Sport to mock itself.\n\nAnd we can readily understand, what some persons have thought strange,\nthat Ophelia's language should become coarse, like Lear's, in the full\ntide of bitterness. It is the reaction after the perception of a\nspiritual beauty. The beauty seems broken; the earth and its foulness\nremain, and the anguished spirit sees the foulness exaggerated by\ncontrast with its ideal. Lear, who had seen his daughters as paragons,\nsees them now as centaurs; he, who had adored their filial devotion,\ncompares them now to the most obscene things which can besmirch the\nsight; nothing is too shameful to express the fall from that ideal.\n\nWe see, then, why it is that the highest forms of literature are\nnecessarily concerned with pain. It is not merely that art requires\nintensity of feeling, and that the emotion of pain is the most intense\nwe know. It is because the highest literature must necessarily be\nconcerned with human beings in their most profound aspirations, in\ntheir most deeply experienced strivings each after his own ideal,\naccording to his own conception of what will satisfy him; and it is\nbecause in the nature of things such an ideal is more than experience\ncan satisfy that the anguish of striving and the anguish of failure\nare the subjects of art. A play such as Marlowe's _Tamburlaine_ can\nnever be regarded as great drama. Amid scenes of magnificence and\nsplendid savage rhetoric Tamburlaine passes on from triumph to\ntriumph, the incarnation of the conquering will. There are numberless\ndetached passages of what we may call lyrical poetry--for a lyrical\npoem expresses no more than a moment's mood, a single phase of the\nsequence which is passion. But there is no passionate sequence in\n_Tamburlaine_; it is a monotonous record of much-vaunted triumphs. We\ndo not feel the painful struggle; there is no prospect of defeat;\nthere is no storm and stress of an ideal at stake, a human being\nbattered by circumstance. We may, if we are brutal enough, bow down\nbefore Tamburlaine's Juggernaut car; but he does not touch our\nemotions; he is not a tragic hero. Tragedy has no interest in\nsupermen; unless, indeed, like Chapman's Bussy d'Ambois, the hero has\nthe courage of the superman with the limitations of the rest of\nhumanity.\n\nBut if the superman is not a possible subject for great art, neither\nis the crawling earthworm. Many modern authors and critics seem to\nconsider that because tragic passion is always painful, therefore pain\nis the essential thing in tragedy. It is this grossly false assumption\nthat is responsible for many disasters in contemporary literature; it\nis the deep-lying error in much of our so-called \"intellectual drama\"\nand \"intellectual fiction.\" I have heard authors and critics complain\nthat the public will not read certain books or go to certain plays\nbecause they are \"painful\" or \"grim.\" If it had been because these\nbooks or plays were \"_passionate_\" that the public had refused to\nattend, I should have understood the complaint. Pain without passion\nmay be scientifically interesting, but it has no artistic content, no\nhigh emotional significance. Indeed, it is not true to suppose that\nthe public dislikes the spectacle of the painful or the ugly. All know\nsomething of the fascination which disturbed Leontius, the son of\nAglaion, who, coming up from the Pir\u00e6us, observed dead bodies on the\nground; and desiring to look at them and loathing the thought opened\nhis eyes wide, exclaiming, \"There, you wretches, take your fill of the\nhorrid sight!\" If anyone doubts this let him recall that a painful and\nsordid episode in the law-courts fascinates the public just as it is\nfascinated by the crude villainies of East-end melodrama; and that the\nmost highly moralised section of the public can be stirred to attend\nto the persecution of Congo natives or Macedonian Christians only by\nthe most appalling stories of massacre, outrage, and various forms of\nextreme suffering.\n\nSurely it is not because they are concerned with painful subjects that\nmany of the \"intellectual\" dramatists have failed--failed, I mean, not\nonly with the very ignorant public, but also with more discriminating\naudiences. In some cases, which it is not my business here to specify,\nthey have failed because the authors have set their hearts on a\nproblem outside the subject of their art, and the art has suffered in\nconsequence; for only disinterested art has the power to move us. In\nsome cases they have failed because the authors have held theories\nwhich I believe to be fatal to literature. The narrow view of what is\ncalled Realism has been an adjunct to intellectual faddism and\npropagandism, and has served to sterilise literature. The great\nRealists have never been mere Realists; they have never thought that\nto produce art it is sufficient merely to reproduce fact. The word\n\"Truth\" has been introduced in the most shameless fashion. It is true\nthat there are men without arms and legs and noses, but to delineate\nsuch a creature with exquisite accuracy is not to produce a faithful\nrendering of life. It is true that there are drab, sordid,\nexpressionless lives, without happiness, without hope, without ideals.\nTo describe these lives in all their miserable detail may be of\ninfinite value for social and reforming purposes. It may be the duty\nof every one of us to study these sores in the body politic for the\nexistence of which we are collectively responsible. It may be craven\ncowardice not to open our eyes wide to these painful and hideous\nfacts, which cry out to be removed and prevented. And if any person\nwhose enthusiasm in life it is to abolish them hits upon an artistic\ndevice for calling attention to them, he is justified by his object.\nBut let us nevertheless be frank about the matter. His object is the\nremoval of abuses. To stir emotions in a fine way is not his primary\nend and aim; it is for him only a means to something else. We are not\ncondemning him when we say that his object is not the object of the\ncreative artist, who is concerned with life not in its partial\naspects, but as a whole. But he on his part has no right to complain\nif he fails. The \"truth\" with which he is concerned is a scientific\ncase, not an artistic truth. He has failed to stir our emotions\nbecause the attempt to stir emotions was only a dodge on his part; he\nwas playing a trick on us, for a laudable end, and if we are not taken\nin the fault is not ours.\n\nDrama, fiction, poetry, and the other fine arts cannot tolerate even\nthe best-intentioned insincerity. There is here no arbitrary dogma or\ncanon of art, but merely an assertion of the simple fact that you\ncannot achieve two wholly different ends at one and the same time,\nthat success is dependent upon singleness of aim and enthusiasm. It is\ntrue that there is no subject whatsoever that may not lend itself to\ntreatment. But it must be treated for its own sake, disinterestedly.\nLiterature will not move us greatly unless it is concerned with great\nemotions. It will not move us finely except in the presence of an\nideal. For in the great passions of literature, as in the great\npassions of life, there is always an ideal at stake, an ideal that is\nmore than the attainable, a grasping at a fulness of satisfaction\nwhich is more than experience can afford.\n\nI am making no appeal for what is misunderstood by the term \"Art for\nArt's sake,\" or for that typically French view the expression of which\nI may take from the younger Dumas' _Affaire Clemenceau_:\n\n    Savez-vous ce que c'est que l'art? C'est le Beau dans le vrai,\n    et, d'apr\u00e8s ce principe, l'art s'est cr\u00e9\u00e9 des r\u00e8gles absolus,\n    que vous chercheriez en vain dans la nature seule. Si la nature\n    seule pouvait le satisfaire, vous n'auriez qu'\u00e0 mouler un beau\n    mod\u00e8le de la t\u00eate aux pieds, pour faire un chef d'\u0153uvre. Ou,\n    si vous ex\u00e9cutiez cette id\u00e9e, vous ne produiriez qu'un\n    grotesque. Le talent consiste \u00e0 compl\u00e9ter la nature, \u00c3\n    recueillir \u00e7\u00e0 et l\u00e0 ses indications merveilleuses, mais\n    partielles, \u00e0 les r\u00e9sumer dans un ensemble homog\u00e8ne et a donner\n    \u00e0 cet ensemble une pens\u00e9e ou un sentiment, puisque nous pouvons\n    lui donner une \u00e2me.\n\nI am in sympathy with that view so far as it implies that the artist\ncannot be content with a slavish reproduction of isolated facts taken\nfrom nature; and that he sets his gaze upon \"_le Beau dans le vrai_,\"\nwhich I should like to render, not the \"beautiful in the true,\" but\nthe \"Ideal in the true.\" But I am not in sympathy with it so far as it\nimplies a formal beauty which the artist discerns in accordance with a\nprinciple mysteriously and exclusively artistic, existing in a region\nremote from life. Art is not a sacred mystery into which only the\ninitiated can penetrate. It is not concerned with beauties drawn from\na peculiar and exclusive artistic Absolute. Literature deals with\nlife, but in life in an intense manifestation, with that passionate\nlife which attains its richness, its breadth, its tremendous lustiness\nthrough the desire for something more than normal life can give.\nNobody can object that these ideals are not real, that they are not\ntrue to life, and indeed the most vital part of life. The passions\nthey call forth in men are the most real, the most vivid, the most\nilluminating; they widen and refine experience; they bring us into a\nlarger universe, they add to the stature of personality, they are the\nmeans of growth. Literature is an expansion of the mind out of the\nnarrower truth into the larger. It despises no experience, but drags\nto light its hidden resources, its unexpected wealth. It is profoundly\ninterested in experience on its intense, that is to say, its\npassionate side. The original mind, not content to find poetic value\nin a single emotion such as that of love, finds it on all sides,\ndiscovering interests here, there, and everywhere. If it concentrates\non one of these for the purposes of a poem, a play, a novel, it\nneglects, of course, no adventitious aid which gives reality to the\npersons, sufficiency to their motives, contrast, relief,\natmosphere--all that is expressed by the ordinary jargon of criticism.\nTo sum up: great creative literature does not deal with things painful\nor otherwise merely because they are facts of life. Its business is\nthe intensification of life, to bring home to us its myriad\nfinenesses; it achieves this end by presenting persons passing through\nthe intense experiences which we call passions; and these are\nconditions of the spirit in which an idealised object encourages,\nthwarts, or tantalises the seeker, and dejects him utterly if the\nreality turns out to be less than the ideal. The inquiry opens a\nquestion for the metaphysician--What is the source of this ideal\nelement which enters into every object passionately sought, and so\ntranscends realisation that the object cannot be attained without a\nsense of loss?\n\n\n\n\nIV\n\nTHE POPULAR TASTE\n\n\nIf anything is worse than bad literature it is the tedious Pharisaism\nof the \"man of culture.\" How flattering to the self-esteem to cast a\nsupercilious eye upon the melodramatic, sentimental, unbeautiful books\nwhich constitute the mass of modern literature! The mass of modern\nliterature is provided for the mass of men and women, but history has\nproved that a small and educated public may embrace stupidities not\nless desiccating than the stupidity of the million. A cultured public\nin the eighteenth century which could tolerate Colley Cibber gains\nnothing by comparison with an uncultured public which delights in Hall\nCaine. An author who attempted a poetic drama in the eighteenth\ncentury had to conform to the rules, but his compliance with\nconvention is worth no more to literature than the libertinism of the\nmodern reporter. The correct taste of that period is sufficiently\nflagellated in Swift's _Recipe to make an Epic Poem_, wherein he\n\"makes it manifest that epic poems may be made without genius, nay\nwithout learning or much reading.... It is easily brought about by him\nthat has a genius, but the skill lies in doing it without one.\" To\nthis day there exists an oligarchy of academic persons whose taste is\nalmost exactly on a par with the taste most in evidence two hundred\nyears ago. They are the people who estimate literature by its\ncorrectness rather than by its fineness or power, who are impregnable\nin their little fortress of pedantry, and are for ever secure against\nthe attacks of original genius.\n\nIf, then, we find that there is much in modern popular literature that\nwe dislike, this is a very different thing from saying that we prefer\nthe technical banalities dear to the pedant, or would set up the\nstandard of a barren culture. The popular taste is something not to be\nscoffed at, but to be accounted for. To complain of it is wasted\neffort; to explain it would be something to the purpose. And this we\ncan only do by keeping in mind that vital ideal which in spite of\nevery set-back the world has contrived to preserve, and endeavouring\nto discover what it is--short of that ideal, or remote from it--that\nthe modern public wants: what taste it is that hundreds of modern\nauthors are trying to satisfy.\n\nIt is evidently a very various taste, for it is the taste of the whole\npeople. Everyone in the modern civilised state has been taught to\nread, and almost everyone has had the written word thrust upon him; so\nthat reading has become a habit. At every turn the eye falls upon the\nprinted advertisement, the printed leaflet, the hand-written letter;\nand the habit which is developed by the necessities of life has\nintertwined itself also in the amenities. Newspapers, and weekly and\nmonthly periodicals, adapt themselves to the tastes of every class in\nthe community. The time is still far distant when books will be\nuniversally and systematically read; but the number of volumes\nannually distributed has increased at least tenfold in the last\ngeneration; and a large proportion of this literature must find its\nway to strata of society which fifty years ago read nothing at all.\n\nIt would be too much to expect that these millions of recruits to the\nreading public would be drawn to that literature which can be classed\nwith the fine arts. One would no more expect them to admire it than\none would expect a child of five to admire _Hamlet_. The astonishing\nthing is, not that so few people appreciate the best literature, as\nthat so many--_under direction_--are open to its influence, as we may\nsee from the immense sales of those popular volumes which Mr. Ernest\nRhys and others guarantee to be genuine \"classics.\" Unfortunately, in\nthe case of recently written books, Mr. Rhys is not always at hand. In\nsuch cases there is little direction for docile disciples of culture\nexcepting such as is given in newspaper reviews, and reviews are as\nlikely to misdirect and confuse as to encourage and guide.\n\nBut although this considerable and growing public of ambitious readers\nalready exists, and may some day come to the support of original\nliterature, it is at present easily swamped by that heterogeneous\npublic for which the largest number of books are provided. That\nmajority, in the nature of things, is unable to give the concentrated\nattention, still less the selective appreciation, which literature of\nthe higher order requires. There is nothing to encourage them to\nconcentrate. The newspaper, the popular magazine, the theatre, the\nmoving-picture show, and the whole shifting, rapid panorama of modern\nlife discourage concentration. There are readers who can only give\nthe odds and ends of their time to reading. Most of them are devoting\nthe best efforts of their brain and attention to their business,\nhousehold duties, their social and domestic affairs, and they turn to\nbooks only when their minds are fatigued and in need of repose. That\nis to say, they read not for a renewal of activity, but for\ndistraction. With them, books satisfy the desire, not for an\nenhancement of life, but for the forgetting of it. Their literature is\nat the most a stimulant which excites without giving active play to\ntheir faculties; it presents nothing which connects with life or\nideas, nothing even to call forth the effort demanded by their\npractical affairs.\n\nThere are others, for the most part women not of the working class,\nwho support with apparent earnestness the purveyors of popular fiction\nand biography, and even patronise poetry and genteel social\nphilosophy. Amongst them are to be found those to whom the sterner\nactualities of life are unfamiliar and repugnant, for whom the\npractice of trifling with books is rather an ornament than an\noccupation, a mode of killing time rather than using it. They, too,\nread to be distracted, choosing an emasculate literature which panders\nto their essential dilettantism.\n\nNow those who regard literature as an important thing, playing a\nsignificant part in the life of a nation, must, as I have already\nindicated, seek in it something more positive than a _distraction_\nfrom life; for them it must be an _addition to life_. It must provide\nexperience compounded of the same stuff as other experience; but not\nhaving the vividness which the direct impact of life carries with it,\nit must gain its vividness by an intensity, a fineness, an interest of\nits own--by a distinctive quality distilled into it from the\npersonality of the writer. It is imagination which achieves this, the\nfaculty so apprehensive of life that it can fashion life into images\nwhich are projections of the artist, his own stamp upon the stuff of\nlife. To such an author literature cannot be a mere amusement or\nprofession. It deals with what he conceives to be the most essential\nthings in the world; it is his rendering of the world, his\nperspective; and it is just in so far as he has made this, his ideal\nand real world, appreciable also to us, that he has succeeded in his\nart. Such imaginative reconstruction of the facts of life, such\nimpregnation of life with fineness, calls for alertness of faculty in\nthe reader, demands from him something of that eagerness to perceive\nwhich characterises the artist himself. But how can the tired worker\nseeking distraction, or the idle dilettante seeking only a drug or a\nstimulant, muster that alertness of faculty and that eagerness to\nperceive which are needed for the appreciation of art? It is not to be\nexpected. A coarser appeal will produce all that such minds are able\nto assimilate. For good reading, like good writing, requires the\nenergy of men not robbed of leisure, men who can enjoy some respite\nfrom the commonplace.\n\nAnd yet it often happens, as we shall see, that those who have\nsucceeded in distracting the many have put into their work some\nfineness which commends it also to the few. It is only in theory that\nthere is a fixed boundary between works of art and the works which\nPhilistines enjoy. In practice, merit and demerit exist side by side;\nworks crude in conception reveal a hundred finenesses, and works fine\nin conception reveal crudenesses of execution. And just as there are\nauthors who mingle good and bad in their books, so too there are\nreaders who enjoy certain kinds of excellence though they can be\nvulgarly excited by the cruder devices. And again there are persons\nwho appreciate to some extent genuine works of art, who in moments of\nfatigue or jaded appetite can be diverted by the mere appeal to\nsensation.\n\nThe clever publisher knows well that the public for whose distraction\nhe caters is divided into many classes, and that these classes must be\nattracted each in a special way. For the purposes of my argument I\ngroup these under five different heads, which are probably not\nexhaustive and certainly not mutually exclusive, but correspond, I\nthink, to the five chief means of exciting and distracting the\nmultitude. The two largest classes constantly overlap, consisting:\nfirstly, of those whose love of sensation is satisfied by violent\nincident; and secondly, of those who are especially susceptible to the\nsentimental appeal. To a third class belong those who take pleasure in\nthe agitations of sex feeling; and to a fourth, those whose sense of\nhumour is tickled by the sallies of the literary clown. The fifth\nclass--a very large one--consists of those who are of a habit of mind\nto be excited by sensations which can be associated with religion and\nmorality. It is useless to name as a sixth class those who are moved\nby intellectual ideas, for so small a class is not the objective of\nthe popular author.\n\nI. All novels must to some extent depend upon incident and arrangement\nof incident, but there is a kind of novel which only interests through\nthe excitement of events in their nature fictitious, even when\naccidentally true. Any really good book which may be spoken of as a\n\"novel of incident\" will invariably prove to be very much more. To\ntake the case of Fielding's _Tom Jones_, one observes that it is an\nimitation of life which is neither a slavish copying nor a\nmake-believe, but a vivid representation of eighteenth-century England\nas Fielding saw it; it is a book which presents characters, and itself\nhas a character. Its atmosphere is quite unmistakable. It is not a\n\"slice\" out of the eighteenth century--there can be no real \"slice out\nof life\" excepting in life itself. It is Fielding's rendering of the\neighteenth century, in particular it is his assertion of the\n_physicality_ (if I may use the term) of life, a direct assertion of\nthe boisterous physical vitality which, as Fielding presents it and as\nMarlowe presented it, acquires value for the spirit and is acceptable\nto the imagination. It is the original pagan assertion of life, which\nfinds its opposite in Euripides' conception of the ascetic Hippolytus;\nan assertion which Propertius repeated in the language of mockery when\nhe speaks of a _lena_ as\n\n    \"Docta vel Hippolytum Veneri mollire negantem.\"\n\nEven Euripides himself was so infected with the pagan view that he\nsees a sort of Nemesis pursuing the hero whom the slighted Aphrodite\nreproaches with lack of reverence--religious reverence--for her power.\nThis primitive pagan view, crude, non-moral, but essentially sincere,\nanimates the story of Tom Jones and gives it a character which is\nlacking in the popular \"novel of incident.\"\n\n_Tom Jones_ was and is a popular book. But I hope I am not wronging\nthe larger mass of mankind when I say that those (of the majority) who\nlike Fielding do not like him for his unique excellences; they would\nbe equally pleased if puppets instead of vital persons had passed\nalong the same course of exciting events; and that there are others\nwho would not read him even if he began writing to-day, because his\npicture of life is too consistent with his imagination, and this very\ntenacity would perturb and irritate the trivial. Nevertheless he would\nhave many readers among a large minority, just as Mr. Arnold Bennett\nhas to-day--readers who can appreciate a story which is direct, vivid,\nand mainly external in treatment.\n\nBut the largest public is for writers like Mr. Cutcliffe Hyne or Mr.\nWilliam Le Queux. These more nearly represent the popular ideal in a\n\"novel of incident.\" For the former I have some respect. He shows\ningenuity in his concoction of improbable plots. In _Captain Kettle_\nthere is at least some attention to character--of a freakish kind--and\nsomething of atmosphere which gives it a mock-romantic interest. It\nholds the multitude by reason of the thrilling sensations extracted\nfrom incidents wholly unlike anything possible in their lives, but\nnear enough to reported facts to be able to astonish and excite them.\nSuch improbable but ingeniously contrived events are enough to\ndistract them, and if there be more in Mr. Hyne's stories imparted by\nhis personal eagerness and honesty, it escapes them, or at least does\nnot annoy them.\n\nBut this finer quality has been lacking in such of Mr. Le Queux's\nbooks as I have chanced to read. I may have been unlucky in my\nselection, and there may be admirable qualities in those of his novels\nwhich I have not read. But in the three or four volumes known to me I\nfound that the persons were puppets, moving in unnatural situations,\nmeeting sensational adventures which constituted all that there was of\nan improbable and slenderly connected plot. We all know the sort of\nbook. But what is it that makes this, and others like it, popular?\nThere were scenes of spurious passion. There were incidents in which\naction assumed the proportions of prodigy. There was vague sensation.\nIn one of his novels I found an introduction by Lord Roberts warning\nEnglishmen to prepare for the German invasion planned by Mr. Le Queux\nfor 1910! History has not yet revealed the horror and devastation of\nthat war; but this horror and devastation lent to Mr. Le Queux's book\nthe interest which it required.\n\nYet the novel which is read mainly for the thrill of the incident may\nbe written in a far finer spirit. Most historical novels depend mainly\nupon the vigour of the action. The very best historical novelists must\nbe excepted; in Scott, for example, as in Fielding, there is so much\nwhich depends on character and atmosphere that there is always much\nmore than thrilling incident to hold the attention. In the books of a\nmodern writer like Mr. Ford Madox Hueffer, at his best, there is an\nartistry of composition, a synthetic quality in the romance, a unity\nof pictorial effort which give to them a quality of design and\nexquisiteness; they are a distillation of Mr. Hueffer's romantic\npersonality. But if we consider Mr. Stanley Weyman, we are taking a\nnovelist in whom everything depends upon the thrill of incident.\nStill, he has made of his work a fine craft. He uses words\nconscientiously. He has exceptional skill in tracing his ingenious\nplots. He has read history carefully, and for the most part adheres\nfaithfully to facts--though I believe he is not so well instructed in\nGerman as in French history. The scrupulousness which refines his work\ngives quality to his narrative, and he can be read with pleasure by\npersons of exacting taste. And, again, we might take the case of\nRichard Dehan, author of _The Dop Doctor_. That writer is not innocent\nof the crudest melodrama. She is diffuse, extravagant, formless. But\nshe has imagined and created certain characters. She has at moments\ntouched profoundly that most rudimentary of all emotions--the\nwar-emotion--an emotion which may be experienced intensely by every\nmember of an energetic community, and therefore affords the basis of a\nreal popular art--just as certain universal sentiments afforded the\nbasis of folk-songs, which were constantly taken up and moulded into\nfine artistic forms. _The Dop Doctor_ is a book compounded of vulgar\nsensationalism on the one hand, and a strange imaginative vigour and\nactuality on the other.\n\nBut the sensibility of the crudest and, it is to be feared, the (at\npresent) largest strata of society can be touched, as we have seen, by\nthe sheer extravagance of the novel of incident, by action distorted\nout of the proportions of life and made astonishing, by violent\nassaults upon the reader calculated to arouse him like pistol-shots,\nsince a more moderate appeal would escape his attention. Just as a\ndonkey with a hard mouth can only be guided by violent jerks upon the\nreins, so a dull sensibility can only be awakened by the harshest\nliterary appeal. Style in such cases must adapt itself to the subject.\nRedundant words are heaped up where one would suffice for the trained\nintelligence. A multitude of violent, flamboyant phrases assist to the\nexcitement of fever. It is possible, indeed, that some rudimentary\nart-feeling lurks behind this pandemonium of crude literature, more\nprobably in cases where lawlessness is the result not of indolence,\nbut of some sort of vigour and spontaneity. But it should be\nremembered that the mimetic impulses in which art among primitive\nraces is supposed to originate, are not themselves art; and\ncontinually to whet the appetite with such primitive exercises is to\nperpetuate the rudimentary condition and stifle the finer faculties.\n\nII. The sentimental absurdities of Pyramus and Thisbe are the occasion\nof some apt criticism which Shakespeare puts into the mouths of\nHippolyta and Theseus:\n\n  HIPPOLYTA. This is the silliest stuff that e'er I heard.\n\n  THESEUS.   The best in this kind are but shadows; and the worst are\n                no worse, if imagination amend them.\n\n  HIPPOLYTA. It must be your imagination then, and not theirs.\n\nShakespeare is commenting on the sentimentality which is generally\npleasing to Quince, Snug, Bottom, and the like. If he is mistaken it\nis in suggesting that this sickliness is confined to the company of\ncarpenters and bellows-menders, and is not equally to be found among\nthose of the high estate of Hermia, Helena, and Hippolyta herself. But\nit would never have done to admit so much before an audience of\ntinkers and tailors, splendidly patronised by a few young bloods of\nnoble birth. Sentiment is distinguished from sentimentality precisely\nas Shakespeare suggests. The one is concerned with real emotions, the\nother with shadows. The first is informed by the imagination, the\nsecond is devoid of it, and is divorced alike from intellect and\ncommon sense. To touch the chord of sentiment justly and truly is one\nof the most difficult things in literature. Shakespeare himself by no\nmeans always succeeded. There is often an affectation in his lighter\nlove-scenes which destroys the impression of sincerity. Even in life\none may see how at any time the note of sentiment may be turned to\nabsurdity by the least discordant element. The lover whose tender\nexpressions are wholly pleasing to his lady may become an object of\nridicule before an uninvited audience. Everyone can remember some\noccasion when a whole company of persons, wistfully alluding to a\nrecent death, has suddenly burst into uncontrollable laughter,\nbetraying, not lack of respect for the dead, but ridicule at some\nfalsity of expression.\n\nSentiment is one of the everyday emotions, fine and light in its\ntexture, requiring the tenderest and most delicate treatment, and\noften it must pass off in laughter. It is something less than passion.\nIt is not concerned with tragedies or crises, but the subtlest\napprehensions of what comes and goes at every moment of life. It must\nnever be treated as if it were passion, or the slender threads of\nwhich it consists will snap, and ridicule will justly reveal the\nunbalanced judgment of the sentimentalist. Nor must it ever be far\nfrom laughter, or it will collapse under its own strain, and we may be\nbetrayed into thinking that the cynic is the best judge of life. It is\nthe imagination exercising itself among things real, but not of the\nfirst order of importance. If you attribute to them that importance,\nyou are guilty of false sentiment. The facts of life convict you.\n\nSee how delicately Charles Lamb could hold the balance in such an\nessay as _Dream Children_. Great-grandmother Field is just in her\nplace, upright, graceful, and the best of dancers; and Alice's little\nright foot plays its involuntary movement in the nick of time; and\nwhen Uncle John died, the \"children fell a-crying\" at the narrative\nand asked about the mourning which they were wearing. It is all just\nimportant enough, just trivial enough, to carry its fragile burden of\nsentiment--so much, and no more. The charm is complete. Conceive what\nDickens would have made of the story if he had been writing it! How\nsickly a fantasy of Paul Dombeys and Little Nells and garrulous \"wild\nwaves\" he would have conjured up for _his_ dream children! His dream\nchildren--the good ones, at any rate--were little old people,\nmonstrosities, freaks. Reality rejects monstrosities, and what reality\nrejects is no subject for literature--strictly speaking, is no subject\nat all--save when, like goblins and fairies, it assumes the\nquasi-reality of fantasy and dreams.\n\nI remember a story by a popular modern writer, Mr. E. Temple Thurston.\nIt appeared in a volume entitled _Thirteen_. The author arranged his\nstory with skill. He led up to his _d\u00e9nouement_ with admirable\nstage-management. The story was about a little boy who understood that\nhis father wanted a shop and fifty pounds to buy it with. This amiable\nchild sallies forth from his poor quarter of the city and tramps to\nthe distant regions where rich people live. Nothing doubting, he asks\nfor fifty pounds. He receives sixpence. He exchanges it for a pair of\nbraces and an insurance ticket. He drowns himself with exquisite\ndeliberation, and on the merits of his death and the insurance ticket\nthe fifty pounds are forthcoming.\n\nThe defects of the story are obvious. The little boy has no proper\nplace in this world, and his drowning, so far from being pathetic, was\nthe best thing that could happen to him. For he was a freak, a\nmonstrosity. Even those who may not accept this view must at least\nagree that he ought to have known better, and deserved a whipping\nrather than the reward of martyrdom and sentimental praise. But even\nif we assume that the boy is a possible creature, and that his act in\nbegging for the money was beautiful and moving, we cannot escape the\nobjection that the fatal ending is pitched in a discordant note of\ntragedy. The tragic conclusion is appropriate to a tale of passion, or\nto a tale which arouses a sense of the most urgent things in life. But\nto turn a slender sentiment into a thing of tragedy is to pass the\nlimits of sentiment; it cannot carry the burden. The conclusion is not\ntrue enough to be even shocking. It is merely disgusting.\n\nHow is it that this mimicry of sentiment proves effective in moving\nthe multitude, when the real thing so often fails to please? The\nanswer, I think, is, that the artistic imagination can neither express\nitself through distorted objects, nor can it confuse in one blurred\nseries of images the trivial and the urgent; its business being to see\nlife with such sense of proportion as the concentrated artistic vision\nof the artist ensures. But careless readers do not see objects until\nthey are exaggerated out of resemblance to life; the adjustments of\nthe artistic vision are too delicate to reach their perceptions. Mr.\nThurston's little boy is seen to be very good, and to the\nsentimentalist his mere goodness is \"beautiful.\" When he tramps across\nLondon his fatigue is sad, and the sadness of it is beautiful. When\nthe rich gentleman gives him sixpence instead of fifty pounds, the\nreader sheds happy, thoughtless tears, and his beautiful death at the\nend is all that he requires as the final \"assault upon his feelings.\"\nThe phrase, of course, is Stevenson's, and it can hardly be avoided.\nPopularity rewards the writer who can _assault_ the feelings of his\nreaders, and anyone who uses a more delicate method must be content\nwith a smaller circle of readers.\n\nIt is in this manner, amiably enough, that Miss Ella Wheeler Wilcox\ncan conquer America with sentimental poems, as Ian Maclaren once\nconquered England with sentimental stories. They touch us where the\nintellect and the common sense are in abeyance, and the moral sense is\nsteeped in false sentiment. Thus it was that when a sort of torpor\ncame upon the intellect and the common sense of Mr. A.C. Benson, he,\nwho had been formerly a scholar and a friend of literature, became\nmerely a sentimentalist. The author of _The Sick-a-bed Lady_ (Eleanor\nHalliwell Abbott) is for the same reason esteemed as highly in America\nas the author of _Letters to My Son_ is esteemed in England. The\ntrowel is the instrument with which these honours--and these\nfortunes--are won.\n\nIII. It might seem that the popular literature of love ought to have\nbeen treated under the same head as that of sentimental literature.\nBut it will become clear not only that there can be a popular erotic\nliterature of a quite different order, but that I might have\nsubdivided this class into two: one concerned with the popular\nliterature of passion, the other with that of sensualism. There is, of\ncourse, a sentiment of love which is sufficiently considered in the\nlast section. But I have made a distinction between sentiment and\npassion, which for my view is important; and I must add the further\nand more obvious distinction between the love passion, which is an\nintense emotional experience affecting the imagination no less than\nthe senses, and that sex feeling, which in essence is merely sensual.\nLeaving out of count, then, the \"sentiment\" of love, we have an\nobvious distinction between the literature which deals with the love\npassion and the literature which deals with sensual desire. But I do\nnot propose any grandmotherly legislation which permits one subject to\nthe artist and relegates the other to the pornographer. For it is\nclear that an author may deal well or ill with a subject intended to\nyield genuine passion (though in the latter case the popular interest\nwill attach to the sensational character of the incidents rather than\nto the treatment of passion as such, and a book of this kind may be\nconsidered as I have already considered the \"novel of incident\"). And,\nagain, an author may deal well or ill with the sensations of sex;\nthose sensations can provide material for fine art. It is a matter of\ntreatment. Upon feelings of this sort Maupassant based some of his\nmost felicitous stories. But Maupassant did not use sexual incidents\nfor the sake of sex feeling; for him such incidents were various\nsymbols, flickering images, of life, incarnations of the brooding\nspirit of cynicism and scorn. We have already seen that to Fielding,\nfor whom they were of less special significance on their own account,\nthey were presented as assertions of boisterous physical eagerness, of\ndelight in energetic life for its own sake.\n\nIt has already become obvious that the tendency of the most popular\nliterature is to substitute the cruder sensations for the higher\nemotions and sentiments. We have seen how incident is liked for the\nmere sensation it can afford; how sentiment is turned into\nsentimentality. As a rule, in discussing inferior literature the\nhigher emotions need be taken little into account. But in the case of\nlove it is different. The average man, by reason of his pre-occupation\nand his averageness, is little affected by a variety of fine emotions;\nthe hard facts of life smother them. But everyone can observe that the\nemotion of love is not only an emotion to which most men at a certain\nage are susceptible, but that it seems to present itself, at some time\nor another, in a form finer than that of any other feeling entertained\nby average men. I believe that all observers would agree that\ninnumerable men and women who cannot be touched in a subtle way by any\nother emotion--unless we except, especially in primitive men, the\nemotion of war; and then it is rather intense than subtle--can be and\nare so touched by the emotion of love.\n\nHere, then, we might expect to find the basis for a literature which\nmay be both widely popular and at the same time finely imagined.\nWithin certain limits I believe the love passion does afford such a\nbasis. If we can imagine an artist confining himself to this single\nissue, relying on no finenesses outside it, then we might have a work\nof art which men and women, representing in other respects any degree\nof imagination and dullness, might all almost equally enjoy. In\npractice it is seldom that an artist is content to confine himself so\nexclusively to this issue; it is not in the nature of the imaginative\ntemperament to limit itself in that way. But I think we have an\nexample approximating to the supposed type in Emily Bront\u00eb's\n_Wuthering Heights_. The strenuousness of the love emotion is in this\nbook rendered with consummate power, and hence the hold it has over\nmen of intelligence and over fools. But in almost every other respect\nthe novel is sheer rhetoric, crudeness, and unshapeliness.\n\nThe novel (or popular biography) which deals not with the emotion of\nlove but the sex sensation, requires little discussion. If the object\nof the writer is to treat such a theme with imaginative criticism,\nwell and good. If he intends only to reproduce the sensation, he is a\npornographer.\n\nIV. It is extraordinary that there should be so little humorous\nliterature distributed among the English-speaking peoples, for a sense\nof humour is a boon which has been allotted to a very large minority\nof the human race, and some sense of the ridiculous to the majority.\nIt is through his sense of what is ridiculous in life, and his power\nof presenting it imaginatively, that Dickens seems to have acquired\nnot only a permanent place in English literature, but a popularity\nquite unique among standard English novelists. The jocularity of Mark\nTwain is equally dexterous, but it is not so completely imagined as\nthe humour of Dickens; it springs more often from situation than from\ncharacter, and to that extent belongs more to the accidents than to\nthe essentials of life. Mr. W.W. Jacobs deserves a higher place than\nis usually accorded to him in contemporary literature. His short\nstories are excellently contrived within their limits; the humour\nsprings from situation and character conjoined. When a clever writer\nis content to confine himself primarily to the ridiculous in life, it\nis possible for him to make his effect both for the million and the\nmore exacting few. As _Wuthering Heights_ was popular because it was\nlittle more than a brilliant presentation of the love passion, so\n_Many Cargoes_ and _Light Freights_ are popular as well as excellent\nbecause they aim at nothing but the broad effect of laughter. Mr.\nJacobs is inferior to Dickens because he is a humorist and nothing\nmore, and also because he has an infinitely narrower range. His art is\none which presents but a single aspect of life, and suggests no\nambition to exhibit a large grasp upon life as a whole. But he\nsucceeded exactly in what he set out to do.\n\nBut have any of Mr. Jacobs' books, or any of Dickens', enjoyed greater\npopularity than fell to Mr. Jerome's _Three Men in a Boat_? In this\nbook the humour sprang in no sense out of character; nor did it even\nspring out of situations contrived with especial skill. It consisted\nof a series of ludicrous impressions such as that of a man sitting on\na pat of butter. Well, a man sitting on a pat of butter is a funny\nthing--when it happens naturally in life. But a collection of\nincidents, each of which might be funny if it happened among the\naccidents of life, are a poor source of entertainment when strung\ntogether without the life which makes them real. It should be\nremembered that what is an accident in life ceases to be an accident\nwhen it is invented in a story. A writer must needs supply from the\nimagination something which may give the artistic effect of accident.\nEven farce misses its true effects if it contains no verisimilitude.\nTo see your friend sitting on a pat of butter is amusing; to listen to\nan invented account of besmeared garments is not amusing; for it\nmisses the amusing point--which was the fact of its happening. But the\nadmirers of _Three Men in a Boat_ see only trousers and butter,\ntrousers and butter; and they find nothing offensive in the manner in\nwhich this incongruity has been thrust upon their sight. Their\ncomplacent minds receive this funny visual impression because they do\nnot perceive the glaring artifice which for another banishes the\nhumour.\n\nV. Morality among the Anglo-Saxon races is a popular theme. It can\ncover a multitude of artistic sins. Religion is popular in all\ncountries, and is not always associated with good morals; but in\nEngland and the United States good religion and good morals fall under\nthe same hierarchy. Both have their corresponding sensations and\nemotions. We may see them violently operative at revival meetings,\ndistracting agents which are sometimes indeed so powerful as to lead\nto extraordinary reactions. It is difficult to attain the same\nviolence with the written as with the spoken word, but if any living\nnovelist has succeeded in attaining the effect of pandemonium through\nthe use of religious and moral subjects, it is Miss Marie Corelli. As\n_proxime accessit_ I might name Mr. Hall Caine. By the same methods\nMr. Guy Thorne (_alias_ Ranger Gull) attained, with the pulpit\nassistance of the Bishop of London, a sensational popular success in\n_When it was Dark_. There have also been many fine writers who did\nnot aim at spurious effects, but received praise by reason of their\n\"moral tone\" in circles where they would never have received it on the\ngrounds of literary excellence. If George Eliot had not been a\nmoralist she would not have been so popular in England. If Ruskin had\nnot been primarily a preacher he could never have wielded his vast\ninfluence. Tennyson was beloved as much for his moralism as for his\nsweetness; and to-day so admirable a writer as Mr. John Galsworthy is,\neven in \"serious\" circles, regarded as a serious novelist mainly\nbecause he is a critic of morals. Mr. John Masefield wrote many novels\nand plays in which he showed singular fineness of feeling and beauty\nof style. But when he wrote a poem called _The Everlasting Mercy_--a\nstory of thrilling incident with an admirable moral--lo! his popular\nreputation was made! People could understand a story of sensational\nincident. They could understand the moral. They flattered themselves\nthat they were enjoying poetry!\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nIf anyone should reproach me with adopting the tone of that odious\nthing the \"superior person,\" and should declare that I underestimate\nthe intelligence and good sense of the majority of readers, my reply\nis that the finest literature is not that which is most read, and I am\ncompelled to conclude that the finest ideas are not those which are\nmost often embraced. To assert this is not to disparage the common\nsense and the practical intelligence of the mass of mankind. I believe\nthat they are capable of vast activity and eagerness, much of which\nruns to waste through the fatigues of excessive labour; much, through\nlack of training and mental stimulus, can find no congenial outlet\nthrough the mysterious processes of art. The outlet which the majority\nof men find for their superfluous energy is not through the channel of\nfine ideas. Such literature as they read is for distraction and not\nfor the vigorous use of their faculties. It cannot be otherwise. That\nis the condition imposed by the fragmentary education alone vouchsafed\nto the majority of men and women, giving them no more than that\nmodicum of learning which is a dangerous thing. And it is a matter of\nsupreme importance because this new reading habit of the million has\nturned the energies of authors and publishers from the few to the\nmany. It has introduced into the literary profession a demagogic\nhabit, and has set up a quantitative instead of a qualitative\nstandard.\n\n\n\n\nPART TWO\n\nLITERATURE AND MODERN LIFE\n\n\n\n\nI.\n\nTO-DAY AND YESTERDAY\n\n\n1.\n\n\"We must read what the world reads at the moment,\" said Dr. Johnson,\ngiving the remark an ironical meaning when he added, \"A man will have\nmore gratification for his vanity in conversation from having read\nmodern books than from having read the best works of antiquity.\"\nNevertheless, one great difference between the time of Dr. Johnson and\nthe world of to-day is, that whilst the former lived in perpetual\nadmiration of antiquity, we live in perpetual admiration of ourselves.\nThough Johnson agreed that Pope's poetry was not talked of so much\nafter his death as in his lifetime, he declared that it had \"been as\nmuch admired since his death as during his life.... Virgil is less\ntalked of than Pope, and Homer is less talked of than Virgil; but they\nare not less admired.\"\n\nBut in the intellectual circle which is most before the public to-day\nthere is a tendency to despise the traditions of English literature\nand to worship only the idol of originality. In a paper largely\ndevoted to literary matters I recently read a statement to the effect\nthat many authors, indifferent to books, neither buy nor read them,\nwhilst others positively dislike them. Mr. Shaw's quarrel with\nShakespeare has been of long standing, but at least Mr. Shaw has done\nhis old-fashioned rival the honour of reading him. Mr. Arnold Bennett,\non the other hand, who is undoubtedly one of the most brilliant\ncontemporary novelists, has declared, not without pride, that the only\nnovel of Dickens that he had ever read was _Little Dorrit_, and this\nbut recently, and that he considered him a greatly overrated novelist.\nThe conclusion is not surprising, and the living author is no doubt\nconfirmed in his opinion that the works of Mr. Bennett are of vastly\nsuperior merit.\n\nThis modern self-confidence is undoubtedly a healthy sign of\nintellectual activity and eagerness. It goes to show that authors are\nscrutinising keenly the life that is going on around them; that they\nare interested in facts and things, and seeking to give them a larger\nreality in terms of ideas; and we see that they are finding a similar\nresponse from the reading public. It was not without significance that\nall through the period of the great Coal Strike publishers reduced\ntheir output of books to the smallest possible dimensions, and\nespecially refrained from issuing books of the highest class. I do not\nbelieve that this was merely due to the fact that in times of economic\ncrisis there is a lack of pocket-money with which to purchase\nliterature. The fact surely was that much of the attention which in\nmany circles is given to modern books was drawn away by the stirring\nevents that were happening in our midst. The study and contemplation\nof the Coal Strike were of precisely the same nature as the study and\ncontemplation of original contemporary literature. For that\nliterature in its most characteristic forms is concerned with the\nproblems and the structure of modern society.\n\nIf at the time of the Coal Strike we had inquired what English plays\nhad recently called forth the most criticism and interest in\nintellectual circles, we should probably have named, first, Mr.\nGalsworthy's _Justice_, and secondly, his _Strife_. The latter was\nconcerned with a situation exactly similar to that developed by the\nCoal Strike. The action of the drama took place in the middle of a\ngreat strike. Mr. Galsworthy presented typical characters representing\nowners and men, both acting on principle, both determined and\nirreconcilable, stubborn and loyal, both betraying human qualities\nfundamentally the same. I am not for the moment concerned with the\nconclusion drawn by the dramatist, but with the fact that the serious\nattention which is given to modern literature and drama is the same\nsort of attention as that given to the great social questions of our\ntime.\n\n\n2.\n\nTo search for hidden unities in the literature of an age is often to\ndistort facts in the interest of theory. But there may come a\npoint--and I think the most notable literature of the year preceding\nthe Coal Strike marks such a point--when certain salient facts emerge\nso violently and so repeatedly from the written page that no one but\nthe blindest can ignore or deny them. If one should take six books\nwritten in that period by six authors who are fairly representative of\ncontemporary English literature--E.M. Forster, Arnold Bennett, H.G.\nWells, Granville Barker, Bernard Shaw, and John Galsworthy--there\nwould be found one truth about them so obvious that it has been\nremarked by dozens of reviewers. It is that they are concerned with\nthe same social problems as those which fall under the science of\nsociology; that they advocate, criticise, or imply reforms scarcely\nless directly than do those for whom social reform is a profession.\n\nBut this, I think, is scarcely the most satisfactory way of putting\nthe matter. The same truth may perhaps be expressed in wider and more\nsignificant terms by saying that the characteristic literature of\nto-day is the literature of change. The most vigorous writers are\ngenerally those who respond most to their environment, in the same\nsense that to such men everything must be full of suggestion,\ninteresting, and matter for the interpretative mind; though the\ngreatest of all are those who nourish themselves at all the sources of\ninspiration, in the past and the present, in the seen and the unseen.\nThe latter are in consequence not so purely representative of their\nown special time as are those vigorous, active minds which fill a\nsecondary place in the world's literature, but bulk largest to their\ncontemporaries. Shakespeare is not so representative of the\nElizabethans as is Marlowe or Chapman. Probably if a greater number of\nGreek plays survived we should find that Sophocles is less\ncharacteristically Athenian than Euripides. And in the same way Mr.\nJoseph Conrad is not so representative of the contemporary world as is\nMr. Bernard Shaw or Mr. Wells. But it is in men of the latter type\nthat we shall find the qualities by which their epoch is\ndifferentiated from others, the qualities which to some extent appear\nin the greatest, which appear far more abundantly in those biggest\nonly in contemporary estimation--which in any case mark the trend of\nthought and the peculiar contribution of the time. The literature\nproduced by men of this type is most profoundly impressed by what may\nbe called the spirit of change.\n\nThe briefest consideration of contemporary literature is sufficient to\nprove how powerfully these minds have been moulded, either by\nobserving this fact of change or contemplating its possibility. The\nfact itself may perhaps best be illustrated by the case of Mr. Edmund\nGosse and the story told in his memorable book, _Father and Son_. As a\npiece of biography alone that book stands high, for the fine drawing\nof the mind and character of the father. But the noticeable point lies\nin the vivid contrast between the father and son, the transition from\nthe hard-headed, scrupulous, rigid, narrow-minded Puritan, who is so\ntypical of the Victorian age, to the broad-minded, cultured\n_litt\u00e9rateur_ of to-day. There is the fact of change--the Rev. Philip\nGosse of forty years ago has become the Mr. Edmund Gosse of to-day.\n\nIf we would see how this actual change in the outward and inward order\nof the world has affected novelists we may turn to Mr. Arnold Bennett,\nMr. Wells, or Mr. E.M. Forster. In _Clayhanger_, as in _Old Wives'\nTales_, Mr. Bennett traces the progression of the English world from\nthe generation of our grandfathers to our own generation; he shows\nthis change creeping upon us at an accelerated pace, catching the\nolder inhabitants unawares, a visible change in bricks and mortar, in\nwidening streets, in enlarged factories, in the introduction of trams\nwhich in due course became electric trams; and a change no less\ndecisive in customs and habits, the older folk marvelling at the\nnew-fangled independence of the young; the whole being nothing less\nthan a revolution which has descended with the sure but imperceptible\nadvance of a glacier, so that within living memory the face and\ncharacter of England have been altered. In _Milestones_ he has more\nrecently given us another account of the same historic progression.\n\nAnd an exactly similar idea has captured the imagination of Mr. Wells.\nIn _The New Machiavelli_, as in _Tono-Bungay_ and other books, he\ntells the story of the rapidly evolving world in which his heroes have\ngrown up; of the ever-spreading suburbs stretching out their tentacles\nnorth and south and east and west, of the mushroom houses which arose\nwithout order or system, of the changing system of education, the\nchanging ideas towards parents--everything spasmodic, growing,\nmuddled. Similarly, Mr. E.M. Forster, in _Howard's End_, shows the old\nhouse so dear to the heart of Mrs. Wilcox, as the symbol of permanence\nin an unfixed society which is homeless, restless, changing. Even if\nwe look abroad we shall find something of this same sense of the\ntransformation in the order of things; in America, Mr. Winston\nChurchill has written a series of novels to illustrate the successive\nphases in the American character; and in France authors like M. Paul\nBourget and M. Ren\u00e9 Bazin emphasise respectively the change from\naristocracy to democracy, and from the reverence of orthodoxy to the\nrevolutionary secular spirit.\n\nIn a somewhat different way Mr. Galsworthy, Mr. Shaw, and Mr.\nGranville Barker are affected by the fluidity of their environment. Of\nMr. Galsworthy I shall have something more to say, and need merely\npoint out for the moment that in _Fraternity_, _Strife_, and\nespecially _Justice_, the author is not merely indicating but\nadvocating changes which, instead of being left to accident, are to be\nguided in accordance with a definite human purpose. Mr. Shaw is so\nminded that he preaches against change wherever he perceives it, and\nclamours for it when he perceives it not. Thus in _The Doctor's\nDilemma_ and the Preface to it, finding himself confronted with great\nchanges in medical science, he denounces medical progress and its\npretensions as a superstition and a fraud. In _Getting Married_, on\nthe other hand, finding that the public is still often content with\nold-fashioned ideas of sex relations and home life, he ridicules \"home\nlife as we understand it,\" on the ground that it is \"no more natural\nto us than a cage is natural to a cockatoo.\" I am not accusing him of\nany real inconsistency in thus alternating between conservative and\nrevolutionary dogmas. He would doubtless hold that changes ought to\nhave been made where there have been none, and that those which have\noccurred have not followed the course which he, or men gifted with\nsimilar foresight, would have prescribed.\n\nIt may be objected that the influence of change upon literature is\nnot only felt by our contemporaries, but has affected the literature\nof all times; that it is the function of men of letters to be ahead of\ntheir contemporaries and to initiate ideas which are productive of\nchange; that the history of literature is the history of the progress\nof thought and imagination; and that therefore the present age does\nnot differ in this respect from others. To which I would reply that\nwhilst other literatures have represented or initiated change, there\nhas never been a time when so many of the best creative intellects\nhave consciously concerned themselves with this process, making change\nof conditions either their artistic subject or their deliberate\npractical object. The reason, of course, is obvious; there never has\nbeen a time when the world was undergoing such a startling and rapid\ntransformation. It is true, the economic, material, scientific, and\nmoral changes in the Athens of the fifth century came about quickly\nand drastically, and the reconstitution of intellectual and moral\nideas mooted by the Sophists found a profound expression in the\ndialectic of the drama. How far the Elizabethans were influenced by\nthe revival of learning and science, the discovery of the new world\nand the expansion of commerce, is a question I need not embark upon.\nBut it will not be disputed that the face of the world has never in\nany known period of history been so changed out of all recognition as\nit has been by the scientific and industrial revolutions of the\nnineteenth century. The barbarian invasions which put an end to\nImperial Rome can have had no outward and visible effect comparable\nto that of the invasion of the machine. What wonder that the\nsuperficial, hurried reader of to-day finds little to satisfy him in\nthe literature of the seventeenth or eighteenth centuries, the former\nso much concerned either with religion or pleasure, the latter with\nthe moral virtues or their opposites!\n\nThe Renaissance did not reach its moral consummation till the time of\nthe French Revolution, its intellectual consummation till the\nnineteenth century, its material consummation till the twentieth\ncentury and thereafter. The growth of science first affected the\nimagination, for it was an emancipating idea; its first offspring was\nRomanticism and the idea of liberty and democracy. But science as it\nprogressed in the nineteenth century came, first with the machine and\nthe whip, then with the machine and the moralist, at its elbow. But\nwherever and however it came, it transformed with lightning rapidity,\njust in that way in which Mr. Wells, Mr. Bennett, Mr. Forster, and Mr.\nWinston Churchill, the American, have indicated; till the mere fact of\nits transforming became so remarkable and absorbing that that fact has\nalmost exhausted the attention of three-fourths of the artists and\nintellectuals of our age.\n\nSo habituated then have we become to rapid change in the conditions of\nlife that the first thing we postulate is further change. The rustic\naccustomed to the same food every day of his life does not criticise\nhis fare; it is the epicure, accustomed to variety, who is critical of\nthe menu. The active mind which witnesses perpetual variety must be\nperpetually critical. To be aware that the conditions of to-day are\ndifferent from the conditions of yesterday and of to-morrow is,\naccording to the temperament of the beholder, to lament the past or to\nhasten the future. In this respect the Radical and the Conservative\nare alike, that it is the perception of change which determines them,\nthough it determines them in different ways, the one being affected by\nhope, the other by fear. Both are discontented with the present, the\none because it falls short of the future, which he imagines, the other\nbecause it has departed from the security of the past, which he\nidealises. And, as we have seen, even the creative artist cannot\nescape from the fascination of this ever-changing environment, where\nthe unsystematised present obtrudes its fresh discontents, and the\nunknown future is pregnant with possibilities of good and the\nalternative of unimaginable evil. All perceive that something must be\ndone to direct the plunging course of this hydra-headed democracy\nwhich, as its onrush is in any case irresistible, may at any moment\ndeviate from the path and fling itself headlong to perdition. When the\nguns are firing and the battle is joined and the cries of the wounded\nfill the air, there are not many who can sit down in the midst, like\nthe German philosopher at the battle of Austerlitz, to contemplate the\nAbsolute. Most of them, even though their function is art, rush out to\njoin the m\u00eal\u00e9e; and this is why they incur the censure of the\nreviewers, making fiction and drama a branch of sociology.\n\nBut one seems to hear, distinguishable occasionally amidst the din, a\nlow, faint murmur. This way madness lies. Is man, the master of his\nsoul, to be thus enslaved to his conditions? Is he to be tossed\nhither and thither by changes which he did not create, by ideas to\nwhich he did not subscribe, by a tempest he never wished to combat? Is\nthere no quiet place of refuge wherein he may be at peace to live as\nhis ancestors lived, and to cherish the humble ambitions which they\ncherished? The answer, in a certain sense, is \"No.\" The conventions\nwhich served their purpose have in many cases lost their meaning; the\nduties our ancestors performed have lost their usefulness; the old\nbottles will not hold the new wine which our generation serves to us.\nAnd this is one reason why so many people rate and gibe at what they\ncall the \"muddle-headed British public; \"because it cannot change its\nideas so quickly as it is forced to change its conditions of life.\n\nBut is there not an important significance in the very fact which\nmakes our intellectuals desperate with indignation, the fact that you\ncannot change the \"public mind\" so rapidly as you can change its\ntramway services, its government, or the place--the cellar, the crust\nof the earth, or the sky--in which it is to be housed? It is easier to\ntake a man up in an aeroplane than it is to make him agree that his\nneighbour ought to run away with his wife, or that his sons ought not\nto read Thucydides. Even amongst those writers whom I have named there\nis beginning to arise a half-formed consciousness that amid all these\nchanges in circumstances we must be careful how we admit changes in\ncharacter and in mental calibre; a consciousness that we are in need\nof some fixed point by which the world may be enabled to retain its\nsanity. Now there are two classes of people who believe in permanence:\nthose who think that the world is the same always because they are too\nsilly to open their eyes; and the very small class of those who have\nfelt profoundly that all things are changing in something more than\nthe Heraclitean sense, who have yet penetrated to the necessity of a\npermanence, of an organic human continuity, underlying the multiplex\ncircumstances and ideas of our life.\n\nAnd this brings me back to Mr. Forster and Mr. Galsworthy. \"Howard's\nEnd,\" the old-fashioned house which gives its name to Mr. Forster's\nnovel, is contrasted with the new buildings which are occupied and\nvacated, which spring up on all sides and are vicariously inhabited,\nwhich draw nearer and nearer to the garden and the wych-elm of\n\"Howard's End.\" It is the symbol of permanence, of the old order which\n\"connects\" the past with the present, the personal and individual with\nthe cosmopolitan and indifferent; it is the something sacred which\nneither an individual nor a nation can afford to neglect. Mr. Forster,\nimpressed as he is with the need of change, directed instead of\nhaphazard, nevertheless perceives that there are permanent elements,\nbelonging to character, in our blood and our tradition, which cannot\nbe ignored without peril.\n\nMr. Galsworthy, in _The Patrician_, is no longer the mere antagonist\nof the established order of things. He seems to have attained a sort\nof optimism strangely at variance with his earlier views; to have\ndeclared that running through all these conflicts, revolutions, and\nevolutions there is and has been a certain national sense, a sort of\ncollective reasonableness, which is constantly making itself felt, and\nbeing expressed in its best form by the leaders of opinion, the\naristocrats of nature; that the torrent runs, as it were, between\nsolid banks; that in the long run character triumphs over confusion.\n\n\n3.\n\nIt would be folly to regret that the drama of modern life, of our\nswiftly evolving modern society, has become absorbingly interesting to\nso many of the best brains of the time. Although we may detect a\nserious limitation to literature, a didacticism alien to the\ndisinterested spirit of art, still we cannot fail to see that a new\nsort of vitality, belonging rather to the moral sense than the\nintellect or the perceptions, has been infused into imaginative\nliterature. Something, at least, which is fresh and real and vital has\nbeen introduced, exclusive of much that we have been accustomed to\nregard as excellent, but serving surely to give a distinctive and far\nfrom negligible character to the typical literature of our time. That\ntypical literature, in its most important manifestations, is concerned\nwith the events that are happening around us here and now--with ideas,\nlargely partisan, that give meaning to them--with the purposes that\ndirect and determine them. Criticism, if it is to be vital criticism,\ncannot dissociate itself from those ideas, nor look on with sublime\nindifference to opinions as to the true and the false, the desirable\nand the undesirable.\n\nBut when we have said that, we are also bound to recognise the\ndrawbacks and serious limitations of the modern tendency. It\nincludes--and we come back to the point at which we started--a\ntendency to dissociate modern writing from the continuous stream of\nEnglish and world literature. Incidentally the didacticism of modern\nwriters, and their absorption in the affairs of the moment, have not\nonly served to make a breach between themselves and English literature\nas a whole, to the detriment of their perspective, but have also set a\ngulf between themselves and those of another school, for whom world\nliterature is more important than the literature of to-day, for whom\nerudition and interest in the past are not to be lightly dismissed as\nacademicism. I can imagine no greater disaster to letters than a\nbreach between the literary originator and the man of learning. Such a\nbreach can only mean that learning is cast back upon itself, loses\nhumanity, and becomes academic; and that the author who despises or\nignores erudition, and with it the sense of human continuity and\npermanence for which it ought to stand, tends to become opinionative\nand shallow. His work must lack the imaginative range, the mellowness,\nthe beauty which cannot take form through instinct alone, which cannot\nbe expressed by those who have not lovingly studied the models of\nantiquity and our own literature, who have not sought contact with the\nlife of other times as well as with the life of to-day.\n\nThe great gain to literature in recent years is that it is more\nclosely related to action and those general ideas which lead to\naction. Its great corresponding defect--and this is immeasurable--is\nits loss in form, in universality, in that disinterestedness which is\nessential to art. Erudition, when it is humane, and even when it is\nmerely academic, has, at any rate, always that disinterestedness which\nis essential alike to science and art. If it is humane--as it was, on\nthe whole, in the Elizabethan age--its whole moral support, vast in\nthis age of idol-worshippers, will be on the side of disinterested art\nand literature. We do not hope, or wish, that all authors should be\nmen of learning--they should be of all sorts. But if authors and men\nof learning continue to be removed in sympathy, interests, and ideals,\nit is a sign that both are in a bad way.\n\n\n\n\nII\n\nPROFESSIONAL POLITICS\n\n\n\"Take my word for this, reader, and say a fool told it you, if you\nwish: that he who hath not a dram of folly in his mixture, hath pounds\nof much worse matter in his composition.\" These words were written by\nan irresponsible fellow before the days of \"responsibility\" were\ninaugurated; before politicians had become a race apart, admired or\nexecrated according to the temperament of the beholder; before writers\nwere solemnly divided into men-of-letters, novelists, _litt\u00e9rateurs_,\njournalists, hacks, and professors; before physicians had become a\nclose corporation of certificated benefactors; not, indeed, before\nlawyers had learnt to trade on human litigiousness, but before they\nhad won the respect of the public for the disinterested exercise of\ntheir talents. The days of specialism have added to the sum-total of\nhuman knowledge; but they have diminished intercourse, they have made\nmen more inaccessible to one another, they have promoted new\ngroupings, new atmospheres, new officialdoms, new barriers and\nwater-tight compartments.\n\nThe professional spirit has affected and infected the whole of modern\nsociety; we see its results in what we call the \"disappearance of\nwit,\" or the \"loss of the conversational faculty,\" or the \"didactic\nhabit,\" or anything else implying regret for the individualism of the\npast. It means that our several callings have separated us, have made\nus into creatures of our profession, have established us on our own\nparticular pedestals on which, as good statues, we must remain, and\nthat our common humanity is an insufficient link between us. Our\nspecial knowledge, our special habit, our special highly-esteemed\nreputation, sets up a barrier which cuts us off from our fellows and\ndestroys community of feeling.\n\nThe politician of mediocre capacity may know enough to cut a figure\namong his political associates only by judicious silence, or by\ntalkativeness on those subjects of which others are ignorant. But put\nhim among his non-political friends, and he is an oracle of wisdom\nupon the law and the Constitution. The doctor, who has forgotten his\nscientific principles but has picked up some empirical knowledge, has\nthe advantage of experience and authority as against the layman for\nwhom he prescribes. The lawyer, the civil servant, the professional\ntheologian, and the diplomat are in the same position. They all know\nenough of their subject to be superior to those who know next to\nnothing of it. They know enough to have pedestals of their own; to be\non their guard; to have a reputation to maintain; to conceal the \"dram\nof folly;\" to be, to that extent, artificial in their relations with\nmen. They dare not betray the \"laughable blunder,\" which, said Charles\nLamb, is the test your neighbour giveth you \"that he will not betray\nor over-reach you.\"\n\nIn the case of the chartered accountant, or the stockbroker, or the\npedlar, this special knowledge is not so damning a thing. No\naccountant, be he ever so limited, can be wholly contented with\naccountancy as an explanation or sum-total of life; nor can the\nbroker, however absorbed in his business, admit to his friends that\nthe manipulating of stocks and shares is the only matter which should\nconsume the interest of mortals. It is otherwise with the politician,\nthe priest, the man of letters, the professional philosopher, and even\nthe lawyer and the soldier. There is nothing human which may not enter\ninto politics, religion or philosophy, or become the subject of\nliterature; the human complexion of the State may be transformed by\nthe professional prejudice of the lawyer or the soldier.\n\nConsider how, for democratic purposes, the Member of Parliament is\nmade. There is no need to pay undue attention to the amusing\nexaggerations and distortions of Mr. Belloc and Mr. Cecil Chesterton.\nThe Member of Parliament has been supported in his constituency by a\ngroup of local politicals who have a healthy enthusiasm for the party\nwar-cry. The serious candidate is too experienced, too professional,\nto share those enthusiasms in precisely that form which they assume,\nat election time, in the minds of his supporters. I do not mean that\nhe is less enthusiastic than they, a less whole-hearted backer of his\nparty, but that, from the nature of his political experience, politics\npresents itself to him under a perspective which cannot be theirs. He\nleaves his constituency a specially ordained champion of political\ntruth; he arrives at Westminster a unit in the crowd.\n\nIf we follow our member to Westminster we shall soon find that he has\nfallen into the Parliamentary manner; that his ideas are grouped around\nthe ideas familiar to the House of Commons; that he has taken its tone,\nand that his habits are becoming gradually assimilated to the habits of\nthose few with whom he especially associates himself. Let us attend a\nmeeting of some propagandist committee comprising a number of expert\npoliticians--Members of Parliament, or others. We shall find there the\nbond of a common knowledge, a common sympathy, a common approach towards\na given subject, a common jargon. We shall be aware of the fact that we\nhave come into a particular, highly-specialised atmosphere, where the\nfamiliar language of ordinary life, the familiar ideas, would be\nintrusions, meriting nothing but frowns or compassionate smiles.\n\nAnd the same thing is true of most corporate journalism and most\ncorporate religion. The atmosphere is highly specialised; it is\nbinding; and those who live in it believe it to be co-extensive with\nthe whole of life. Let us bind ourselves by Tolstoy; let us agree to\nloosen ourselves by Nietzsche; but, in any case let us agree to love\nour neighbour on the principle of a close corporation. The main\ninfluences which shape the modern world operate, for the most part,\nthrough intellectual groups; each group can only be appealed to in a\nlanguage familiar to it; it can only act on principles (consciously\naccepted or presupposed) which are its very special property; you can\nnever touch it to the quick, in its corporate and active capacity,\nwithout accepting or appearing to accept its collective prejudices.\nIts differentia is that which separates it from the unit of common\nhumanity.\n\nThus we come to something more difficult to analyse than\nspecialisation of work--a specialisation of sentiment, habits and\nmorals, which makes people supremely sapient within a narrow sphere\nwhich they have appropriated, and so limited as to be blind in the\nbroad field of ethics which lies outside their special ken. And yet it\nis through these groups, keen-eyed in one direction, blind in others,\nthat the intellect, the reforming zeal, the earnestness, the idealism\nof the age, have to pass before ideas and vague aspiration can be\ntransformed into action or effective influence. These groups are the\nmain-drainage-system of modern life; they are the ordinary channels\nthrough which the business of the world has to pass, and its organised\nthought be directed. Take any one of these groups, and consider its\ndifferential character, its mode of apperception, its _\u00eathos_, and you\nfind it something deformed, twisted, strained in one direction, like a\ntree by the sea-shore. But take a few score of them, and imagine their\nqualities fused together, and the result would accord with the ideals\nof common humanity--ideals vaguely conceived, perhaps, but generous.\nIt is just because the qualities of these groups, in politics,\nreligion, social work, and to a lesser extent in literature, are not\nand cannot be fused together, but on the contrary, stand apart in\nwater-tight compartments, so that the whole is like an elaborate\nsystem of checks to make each part inoperative, that, at a time when\nthe whole community is strangely alive with good will, the actual\nsocial achievement is beyond measure disappointing.\n\nThe test of success or failure is the degree of satisfaction afforded\nto the common man. By the \"common man\" I do not mean the inferior man,\nbut the man who has not specialised himself out of his common\nhumanity. If there is any interest which an honest lawyer can share\nwith an honest fisherman, a decent cockney with a decent Bedouin Arab,\nhe does it in virtue of this nobler \"commonness;\" it may include the\ninterests of good fellowship, of delight in song or nature, of a\nbelief in God, and a host of indescribable interests which do not\nbelong to the mechanism and compulsory organisation of life; it\nincludes some \"dram of folly,\" some capacity for \"laughable blunder\"\nin intercourse between men. Culture may break in upon this\n\"commonness\" and destroy it. But it need not be so. Shakespeare has\nthis commonness in a high degree; so have Johnson, and Goldsmith, and\nLamb; all great artists have had it when their culture has not crazed\nthem, or when they have not lifted themselves into an almost mystical\nabsorption in exercising some gift of austere, monumental expression;\nin which case, like Milton, they scarcely belong to the category of\nhumans; their food is ambrosial, and their wine is nectar.\n\nThe task of the inspired politician has become harder in proportion as\nthe problem of government has become more intricate and more\nspecialised. He must work through his machinery, which includes not\nonly the administrative machine, but all those groups, in and out of\nParliament, limited by their ethical and sentimental specialities. He\nmust be professional enough to appreciate the ground of their\nexcellences, and \"common\" enough to discard their limitations. It is\nonly when there are several such men, powerful enough to leaven\npolitics and lead politicians, that modern democracy can have any\nshadow of reality--men who understand the rank and file of humanity,\nconversant also with the complicated machine and the contending groups\nof narrowly defined ideals, men fired with that constructive\nimagination which crystallises in common sense.\n\n\n\n\nIII\n\nSPECIALISM IN RELIGION\n\n\nIt is significant that the name \"Religion of Humanity\" was given to a\nset of tenets which strictly speaking contained no religion at all.\nPositivism gained ground in middle-Victorian England not merely\nbecause Science and the theory of Evolution were in the ascendant, but\nstill more because it was recognised that the orthodox Churches were\nout of harmony with modern life; that they were ministering neither to\nmodern humanitarian feeling nor to humanity. Positivism survives to\nthis day in the person of Mr. Frederic Harrison and a few others\n(including several of the leaders of the Young Turkish party); but it\nwould by this time have been a powerful creed if it had been really a\ncreed, if it had anything spiritual and _credible_ to offer to those\nwho are outraged by the professional neglect, self-absorption, and\nintellectual insincerity of the Churches. Everyone is aware of the\nfailure of the Churches to touch modern life; to escape from their\ngrooves; to cease to deal in conventional and monotonous iterations of\nold-fashioned formul\u00e6 instead of finding vital, human, developing\nexpressions of the spiritual craving of man. Even Mr. George Cadbury\nis aware of this failure, as he showed by his zeal for the inquiry\ninto church attendance some years ago, an inquiry which has been\nrepeated this year with results unsatisfactory to the Churches. The\nquestion has been debated again and again, and inquirers have been\nunable to make up their minds whether it is the Churches that are not\ngood enough for the people, or the people who are not good enough for\nthe Churches. It is a question of the priority of the chicken or the\negg. It is not known whether public sentiment is depraved because it\nis alienated from the Churches, or whether the Churches are depraved\nbecause they have excluded so many of the most powerful moral forces\nof the time. Certain it is that they have offended by their\nexclusiveness; by the narrowing down of interest; by the cliquishness\nof those who are specialists in piety or ritual. We may observe their\nhabit of mind in that narrow Victorian sect which converted Mr.\nGosse's strong-willed and in many ways lovable father into an\nintolerant tyrant (as set forth in _Father and Son_); that lax and\nsnobbish branch of the Anglican Church which failed to capture Mr.\nBernard Shaw in his youth, because it stood only for a \"class\nprejudice;\" and those strange types of Christianity which, as Mr.\nLowes Dickinson expresses it, find no disharmony between belief in a\n\"Power that is supposed to have created the stars and the tiger\" and\n\"the sentimental, almost erotic character of many Christian hymns:\n\n    Jesu, lover of my soul,\n    Let me to Thy bosom fly.\"\n\nThe evidence of those who have been estranged from the Churches is\nworth considering. We see that Mr. Gosse was driven from them in his\nyouth by their sectarian narrowness and unwillingness to face\nintellectual inquiry; Mr. Shaw by the flippancy of the Irish Church,\nits class prejudice, its false respectability; Mr. Lowes Dickinson,\namong other reasons, because at a time when men are learning to adapt\nthe processes of Nature to their ends, when it becomes them to \"dwell\nless and less upon their weaknesses and more and more upon their\nstrength,\" the orthodox Christians assert that we are \"miserable\nsinners,\" that \"there is no health in us,\" when they \"ought to be too\nbusy demonstrating in fact the contrary.\" Members of the general\npublic in one way and another have become accustomed to regard\nreligion with an uneasy constraint; there are harmless things which\nmust not be said in the presence of a priest; there is a pastorality\nabout the minister which implies a flock and a coterie; and Englishmen\nseldom mention the name of God without an appearance of apology or\nsecret shame. Religion has become largely a matter of cliques,\ncoteries, associations--of specialism in codes and casuistry.\n\nI will not press the question whether the history of the Christian\nChurch has not been the history of the perversions of Christianity. A\ndistinguished Chinese author not long ago indicted the alleged\nun-Christian methods of our missionaries in China; Dr. Halil Halid, a\nTurk, has pointed out that it is in the Christian countries that the\nChristian virtues of humility and disdain of wealth are least in\nevidence. What concerns us now is the feeling in formally Christian\ncountries that in spite of Christianity the Christian Churches have\nnot taught that the Kingdom of Heaven is on earth; they have not\ntaught toleration and love; they have urged us to ignore the present\nworld in the interests of the next; and because their own followers\nhave refused to do anything of the kind they have isolated religion\nfrom practical life. I agree that many Churches, seeking to adapt\nthemselves to modern needs, have organised social clubs, carried on\npolitical crusades, and rendered useful service in \"rescue work;\" but\neven so they have rather tended to distinguish between themselves in\ntheir spiritual capacity and themselves in their secular capacity. The\nmajority of people do not seem to find in the religious services of\nthe Churches a note that touches their practical needs or their\nspiritual ideals. The most successful popular appeal has been made by\nthose organisations which have endeavoured to add to the zest of life\nby exciting music, tuneful hymns, and buoyant rhetoric.\n\nIn our unprecedented age of incessant change, continuous revolution,\nand swift innovation, we have become accustomed to the idea that the\nsocial order can and must be altered, that men must take things into\ntheir own hands. The fatalism of the old orthodoxy is not for a people\nwho see that things are accomplished by the human will; such people\nare naturally impatient with those who entreat the Deity to do for\nthem what they can very well do for themselves. The last of the great\nfatalists in English literature is Mr. Thomas Hardy. He was moved by\nthe downfall of the old settled civilisation and the purposeless,\nvexing changes which swept like a hurricane on a nation now suddenly\nmade conscious of its evil lot. He was aware of the \"modern vice of\nunrest\" at a time when the human will had not yet set itself to direct\nand organise change. Thus it was that he came to pronounce the last\nword about Fatalism, and, in so doing, to reduce it to absurdity. \"The\nFirst Cause,\" as Sue Fawley perceived it, \"worked automatically like a\nsomnambulist, and not reflectively like a sage;\" she blamed \"things in\ngeneral, because they are so horrid and cruel!\"\n\nWhatever one's theological views may be, no one to-day tolerates in\nthe drama of life any god-of-the-machine. In Greece, art and religion\nwent hand in hand, and this was possible because gods were like men\nand manifested themselves through Nature, not in a sphere outside\nNature. No civilisation prior to our own experienced so rapid an\nevolution as Athens in the fifth century B.C.; but when that\ncentury was over, it was still possible for a philosopher to draw\nrobust symbolical illustrations from the old mythology. The Modernists\nto-day are only applying a law of history when they say that religion\nmust evolve with the evolution of human culture. In the first thirteen\ncenturies, the Christian Church did in practice change and adapt\nitself to civilisation. As long as the world was conservative, a\nconservative Church could keep pace with it. The first cataclysm came\nat the time when civilisation was again rapidly changing, and\nChristianity only emerged torn and divided by the Reformation. But the\nworld to-day is being altered far more rapidly than at the time of the\nRenaissance. It turns from the Churches, not because it is tired of\nthe spiritual life, or of other-worldliness, but because, just as it\ndemands of literature and art that they should appeal to the modern\nmind and heart, so it can be content with nothing less from religion.\nAnd it is just because the Churches have been too conservative,\nbecause they tend to tradition, formul\u00e6, conventions, and manners\nwhich, retained beyond their time, assume the garb of unreality, that\nthey are abandoned or slighted by the people--as they must continue to\nbe slighted--until new prophets arise to present universal truths in a\nnew and practical form; to endeavour to preach religion as the great\nman of letters endeavours to represent beauty and truth.\n\n\n\n\nIV\n\nSPECIALISM IN WAR\n\n\nEngland is very near to the Continent of Europe, and we are accustomed\nto thinking of Western civilisation as one. Yet every time we cross\nthe Channel we are reminded in some fresh way of the foreignness of\nforeign countries. The dwelling-houses of France, for instance, are\ndifferent from the dwelling-houses of England in respect of the\nimportant fact that they are all to some extent fortified houses.\nGreat and small houses alike are evidently built with a view to\ndefence from within. If you take a country walk anywhere in Normandy\nyou find that the gardens of the country houses have massive gates and\nhigh walls, the front door is like a portcullis, and the window\nshutters are barricades. The smallest cottages have great doors and\nwindow shutters, and if there is a garden, it is two to one that the\nwall is a real wall. And not only in the country districts, but in the\ntowns, pre-eminently in Paris itself, each house or block of flats is\nso constructed as to defy the violent intruder.\n\nIt strikes us strangely, as we walk through the cities of France and\nreflect upon the reasons for these square doors and these guarded\nwindows. We have suffered no recent invasion, we have had no bloody\nrevolution. During the whole of the nineteenth century our island has\nknown nothing more violent than the Peterloo massacre or the Chartist\nriots. We have constantly had wars, but they have been distant wars, a\nmatter for the hireling soldier, and not often dragging in the\nvolunteer civilian. If we were disgusted when we heard the true story\nof the Crimea, we soon forgot the story. We were shocked again by the\nfacts of the Boer War; we had not thought that so many men could be so\nquickly killed, so many millions of money whittled away. But even the\nSouth African War never remotely seemed to threaten the security of\nour own islands. For the most part, the policeman has been enough. A\nlight bolt and a key guard us against petty burglars; we walk abroad\nunarmed--at the worst, we comment on the fact that it is well to carry\na stick if we walk alone in Epping Forest. We have abolished duelling.\nWe have forbidden prize-fights. Even the horse-whip has ceased to be\nthe patrician's mode of redressing wrong. For assault, libel, slander,\nwe have a remedy in the law courts. Even in our punishment of\ncriminals, if occasionally we have to put a man out of the way by\ndiscreetly hanging him, we never subject him to the degradation of a\nwhipping. Youthful barbarians at public schools still roll about and\npummel one another, but the organised, stand-up fight, such as was\nfought in Tom Brown's schooldays, is discouraged; public opinion is\nagainst it. From infancy we are taught to be peaceful, law-abiding\ncitizens.\n\nMost of us, then, know very little about physical violence. The\nshedding of blood is an unfamiliar spectacle. If a man is knocked\ndown by a motor-bus, we may or we may not feel human sympathy, but\ncertainly we are physically shocked by the gruesome sight. We send men\nto the gallows, but we no longer watch their agony on Tyburn Hill. We\ndespatch men to a frontier war, but we know little about their wounds.\nAnd yet, as of old, our martial ardour is aroused and we glow with\npatriotic pride when a regiment of soldiers marches past to the sound\nof music. As of old, the thought of any great European war excites us,\neven fascinates us. We know enough, indeed, to assure ourselves that a\ngreat war would mean economic ruin, that even a distant war between\ntwo foreign countries, such as Turkey and Italy, or Turkey and\nBulgaria, will probably react unfavourably on our own trade. Yet the\nthought of a great war still profoundly interests the mass of\nEnglishmen; they are fascinated; they almost long for news of the\ngreat, decisive, bloody battle which means a sensation, a spectacle,\nan acquaintance with something doing, a something strange, gruesome,\nviolent, and vast.\n\nI am not saying that the people of this country approved of the war\nwhich Italy thought good to wage against Turkey, or were pleased at\nthe horrible slaughter in the Balkans. It is obvious, on the contrary,\nthat they strongly disapproved. The \"Great Illusion,\" so effectively\nexposed by Norman Angell, is no longer universally entertained.\nCapital has learnt the horrors of war, and organised labour has\nemphatically declared against it. And yet, though there were few\nEnglish people who would not have stopped the Turco-Italian war and\nmitigated the horrors of the Balkan war if they could have done so, it\nis manifest that there were few who did not revel in the sensation,\njust as some years ago even our most philanthropic classes deplored\nand revelled in the spectacle of Macedonian atrocities. A fire at a\ntheatre, an appalling railway accident, and especially murder on a\nvast, heroic scale, attracts, in these peaceful days, certainly not\nless than in the days when barbarism was customary.\n\nNow, violence and brutality are obviously one thing to a peaceful\npeople and a very different thing to people accustomed to violence in\ntheir daily lives. Upon a man of sedentary occupation a prize-fight\nmust have a very different effect from that which it will have upon\nmen accustomed to the use of their fists. It is worth asking: What is\nthis love of violence which moves the breast of the man of peace? What\nis this emotion which leads men to be heroic by proxy? Is it surviving\nphysical excellence which reveals itself in this way, or is it a\ncumbrous atavistic relic like the appendix which the doctors remove?\nWe see, for instance, enormous crowds gathering at the football\nmatches where professional players show their prowess, and muscles\ntrained and hardened for the fray. We know that there was a crowd\nlooking forward to the Wells-Johnson contest. Contrast these events\nwith a cricket match, where there is practically no violence. Whatever\nbe the reason, any sportsman will testify to the fact that the crowd\nwhich goes to see cricket is generally a cricketing crowd, but that\nthe crowd which goes to a cup-tie football match is by no means in\nthe same way a footballing crowd. In other words, so far as the\nonlookers are concerned, the cricket match is more truly a sporting\nevent than is the professional football match or the Wells-Johnson\ncontest.\n\nWhatever the answer be, it is certain that when we beat the big drum\nof patriotism and set the guns firing, the thrill which it arouses in\nthe vocal populace is different from the thrill in a people accustomed\nto violence and blood. We say the \"vocal\" populace, remembering that\nthere is a portion of the population, very important to the community\nand growing in power, which is not facile in the art of\nself-expression. That portion of the population was in evidence at the\ntime of the great Coal Strike, when it seemed actually on the verge of\nrebellion, when it actually committed violence to the horror and\nsurprise of our peaceful middle classes. The fact is that the very\npoor are never so far from the violent life as are members of other\nclasses. Violent deaths are not infrequent in factories, in\ncoal-mines, in great building-works, in dockyards. The life of\ndeprivation makes the passion of anger frequent; among the poor blows\nare often exchanged, and the police are seldom called upon to\ninterfere. Necessarily, from the nature of the case, the poor are more\nfamiliar with violence than are their richer and more conventional\nneighbours; it is a natural thing for the more ignorant of them to\nfall back upon physical force, as they did at Liverpool. And so, too,\njust as they are more accustomed to petty war, they are less\ninterested in war between nations. In Italy it was the working-men\nwho protested against the war with Turkey.\n\nBut it seems that the more educated and the more organised we become,\nthe more we leave our affairs to be managed by professionals. When a\nnation declares for war, it declares for a war to be waged by its\nprofessionals, and it turns them on to do a job which, according to\ncivilised practices, is a dirty job. And when it is fired with\npatriotic pride for achievements won in the field it is exercising its\nemotions on something it cannot understand or realise, for the simple\nreason that the violence of war is strange, distantly horrible,\nfascinating, but unfamiliar. It has never directly entered into our\nexperience.\n\n\n\n\nV\n\nSPECIALISM IN LITERATURE\n\n\nSome time ago Mr. Brander Matthews made the original suggestion in the\n_North American Review_ that books should be written for the benefit\nof the reader. The suggestion is not on the face of it paradoxical,\nbut it will be rank heresy to those who blame the public for not\nbowing down before the sacrosanctity of the \"serious\" author. He\nadmits that \"a book ought to be rich with the full flavour of the\nauthor's personality;\" primarily it ought to express him; but\nsecondarily--and this is Mr. Brander Matthews' point--\"it is for the\nsole benefit of the reader.\"\n\nI think we may go a little further than Mr. Matthews, and find a\nsecond reason why certain authors fail to find favour with the general\nreader. In the case which Mr. Matthews seemed to be considering there\nare authors who have every qualification for writing except that they\ncannot write. Secondly, there are authors who, in the ordinary\nliterary sense of the term, can write, who have gathered knowledge and\nformed seriously-grounded opinions about life, who are nevertheless so\nout of touch with the broad, common interests of men that they\ninvariably fail to make a strong emotional or imaginative appeal.\n\nEvery reader is acquainted with the tiresome writer who has a great\ndeal to say but labours infinitely in the saying of it. In a crude,\nenergetic, excessively eulogised novel published in America a few\nyears ago--_Queed_--we were introduced to an economist engaged upon a\nwork so learned that he knew there were only three persons in America\ncapable of understanding it. There is, doubtless, something to be said\nfor an appreciative audience of three; but it is safe to assert that\neven the exact sciences might be made more widely intelligible. I am,\nhowever, thinking primarily of those studies which have some claim to\nrank as literary studies. It is through literature that the historian,\nthe biographer, the sociologist, and the philosopher must make their\ncontributions to knowledge. Yet how much research and how much acute\nthinking are wasted because the student has not the means of making\nhis subject alive for others, has not the reconstructive imagination\nby means of which truth is communicated! It is because he cannot\nwrite.\n\nBut this being able to write is not a matter of putting words and\nclauses together with correctness and elegance. That much the mere\nscholar generally understands, and it is because he thinks it\nsufficient that he fails. What is wanted is a quality of mind which is\ntoo often excluded from the specialist by his habit of thought. \"A few\nyears of journalism,\" said Mr. W.B. Yeats on one occasion, \"is an\ninvaluable discipline for the man of letters.\" No one is more fully\nalive to the defects of journalism than Mr. Yeats--its frequent\nlooseness, prejudice, obviousness, and dissipation of interest. But,\nin spite of that, he saw that the good journalist's faculty of\naddressing himself directly to the subject in hand, of stating it\nclearly and in its essentials without waste of words, of so escaping\nhis own particular mould of thought that he may be easily intelligible\nto a variety of minds, required a discipline and a broadening\ninvaluable to the man who really has something to say. The specialist\nis inclined to lack the broad outlook of one who is interested in many\nthings; he acquires a jargon of his own; his mind runs in the narrow\nchannel to which that jargon corresponds; the language he uses becomes\nstilted and dead. There is no tonic in the truths he tries to\nproclaim, no relevance to the rest of knowledge. In other words, what\nhe has to say may be scientifically valuable, but he fails to convey\nit to any but his fellow-specialists.\n\nMr. Brander Matthews points out that the great students are those who\nhave combined the Teutonic thoroughness with the French\ncomprehensiveness and lucidity. Gibbon and Mommsen are the great\nexamples to which he points. England surely has been very rich in\nwriters thorough and lucid, but we may observe that they follow rather\nthe eighteenth-century tradition, with its intelligible common sense,\nthan the romantic or transcendental tradition, with its mysticism and\nobscurity. Locke, Berkeley, and Hume, the most lucid of philosophers,\nare scarcely easier to follow than John Stuart Mill, Huxley, and\nLeslie Stephen. But it is hardly necessary to enter a _caveat_ against\nsupposing that lucidity of expression is precisely proportional to\nclearness of thought. The philosophy of Kant did not admit of the\nsimple language of Hume, and T.H. Green and Mr. Bradley are not to be\nblamed if they are more difficult to understand than Sir Leslie\nStephen.\n\nThe second aspect of the question is more important, especially at a\ntime when we are constantly reminded that the public is indifferent to\nthe finest creative literature now produced. The fault may be with the\npublic, and it may also be with the authors. It is worth remembering\nthat this is a time when special forms of expression are being made to\ndo work which once belonged to other forms. Fiction, for example, is\nbeing made to carry the load of philosophic psychology, of poetry, of\nthe economic, moral, or political treatise. Drama is often used as a\nvehicle for truths which were once left to the pulpit, the political\nplatform, or the lecture hall. Both of them, in the case of the\nextreme realists, are being used as the store-room or the dissecting\nchamber of the experimental scientist. Supposing that an author's\nfacts are supremely important, his discernment most acute, his ideas\nsignificant, still, before we condemn the public unheard, we are\ncompelled to ask of him: Have you given to this material a form which\nit will accept? Have you addressed the public in a language which has\na wide human appeal? Are you, in fact, a master of that higher\ntechnique which implies an understanding, not only of the fine\nessences of truth, but the broad, common facts of human nature? It is\njust because they are not masters of this higher technique that many\nexponents of so-called \"intellectual fiction\" and \"intellectual drama\"\nare doomed to failure.\n\nI am well aware that such arguments as this must be qualified. For I\nhave not forgotten that what are now the commonplaces of culture were\nonce the unintelligible obscurities of a sage. Much that we now\napprehend at a glance, all that makes our cultural birthright, was\nonly acquired by slow and arduous processes, in which the pioneers\nwere laughed to scorn. The original mind sees things in a new light,\nand his language is to us strange and unfamiliar, and we do not learn\nit till our eyes and ears have become accustomed. And there are others\nwho do not stand conspicuously in the main stream of mental progress,\nwho, nevertheless, remote and perhaps secluded as they are, have a\nvision rarefied, subtle, strange not only in their own times, but for\nall times. Those men have their own communication to make to those\nanxious to add to the fineness of their perception, or merely perhaps\nto the oddness of experience. If some sting of truth reaches the mind\nthrough writing obscure to the general, through language which may be\nbarbarous in form, an author has justified himself; and it would be\nidle to follow Mr. Brander Matthews in his quotation from the\never-pleasing Lord Chesterfield: \"Speak the language of the company\nyou are in; speak it purely and unloaded with any other.\" For, after\nall, is it not open to the author to choose his company? If his\nreceptions are ill-attended, that may not reflect ill on those who\naccept the invitation. Not everyone will read the poems of Mr.\nDoughty; Mr. Doughty has made it hard for them; but if they do, they\nare repaid. Not everyone will tolerate the finesse of Mr. Henry James;\nbut among those who can understand him, assuredly Mr. James is in very\ngood company.\n\n\n\n\nVI\n\nSPECIALISM IN PHILOSOPHY AND JUSTICE\n\n\nIn the play called _Justice_, Mr. Galsworthy attacked the professional\nmechanism of English law in much the same way as the late William\nJames attacked professional philosophy. These two kinds of specialism,\nor departmentalism, may therefore conveniently be treated together;\nfor I may leave Mr. Galsworthy and William James to conduct the\nattack, contenting myself with the task of linking up their forces.\nBoth Professor James and Mr. Galsworthy appealed against the\nmachine--the one against the machine of thought which is divorced from\ncommon perception, the other against the machine of the law which has\nno contact with the needs of persons. \"We,\" said William James,\nmeaning the Pragmatists, or the Humanists, \"turn to the great unpent\nand unstayed wilderness of truth as we feel it to be constituted, with\nas good a conscience as rationalists are moved by when they turn from\nour wilderness into their neater and cleaner intellectual abodes.\" In\n_Justice_ the young advocate who appears for the defence is not so\nmuch pleading for the client under the law, as arraigning the present\nlegal system, setting up a new conception of law based upon common\nsense, human insight, and a morality finer than legalism.\n\"Gentlemen,\" he says, \"men like the defendant are destroyed daily\nunder our laws for want of that human insight which sees them as they\nare, patients, and not criminals.... Justice is a machine that, when\nsomeone has once given it the starting push, rolls on of itself. Is\nthis young man to be ground to pieces under this machine for an act\nwhich at the worst was one of weakness?\"\n\nThis attempt to get back to something that _satisfies_ the human mind,\nthe human idea of good, is to be seen equally in these two thinkers\nwho belong to different countries and different traditions. The word\n\"satisfactory\" continually occurs in Professor James' writings.\n\"Humanism,\" he says, \"conceiving the more 'true' as the more\n'satisfactory,' has sincerely to renounce rectilinear arguments and\nancient ideals of rigour and finality.\" He wishes to break with that\nview of philosophy which says \"the anatomy of the world is logical,\nand its logic is that of a university professor.\" He is one of those\nwho, having been a lifelong student of philosophy and psychology, has\nthe energy to know that, however theoretically perfect may be the\nlogical system evolved by thought, that system will not be sufficient\nto prevent a man from saying, \"After all, am I sure of it?\" The only\nthings of which we are sure are those things which we directly\nexperience. We know the appearance of a tree, because we see it; we\nknow the emotion of pity or love, because we have felt it; we know\nthat what we call tigers exist in India, because acquaintances have\nseen them, and direct experience has taught us that their evidence is\nsatisfactory, and if we went to India their testimony could be found\ntrue by the evidence of our own senses. \"What becomes our warrant for\ncalling anything reality? The only reply is--the faith of the present\ncritic or inquirer. At every moment of his life he finds himself\nsubject to a belief in _some_ realities, even though his realities of\nthis year should prove to be his illusions of the next.\" \"_The most we\ncan claim is, that what we say about cognition may be counted as true\nas what we say about anything else_.\" Nothing is true for him unless\nit has reference to the world which we know, which we accept on faith,\nby the practical evidence of our senses, or, it might be added, our\ndesires, our aspirations, our intuitions. Nothing is ruled out so long\nas it can be pinned down at any moment to what is real, to what is\nindividual. \"Demonstration in the last resort\" is to the senses.\n\n    Contemned though they may be by some thinkers, these sensations\n    are the mother-earth, the anchorage, the stable rock, the first\n    and last limits, the _terminus a quo_ and the _terminus ad quem_\n    of the mind. To find such sensational _termini_ should be our\n    aim with all higher thought. They end discussion, they destroy\n    the false conceit of knowledge, and without them we are all at\n    sea with each other's meaning. If two men act alike on a\n    percept, they believe themselves to feel alike about it; if not,\n    they may suspect they know it in differing ways. We can never be\n    sure we understand each other till we are able to bring the\n    matter to this test. This is why metaphysical discussions are so\n    much like fighting with the air; they have no practical issue of\n    a sensational kind.\n\nTruth, then, for the Pragmatists is that which has \"practical\nconsequences.\" A belief is held to be true when it is \"found to work.\"\nTranscendent ideas have no validity except as ideas unless they are\nfound to have a \"cash value\" in practical life, that is to say, unless\nthey refer to, and are operative in, the world of immediate\nexperience. \"Reality is an accumulation of our own intellectual\ninventions, and the struggle for 'truth' in our progressive dealings\nwith it is always a struggle to work in new nouns and adjectives while\naltering as little as possible the old.\" You may talk of Absolutes as\nmuch as you like, you may contemplate the fundamental categories of\nthe mind, you may dwell upon the _a priori_ conceptions to which all\nour experiences must conform, but the fact remains, says Professor\nJames, turning his back on all transcendental idealism, \"the concrete\ntruth _for us_ will always be that way of thinking in which our\nvarious experiences most profitably combine.\"\n\n    The true is the opposite of whatever is instable, of whatever is\n    practically disappointing, of whatever is useless, of whatever\n    is lying and unreliable, of whatever is unverifiable and\n    unsupported, of whatever is inconsistent and contradictory, of\n    whatever is artificial and eccentric, of whatever is unreal in\n    the sense of being of no practical account. Here are pragmatic\n    reasons with a vengeance why we should turn to truth--truth\n    saves us from a world of that complexion. What wonder that its\n    very name awakens loyal feeling! In particular what wonder that\n    all little provisional fools' paradises of belief should appear\n    contemptible in comparison with its bare pursuit! When\n    Absolutists reject humanism because they feel it to be untrue,\n    that means that the whole habit of their mental needs is wedded\n    already to a different view of reality, in comparison with which\n    the humanistic world seems but the whim of a few irresponsible\n    youths. Their own subjective apperceiving mass is what speaks\n    here in the name of the eternal natures and bids them reject our\n    humanism--as they apprehend it. Just so with us humanists, when\n    we condemn all noble, clean-cut, fixed, eternal, rational,\n    temple-like systems of philosophy.\n\nI am not here seeking to examine closely, still less to criticise,\nProfessor James' pragmatic doctrines. What I am concerned to show is\nthat we have in him a trained philosopher adopting towards the theory\nof knowledge a point of view strangely similar to that which Mr.\nGalsworthy takes up towards the social ethics of modern England. Is it\nnot Mr. Galsworthy's function to \"condemn all noble, clean-cut, fixed,\neternal, rational, temple-like systems\" of morality and etiquette?\nProfessor James' rationalist antagonists are exactly like the\nadministrators of law and order criticised by Sweedle in the play:\n\"They've forgot what human nature's like.\" Just as your Hegelian\nwishes for nothing but the perfection of knowledge, and leaves you in\nan inconceivable, unknowable Absolute, so, according to Falder, who\nhas been in prison, \"Nobody wishes you any harm, but they down you all\nthe same.\" In precisely the same way as Professor James pleads for a\nview of truth which rests on the unfailing vividness of finite\nexperience, so Mr. Galsworthy pleads for a justice which shall be\napplicable, not to an infinite number of imaginary cases, but to the\nindividual, to the person whom we might chance to know, and meet, and\nwork with--to the necessitous human being. He pleads for a law which\nshall be elastic, not rigid; dealing with men, not cases; for which\nmercy shall come to be a part of the idea of justice. That which is\ngood enough for human beings in their dealings one with another ought\nnot to be too good for the law. Intercourse with concrete reality is\nProfessor James' requirement for the truth of an idea; intercourse\nwith human beings is Mr. Galsworthy's requirement as the basis of\nsocial morality and of law. That does not of course mean that the\nlegislator must be acquainted with all those for whom he legislates\nany more than that we can directly experience the facts of history\nwhich we claim to know. But every rule--in knowledge, in morality, in\nlaw--must be referable to this test of intercourse. Let your judgment\nof human beings be such as you would award to those who are\nsufficiently human to be among your friends. Let it be directed solely\ntowards the well-being of the individual so far as that is consistent\nwith the well-being of society. Again and again Mr. Galsworthy has\nshown us how stereotyped views, abstractions of the human mind, settle\ndown upon classes and individuals and warp their judgments and their\nconduct. In _Fraternity_ he showed how the idea of class differences\nbecomes an obsession in the human mind, obliterating the truer idea of\nhuman community, of those common qualities in character which are not\nskin-deep, like class, but fundamental. In _Strife_ he showed how the\nidea of the rights of an employer, of the rights of a workman, is an\nabstraction hiding from master and workman the human bond which human\nintercourse would have revealed. In _Justice_, again, he showed how\nthat lowest of all existing codes, the legal code, erects a\n\"temple-like\" abstraction of the law to which all individuals, however\ndifferent they may be, however various their requirements, are made to\nconform.\n\nWe may notice that in the cases both of the philosopher and the\ndramatist there is a return to what I may call a rudimentary common\nsense. Professor James' views come as a reaction in the course of the\nlong evolution of ideas. If on the one side we had not had thinker\nafter thinker who emphasised the necessity of approaching reality as a\nrelation of the conscious mind, and on the other side sceptics who\nasserted that there is nothing knowable but the continuum of\ndisconnected sensations which present themselves--a blind array of\natoms--there would be no meaning in a thesis like that of Professor\nJames, which refutes the follies of the two extremes, and stands upon\na ground which is very nearly a denial of the possibility of\nphilosophy. In like manner Mr. Galsworthy's ethics are only valuable\nas a chain in the progress of morality and institutions. Primitive\nsociety conceived punishment as an antidote to the horrors of\nunchecked violence. Medi\u00e6val law devised fearful penalties for the\nforger, because forgery was a fearful menace to the stability of a\ncommerce not yet backed by a high commercial morality. But now we have\nreached the time when we are menaced by the machinery set up by our\nancestors. The law works with a violence and a brutality which were\ninvented in, and proper to, an age of violence and brutality; and we\nare confronted with the daily spectacle of judges compelled to\nadminister an antiquated and ferocious law, which awards to the\ncriminal the double penalty of chastisement and shame. The old\nbarbarism clings to the machine and works havoc. And because it is\nold, and because we are accustomed to it, we tolerate it. We do not\nput it to the test, which must be a personal test: How does it work in\nthe case of this individual and of that? Is the application of these\nrules \"satisfactory\" when they are made to operate on the human beings\nfor whom they were devised? Has this code any social \"cash value\" when\nit is brought to bear on the lawyer's clerk who forged a cheque to\nsave a woman?\n\nI have not considered Professor James' merits as a dialectician, or\nMr. Galsworthy's as a dramatist. I have attempted to hint at that\nquality in them which is called \"humanism,\" humanism in thought,\nhumanism in ethics--the quality which makes men seek to judge ideas,\ninstitutions and things by what they are worth to human beings for\ntheir most pressing, their most vital needs. It is evident that this\nsame \"humanism\" is beginning to manifest itself in politics, religion\nand even literary criticism. Clearly it tends at all times to set up\nindividual conviction against authority, freedom against discipline.\nIt has as its virtue the quality of being opposed to red tape,\nprofessionalism, departmentalism pedantry, officiousness, intolerance,\nlethargy, and the tyranny of custom; it has its dangers in that,\nresting as it does in the last resort on the personal and the\nconcrete, it tends in ill-balanced minds to neglect the value of\nancient and dear illusions, and to degenerate into chaos and caprice.\nChaos, however, is not so much to be feared as those \"little\nprovisional fools' paradises of belief\" exposed so brilliantly by\nWilliam James.\n\n\n\n\nPART THREE\n\nLITERATURE AND MEN\n\n\n\n\nI\n\nBERNARD SHAW\n\n\nIt is doubtful if any person in England exercises so many-sided and so\nconsiderable an influence as that of Mr. Bernard Shaw. It is not that\nhis books are read by very many thousands of readers; that his plays\nhave long runs or can compete in popularity with those of Mr. Barrie\nor the Gaiety Theatre; that his lectures and speeches are reported so\nfully as those of an ordinary Cabinet Minister; that his letters to\nthe newspapers are as numerous as those of Mr. Algernon Ashton or Dr.\nClifford in his prime. He seldom demonstrates his power by passing\nActs of Parliament or organising garden parties. He figures less often\nin the Social and Personal columns than Sir H. Beerbohm Tree. He is\nnot so well known in the law courts as Mr. Horatio Bottomley. Yet\nthere is no other man in England who is so conspicuous in so many\nspheres of activity, and wherever he appears he is always _facile\nprinceps_ in the public eye. Everyone who has any knowledge of him is\ncompelled to think about him, and those who have no direct knowledge\nof him--so insidious is his influence--are to be found constantly\nthinking in terms of Bernard Shaw. The active, talking, persuading,\nbook-writing, lecturing, propagandist population of England has been\nbitten by him; it re-writes and popularises him; it even talks his\njargon when it is criticising him. It began by regarding him as a\nbrilliant and witty writer whom no one could take seriously; it now\nregards him as a serious, and indeed responsible, thinker whose wit is\na matter of harmless inspiration, and often a tactical advantage.\n\nMr. Shaw, in fact, has thrust himself upon English public life.\nWherever anything is doing or being talked about he is in the thick of\nit. Whenever he rises to speak, he is supreme. He sweeps away all the\nfalse issues in a few sentences; he attacks the very heart of the\nproblem under discussion, and makes the most practical proposals. He\ncan cover a hostile argument with ridicule, and drive it out of the\nfield with good-tempered laughter. But his method is not only that of\nraillery. He is remorselessly logical. He can pursue the logical\nsequence of his case, and set it forth with a fusillade of perfectly\nrelevant and illuminating instances and analogies. He never loses his\nthread like Mr. Chesterton; he never wanders off into vague rhetoric\nlike Mr. Wells. He chases his enemies and his subject until he has\nsubdued the first and set forth the second so that it shines with\ncrystal clearness. There is no man in England who can state a case, on\nthe platform or in the Press, with such perfect lucidity, such logical\norder, with such brightness and lightness, or with such force as Mr.\nBernard Shaw. He is the greatest debater in England, the greatest\npamphleteer, the most observable personality in public life.\n\nThat is not all. As an organiser there is no one who has more driving\npower. He can set himself to committee work, and keep every member of\na committee active, himself included. He can, when necessary, pester\nresponsible persons till they are goaded into action. Whilst his\nattention is always fixed on the central object, he has an eye for the\nmost trifling details.\n\nHe is a first-rate business man. He knows as much about the trade of\npublishing as any publisher. He refuses to employ a literary agent,\nand personally transacts the business of placing his work--and\nsometimes that of his friends--in the literary and dramatic market all\nover the world.\n\nAlso he is a man personally benevolent. No one was ever less\nsentimental or romantic, but he is charitably disposed to everyone\nwhom he does not regard as a fool.\n\nIf we examine the records of Mr. Shaw's life we shall see that it has\nbeen spent somewhere mid-way between the lives of the man-of-action\nand the man-of-letters. He has been primarily and essentially a critic\nof the current ideas about existing facts, the ideas which are\npre-supposed in the typical and habitual activities of our modern\nworld. He has been, almost invariably, a destructive critic--a critic\nof that rare kind which is able to win attention because he himself is\nso active in this Vandal work of his, because he can make his critical\nattack in so many different ways, because there seem to be a greater\nvital force and spirit in his pulling down of gods than ever existed\nin the gods themselves. Socrates, one would suppose, was not more\ninsistent and unexpected in his gadfly attacks upon the Athenian\nsophists than is Mr. Shaw in his raids upon the Pharisees of\nsophisticated London. His biography, when it is written, will be a\nvery fascinating and a very large book, and Mr. Shaw himself thinks\nthat it will be identical with the history of his time. There is\nalready in existence a book which claims to be an authorised \"Critical\nBiography;\" and, needless to say, it was written by an American--Dr.\nArchibald Henderson--who stepped in with superb confidence and\ncompelled Mr. Shaw to criticise, overhaul, and contribute to his\ndaring enterprise. \"You can force my hand to some extent,\" said Mr.\nShaw, \"for any story that you start will pursue me to all eternity.\"\n\nThis valiant American describes with gusto the active, talking,\ndebating, propagating, protesting life that Mr. Shaw has lived. It has\nnot been a \"domestic\" life; not even a specially \"literary\" life. We\nfeel it has been a life in which there has been little privacy or\nintimacy, that it has seldom been wholly shut off from the\nmarket-place and the theatre; that if he is a man entirely destitute\nof \"company manners,\" this is because he has lived always \"in\ncompany.\" He was, of course, born in Ireland, not very far from\nDublin. His parents were Protestants belonging to that middle class\nwhich is hampered by social pretensions and insufficient worldly\nmeans. He was taught at Protestant schools, where he was expected to\nbelieve that \"Roman Catholics are socially inferior persons, who will\ngo to hell when they die, and leave Heaven in the exclusive possession\nof ladies and gentlemen.\" At the age of fifteen he went into a land\noffice and helped to collect rents, without realising, it is to be\npresumed, that he was contributing to an iniquitous system. He studied\npictures in the Irish National Gallery, became interested in music\nthrough his mother and her friends, and made his first appearance in\nprint when moved to protest against the evangelistic services of\nSankey and Moody. At the age of twenty he turned his back upon\nIreland, and started a literary career in London. In the first nine\nyears of \"consistent literary drudgery\" he succeeded in earning six\npounds.\n\nTo put it frankly, Mr. Shaw was not born to succeed as \"a mere man of\nletters,\" and assuredly not as a writer of romances. His own statement\nthat he \"exhausted romanticism before he was ten years old\" is\nhistorically inaccurate. He started a literary career early, but at\ntwenty-nine he was still a romantic young man who had written reams of\nromantic literature, and had signally failed. He was right to abandon\nromance; it had never inspired him, and it was entirely natural and\nhuman that he should ever after disown and abuse this treacherous\nmistress. It is characteristic that what really did inspire him and\nset him moving upon the course ever after to be his own was an event\nunconnected with those personal, intimate issues of experience which\nusually feed the flame of imaginative art. It was a debating speech by\nHenry George which aroused the reforming ardour thenceforward\nessential and characteristic in Mr. Shaw, a speech which sent him to\nKarl Marx, and made him a \"man with some business in the world.\"\nHenry George sent him to Karl Marx, and Karl Marx sent him to that\ngroup of clever people among whom were Graham Wallas, Hubert Bland,\nSidney Olivier, and--of main importance--Sidney Webb.\n\n\"Quite the cleverest thing I ever did in my life,\" Mr. Shaw is\nreported to have said to his American interviewer, \"was to force my\nfriendship on Webb, to extort his, and keep it.\" Mr. Sidney Webb was\nthen, as now, the constructive encyclop\u00e6dist, the man who, wherever he\nwent, \"knew more than anybody present.\" \"The truth of the matter is\nthat Webb and I are very useful to each other. We are in perfect\ncontrast, each supplying the deficiency in the other.... As I am an\nincorrigible mountebank, and Webb is one of the simplest of geniuses,\nI have always been in the centre of the stage, whilst Webb has been\nprompting me, invisible, from the side.\" It was this singular union\nmore than anything else which gave direction and motive force to the\npropaganda carried on by the Fabian Society for a quarter of a\ncentury, whilst to Mr. Shaw personally it gave the consistency of\nthought and definiteness of aim which underlie all his later work. We\ncannot, of course, neglect the intellectual influence of Ibsen and\nNietzsche, Wagner and Samuel Butler, the individualists and\naristocrats who corrected the mob-sentiment of old-fashioned\nsocialism; but these and similar influences matured in him through his\nFabianism.\n\nBernard Shaw, of the Fabian Society, ceased to be a private citizen. He\nbecame a man of \"affairs,\" destined, thenceforward, to live in the\npublicity of debating-halls, among those ideas which reformers and\npoliticians have actually socialised, removing them from the privacy of\nhuman experience and turning them into public property--like parks, open\nspaces, and wash-houses. I do not mean that he treated this public\nproperty as other, and more conventionally-minded, men habitually treat\nit. Mr. Shaw walks down the Strand as if it were his private\nbridle-path. He walks across an Insurance Bill or a National Theatre\nscheme or a policy for giving self-government to Englishmen as a man who\nmight be treading the weeds in his own garden. But the intellectual\nstage-properties were all prepared for him and presented ready-made in\nthose times when he went night after night to lecture in the city and\nsuburbs of London. He had, indeed, the social cosmopolitanism which made\nhim dissociate himself from small literary coteries and gain a practical\nknowledge of publicly-minded men. But one cannot fail to see that his\nlong experience of lecturing, debating, setting up arguments, and\nparrying verbal attacks--which made him the best debater in England, and\nturned him, as Dr. Henderson has suggested, from a doctrinaire into a\n\"practical opportunist\"--served not only to endow him with his\nconsistency as a thinker and his excellence in expounding ideas, but\nalso confirmed him in his defects as a humanist. His continual\nintercourse with the innumerable fixed ideas of societies and\ncommittees, his debater's habit of attacking whatever fixed idea he\nencounters, have had the effect of organising his own mind along the\nlines of such fixed ideas, theses, positions and oppositions as could be\ndefended or countered by his boundless resource in argument, wit, and\nraillery; and it followed that his interpretation of life was likely to\nresolve itself into the debater's generalisations, the partialities and\nhalf-truths which ignore what is individual, personal, intimate, and\nfinest--for the finest things in life are those which cannot be\ngeneralised, which are individual and unique, which admit of being\nstated but not argued. It follows also that his strength is in attack\nand in destructive criticism. The only important positive ideas for\nwhich he stands are the Supermannish idea of the duty of every man to be\nhimself to the utmost, and a generous democratic idea of freedom, in\naccordance with which every self-respecting man and woman should be\ngiven the opportunity to work out his or her own destiny fully,\nunhampered by the tyrannies of caste, prestige, sentimental traditions,\nfalse codes, and effete moral obligations.\n\nBut these ideas are of very considerable magnitude. They are capable\nof almost infinite extension and application to life. And it should be\nobserved that, though Mr. Shaw thinks mainly about obvious \"public\nquestions\"--politics, the professions, the institution of marriage,\npatriotism, public oratory, public health, etc., he has nothing in\ncommon with the unimaginative public man who merely criticises\nproposals and policies. He is always interested in the state of mind\nwhich produces proposals and policies. When he pleads for the\nabolition of the Dramatic Censorship before a Royal Commission, he\ngives us not only the most effective practical exposure of the\nCensorship that has ever been written, but also a far-reaching\nphilosophical analysis of liberty as freedom to express and propagate\nideas. \"My reputation has been gained by my persistent struggle to\nforce the public to reconsider its morals,\" he says in the _Rejected\nStatement_, the presentation of which to the Royal Commission affords\none of those delightful true stories that only a Shaw can make so\ndamaging. \"I write plays with the deliberate object of converting the\nnation to my opinion in these matters.\" That he has to a large extent\nalready converted the intellectuals--whether by his plays or by other\nmeans--is beyond question. Many of the most powerful writers of the\nlast ten years have concentrated their efforts on exposing the tyranny\nof the established idea and the established moral code. Such diverse\nwriters as Mr. Wells, Mr. Galsworthy, Mr. Granville Barker, Mr.\nCunninghame-Graham, Mr. Belloc, and Mr. Chesterton have written books\nthe motives of which have been satire, divine anger, _s\u00e6va\nindignatio_, directed against the established moral codes or\nintellectual habits of the time. Mr. Shaw, who originally followed the\nobscure Samuel Butler, showed the way for the others. His method was,\nand is, to combine argument with the more telling weapon of ridicule.\nIn his Preface to _Blanco Posnet_ he exposes and ridicules the\nDramatic Censorship, just as in _Getting Married_ he exposes and\nridicules the popular conception of happy domestic life, and in like\nmanner in _The Doctor's Dilemma_ the superstition that the faculty of\nmedicine is infallible.\n\nThe picture of concerted professional fraud given us in _The Doctor's\nDilemma_ is not too exaggerated for the purposes of a debating\nargument; but in his long essay on the subject he gives a far more\nreasonable statement of the case. He does not treat the doctor as a\nmurderer, or a pickpocket, or a human vulture, or even a cold-blooded\ncynic; he explains what is likely to happen to the ordinary,\nmoderately decent, normal man, without any special moral or\nintellectual equipment, who becomes a doctor. \"As to the honour and\nconscience of doctors, they have as much as any other class of men, no\nmore and no less. And what other men,\" he adds characteristically,\n\"dare pretend to be impartial where they have a strong pecuniary\ninterest on one side?\" He analyses the psychology of the practitioner\nand the specialist. He shows how much guesswork there must be where\neven the most distinguished differ; in what manner we are all handed\nover, bound, to the tender mercies of the men who are often poor,\noverworked, unscientific, and, if they are specialists, prejudiced by\nexclusive study of one disease. What he says about the surgeon and the\nspecialist is nearer to the truth than what he says about the general\npractitioner. Long experience of all sorts of illnesses is more\nvaluable for the curing of simple diseases than much so-called\n\"scientific knowledge;\" and, as it happens, the life of the general\npractitioner who comes into sympathetic contact with so many men and\nwomen of different types is one which does promote certain healthy\ncynicisms and human decencies singularly lacking in the specialist on\nthe one side and the routine-driven hospital nurse on the other. But\nthere we have the individual equation. Mr. Shaw is good at\nconsidering general cases; he is never, in his writing, much concerned\nabout individuals.\n\nThe essay which preceded _Getting Married_ is stronger in its attack\nthan in its reconstructive proposals; and the essay is better than the\nplay, because Mr. Shaw can present arguments more effectively than\npersons, and arguments are more suited to essays than to plays. It is\ninteresting to find him confessing that \"young women come to me and\nask me whether they ought to consent to marry the man they have\ndecided to live with.\" Mr. Shaw, of course, urges them \"on no account\nto compromise themselves without the security of an authentic\nwedding-ring.\" He should not have been surprised. He, if anyone,\nshould have known that if you attack an existing morality, the public\nwill inevitably think you are advocating the corresponding\n\"immorality\" as popularly understood; and one suspects that Mr. Shaw\nhas, from this natural misunderstanding, more to answer for than he\nhimself dreams of. When he calls himself \"an immoralist,\" he means\nthat he is the true moralist; that he is going to substitute for a\ndecayed, outworn, conventional, and stupid morality, a morality based\nupon a rational human principle--a morality that will make society\nbetter and more tolerable. In this particular essay he asks us to get\nrid of the idea that the family, _as at present constituted_, is the\nhighest form of human co-partnership. \"The people who talk and write\nas if the highest attainable state is that of a family stewing in love\ncontinuously from the cradle to the grave can hardly have given five\nminutes' serious consideration to so outrageous a proposition.\"\n\n    Home life as we understand it is no more natural to us than a\n    cage is natural to a cockatoo. Its grave danger to the nation\n    lies in its narrow views, its unnaturally sustained and\n    spitefully jealous concupiscences, its petty tyrannies, its\n    false social pretences, its endless grudges and squabbles, its\n    sacrifice of the boy's future by setting him to earn money to\n    help the family when he should be in training for his adult life\n    (remember the boy Dickens and the blacking factory), and of the\n    girl's chances by making her a slave to sick or selfish parents,\n    its unnatural packing into little brick boxes of little parcels\n    of humanity of ill-assorted ages, with the old scolding or\n    beating the young for behaving like young people, and the young\n    hating and thwarting the old for behaving like old people, and\n    all the other ills, mentionable and unmentionable, that arise\n    from excessive segregation. It sets these evils up as benefits\n    and blessings representing the highest attainable degree of\n    honour and virtue, whilst any criticism of or revolt against\n    them is savagely persecuted as the extremity of vice.\n\nBut when Mr. Shaw begins to reconstruct, and thinks that the whole\nmatter can be solved by such simple--and so far as they go,\nexcellent--economic expedients as making women economically\nindependent, and legitimising children, he ceases to be persuasive.\nThere comes a point when brilliant cleverness and sheer logic _from\nnecessity_ miss the truth. It is precisely the cut-and-dried Fabian\nside of Mr. Shaw which blinds him to facts of a certain sort--the\nfact, for instance, that for certain human needs no ingenious, or\n_invented_, rational remedy is possible; that in certain departments\nof life where the great instincts are concerned the accumulated\nconscious and subconscious experience of thousands of years of mankind\nhave produced a kind of instinctive knowledge which logic cannot\ntamper with; which is bound up with human nature and is near to a\nthousand subtle truths never yet brought within the scope of\nscientific knowledge; which it is dangerous to attack by a brutal\nfrontal assault, as if the issue were a single and simple debating\nissue; which is defied only under just such penalties as Mr. Shaw\nhimself alludes to.\n\nIt is already evident why Mr. Shaw is far better as lecturer, debater,\npamphleteer, and writer of critical essays than as writer of either\nromances or plays. He is primarily a social reformer, like Henry\nGeorge and Karl Marx, though he brings more wit, cleverness, driving\npower, and intellectual agility to bear upon his subjects. He is\ninterested in public morality and \"affairs,\" in generalities rather\nthan individuals, in ideas about life rather than in life at first\nhand. He sees through the intellect rather than through the\nperceptions. He is concerned to prove and to teach rather than to\n_show_. He has made very few _characters_ in his plays, for the simple\nreason that he handicaps his persons by treating them as _ideas_\nrather than as _persons_. This is to say, that as an artist he is\nnever disinterested; he is more concerned with the case which his\npuppets are set up to prove than with a situation for its own sake. In\n_C\u00e6sar and Cleopatra_ he did for once allow a subject to exist for\nits own sake. He had no axe to grind, primarily, on behalf of society\nand its morals. It is not perhaps the cleverest of his plays, but it\nis the play which is most a play; and if it is not a great play, that\nis because Mr. Shaw is not a great dramatist--he has not allowed\nhimself to be a great imaginative artist--he turned his back upon\nimaginative art at the age of twenty-nine.\n\nIn the cleverest of his plays there is, indeed, always one real\nperson, and that person is none other than himself. In _Man and\nSuperman_, in _Arms and the Man_, and in _John Bull's Other Island_,\nthe hero is in each case nothing more nor less than a new\nimpersonation of Bernard Shaw. (In _John Bull's Other Island_ I take\nLarry Doyle as the hero.) The hero is a man who on every possible\noccasion either gets up and argues with extraordinary fluency and good\nsense as if he were a very brilliant young man in a debate, or else is\nforced into the sort of action which that brilliant debater would have\nadvocated. Broadbent, in _John Bull's Other Island_, is not a person\nat all; he is a brilliantly conceived caricature of English stupidity;\nhe is a general idea, not an individual. Even Keegan, who has been\nextolled as a romantic and unusual figure among the Shavian _dramatis\nperson\u00e6_, is a chorus rather than a character, and essentially Shavian\nin that his ideals are vegetarian, and that his language is couched in\nsuch terms as--\n\n    How will you drag our acres from the ferret's grip of Matthew\n    Haffigan? How will you persuade Cornelius Doyle to forego the\n    pride of being a small landowner? How will Barney Doran's\n    millrace agree with your motor-boats?... Perhaps I had better\n    vote for an efficient devil that knows his own mind and his own\n    business than for a foolish patriot who has no mind and no\n    business.\n\nThat is not the way in which priests, madmen, or idealists talk in\nIreland. It is the way they talk at the Fabian Society.\n\nThe present writer is fully aware of the great work which Mr. Shaw has\ndone. He yields to no one in his admiration for the strength of\ncharacter and the spirited eagerness which have made him so effective\nin his onslaught upon pernicious illusions, in making people look\nbeyond the formula and refuse to be blinded by social taboos. But it\nis just because his influence is so great and in many respects\nbeneficial that we ought to be on our guard against a man who may not\nalways mesmerise us to our advantage. And it is in the matter of the\ndrama and the fine arts in general that Mr. Shaw is proving a\ndangerous Messiah. He has done much to cleanse the Augean stables of\nthe English theatre. He has discredited though he has not destroyed\nthe artificial \"drawing-room play;\" he has poured ridicule upon the\nso-called \"well-made play\" which Scribe, Sardou, and their school\ncould concoct for the delight of Frenchmen; he has exposed the\ninsignificance of the accidents and catastrophes, and the coming down\nof the curtain \"on a hero slain or married.\" He has compelled sensible\npeople to look to the theatre for something more than sentiment,\nromance, ingenuity; for something relevant to the larger issues of\nlife. That he has done; and it is doubtful if any English-speaking and\nEnglish-writing man now alive, excepting Mr. Shaw, could have done it\nwith any thoroughness.\n\nBut having freed us from these old tyrannies of the stage, he has not\nrested there. He has imposed new tyrannies of his own which are\nsanctioned either by his own extraordinary influence or by that swing\nof the Time-Spirit of which he is the visible pendulum. He is very\npersuasive, and puts his case so well that he is able to blind us to\nfalse issues. He states his case in the Preface which he wrote to\n_Three Plays by Brieux_. Brieux is for him the greatest French\ndramatist since Moli\u00e8re; and more important because whilst Moli\u00e8re was\ncontent to indict human nature, Brieux devotes his energy to an\nindictment of society. \"His fisticuffs are not aimed heavenward: they\nfall on human noses for the good of human souls.\"\n\n    When he sees human nature in conflict with a political abuse he\n    does not blame human nature, knowing that such blame is the\n    favourite trick of those who wish to perpetuate the abuse\n    without being able to defend it. He does not even blame the\n    abuse: he exposes it, and then leaves human nature to tackle it\n    with its eyes open....\n\n    You do not go away from a Brieux play with the feeling that the\n    affair is finished or the problem solved for you by the\n    dramatist.... You come away with a very disquieting sense that\n    you are involved in the affair, and must find the way out of it\n    for yourself and everybody else if civilisation is to be\n    tolerable to your sense of honour.\n\nAll this is unmistakable. Mr. Shaw regards the theatre primarily and\nessentially as a substitute for the pulpit, as a convenient\nlecture-hall for the propaganda of Shavian socialism. He takes it for\ngranted that there is to be a social \"problem;\" that \"fisticuffs\" are\nto be aimed at somebody's nose as they were in those delightful games\nof play in which he indulged as a young and earnest Fabian; that the\naudience is to come away tuned up to social endeavour just as people\ncome away from Revival meetings tuned up to the tasks of spiritual\nsalvation.\n\nThis is well enough. Upon two conditions, I agree that there would be\nno objection to Mr. Shaw or any other dramatist using the theatre as a\nmeans of reforming men; these conditions being, firstly, that he is\nable to do it--which I doubt; and secondly, that he should not insist\nthat this use of the theatre is the only proper and legitimate use.\n\nMr. Shaw has not yet been able to use the theatre in this way, and\nstill less, Brieux. Brieux's influence in France is mainly due to the\nfact that he is a brilliant and eloquent lecturer. Mr. Shaw's\ninfluence in England is due to his essays, speeches, conversations,\npersonal vehemence, and ubiquity. People go to see his plays because\nthey are very witty; they understand them and think they are convinced\nby them only when they have read and digested his far more convincing\nPrefaces. The reason why it is impossible to be profoundly interested\nin his plays is because he is not profoundly interested in them\nhimself. He evidently wrote them without being excited about his\npersons, their experiences, or the emotions which the situation drew\nfrom them; he was excited about his case, about the moral or social\ntruth which his puppets could be made to illustrate. There is much\ningenious arrangement, much plausible argument, and abundant wit. What\nreally does delight us is the often irrelevant wit of the\nconversation, and this because Mr. Shaw himself delights in irrelevant\nwit; it is only when he is writing wittily and irrelevantly that he is\ndisinterested, that he is doing something for its own sake, that he is\nwriting in the only way in which an artist can write effectively. But\nin so far as he is aiming at something other than a significant\npresentation of life--and he generally is--he is attempting to\n\"indict\" society, to show up abuses, to expose political and social\nsores; he is ceasing to be interested in his subject, his persons, his\nplay; he is forcing human nature out of itself; he is distorting it;\nhe is making it unreal; he is creating monsters--and no dramatist, no\nartist of any kind, can deal effectively with monsters. When he writes\na play, Mr. Shaw attempts to do two completely different things at one\nand the same time--to present life, and to deduce an arguable and\npreconceived conclusion about life. If he has not completely failed,\nthat is because he has not completely lived up to his theories.\n\nIt is not Mr. Shaw's fault that so many of the cleverest younger writers\nof the time allow themselves to be led away by his example. But that\nthey are so led away--not only in drama, but in the kindred art of\nfiction--is a fact so important that it requires statement. Mr. Shaw is\nentitled to his own opinion that \"what we want as the basis of our plays\nand novels is not romance, but a really scientific natural history;\" he\nis quite right, if he feels it to be his own particular function, to\nspend his whole force in \"indicting\" society. But how terrible a loss in\nhuman interest and vitality if all our creative artists are to occupy\nthemselves in this process of \"indictment\"--indictment being at all\ntimes the antithesis of fair criticism and presentment. I would venture\nto suggest that human life, roughly speaking, may be divided into two\ngreat parts, one of which is completely tabooed by Mr. Shaw. These two\nparts or aspects of life may be named and envisaged in a hundred\ndifferent ways. Aristotle called them the \"practical\" and the\n\"theoretic.\" The Roman Church called them the \"temporal\" and the\n\"spiritual.\" The social philosophers called them the \"State\" and the\n\"Individual.\" They may be called \"Science\" and \"Art,\" \"Politics\" and\n\"Poetry,\" \"Public\" and \"Private,\" \"Social\" and \"Personal,\" \"Public Work\"\n(Shaw) and \"The Will of God,\" \"Philanthropy\" and \"Friendship,\" \"Justice\"\nand \"Mercy,\" \"Humanitarian\" and \"Human.\" Each second term in these\ncategories is cut clean out of modern life by Mr. Shaw. When he says\nthat \"Ibsen was to the last fascinating and full of a strange moving\nbeauty,\" he says it as if he were reproaching Ibsen. His whole influence\nis thrown on to the side of an austere common sense which destroys\nemotion because it may become fanaticism, which laughs at sentiment\nbecause it may be perverted into nonsense, which is as Puritanically\ncruel to the insidious blandishments of romance as Plato was cruel to\nthe poets.\n\nIs it fanciful to imagine that it is with the Irishman as I have\nalways fancied it was with the Greek philosopher, that by reason of\nhis own knowledge of the dangerous burning fever of poetry, from his\nown susceptibility to its enchantments, he decided to crown the poets\nwith garlands and banish them to another city? That, indeed, is an\nidle fancy. Mr. Shaw exists to prove that there are Irishmen who do\nnot suffer from the intoxication of beauty, who are not susceptible to\nthe windy ardours of romance. Nevertheless Mr. Shaw, too, has his\nromance. He learnt it in the eager, fighting days when he held up the\nstandard of Fabianism before the blinking eyes of suburban audiences;\nwhen he learnt to detest the silly ways of silly people whose\nsilliness was feebly glorified under the names of morality, religion,\nsentiment, and patriotism; whose qualities he soon found himself\nexposing in the manner habitual to the trained debater. But this was\nno ordinary debater. There were conviction, sincerity, and even\nromantic--God save the word!--_romantic_ zeal behind this fire of\nargument, laughter, repartee. Life had become for him, as he said to\nDr. Henderson, \"a sort of splendid torch, which I have got hold of for\nthe moment.\" It became his business \"to make it burn as brightly as\npossible before handing it on to future generations.\"\n\n\n\n\nII\n\nH.G. WELLS\n\n\nMr. Shaw has said that his biography will be the history of his time.\nIn like manner we might say of Mr. Wells that his life has represented\nthe English life of his time. The former has touched this English life\nat a thousand points, but he has touched it from the outside. The\nlatter has been an integral part of it, a part which has sprung into\nconsciousness of itself, so that he has written from within outwards.\nInevitably in writing about the England of his time he has found\nhimself writing about that England of which he himself is symbolic.\nMr. Shaw is amazingly clever in generalising about England, in\nreducing England to formul\u00e6, in expressing the ideas which her life\nand society have stirred in his logical mind. But Mr. Wells has felt\nthis national life within himself; he has known it by conscious and\nsubconscious experience, this experience being with him a kind of\ninstinct developing into self-knowledge, and so into a more objective\nand philosophical perception. You can tell from Mr. Shaw's light,\ndebonair, and laughing manner, just as you might guess from his rather\nhard and unemotional writing, that experience of living has laid no\nheavy toll upon his temperament. How different that nervous and\nslightly self-conscious manner of Mr. Wells, that exterior geniality\nwhich never wholly possesses the man, a cover, as it were, to those\ninner springs of consciousness to which he has evidently referred the\nworld!\n\nIt was strange when these two men, presenting so marked a contrast,\nconfronted each other at the Fabian Society--that association of\nwell-informed, constructive, slightly academic Socialists to which\nboth at the time belonged. It was evident that Bernard Shaw, supported\nby Sidney Webb, standing for a perfectly clear-cut policy and program,\nshould win the day against a man whose appeal was essentially to\nsomething not clear-cut, not defined, but to instinct and psychology.\nI have been told that Mr. Wells was never able to put forward a\ncoherent program, to state an intelligible case--but all that I know\nfor certain is that it was not intelligible to the Fabians. It is\nprobable enough that his program, as a program, was defective, for\nwhilst it is perfectly easy to define a simple, definite, not widely\ninclusive policy of action, it is far harder to define that side of\nthe life of a nation which belongs to temperament and instinct. This\nwas what Mr. Wells had in mind; but the social reformers to whom he\naddressed himself preferred a definite scheme touching the surface of\nlife to an indefinite scheme which aimed at the centre. So Mr. Wells\nceased to be a Fabian, and became a Tory-Socialist.\n\nI suggest that Mr. Wells' life and activity may be taken as symbolical\nof the life of his time. He has told his own story again and again in\nhis novels; it is his own story that he has been telling when he\nunfolds his ideas about the society in which we live. He, more than\nany other considerable living writer, seems to have been born to\nrealise within the microcosm of his own experience the social\nevolution which most of us see in the macrocosm of the nation--an\nevolution which has been _observed_ by Mr. Bennett with equal\nclearness, but in a less personal and subjective way, with more\ndetachment. All of us know from the study of history in what way\nEngland has changed in the last hundred years--how scientific thought\nsuddenly gained a new importance when it was applied to industry--how\nthe shell of feudalism survived its vitality when the great factory\ntowns began to dominate the country--how all the classes were shuffled\nand left unsettled--how the cities spread out in disorderly suburbs\nand slums, without plan or direction--how men and women became factory\nworkers and office workers without knowing why, most of them scantily\neducated, housed as the competing jerry-builders thought fit, and\nflung into the maelstrom of competitive labour. All this we knew in a\ncertain sense, but it was Mr. Wells more than anyone else who made us\naware of this national life by presenting it in the only possible\neffective way, the imaginative way. It may almost be said that he gave\nit to us as an impressionistic account of his own life. He had lived\nin all this; the social system, or lack of system, had expressed\nitself in him; and finally he became conscious of all those elements\nabout him and in him which had left their deep impression. Most of us\nhave had an experience in some way similar, though not many of us have\nbeen so intimately acquainted with so many classes, so many varieties\nof people, or have felt our experiences so acutely. He was singular in\nthat he found his way to an expression of those effects which the\nnational life had had upon _him_--that is to say, upon a man who had\nbeen brought up in a lower middle-class family in the Victorian era,\nwho had watched the London suburbs creeping outwards, who had lived\namong shop-assistants, who had studied science in laboratories, who\nhad aspired to something more fruitful for the spirit. He did not\nbecome aware of these significances all at once. The first eager\ndesire to express himself and create took the form of those early\nromantic stories--_The Invisible Man_, _The Descent of the Martians_,\n_The Time Machine_, etc.--stories in which his knowledge of science\nand Jules Verne were not yet allied to a philosophic enthusiasm for\nhuman beings in society. Then he began to be conscious of the great\nproblems of society, and generalised about them in his romantic,\ningenious, philosophically imaginative way in such books as\n_Anticipations_, _A Modern Utopia_, etc., until he began to realise\nthat that personal method which he had adopted in _Kipps_ was the best\nmethod of expressing the consciousness now awake in him of his own\nlife, of his relations with the people he had met and the country he\nhad lived in, and of the vague, restless desires--desires cast in the\nmould of this material world, yet half mystical in their nature--which\nhad first made him percipient, then critical and dissatisfied, then\ncritical and irritable, then critical and religious, and\nafterwards--it remains to be seen.\n\nIt was in _Tono-Bungay_ that Mr. Wells achieved an unquestionable\nsuccess. When he wrote that book it seemed that all the experiences of\nwhich hitherto he had been only partially conscious became clear to\nhim; that all the clever but unrelated literary efforts which he had\nhitherto made found here their clue and connecting link, their\ninspired synthesis. Long before this he had written astonishing,\ningenious, philosophic, shrewd, suggestive books, but he had achieved\nno success on this scale. Here he seemed to have brought together all\nthe threads of his many intellectual energies, and woven them into a\nsingle fabric fit for wear-and-tear and adornment. At the first he had\nwritten romances such as Jules Verne would have been glad to write; he\nhad gone on to project new worlds constructed after analysis of the\npresent, or in anticipation of the future, or ideally from the ideal;\nhe had written comic stories and weird stories, and one or two true\nstories; and he had turned to economics and political science with\nreforming zeal. But here we have it all again, not in parts, but as a\ncomprehensive whole, in a novel which asks us to consider every class\nin the social ladder in modern England, which questions the whole\norganisation of our society, which raises central questions about\nbirth, marriage, religion, death, and survival, and presents the whole\nas a personal and human affair.\n\nMr. Wells set himself to this task in his own queer, plodding, English\nway. To the niceties of style and form he paid little attention. He\ntells the story as best he can, in his own slangy, cumbrous,\nLatin-English, but idiomatic way--there is little selection or\nself-suppression, but he makes his points. He draws from a copious\nstore. Considered as social satire, it is an exposure of the silliness\nand futility of our system of competitive capitalism superimposed on\nfeudalism. Or you may take it as a book of adventure, and find our\nhero and his erratic uncle plunging into orgies of hazardous exploits\nand achievements. Or you may take it as a novel of love, and languish\nwith the hero in a misdirected amour, and burn with him in a glorious,\nfutile, and tragic affection. Or you may take it as a novel of\nEngland, of the many currents of English life joining in one vast\nstream on which the barque of the narrator floats. \"'This,' it came to\nme, 'is England. This is what I wanted to give in my book. This!'\" And\nthis, the vision which comes to Mr. Wells through a kind of instinct\nabout the life he has experienced and sought to convey--the vague\ndream that haunts and baffles him--the desired, intangible,\ndimly-felt, but unknown thing--is offered as a kind of mystical\nsolution to the insoluble problem of an imperfect world.\n\nThe title--it is typical of Mr. Wells--suggests at once the farcical\nelement in the whole thing. Tono-Bungay--a quack medicine, \"slightly\ninjurious rubbish\" sold at \"one-and-three-halfpence and two-and-nine a\nbottle, including the Government stamp.\" We can only approach\nTono-Bungay, which is modern and representative of our whole\nindustrial system, by way of something prior to it--the old social\norder which exists only as a tradition, which is maintained as a vast,\nstupid, demoralising pretence, undermined by Tono-Bungayism. The old\norder, in Mr. Wells' language, is called the Bladesover System,\nBladesover being the house where \"I,\" George Ponderevo, the\nhousekeeper's son--one of the many incarnations of the author\nhimself--was born, brought up, and acquired his first impressions of\nlife.\n\n    The great house, the church, the village, and the labourers, and\n    the servants in their stations and degrees seemed to me, I say,\n    to be a closed and complete social system. About us were other\n    villages and great estates, and from house to house,\n    interlacing, correlated, the gentry, the fine Olympians, came\n    and went. The country towns seemed mere collections of shops,\n    marketing-places for the tenantry, centres for such education as\n    they needed, as entirely dependent on the gentry as the village\n    and scarcely less directly so. I thought this was the order of\n    the whole world.\n\n\"All this fine appearance was already sapped.\" George himself, as a\nboy, had already begun to \"question the final rightness of the\ngentlefolks,\" declaring his rebellion by \"resolving to marry a\nviscount's daughter\" and blacking the eye of her half-brother. He is\ntransported to the house of Nicodemus Frapp, baker, of Chatham, where\nhe again rebels, this time against the threat of being burned for ever\nin Hell. Thence he is taken to the house of his uncle Ponderevo,\nchemist, of Wimblehurst, a small town dominated, like Bladesover, by\nthe landed gentry tradition. And he finds in this uncle, whose name is\nsoon to become a household word throughout the country, a veritable\nembodiment of the new spirit which is invading the Bladesover system\nand altering England. Mr. Ponderevo is restless and discontented. He\ndoes not like Wimblehurst. \"One rubs along. But there's no\ndevelopment--no growth. They just come along here and buy pills when\nthey want 'em--and a horse-ball or such. They've got to be ill before\nthere's a prescription. That sort they are. You can't get 'em to\nlaunch out, you can't get 'em to take up anything new.\"\n\nMr. Ponderevo, being bankrupt, moves to London, and in the course of\ntime George, now a student of science, follows him. New vistas of life\nopen up in the midst of this vast, overgrown, \"purposeless,\" \"dingy\"\ncity. Nobody since Dickens has given us the impression of London in\nall its multitudinous, dismal-gay activities as Mr. Wells gives it us.\nBut it is no longer the London of Dickens. It is a \"great, stupid\ngiantess,\" a \"city of Bladesover ... parasitically occupied,\ninsidiously replaced by alien, unsympathetic, and irresponsible\nelements.\" It was a chaotic mass of houses built for the middle-class\nVictorian families. And even while these houses were being run up:\n\n    Means of transit were developing to carry the moderately\n    prosperous middle-class families out of London; education and\n    factory employment were whittling away at the supply of rough\n    hard-working, obedient girls who would stand the subterranean\n    drudgery of these places; new classes of hard-up middle-class\n    people such as my uncle, employees of various types, were coming\n    into existence, for whom no homes were provided. None of these\n    classes have ideas of what they ought to be, or fit in any\n    legitimate way into the Bladesover theory that dominates our\n    minds. It was nobody's concern to see them housed under\n    civilised conditions, and the beautiful laws of supply and\n    demand had free play.\n\nIt was such a London, such an England, which offered itself invitingly\nto the predatory ambitions of Mr. Ponderevo, so that out of a simple\nconcoction of drugs and water he was able to capture the money of\nhundreds of thousands who fondly believed that Tono-Bungay would give\nthem new vigour and zest in life. Mr. Wells describes to us the sudden\nrise and development of Mr. Ponderevo, to whose fortunes those of\nGeorge are linked; he tells us how he grows in importance, how he\nmoves into houses larger and larger to suit his new place in the\nsocial scale, how vast a position he comes to hold in the financial\nworld of London, in the philanthropic world, and, of course, in the\nsocial world.\n\nIt is whilst he is interesting us in George and his associates that\nMr. Wells makes us aware also of the higher unit of society and the\nwhole strange fraud of modern life, the pretence that there has been\nno change when conditions have radically changed and are still\nchanging. The theory of the old order broods over the new, chaotic,\nhaphazard world which flings people up and down, sets their whole\nlife--birth, marriage, possessions, happiness--at the mercy of mere\nchance. In the love interest which is an important part of the story\nhe presents the modern treatment of marriage and sex as another\ndisastrous example of muddling and disorder.\n\nBut he does not dwell long or didactically on each of these problems.\nThey arise naturally and inevitably, as a part of human life, in the\ncourse of his story of adventure and love. He does not pretend to\nsolve the perplexing questions. The hero feels that he is \"like a man\nfloundering in a universe of soap-suds, up and down, east and west.\"\n\"I can't stand it. I must get my foot on something solid or--I don't\nknow what.\" Behind it all, in its chaos and ugliness, he does not lose\nthe sense of something other and better, a vague but insistent ideal\ncherished by the spirit. \"There is something links things for me, a\nsunset or so, a mood or so, the high air, something there was in\nMarion's form and colour, something I find and lose in Mantegna's\npictures, something in the lines of these boats I make.\"\n\nThere, evidently enough, is something that the artist, the poet even,\nwants. It is the mystical need, the desideratum, expressed in terms of\nthis world's goods--\"Marion's form and colour,\" \"Mantegna's pictures,\"\nthe lines of a boat. If there is any solution here, let it be noted\nthat it is essentially an individual, a personal solution, the\nartist's solution of the world-problem in terms of what is personally\nsignificant to individuals. But when applied to men and women in the\nmass, how thin and watery this ideal becomes, how unsubstantial and\nshadowy, how unsuited to the collective needs of society, which are\npractical and material. Every man in his public, social capacity must\nnecessarily express his ideals in a material and practical form; the\nmystical side can only find expression in the private life, in the\npersonal way which is the way of art and individual intercourse. But\nwhen Mr. Wells became dimly aware of the personal equation in life and\nthe personal ideal, he, who had already dedicated himself to the\ntreatment of social problems and men in the mass, attempted, by\nmystical contradiction, to identify the private and the public, the\nideal with the material, the free with the bound. To make my meaning\nclearer, I will recall again the incident at the Fabian Society. It is\njust as if Mr. Wells had gone to that mixed gathering of austere and\nflippant socialists, and had said, \"We want something to link things\nfor us; we must remember the things that men cherish most of all, a\nsunset or so, a mood or so, the high air. When we are settling the\nwomen's question, we must not forget that Marion cares more about her\nform and colour than about her vote; and if we are nationalising the\ngreat masters, let us remember that there is something we may find and\nlose in a single Mantegna more important to us than all the galleries\nin the world. The derelict 'Victory,' with her romantic lines, means\nas much to the nation as the biggest Dreadnought in the world.\"\n\nAnd we can imagine Mr. Shaw getting up to question the novelist. \"Will\nMr. Wells explain to us how the State is going to preserve Marion's\ncolour? Does he propose to arrange sunset effects on Primrose Hill?\nWill he describe the apparatus by which he intends to capture and\nbottle the high air, and distribute it for public consumption? And\nwhere are we to look for the something to be found in Mantegna's\npictures when he has been so unfortunate as to lose it?\"\n\nMr. Wells, naturally enough, broke with the Fabian Society; and at\nthe same time, discovering the inadequacy of his remedy, broke with\nthe whole social order, resigned himself for a time to sheer\nirritation, and took his revenge upon the world in _The New\nMachiavelli_. He devoted his brilliant powers to satirising the whole\npublic life of Great Britain, in the same breath lampooning the public\npersons with whom he had been personally associated, and defending\nhimself against certain personal charges which had been brought\nagainst him.\n\nIt was an effective book. It occasioned not a little gossip,\nexcitement, scandal, and even heart-burning. Though the author\nannounced that the persons in the novel were composite characters, not\nto be taken as likenesses of real persons, and though no doubt there\nwere scenes and conversations which he had invented and incidents\nwhich he had transposed, nevertheless in many essentials the story was\nphotographic. Mr. Wells himself was never, like his hero Remington,\neither at Cambridge or in Parliament, but he came under the same\neducational, social, and political influences which determined\nRemington's character and career. Remington's friends, who are exposed\nin all the intimacy of private life to the public gaze, were once,\nunder other names, the friends of Mr. Wells. No one who has any\nacquaintance with public personages in London can fail to identify\nthose apostles of social organisation, Mr. Bailey and his wife\nAltiora. Equally transparent are the young Liberals, Edward and Willie\nCrampton. If the novelist has caricatured these persons he has seen to\nit that he has never distorted them out of recognition. The realism\nwith which he describes these and a score of popularly \"esteemed\"\npublic men is applied also to their womenkind; Isabel is not spared;\nnor is Margaret, Remington's wife.\n\nHere, then, we have what is at the same time Remington's Apologia for\nhis errors, and his revenge upon the society which decided to\ndiscredit him. He presents himself as an \"unarmed, discredited man,\"\nwhose power with the pen cannot be checked; a man \"half out of life\nalready\" because of the \"red blaze that came out of my unguarded\nnature, and closed my career for me;\" a man who \"cries out of his\nheart to the unseen fellowship about him,\" and to those who \"have\nheard already some crude inaccurate version of our story and why I did\nnot take office, and have formed your partial judgment on me.\"\nRemington's reply to the man who urges him to hush up the scandal\ngives a colour of personal disinterestedness to the story.\n\n    \"It's our duty to smash now openly in the sight of everyone.\n    I've got that as clear and plain--as prison whitewash. I am\n    convinced that we have got to be public to the uttermost now--I\n    mean it--until every corner of our world knows this story, knows\n    it fully, adds it to the Parnell story and the Ashton Dean story\n    and the Carmel story and the Witterslea story, and all the other\n    stories that have kicked man after man out of English public\n    life, the men with active imaginations, the men of strong\n    initiative. To think this tottering, old-woman-ridden Empire\n    should dare to waste a man on such a score!\"\n\nBut Mr. Wells intends something more than to explain the state of mind\nwhich led a distinguished politician and moralist, a married,\nmiddle-aged man, to victimise--that is the \"worldly\" way of looking at\nit--a beautiful young girl who had fallen in love with his genius.\nHere we have the life-story and character of Remington portrayed at\nfull length--Remington an individual product of our social\nenvironment--Remington in relation to the vast national processes\nwhich have been changing England from the \"muddle\" of the Victorians\nto the muddle of to-day--a Remington clever enough to see our\nrepresentative institutions stripped of their hollowness and their\ncant; quick to pierce through the shell of Liberalism, not perhaps\nquite to the kernel of it, but to the insincere part of it; quick to\nsee a profound psychological meaning in the Suffragette movement, and\nto distinguish between the outer bearing of public men and the\nindividuality behind it--the \"hinterland.\" The whole was a brilliant\nanalysis of England in macrocosm and microcosm welded into the\nlife-story of Remington. And his hero is not like one of Mrs. Humphry\nWard's puppets, set up to be a great politician. Remington as a\nthinker is almost a great man; he is a profound analyst of society on\nits human side; he _is_ a gifted critic of public institutions; even\nhis absurd perversity in trying to invent a constructive,\nmotherhood-endowing Toryism is the perversity of a versatile and\nclever man whose action is precipitated by bitterness or pique.\n\nBut the extraordinary thing about _The New Machiavelli_ is, that this\nenvisaging of England in her social, political, and intellectual life,\nthis acutely and almost diabolically observed crowd of _real_\npersons, this minute psychology, this exact history, this elaborate\nphilosophy--all are subservient to the purpose of explaining how it\nwas that Remington was driven into the net of sex, and Isabel was\nenabled to \"darn his socks.\" _Parturiunt montes_. Is it thus that\nRemington will make himself immortal in literature, the\ntwentieth-century Benvenuto Cellini, swaggering, in a self-conscious,\ntwentieth-century way, through the tale of his glorious peccadilloes?\nOr is it to be a Jonathan Wild, memorable as the hero of a hundred\nmagnificent felonies with which a Fielding or a Wells could glorify a\nsturdy vagabond? But Remington writes in bitterness. His pen is\nsteeped in the gall of Swift. He feels rancour against Altiora,\nagainst the Cramptons, against all the \"Pinky-Dinkies\" who prescribe\nmorals for a genius erratic in his desires.\n\nThe successive mental stages by which Remington emerges had been set\nforth before in other books. They are here brought together and surveyed\nin a comprehensive whole. He is anxious to strip off the disguises of\nhuman nature, and to expose, in each of the persons arrayed before us,\nthe \"self-behind-the-frontage.\" \"In the ostensible self who glowed under\nthe approbation of Altiora Bailey, and was envied and discussed, praised\nand depreciated, in the House and in smoking-room groups, you really\nhave as much of a man as usually figures in a novel or an obituary\nnotice.\" His ideal is the individual who lives and acts in the full\nlight of that \"self-behind-the-frontage\"--the \"hinterland,\" as he calls\nhim; and his literary method in this book is to expose the emptiness of\nthe shop-window, to cast his satire upon the poor show.\n\nThe weakness of his attacks is that the ideal with which he would\nilluminate his background is shifty, uncertain, ill-realised; being\nundetermined, the function that is allotted to the human ideal is\nactually left to chance, to accidental impulse rather than to\nconscious will--to human frailty rather than to human strength. Hence\nit is that he declares the rights of sex where its claims are weakest;\nnow applauds the conduct of Remington, now apologises for it; now\nexplains elaborately that his mere sensual side would assert itself,\nnow that sex never appealed to him without an admixture of the ideal;\nnow cries out for discussion and public enlightenment on this subject,\nand now acknowledges that Remington, who had discussed it for years,\nacted on impulse, in the dark. How uncertain it all is, how mixed in\nits motives, how brilliantly bewildering in its conclusions--and yet\nhow clever!\n\nIt was probably a passing phase in Mr. Wells' history, an unhappy\nphase for him, presumably, but inevitable. In the uneasy period of\nirritation and defiance he lost none of his skill in self-portraiture,\nin projecting himself upon the canvas of modern life. It was that vein\nof undefined Romanticism in him, according so ill with the life of\n\"public affairs,\" that put him out of harmony with himself. Such an\nideal as he had formed for himself could never by its nature\ncompletely satisfy any but the solitary recluse, and had little to\ngive to man in his social capacity, still less to the man whom he\ndepicted in _Marriage_, irritated, frustrated, drained of his higher\nenergies by the irritating calls of society. Long before, in _A\nModern Utopia_, he had prescribed for his Samurai rulers a periodical\ncourse of solitude and meditation in the desert. In the book which,\nwhile I write, is the last of his books--_Marriage_--he comes back to\nthe same idea. He depicts a hero full of scientific ardour and\nintellectual ambition who finds that in the social life there is\nnothing to satisfy his deepest needs, and that only in turning his\nback on the world of people and flying to commune with God, nature,\nand himself, in solitude, can he attain the mystical peace he longs\nfor. The social world which becomes an obsession to Trafford, his\nhero, is made to swarm about him through the inevitable net of\nmarriage--although it is marriage to a fascinating woman whom he still\nloves. At first he had sacrificed his scientific ideal to the domestic\nand material needs. He had abandoned research in order to make\nMarjorie rich and to surround her with luxury and smugness. The\ncomfortable house, the artistic surroundings, the social pleasures,\nand the ennui of acquaintances reveal themselves to him as\nfrustrations of the life which man in his more glorious capacity\nseemed destined to live. He sees the impulses under which men and\nwomen seek to escape \"from the petty, weakly stimulating, competitive\nmotives of low-grade and law-abiding prosperity.\" Marriage is the\nsocial bond which has involved him in this. Marjorie herself has\nbecome the feminine embodiment of that urgent life of \"getting on,\" of\njust \"doing,\" which seeks to trammel, stifle, and kill the spirit and\nhigher intelligence of man. Through marriage the earthy sociality of\nlife had thrust itself upon him, and was killing what was\napprehensive, curious, spiritually and intelligently aspiring within\nhim. He rebels. He flies to the wintry wilds of Labrador, and takes\nMarjorie with him.\n\nThere, in a merely fantastic but brilliantly described scene, amid the\nthrilling dangers of a wild solitude and a grim winter, they discover\nthemselves. They come near to one another in moments of peril,\ndeprivation, and self-sacrifice. He passionately asserts, she\npassionately agrees, that \"we can't _do_ things. We don't bring things\noff!\" ... \"The real thing is to get knowledge and express it\" ...\n\"This Being--using its eyes, listening, trying to comprehend it. Every\ngood thing in man is that--looking and making pictures, listening and\nmaking songs, making philosophies and sciences, trying new powers,\nbridge and engine, spark and gun. At the bottom of my soul, _that_.\"\nHe sees man without \"eyes for those greater things, but we've got the\npromise--the intimation of eyes.\"\n\nThis is not, it is to be feared, a very satisfactory solution for the\naverage man or woman who is suffering either from destiny unrealised\nor from the milder malady of nerves. The medical or the spiritual\nadviser who should prescribe a course of Labrador whenever we are\nphysically or spiritually \"run down\" would be of little use to the\nmajority of us. We see here the monkish side of Mr. Wells' temperament\ndeliberately torturing the social and worldly side of him, the spirit\nsuggesting to the flesh and the devil that they ought to be content\nwith spiritual contemplation. The mystic has the final word in those\nhumorous-passionate conversations in which first and last things are\ndiscussed by the man and the woman in the wild--the man and woman,\nstill comparatively young, about to return to a new life in\ncivilisation. But what will they become when they return? What will\nMarjorie do when the shops once again lie temptingly before her, and\nwhen her aunt Plessington's guests once more besiege her, and social\nlife presents itself again in its garish variety? Is this visit to the\nwild more decisive than marriage itself? Will their brief vision of\nGod, their intellectual and spiritual conversion, make them \"live\nhappily ever after?\" Mr. Wells, at least, should know that it will\nnot; he will surely be bound to write another novel to show the final\nstage of Marjorie and Trafford, the renewed conflict, within them and\nbetween them, of the world and the spirit. For it is a conflict\nwithout end, a conflict which Mr. Wells, as he goes on writing the\nhistory of his own most interesting self in relation to his own most\ninteresting environment, must contrive to present to us in each new\nbook that he writes.\n\n\n\n\nIII\n\nARNOLD BENNETT\n\n\nMr. Arnold Bennett has often been spoken of as if he were a sort of\nrevised edition of Mr. Wells. In reality the contrast which these two\nwriters present is far more remarkable than the resemblance. The\nimportant works of Mr. Wells came first in order of time, and Mr.\nBennett would readily admit that he owes much to the other's\nimaginative pictures of a changing civilisation. He belongs also, like\nMr. Wells, to the essentially English tradition of fiction. In spite\nof an admiration for French literature which has had a refreshing\neffect upon his style, he has written many of his novels as Fielding,\nSmollett, Dickens, and Thackeray wrote theirs--out of the abundance of\nhis imagination, from an inordinate eagerness to reproduce human life\nin all its profusion, in its littleness and its greatness, a colossal\nwhole out of which the reader rather than the artist makes the\nselection. In his longer books he has adopted the epic rather than the\ndramatic method of writing fiction. He will often indulge his fancy\nfor insubordinate episodes, so long as they are in some way\ncharacteristic. He loves abundance of description--there is scarcely\nany novelist who is more precise in describing all the minuti\u00e6 of a\nplace or the physical traits of a person. This sort of profusion is\nvery English; and Mr. Wells, too, is essentially English.\n\nThe two men were born at about the same time. They came from families\nwhich belonged, broadly speaking, to the same social class. They have\nboth of them written with perfect frankness of the sort of people they\nhave known intimately in their youth. And there, I think, the\nresemblance ends.\n\nThe contrast is far more striking. All the most important of Mr.\nWells' books have been written about himself. Mr. Bennett has never\nwritten about himself excepting in an early book like _The Man from\nthe North_, in certain inferior books of his middle period, and when\nhe is deliberately writing his impressions of places, as in his book\nabout America. It is always the personality of Mr. Wells with which\nMr. Wells is most concerned, and the world as related to him. The\npersonality of Mr. Bennett is kept in the background. He is an\ninterested observer, and he gives what he has seen or believes that he\nhas seen--he reports faithfully as one who might be held responsible\nfor the actuality of his vision. Men and women, places and things, are\nall to him curious phenomena which it will be worth his while to note,\nto try to understand, to record in so far as they are significant.\n\nMr. Wells has an extraordinary intellectual capacity of interpreting\nhis own impressions, and lighting upon truths by some romantic or\ninstinctive process of his own. Mr. Bennett has a very much harder\nsense of fact. He understands romance, but he is not himself romantic.\nHis interests are all in the understanding and interpreting of the\nsignificant facts of life, and he cares very little for the pleasure\nof living outside that kind of living which is artistic perception.\nAnd yet he has so much practicality and common sense--the sense of\nfact which in his art stands him in such good stead--that he has even\nbeen prepared to sacrifice his art to the main practical necessities\nof life. At any rate, it is upon this hypothesis that we must explain\nsome of the very poor books which he perpetrated before it became\nworth his while to protect his reputation--the only other possible\nexplanation being that, as he writes at all times and in all moods,\nmuch of his work might be expected to be below his proper level.\n\nBut Mr. Bennett is not only extraordinarily versatile in his\nobservations of people, places, books--anything whatsoever that he\ncomes upon--but he has the faculty always of seeing objects as if he\nsaw them for the first time; that is to say, he brings imaginative\ncuriosity to bear upon them. He is not personally distressed, like Mr.\nWells, about the evil fate of the world any more than he would be\nelated by its good fortune. But he is interested. He looks for\ncharacter, and he finds it. He looks for situation, and he makes it.\nHe can be content with a light comic situation, as in _Helen with the\nHigh Hand_, and the result is admirable. He can present with equal\nskill profoundly poignant situations, such as occur in _Clayhanger_\nand _Hilda Lessways_. He is aware of the fact that life is a\nspectacle; and that to make it interesting you must make it vivid, you\nmust show it as something that is intense and passionate. And he is\nalso aware of the fact that the feeling of intensity and passion may\nbe elicited from a sense of the monotonous, the trivial, and the\nvapid; that tragic effect may be gained by the spectacle of men\nseeking an ideal which is beyond their powers, or grasping at an ideal\nwhich proves unworthy, or indifferent to an ideal which we see to be\nwithin their reach.\n\nIt may be taken as certain that, with or without the example of Mr.\nWells, Mr. Bennett must inevitably have been affected by the sense of\nthe changing conditions of modern life, and the passing of the\ngenerations from one set of habits to another. For it must be\nremembered that he was born and brought up in the Potteries in the\nmiddle and later Victorian periods; that as a young man he left those\nprovinces, and in course of time found himself engaged in the\nprofession of literature at a safe distance from them. He wrote about\nall sorts of subjects--and in every sort of style--articles, didactic\nbooks, fantasies, novels--but as a good journalist he at length\ndiscovered that on one subject he was a specialist, that to his\naccounts of one part of the world he could supply \"local colour\"--that\npart of the world being, of course, the Five Towns of the Potteries.\nHe made this region his own. He adopted it for literary purposes. And\nin writing _Anna of the Five Towns_, _Tales of the Five Towns_, _The\nGrim Smile of the Five Towns_, and his more famous later novels he\nnaturally found himself describing the Potteries as they were when he\nwas a young man, but as they no longer are to-day. What was more\nnatural than that, as he passed from the last generation to the\npresent, writing in the present about the remarkably different past,\nhe should become supremely impressed with the very fact of the\ntransition--that fact of changing and growing old which dominates _The\nOld Wives' Tale_, and supplies him with his theme in the play of\n_Milestones_?\n\nIn _The Old Wives' Tale_ he presents a series of pictures which make\nus realise that there are men and women about us who were brought up\nin a world so totally unlike ours that we regard it as purely\nhistorical. He has brought out this fact in a way that may cause\nmisgivings even to those who are still considered young. He takes us\nback to the most vivid memories of our childhood. He recalls to us\nwhat England was like and what people were like in an age when\nelectric trams were unknown, when bicycles were rare, when the retail\ntrader was a person who could still call his soul his own. He has\nshown us people born in one world and growing old in another. He has\npresented to us the fantastic but true panorama of certain persons who\nwere young and idealistic, who became middle-aged and practical, who\nare now old and acquiescent; of persons who were born mid-Victorians,\nwho became later-Victorians, who to this day survive grotesquely among\nthe moderns--and again young men and women of to-day who themselves\nwill survive to a derelict old age among people as unlike us as we are\nunlike the heroes of Mrs. Ward Beecher Stowe. No one of us will attain\na ripe old age without experiencing three different generations marked\nby three different sets of habits, sentiments, ideals. Mr. Bennett's\nsubject is the tragi-comedy of growing old.\n\nThe author presented his people, and the places in which they lived,\nin all the minuti\u00e6 of their and its existence. He combined the\nrealistic modern method with the bitter, ironical, sententious method\nof Thackeray. There is nothing in the first half of this book which\nThackeray would have done better, and Thackeray never illustrated a\nlaw of life remorselessly working itself out as Mr. Bennett has done.\nHis mind and his perceptions are at work simultaneously. He is\nalternately humorous and grim, but is too philosophical, interested,\nand detached ever to be bitter. That was the world our fathers were\nborn in--he shows it to us--that is what our fathers are among us to\nthis day--and again we have the picture. \"You cannot step twice into\nthe same river,\" said Heraclitus. \"You cannot go back to the town you\nwere born in,\" Mr. Bennett means to say; and his book makes his\nmeaning clear.\n\nTwo sisters, Constance and Sophia, are the girls, women, widows whom\nwe see growing up from the 'fifties to the latter part of the first\ndecade of the twentieth century. When we meet them first they are\nyoung girls--fifteen and sixteen--\"rather like racehorses, quivering\nwith delicate, sensitive, and luxuriant life; exquisite, enchanting\nproof of the circulation of the blood; innocent, artful, roguish,\nprim, gushing, ignorant, and miraculously wise\"--at an age when \"if\none is frank, one must admit that one has nothing to learn: one has\nlearnt simply everything in the previous six months.\" These two young\npeople are unconscious of \"the miraculous age which is us.\" They lived\nin the Potteries before the Potteries had acquired that big black\nspot on the map which now dignifies and degrades their existence. They\nlived in and around the important draper's shop in \"The Square,\" under\nthe wing of their respected parents, the once active citizen, now\nparalytic, Mr. Baines, and Mrs. Baines, the ruler, the dictator of the\nhousehold and of the morals of all its members.\n\nIn the first stage we see Constance and Sophia subject to this\nparental rule. They take castor oil when they are bidden. They do not\nleave the house without the sanction of Mrs. Baines. They must not,\nneedless to say, realise the fact that marriageable young men are real\nfacts. They must pay attention to the shop, preserving a proper\ndistance from the assistants. They must be careful that Maggie, the\nservant, does not overhear familiar conversations. They must not go\ninto the drawing-room except on Sunday afternoons. They must wait upon\nthe paralytic father with proper punctilio. And they must be quiet and\nattentive when Mrs. Baines is directing their morals. Then Mr. Baines\ndies, because Sophia has been looking out of the window at a dashing\ncommercial traveller; and Mr. Bennett soliloquises:\n\n    John Baines had belonged to the past, to the age when men really\n    did think of their souls, when orators by phrases could move\n    crowds to fury or to pity, when no one had learnt to hurry, when\n    Demos was only turning in his sleep, when the sole beauty of\n    life resided in its inflexible and slow dignity, when hell\n    really had no bottom and a gilt-clasped Bible really was the\n    secret of England's greatness. Mid-Victorian England lay on\n    that mahogany bed. Ideals had passed away with John Baines. It\n    is thus that ideals die; not in the conventional pageantry of\n    honoured death, but sorrily, ignobly, while one's head is\n    turned.\n\nBut the generation of the Baineses does not give place easily; it\ntries to shut its ears to the knocking at the door, insistently as it\nmay knock in the whimsical, assertive personality of Sophia. The\nromantic commercial traveller whose fault it was that Mr. Baines died\na premature, though, scientifically speaking, a belated death, is the\nsymbol of the new influence which Mrs. Baines is too out-of-date to\nresist. Sophia runs away with the commercial traveller, makes him\nmarry her, and is translated from \"The Square\" to Paris. Poor Sophia!\nShe is the victim of being half a generation ahead of her time, a\nsuffragette before it was an honour to be a martyr to the cause. But\nin Constance the old influences are stronger. She persists like a\npiece of old furniture which survives the relic-hunters and the\nbroker's men. She marries that trusted servant, Mr. Povey, who has\nsuch a head for inventing tickets and labels and sign-boards, who\nhimself outdistances Mr. Baines as railway trains outdistance stage\ncoaches, and as aeroplanes will outdistance motor-cars. The married\ncouple naturally displace Mrs. Baines, and Constance notices her\nmother shortly after the honeymoon--\"Poor dear!\" she thought, \"I'm\nafraid she's not what she was.\" \"Incredible that her mother could have\naged in less than six weeks! Constance did not allow for the chemistry\nthat had been going on in herself.\"\n\nAnd so they go on, till Mr. Povey is \"forty next birthday,\" though,\ndear innocent soul, he scarcely notices it as we notice it tragically\nin these days of quick living. And Constance buries her mother, and\nbecomes engrossed in Cyril, her son, and scarcely observes how the\natmosphere in the Potteries gets blacker and blacker, and the trains\nrun nearer and more frequently, and the electric trams replace the\nhorse trams, linking up the Five Towns of the \"District.\" And Mr.\nPovey too gets buried, and Constance's son goes to London, and her\nhair grows white, and at last--at last Sophia comes back to live with\nher in the old house in the modern Potteries. And still those two old\nwomen are living there together.\n\nI shall not dwell upon the career of Sophia--who has pursued her life\nin Paris very wisely, shrewdly, circumspectly, not to say\ncommercially, thus showing how honest bourgeois ancestry can triumph\nover the flightiest of modern temperaments. Suffice it that she is now\nan aged widow, a contemporary of the Crimean veterans, living to this\nday in comfortable and old-maidish sobriety in the Potteries, hardly\nconscious of the fact that aeroplanes are an innovation. It is Mr.\nBennett, not the Sophias, who makes us conscious of the strange,\nportentous progress of evolution; of the lapse of time; the changing\nmind of man; the desperate love of what has been; the inevitableness\nof what is to come, of what is to replace us, and put us, too, on the\nshelf among outworn things.\n\nIn _Clayhanger_ and _Hilda Lessways_, the first two books of a\ntrilogy which, at the time when I write, is still unfinished, Mr.\nBennett again presents the process of the generations, but he has\ngiven us a more intense dramatic interest, he has singled out a few\npersons for more significant characterisation; he has focussed his\npicture better, concentrated the interest, and produced emotional\ntension. The reason why _Pickwick_ retains its place as the first of\nDickens' novels is that it is almost the only book he wrote which had\na really satisfactory hero--an individual character. _Clayhanger_ has\ntwo such persons--Edwin, and Darius his father, as well as a dozen or\nmore of interesting subordinate characters. There are other things\nwith which Mr. Bennett is concerned in this book beside the transition\nfrom youth to old age, from Victorian to Edwardian. But he does not\nlet us forget this transition. \"To Edwin, Darius was exactly the same\nfather, and for Darius, Edwin was still aged sixteen. They both of\nthem went on living on the assumption that the world had stood still\nin those seven years between 1873 and 1880. If they had been asked\nwhat had happened during those seven years, they would have answered,\n'Oh, nothing particular.'\"\n\nOrdinary, humdrum life, an integral part of the national life,\nenacting by slow, imperceptible changes the processes of the\nTime-Spirit, still occupies Mr. Bennett's attention. He has again\ntraced for a score of years the lives of a group of people belonging\nto the risen, well-to-do tradesman class in the latter part of the\nVictorian era. With the successive cross-sections of life which he\ndraws for us he again makes us look backwards and forwards to the\nEngland of yesterday and the England of to-morrow: the England which\nhas been revolutionising its conditions of life once or twice in every\ngeneration, and has been giving its persons different food for ideas,\ndifferent standards to act upon, different habits to conform to or\nrevolt against: people whose parents were nurtured in the sweated\natmosphere of factories before the Factory Acts, and whose sons will\nbe the people of 1913. He shows us a whole generation of persons who,\nliving through these prodigious changes and being asked what has\nhappened, reply, \"Oh, nothing particular.\" But though the score of\npeople in the Potteries with whom we are concerned are but\nindividually selected from the swarm that is provincial England, they\nare none the less intensely individual. Darius Clayhanger, the hero's\nfather, the man who has emerged from the pit, and by sheer obstinacy\nin work has made himself well off with his printing shop, stands out\nclear as life with all his idiosyncrasies. Hard, plain-spoken, without\nconscious ideals, satisfied with the _status quo_ (since the Corn Laws\nwere passed), unelastic, relentless, he is yet capable of bursting out\nemotionally in a manner that displeases his more guarded son. We have\nmemorable persons in Big James, the foreman; Mr. Shushions, the aged\nPrimitive Methodist; Aunt Clara, the lady whose business in life was\ntact; Mr. Orgreave, the architect; Janet Orgreave, his daughter; and\nothers who come familiarly in and out.\n\nAll of these persons whom I have mentioned, completely different as\none is from another, are none the less normal provincial characters.\nThey have a natural place in the Five Towns; their ambition does not\nstretch out beyond the finite limits of Bursley unless it be to the\nmild ecstasies of conventional religion or the generous aspiration\nwhich accompanies song.\n\nBut the hero, Edwin Clayhanger, is something different. In the head of\nEdwin the boy \"a flame burnt that was like an altar-fire.\" But would\nthe atmosphere of the Potteries be damp enough to quench that flame?\nOr did that flame burn intensely enough to survive so that his spirit\nshould rise out of the commerce, the routine, the unaspiring\nneighbourly atmosphere which is the dull _clay_ of life? He longed to\nbe an architect. He did not understand architecture, he was unaware of\nits finest possibilities, but something in him akin to the art-impulse\nmade him long to be an architect. But his father stamped out that\nambition. He entered his father's works, and, however rebellious at\nheart, was continually submissive to his overmastering will. But once,\nwhen the routine was settling down upon him, illumined only a little\nby vaguely directed reading, his soul was burst out of its environment\nby a passionate love which grew in a day; which seemed to win success;\nbut was thwarted by the woman who, without a word, incomprehensibly,\njilts him.\n\nThe years pass on--Mr. Bennett's transitions make us imagine forlorn,\nalmost intolerable passages of years in which the human soul trudges\nstupidly and wearily towards death, discussing muffins and tea whilst\nthe Cosmos is plotting upheavals for the sole benefit of stupidity in\nthe mass--and Edwin, suffering at his father's hands, triumphing over\nhim in old age, is becoming an ordinary inhabitant of Bursley,\nworking, resting, taking his ease. Sometimes the smouldering flame\nbursts out in him again, and he would perceive that he had been\nnothing, achieved nothing, that he had been a mere \"spendthrift of\ntime and years.\" \"And there was he, Edwin, eating bacon and eggs\nopposite his sister in the humdrum dining-room at Bleakridge.\"\n\nBut the flame breaks out once more. Art had had no chance to claim him\nfor its own, and Love had cheated him. But when he discovers Hilda,\nand Hilda's son, and Hilda's misery--Hilda, \"with her passion for\nVictor Hugo, obliged by circumstances to polish a brass door-plate\nsurreptitiously at night!\"-with her, love, passion, pity, intensity of\nliving come back to him.\n\nIt is interesting to turn from _Clayhanger_ to the story of _Hilda\nLessways_. This story has not quite the distinctive note which Mr.\nBennett struck in the two preceding novels. What we miss is, first of\nall, the \"local colour\" which is the author's speciality, most of the\nscenes being laid in Brighton or London; and second, that detached\nmanner which enabled Mr. Bennett to present his persons as if he were\nhimself indifferent to their fate, with the result that they stand or\nfall entirely on their own merits. Here we feel that he is a partisan.\nHe has taken up Hilda's case. He is evidently prepared to champion her\nagainst all the world. Hence the very femininity of the heroine which\nhe has so cleverly created, to some extent colours the book itself, as\nif by a kind of sympathy between author and heroine. The perfervid\nwoman has sometimes communicated too much of her fervour to the very\nlanguage of the author.\n\nBut in other respects the book shows an advance in Mr. Bennett's art.\nFor the first time in his life he has resisted the temptation to\noverwhelm us with the wealth of invention which his fertile mind is\nbusy upon. He has pruned away the unessential details. He has cut away\nthe delightful but irrelevant details which even in _The Old Wives'\nTale_ and in _Clayhanger_ threatened to shatter the perspective; and\nhas concentrated on the matter in hand with enormous advantage to the\ndramatic sharpness and distinctness of his story.\n\nHe has made a further gain in intensity by using the story of\nClayhanger as a background to the present story. The technical\ndifficulty in all creative literature is a difficulty of language and\nsymbols--the difficulty of so speaking to the reader that he may see\nmoods, moments, situations, concurrences of life and forces of passion\nin the fine, dry, intense light in which the author has seen them.\nThat is the infinite difficulty of all literature--to find a language\nand to create an atmosphere which may become familiar to the reader\nwithout becoming commonplace. How much do we gain in the reading of\nShakespeare by the fact that from the sheer poetry of the thing we\nhave been compelled to read him a score of times! How fully the Greek\ndramatists understood that to be instantly appreciated they must deal\nwith stories every detail of which was stored with friendly\nassociations for the audience!\n\nMr. Bennett elicits something of this effect of the marvellous from\nthe familiar by putting the life-story of Hilda Lessways on a\nforeground behind which lies the already familiar story of Edwin\nClayhanger. We remember Clayhanger living in the printing shop in the\nPotteries; his uncouthness, his shyness, his pertinacity; his desire\nto be an architect and to live the imaginative life, thwarted by his\ngrim old father; and the manner in which Hilda dawned upon him,\nentered into his experience in a brief rapture of passion, and\ndisappeared, leaving Clayhanger to grope again with the commonplaces.\nAnd in this new story we see the life of the girl, the woman; she,\ntoo, groping among the commonplaces, with her heart set upon a wider\nexperience, till a moment comes when her story coincides with and is\ncomplementary to that of Clayhanger. The speeches which we heard her\nmake in the earlier story are heard again here, with greater\ncomprehension; the apparently trifling words which fell from the lips\nof Clayhanger, scarcely heeded, are heard again now, and heard as they\nsounded to Hilda, grasping after a purpose and a fulfilment of\nherself.\n\nMr. Bennett has endeavoured to examine the mind and heart of this\nwoman from the inside. Whether the machinery of the emotions, the\nwill, and the intellect really do work out just like this is a matter\nharder for a man to decide than for a woman; but to me Mr. Bennett's\naccount seems plausible. What is mainly important is that Hilda,\nwhether she is psychologically true to life or not, is, at any rate,\na conceivable person. She is presented as one more example of the\nspirit too large for its habitation. Cooped up with her mother in a\nlittle house in the Five Towns, she was in trouble not the less acute\nbecause \"the trouble was that she wanted she knew not what.\" Hilda,\nmaturing, steadfast, idealistic, with a desperate readiness to live\nthrough the inferior things of life if she could not now grasp the\nbest, with a vitality which enables her to emerge again and again from\ntragedy that for most people would be final, is a contrast to her\nrather futile, fussy, merely experienced mother. Hilda flings herself\ninto the work of a provincial newspaper office with the ardour of her\nidealism. Here was something she had set her mind on, and the\npractical quest was a religious passion, tragic in its way because the\nreal result of the work was so paltry and sordid.\n\nWhat was she? Nothing but a clerk at a commencing salary of fifteen\nshillings per week! Ah! but she was a priestess! She had a vocation\nwhich was unsoiled by the economic excuse. She was a pioneer. No young\nwoman had ever done what she was doing. She was the only girl in the\nFive Towns who knew shorthand.\n\nAnd Mr. Bennett succeeds in interesting us in the ambitious,\nspeculative Cannon mainly by reason of the pathetically inadequate\nobjects on which he lavishes the passion of his energies and his\nideals--on a newspaper, a corrupt thing--on a boarding-house, a centre\nof triviality. And Miss Gailey, whose heart is set on her hot-water\nbottle and her cup of tea, and the easing of her rheumatism, interests\nus profoundly, because it is such death-in-life which may prove\ntragically destructive to the ascendant nature of a Hilda.\n\nMr. Bennett is not afraid of the drab side of life. But he never shows\npeevishness on the one side nor bloodless romanticism on the other. He\nsees this drab side, and he sees the passion of life--the aspiring\nhuman always trying to be more than it is, or can be, in some\ndesperate, foolish way. This is the tragedy and the hopefulness of\ntragedy which Mr. Bennett has grasped. To possess a keen faculty of\nobservation by which to present life exactly and realistically, and at\nthe same time to re-imagine these facts so that the vividness, the\nintensity, the pitiful passion of life are what we mainly remember--to\ncombine these two qualities as Mr. Bennett combines them is to hold a\nunique position in contemporary literature.\n\n\n\n\nIV\n\nGILBERT CHESTERTON\n\n\nIt has often been pointed out that the intellectuals--the people whose\nbusiness it is to formulate opinions in Parliament, Press, and\nPulpit--are not really expressing public opinion; they are only\nexpressing the opinion of the intellectuals. Perhaps it would be\nnearer the mark to say that every civilised or semi-civilised human\nbeing may be divided into two persons, the one an individual who\nchooses, walks, eats, feels, and imagines in a private and personal\nway; the other a sort of official person who registers formal opinions\nwhen called upon to do so. The latter corresponds to the\n\"intellectual,\" and is the dominant element in the souls of the ruling\nclasses; whilst the former--the instinctive, the spontaneous, the\ncommon-sense element--dominates the man in the street.\n\nIt would not be far wrong to describe Mr. Chesterton's philosophy as a\nsort of sublimated public opinion _minus_ the opinion of the\nintellectuals. To get at what I mean I must for the moment ask the\nreader to think of Mr. Chesterton as an abstraction. Let him conceive\nan Englishman, unlike any existing Englishman, who has never heard of\nDarwin or Spencer; who has never been impregnated with the theory of\ninduction or analytical psychology; an Englishman who has never read\nor heard of Macaulay, Froude, Carlyle, Ruskin, Bagehot, Mill, Seeley,\nor Mr. Frederic Harrison; who has read none of the poets since Milton;\nwho has never been asked to consider the Reform Bill or the Education\nBill, the Oxford Movement or the \u00c6sthetic Movement, Realism or\nImpressionism, Non-Resistance or the Will to Power, Mr. Bernard Shaw\nor Mr. Aylmer Maude, the Primrose League or the Labour Party, Mr.\nYeats or even Mr. O'Finnigan. Let us imagine that this agreeable\nabstraction is in the habit of moving about among other abstractions\nlike himself; that he knows a horse when he sees it (even if he cannot\nride it); that he is accustomed to hospitable inn-parlours where you\nmay discuss any philosophy so long as it is not a system; that he has\na chivalrous admiration for women; that he likes sunshine and adores\nthe moon; that he believes in God, the respectability of wives, ballad\npoetry, good fellowship, and good wine.\n\nAnd now, having stripped Mr. Chesterton so that he is no longer even\nan attenuated ghost of himself, let us re-clothe him and present him\ndecent and as he is. We must imagine this abstracted personage,\nignorant and therefore unbiassed, suddenly introduced to all the\nlearned jargon of the day. He still retains his simple views about\nthings out of date, and is called upon to pronounce views upon\nentirely new matters--aristocracy and democracy, religion and\nscepticism, art and morality, Tolstoy and Nietzsche. A welter of odd\nideas and delirious fanaticisms is suddenly sprung upon his simple\nconsciousness. He finds all the intellectual circles in England\nworking themselves into a fury about ideas, factitious ideas, which\npositively did not exist for him when he was a happy abstraction.\nNaturally, in his brief visit to the unabstracted world he has not\ntime to study in detail all the philosophies which have been invented\nfor the purpose of debate. But he goes round from circle to circle,\nlistens to this argument and to that, notices the effect which the\nvarious philosophies have upon the characters of their exponents, and\nhimself enters into the fun of debate as if he had never been an\nabstraction at all. He accepts the terminology which he finds ready\nmade, but of course uses it in his own way--he is obviously unable to\ntake anything for granted like the people who have always been\nintellectuals. He continually comes across queer verbal usages, and\nfeels bound to declare that what we call free-thinking is not what we\ncall free; that what we call certainties are also what we call\nuncertain; that aristocrats are unaristocratic; that doubters are\ndogmatists; and that tradition is an \"extension of the franchise.\" And\nthen the world, having never been out of its own generation, having\nnever been anything so shocking as an abstraction, dismisses Mr.\nChesterton with the smiling remark that he is, after all, a brilliant\nwriter of paradoxes.\n\nLet us for a moment put aside our own intellectual prejudices, our\npreconceptions, and follow Mr. Chesterton along his path of common\nsense. He himself, in his book on _Orthodoxy_, throws over the\nintellectuals. It is not that he refutes them--that would be a denial of\nhis own method; nor that he has completely studied them--that would be a\ndenial of his own character; but he does show us what havoc their\nmethods may work upon the mind, what an overthrow of our workaday\nnotions, our most vivid and keen impressions. If all the things that we\nseem to know the best, the emotions most natural to men \"fighting\npeoples or proud mothers, or first love or fear upon the sea\"--if all\nthese things stand for nothing, if they are not to be thought about by\nour philosophers, what have we got left? The cosmos? \"The cosmos is\nabout the smallest hole that a man can hide his head in.\" He finds that\nthe great popular thinkers--and it is right that he, a potent popular\nwriter, should concern himself with these rather than with the\nsystematic philosophers who observe conventions incomprehensible to the\ncommon mind--are each and all of them prone to follow exclusively some\nstrange bent of thought, leading by pure reason to one of those awful\nconclusions which \"tend to make a man lose his wits:\" Tolstoy, for\ninstance, reaching an unthinkable doctrine of self-sacrifice, Nietzsche\nan equally unthinkable doctrine of egoism, Ibsen, Haeckel, Mr. Shaw, Mr.\nMcCabe--that never-to-be-forgotten Mr. McCabe--each of them by sheer\nforce of logic betrayed into insanity.\n\nJust as I am affected by the maniac, so I am affected by most modern\nthinkers. That unmistakable mood or note that I hear from Hanwell, I\nhear also from half the chairs of science and seats of learning\nto-day; and most of the mad doctors are mad doctors in more senses\nthan one. They all have exactly that combination we have noted; the\ncombination of one expansive and exhaustive reason with a contracted\ncommon sense. They are universal only in the sense that they take one\nthin explanation and carry it very far. But a pattern can stretch for\never and still be a small pattern. They see a chess-board white on\nblack, and if the universe is paved with it, it is still white on\nblack. Like the lunatic, they cannot alter their standpoint, they\ncannot make a mental effort and suddenly see it black on white.\n\nMadness, he says, is \"reason used without root, reason in the void.\"\n\"Madness may be defined as using mental activity so as to reach mental\nhelplessness.\" For he notes how some of the rationalists, in doubting\neverything, have cast doubt even on the validity of thought. The\ncomplete sceptic says, \"I have no right to think for myself. I have no\nright to think at all.\" The intellect has destroyed, but has not\nconstructed; there is no proposition which is not doubted, no ideal\nwhich is not an object of attack; there is no rebel who has a sure\nfaith in his own revolt, no fanatic except the fanatic about nothing.\nWhere are the common things--the things we used to know and care\nabout--the self-contradictory things if you like, but the\nrealities--the things which make men kill their enemies, go gladly to\nthe stake, or shut themselves in a hermitage?\n\nAll these are things which, Mr. Chesterton thinks, the intellectual is\nwilling to throw overboard at the bidding of intellect. But he would\nrather throw over intellectualism. He prefers to abide by the \"test of\nthe imagination,\" the \"test of fairyland.\" \"The only words that ever\nsatisfied me as describing Nature are the terms used in the fairy\nbooks, 'charm,' 'spell,' 'enchantment.' They express the\narbitrariness of the fact and its mystery. A tree grows fruit because\nit is a _magic_ tree. Water runs down-hill because it is bewitched.\"\nThe so-called \"laws of nature\" are not one whit less mysterious\nbecause of their uniformity. And again: \"It is supposed that if a\nthing goes on repeating itself it is probably dead; a piece of\nclock-work.\" Mr. Chesterton supposes exactly the opposite. \"Because\nchildren have abounding vitality, because they are in spirit fierce\nand free, therefore they want things repeated and unchanged. They\nalways say, 'Do it again;' and the grown-up person does it again until\nhe is nearly dead. For grown-up people are not strong enough to exult\nin monotony. But perhaps God is strong enough to exult in monotony. It\nis possible that God says every morning, 'Do it again' to the sun, and\nevery evening, 'Do it again' to the moon.... Repetition may go on for\nmillions of years, by mere choice, and at any instant it may stop.\"\n\nIs not this, someone will say, only the _Religio Medici_ over again? Is\nit not more than two and a half centuries since Sir Thomas Browne said:\n\"That there was a deluge once seems not to me so great a miracle as that\nthere is not one always;\" and \"where I cannot satisfy my reason, I love\nto humour my fancy;\" and \"I can answer all the objections of Satan and\nevery rebellious reason, with that odd resolution I learned of\nTertullian, _Certum est quia impossibile est?_\" Yes, it has all been\nexpressed in the _Religio_; but it is no small matter that, in spite of\nSpencer, Karl Marx, Nietzsche, and Mr. Sidney Webb, there should still\nbe a modern and a popular way of using the thoughts of Sir Thomas\nBrowne. Mr. Chesterton has been driven into this apparent reaction by\nthe scientific thinkers to whom he was introduced with the scantiest\npreparation. \"It was Huxley and Herbert Spencer and Bradlaugh who\nbrought me back to Orthodox theology.\" His supernaturalism, which he\nidentifies with orthodox Christianity, I should prefer to call the\nRomance of Christianity--Romance implying not falsity, but the desirable\nand the ideal. He deliberately takes that which he and other people\n_admire_ or _want_ as the standard of truth. \"I want to love my\nneighbour not because he is I, but precisely because he is not I.\" \"The\n_heart_ of humanity, especially of European humanity, is certainly much\nmore _satisfied_ by the strange hints and symbols that gather round the\nTrinitarian idea, the image of a council at which mercy pleads as well\nas justice....\" Mr. Chesterton defends what he calls Christianity not so\nmuch on the ground that it is credible, but on the ground that it is\nsatisfying, that it is agreeable.\n\nI say \"what he calls Christianity,\" for his argument is prone to fall\ninto a vicious circle; he arbitrarily calls all that is satisfying to\nhim by the name of Christianity. It endorses, he says, a \"first\nloyalty to things\" and enjoins the \"reform of things;\" it commands a\nman \"not only to look inwards, but to look outwards.\" God is a part of\nthe cosmos, and yet he is distinct from it and from us, or we could\nnot worship him. Christianity commands us to desire to live, and it\ncommands us to be glad to die (and this contradiction, he says, like\nall the others, is human, just as the virtue of courage is human; for\ndoes not courage mean \"a strong desire to live taking the form of a\nreadiness to die?\"). It is against compromise, against the \"dilution\nof two things\" neither of which \"is present in its full strength or\ncontributes its full colour;\" it endorses the extremes of pride and\nhumility, anger and love, mercy and severity. It is full-blooded,\nallowing place for every human emotion, directing anger against the\ncrime, and love towards the criminal. And he draws a fanciful and\ngrotesque picture of the Christian Church as a \"heavenly chariot\"\nwhirling through the ages \"fierce and fast with any war-horse,\"\nswerving \"to left and right, so as exactly to avoid enormous\nobstacles.\"\n\nI shall not examine this fanciful picture. The Christian Church may\nhave indulged every extreme in human life, but the Christianity of the\nBible takes sides more definitely. And as for the Catholic Church,\nembracing as it did so many seemingly contradictory elements, it is\nnevertheless true that at one time it failed to satisfy human nature\nbecause it was too ascetic, and at another time it caused bloody\nrevolt because it was worldly and luxurious. I need not pursue this\nquestion, for the \"orthodoxy\" which Mr. Chesterton defends is not the\nteaching of the Christian Churches. At first sight it seems to be\nanarchy modified by mysticism and friendship for persons. But it is\nmore than that. Negatively it is a protest against false culture and\ncant, and we cannot fail to see that it is at the same time a protest\nagainst that virtue which is the predecessor of false culture--the\nincessant, arduous effort to seek truth with the help of the intellect\nand the reason. Positively, it champions the spiritual perceptions on\nthe one hand, and the physical sensations on the other--the\nexcellences of the manifold activities of the human body and soul.\nBoth in his view provide the proper avenues of truth. Every spiritual\nemotion and every animal passion are in themselves good and excellent.\nFor him the struggle of life resolves itself into a romantic game,\nwith immortality as its conclusion. The one discipline which he\nupholds, the only precept he has really taken from Christianity, is\nthat arising from love for your neighbour. That unnamable quality in\nlife which in every deeper feeling and every keen perception lights\nthe spirit and charges it with intuitive knowledge is in his\nphilosophy the love of God and the source of the love for persons.\n\n\n\n\nV\n\nSOME MODERN POETS\n\n\nA few years ago it was the fashion to lament the dearth of promising\nauthors, especially poets. But since then we have assured ourselves\nthat we are still, after all, a poetical people. The reproach against\nthe age was taken as a challenge by dozens of young adventurers, who\nresolved to prove in their own persons that the twentieth century was\nnot without poets. Tiny volumes of verse fluttered forth from the\npress. Poetry Societies were started, and Poetry Reviews, and men and\nwomen met in the darkened hall of Clifford's Inn to hear Mr. Sturge\nMoore declaim sonorous verses. Publishers began to advertise new\ngenius, and reviewers began to attend to poetry as if it were really a\nserious business. The opening pages of _The English Review_ were\ndevoted to poems which seemed to be appreciated in proportion to their\never-increasing length. Mr. John Masefield had a success such as had\nbeen attained by no poet since Stephen Phillips in his prime. It is\ntrue that Mr. W.H. Davies might have starved if he had not received a\nGovernment pension; that Mr. Yeats--I believe I am right--never\nentertained the idea of supporting himself by poetry; that Mr. Doughty\nhas not so much as been heard of by one Englishman in a thousand.\nNevertheless, poetry has now become a mentionable subject in decent\nsociety; and it is no longer synonymous with Tennyson or Mr. Kipling.\nIt has become a modern thing, lending itself to new experiments, a\npossible vehicle for new ideas, a means even of becoming notorious on\na grand scale.\n\nBut before considering some of these younger authors who represent\nnewer phases in poetry I should like to dwell a little upon the work\nof an elder--one who is not by any means so exquisite a poet as Mr.\nRobert Bridges, who cannot compare in creative vigour with the greater\npoets who were contemporary with him, nor with his junior, Mr. W.B.\nYeats--but interesting for purposes of comparison because his poetry,\neven his quite recent poetry, has in it the ring of a past age, of a\npoetic ideal to which we are not likely to return in this century. I\nallude to Mr. Edmund Gosse, whom we all think of as a distinguished\nstudent and critic of literature, but it is very seldom that we hear\nany allusion to his poetical work. \"Anyone who has the patience to\nturn over these pages,\" he says in the Preface to his _Collected\nPoems_, \"will not need to be told that the voice is not of 1911--it is\nof 1872, or of a still earlier date--since my technique was determined\nmore than forty years ago, and what it was it has remained.\" When\nfirst I read these words they sounded strangely to me. It was only the\nother day that he began to edit a distinguished literary page for a\ndaily paper. Still more recently I heard him speaking on a public\nplatform. His activity does not seem to be a thing of yesterday, and\nit was he who wrote the most intimate and, perhaps, the most\ninteresting biographical study of recent years; as editor and critic\nhe is still amongst active living writers. In reading his later poems\nwe can see how keen is his desire to retain sensibility to the full,\nnot to become stereotyped by the past, or blind to the newer beauties.\nHe is conscious of the passage of the Time-Spirit and the changed ways\nof men, and the passionate desire of all vital minds to be fully\npercipient to the last.\n\n    So, if I pray for length of days,\n      It is not in the barren pride\n    That looks behind itself, and says,\n      \"The Past alone is deified!\"\n\n    Nay, humbly, shrinkingly, in dread\n      Of fires too splendid to be borne--\n    In expectation lest my head\n      Be from its Orphic shoulders torn--\n\n    I wait, till, down the eastern sky,\n      Muses, like Maenads in a throng,\n    Sweep my decayed traditions by,\n      In startling tunes of unknown song.\n\nIn the 350 pages of the _Collected Poems_ there is nothing which were\nbetter omitted. Even the mere literary experiments, the rondeaus, the\nsestinas--the literary jokes in which every poet indulges--are neatly\nturned. Mr. Gosse has attempted, and succeeded with, a great variety\nof metres. His diction is almost unfailingly good; indeed, it is the\nvery regularity and faultlessness of his verse that sometimes jars. It\nis the work of a man many-sided in his nature, many-sided in his\nmoods. He can find himself in the atmosphere of a Coleridge, a\nWordsworth, a Keats, a Rossetti, a B\u00e9ranger, and often his form\ninsensibly glides into that of the precursor whose spirit he for the\nmoment assimilates. He is by no means a mere imitator. His feeling is\nhis own; but his genius seems to be rather assimilative than strictly\ncreative. Scores of his poems have the beauty and the value of the\nliterature written by the great poets, when they were not in their\ngreatest moods.\n\nAnd perhaps it is precisely the many-sidedness of Mr. Gosse's tastes\nand interests which has left him so few decisive poetic successes. He\nhas ranged through literature with a catholic taste. He has helped to\ncreate reputations--the reputations, for instance, of Ibsen and\nStevenson. There have been many calls upon his literary instinct, and\nit is not surprising that the most uniformly successful of his poems\nare those in praise of the great men of letters whom, with his faculty\nfor friendship, he made his friends. In the poems on these men--Ibsen,\nRuskin, Stevenson, Henry Sidgwick, Rossetti, and unnamed friends who\nhave departed--there is dignity, fineness, and the pathos of a regret\nfor that which he shared with them, though he lacked the power, or\nmore probably the opportunity, fully to express it.\n\n    But not in vain beneath this lofty shade\n      I danced awhile, frail plaything of the seas;\n      Unfit to brave the ampler main with these;\n    Yet, by the instinct which their souls obeyed,\n    Less steadfast, o'er the trackless wave I strayed,\n      And follow still their vanishing trestle-trees.\n\nThe beauties of literature, of many kinds and in many languages, the\nfeeling and perception of friendship, nature, and the whole\nlife-process through which men pass to a green memory or to\noblivion--these are to be found here, the full-bodied expression of a\npersonality--for poetry is that, or nothing. It is no defect in it\nthat it is of 1872--that there is a certain formality, a kind of\nausterity, even, in its flippancies. It is meditative poetry. It is\npoetry which is essentially concerned with the emotions, the fancies,\nor the reflections, the very personal and secluded reflections, of a\nmind still concerned about the private ways of the spirit. The\nemotions, the operations of the mind, and the objective things of\nlife--they are the concern of Mr. Gosse as they were the concern of\nTennyson, Browning, Arnold, Morris, and many poets before them. For\nthe most part the men of that age adhered to the traditions of poetry,\nwhether they were romantic or classical. At any rate on the formal\nside most of them--Browning is an exception--remained faithful to the\naccepted types. On the inner side it was an age which was much\nconcerned about its soul, about nature, and about persons--yes, about\npersons. Whatever we may think about the Victorian age, from its\nliterature at least we should conclude that it was an age when men\nvalued friendships. And so its best poetry was essentially emotional,\npersonal and subjective.\n\nNow I do not suggest that in the poetry of our younger men there is\nemerging a single new type with a few distinctive characteristics\nwhich can be contrasted with Victorian poetry. On the contrary, if\nthere is anything which we should particularly remark, it is the\nabsence of such typical traits, it is the extraordinary diversity of\ntype; men are experimenting with verse, attempting to revive old\nforms and invent new, to restore the spirit of antiquity or to ride\nabreast of the practical spirit of the time. Men like Mr. W.B. Yeats\nand \"A.E.\" sought to unite the ancient and, as they believed,\nessential Irish spirit with the spirit which is manifested throughout\nthe stream of English lyrical poetry. In Mr. Yeats there was more\nromanticism than he would care to admit, though the Elizabethan ideal\nwhich he cherished and his own power of concentration did much to\nsubdue and chasten the insubordinate, vaguely aspiring spirit which in\nlesser Celtic poets turns to froth, with no undercurrent of human\ntruth to give significance to its flaky beauty. Fiona Macleod is the\nclassic instance of this frothy Celtic spirit which is unstayed by\nhuman truth or relevance to life; and there is much of this in\ncontemporary Irish poetry. Mr. Yeats is not wholly free from it, but\nhe was conscious of the evil tendency, and subdued it, and the body of\nfine poetry which stands to his name, taken as a whole, is unequalled\nfor clarity, feeling, beauty and felicity of expression by any large\nbody of poetry standing to the name of any other living poet.\n\nBut the Time-Spirit is active, or fickle perhaps, and Mr. Yeats has\nalready almost ceased to be a quite modern poet. He, like Mr. Gosse,\nformed his technique in the nineteenth century, and the twentieth\ncentury is casting about with feverish energy for a new technique and\nnew things to express. Mr. William Watson belongs quite as much to the\npast as does Mr. Gosse, though it might be said of him that he could\nbelong to any age that knew its Milton and its Wordsworth. In him\nassuredly there was no attempt at inventiveness; he has always\nrepudiated the idea that the poet should seek to innovate. He stands\nfor austerity and discipline in thought, style, and diction, for a\nfine exactness which in his case was compatible with the old passion\nfor the idea of \"freedom\" no less than with that private,\nself-communing spirit which the Victorians loved to express. Such a\npoet as Mr. Maurice Hewlett, antiquarian as he often is in the\nsubjects he treats, is much more modern in spirit. In style and\ntechnique he is one of those who have gone back, as men for four\ncenturies have constantly gone back, to the manner of the ancient\nGreeks. Just as that clever experimenter in verse, Mr. Ezra Pound, has\ncreated something of an effect by repeating the very metres, melodies,\nand mannerisms of the Proven\u00e7al troubadours, so Mr. Hewlett, modelling\nhis style upon the far finer Greek originals, produced an effect which\nwas better than Mr. Pound's in proportion as the Greek tragedians are\nsuperior to the troubadours. In his execution he has really recaptured\nmuch of the manner of the great Greek tragedians. In _The Death of\nHippolytus_ there is something of the aloofness, the blitheness, the\nthrust of phrases, the grimness, the sedateness which we associate\nwith Greek drama. If he has little of the passion or fluency of\nSwinburne, he has some of his phrase-making skill, and he is free from\nthat rhythmical lilt which in Swinburne was often excessive. We shall\nnever be carried away as by the music of _Atalanta in Calydon_, but we\nare often arrested by grim echoes from the actual Greek, apt\ntranslations, as they might be, from an existing original.\n\nBut though Mr. Hewlett has been clever enough to adapt the technique\nof Greek poets to his own purpose in poetical drama, nevertheless in\nhis treatment of subject, in thought and feeling, we may see, rather\nby his defects than by his excellences, how entirely modern he is. In\n_Minos, King of Crete_, the first play in his trilogy _The Agonists_,\nwe may find ourselves at the outset not a little irritated by his\nhabit of stage-managing with a view to a public that likes sensational\nand scenic effects. Shakespeare used thunder and lightning at the\nbeginning of _The Tempest_, but only a very modern modern poet could\nuse these devices as an introduction to tragedy. But it is more to the\npoint that his treatment of Pasiphae is not only one that would have\nbeen impossible to the Greeks, but would have been impossible to any\nliterary age which had not been so led away by modern theories of\nrealism as to believe that any sort of monstrosity, being conceived as\nactual, might be made also an object of sympathetic emotion. Pasiphae\nis a creature of monstrous, unnatural lust, so vile, and so inhuman in\nits vileness, that it is impossible to conceive that human sympathy\nshould be enlisted in her affair, as if it were a normal and humanly\npitiable lapse from virtue. No Greek tragedian ever did attempt, or\never would have attempted, to arouse pity for a creature whose\ngrotesque story expressed the Greek abomination for Ph\u0153nician\nbarbarism. Nothing but the Philistine, or in this case Ph\u0153nician,\nrealism of the twentieth century, can account for Mr. Hewlett's\nattempt to elicit fine feeling from an abnormal and nauseous incident.\n\nIt has always seemed to me that the transition from the Victorian Age\nto the experimental age which followed it was marked by the South\nAfrican War. For a dozen years before that war there had been restless\nmovements in the very heart of the nation; the men who were to be most\nconspicuous at the close of the century were leavening the nation or\nbeing leavened themselves. Joseph Chamberlain appeared as the\nembodiment of the transitional spirit in the political arena. In\njournalism the movement took shape in the person of Alfred Harmsworth.\nIn literature the man of the moment was Rudyard Kipling. These three\nfateful embodiments of the Time-Spirit seemed to dominate England and\nshake her clean out of her fin-de-si\u00e8cle complacency. England could\nnever be the same again, after those three men had been at the helm,\nfor however short a period. The course was deflected; the reckoning\nlost. Austere, dignified Whigs would appear again in politics, but\nnever again would their austerity and dignity represent our political\nsystem. Sonorous, sober, highly judicious journalists might still\nsucceed in producing, at great loss, a journal expressing themselves\nand their views, but no considerable section of the nation would ever\nagain hang upon their words. And even in poetry, which lies so much\nnearer to the roots of human nature, and might therefore be expected\nto vary less with the fashions of a time, we cannot but perceive that\nthe private, personal utterances of an Arnold, a Tennyson, a Browning,\na Rossetti, would have less chance of being heard in the din of\nto-day, however sweet the expression, however intimately moving to the\nspirit. There is a poet belonging to the younger generation who has\nwritten lyrics of exquisite grace and charm, who can deal half\nplayfully, half seriously with the lightest of subjects, and make it\ndelicate and entrancing; who can touch the deeper note of the romantic\npoets and make of it something grim, perplexing, haunting; or can\nproduce in a few stanzas an intimate feeling for persons portrayed in\nsome suggestive aspect. Mr. Walter De la Mare is well known to a small\ncircle of literary persons, but neither his poems nor his\nprose-writings have been widely read as they should have been.\n\nMr. Rudyard Kipling would perhaps shudder at the thought, but it is\nevident--is it not to his credit?--that he was essentially a democrat.\nHe made his appeal to the average man. His ballads were written about\nordinary men and ordinary things; the feelings they portrayed were the\nfeelings of everyday life, feelings which everyone without distinction\nmight feel in a vigorous and perhaps boisterous way. Wordsworth never\nreally brought poetry back to the common, everyday life of simple\nfolk. Long ago Coleridge pointed out that this was a popular\nsuperstition about Wordsworth shared by the poet himself. But to a far\ngreater extent Mr. Kipling did make his appeal to the common stock of\neveryday and average emotion--the emotion of the average man. He was\nnot interested, as the great Victorian poets had been, in the lonely\nway of the spirit; in the more personal emotions; or in nicety of\nexpression. For him it was the corporate spirit that counted--the\ninstinct, not for friendship, but for fellowship. He had sentiment in\nabundance, but he approached sentiment with that sort of nervous\nbraggadocio with which the schoolboy conceals his softer feelings. A\nclever American critic, Mr. Bliss Perry, alludes to that \"commonness\nof mind and tone\" which Mr. Bryce declared to be inevitable among\nmasses of men associated, as they are in America, under modern\ndemocratic government. \"This commonness of mind and tone,\" says Mr.\nPerry, \"is often one of the penalties of fellowship. It may mean a\nlevelling down instead of a levelling up.\" The loud stridency of Mr.\nKipling's voice is perhaps \"one of the penalties\" which has to be paid\nfor the democratic sentiment of fellowship.\n\nThat there should be some \"levelling down\" is sure to follow when the\npoet finds himself absorbed in the common emotions of common life, and\nspeaking to the common man. But there need not necessarily be that\ncoarseness of sentiment, that crudity of thought, that bigotry of\nlimited sympathy, mis-called patriotism, which has debased the level\nof so much of Mr. Kipling's writing. I should say that Mr. G.K.\nChesterton owes more than he supposes to the influence, direct or\nindirect, of Mr. Kipling; that though his opinions, his sympathies,\nhis conclusions are all diametrically opposed to those of the elder\nwriter, still there is something in common between the two which is\nessentially a democratic quality, the final standard being that of\nreference to commonness, normal feeling, the common man. Mr.\nChesterton wrote a very stirring poem in his Ballad of King Alfred, a\nballad which appealed to patriotism, fellowship, and those broad,\nprofound emotions which underlie the common sense of a people. It was\nfar nearer to the spirit of the _Barrack Room Ballads_ than he, I am\nsure, would be willing to admit.\n\nMr. Kipling did this great thing, if not for literature, at least for\nmen and men-of-letters. He expressed emotions in language which was as\nfar as possible from the language of \u00e6stheticism. This meant, perhaps,\nthat he could not express very subtle or unusual emotions, that his\nperceptions were broad rather than fine; but he at least taught the\nworld that there were certain profound manly feelings which might be\nexpressed without the preliminary _unmanning_ of \u00e6stheticism; and his\ndistinction lies in the fact that he uttered them with vehemence and\nintensity. In Victorian times the average citizen thought of poetry as\na somewhat weak-minded, effeminate pursuit--as very often it was. The\npoet who might be persuaded of the sublimity of his calling had\nnecessarily to steel himself against the abuse of the matter-of-fact\npersons who have no traffic in poetry; and in so doing he lost the\nadvantage of that bracing though insufficient criticism by which the\nsane, practical man influences many of the arts; that is to say, the\nreaders and upholders of poetry everywhere agreed to put the poet\nbeyond the reach of a criticism from which prose can never be wholly\nexempt. The matter-of-fact view being put out of court in the\njudgment of poetry, the poet was encouraged to believe that he was not\nconcerned with the same universe as that of common fact. I have heard\nliterary critics speak of romantic or highly imaginative novels,\nsaying: \"It is all delicate fancy and imagination; it is not concerned\nwith realities; it is sheer poetry\"--as if poetry were not concerned\nwith realities! I have heard people criticise the prose works of Mr.\nA.C. Benson: \"This is all too musical, and sentimental, and\nself-centred; this sort of thing cannot be done in prose; it should be\ndone in poetry\"--as if nonsense becomes less nonsensical by means of\nmetre or rhyme! This easy-going view of the function of the poetic art\nhas borne an ample harvest of nonsense. I could, were it worth while,\nname many living bards who consider that any sort of fancy or feeling\nis good enough for poetry so long as it be prettily or gracefully\nhandled, who would thus degrade poetry to the position of the easiest,\nas it has for long been the least prized, of the fine arts. This havoc\nhas been wrought, in part, by what I may call the doctrine of the\nsensitive soul. Keats is the classic example of the poet who lived and\ndied through sensitiveness. It was a weakness inherent in the romantic\nmovement which, though it had so much that was enchantingly strange\nand beautiful to give to the world, bequeathed to it also a\nconsciousness of its nerves and a pride in its very defects. When\nColeridge had taught his successors to glorify the poetic perception\nand vision, to give to the secret feelings a new warrant and value,\nthey came to think it boorish to conceal their fine feelings, and\nthey acquired the habit of expressing feelings which the common man\nscarcely experiences without a sense of shame. The poet came to be\nessentially the man who felt acutely, and anything that was a\n\"feeling\" came to have a sort of value of its own as denoting poetic\nsensitiveness. Hence the excessive softness, the indefiniteness, the\nlanguishing and the effeminacy which since the beginning of the\nnineteenth century have been tolerated in poetry because poetry was\nsupposed to be the proper vehicle for such weakness. It is significant\nthat the most admired poem of Keats begins with a sentiment which we\nshould agree to detest in a prose-writing:\n\n    My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains\n    My sense, as though of hemlock I had drunk----\n\nI contend that as this sentiment would be intolerable in prose, so\nalso it is not to be suffered in poetry.\n\nNow, the Kipling epoch did introduce a certain hardness, or\nmasculinity, into the cultured life of the country which gave an\nopportunity for escape from the querulousness and the vagueness which\nhad become poetic habits among English poets and lovers of poetry. I\nsay the \"Kipling epoch,\" for Mr. Kipling himself never had the\nself-discipline, perhaps had not the sense of form, to achieve much\ndurable poetry, and his very masculinity turned at last into an\nunmasculine shriek. He marked no more than the transition period. Mr.\nChesterton is a part of it. He, too, is lacking in sense of form and\ndiction, and could never have been a considerable poet, though there\nis in his writings abundant evidence of poetic feeling. What I am\nconcerned to observe is that his ballad poetry, too, is marked by\nthat essentially masculine note which seemed to have died out of\nEnglish poetry--unless Browning and Morris be taken as exceptions. Mr.\nHilaire Belloc comes at the latter end of the transition period. When\na man has only written a few poems it is injudicious to say of him\nthat he is a great poet. But, at any rate, Mr. Belloc has written a\nfew poems which belong to the great order of lyrical verse, and in\n_The South Country_ he surpasses anything that Kipling or Henley\nachieved, anything perhaps that any English lyrical poet has written\nthis century. If that is not a great poem, then I for one will abjure\ngreat poetry, and be content with the less. There is all Mr. Kipling's\nsense of fellowship, a thousand times refined, and in alliance with\nall the most vital emotions of life, the sense for concrete, simple\nthings, the sense for things remembered, of tragedy expected but not\nfeared, the feeling for men, as men; for places, as places; for\nthings, as things; for the emotions, as the ironies of life; for the\nludicrous, as the surface aspect of the pathetic--for the whole male\nside of existence which poetry for a hundred years has been inclined\nto ignore.\n\nIt is quite evident in the very early poetry of Mr. John Masefield\nthat the loudly reverberating ballads of Rudyard Kipling had had their\neffect upon him; that something of their sheer vehemence and lustiness\nhad mingled with his own feeling for the tropical seas into which he\nhad adventured, with the vivid sense of men and things in strange\nplaces which had wrought upon his imagination, as years before they\nhad wrought upon Mr. Conrad. Needless to say, Mr. Masefield in most\nrespects stands at the opposite pole of temperament from Mr. Kipling.\nHe is a lyrical poet whose poetry springs not so much from intense\ninterest in the lusty vigour of common life as from an intense feeling\nfor sheer beauty, for that exquisite refinement which may be extracted\nfrom life; and it may be mingled with equally intense pain when the\nbeauty is removed. He is, perhaps, more nearly akin to the type to\nwhich Keats belonged. But certainly the arrival of the spirit\nrepresented by Kipling, added to the discipline of his own early\nadventures, braced him and energised him; and almost his first\nliterary effort took the form of ballad poems uniting a fineness and\nsweetness which were entirely his own with a kind of lusty vigour\nwhich was superimposed. It is easy enough to see the influence of\nKipling in a ballad such as that which begins:\n\n    Spanish waters, Spanish waters, you are singing in my ears,\n    Like a slow sweet piece of music from the grey forgotten years;\n    Telling tales, and beating tunes, and bringing weary thoughts to me\n    Of the sandy beach at Muertos, where I would that I could be.\n\nThose early ballads had some of the emotional vigour without the\ncharacteristic defects of Kipling, and in many cases a charm which was\nentirely his own. But he very early shook off what there was of that\nKipling influence. It was superficial and transitory. Mr. Kipling, as\nI have said, represented a transition period; and another--an\nexperimental period--has followed. It is probable that Joseph Conrad\nbecame a far more potent influence on the imagination of Mr.\nMasefield than any one other author; though he was assuredly not\ncontent to follow any single example, and began steadily to experiment\nand to strike out his own line. It was unfortunate that the craze for\nexperiment and innovation should, for a time--probably a brief\ntime--have had so strange and uncouth an effect upon so fine and\nsensitive a genius. Mr. Masefield was--and is--a lyrical poet, fitted\nto express the personal emotions which lyrical poetry can support. But\nhe became obsessed with the conviction that poetry ought to be made to\ndo something else than suggest feelings and ideas in a beautiful way;\nthat it ought to serve a social purpose; that it ought to become a\ndirect contributory force to the social morality of the time; that it\nought to concern itself with practical modern questions in a practical\nway; that it ought to present actual life, realistically. The same\nfeeling affected a lesser poet, Mr. Wilfrid Wilson Gibson, who, being\na story-teller in verse and a moralist, has been acclaimed as a\npowerful poet in both England and America. Mr. Gibson has not yet\nshown that he is a considerable poet. But Mr. Masefield undoubtedly\ndoes possess the poetic talent, perhaps even genius, which Mr. Gibson\nhas not yet revealed. But the most recent poems of the former have\nbeen praised for just the same reasons that Mr. Gibson's have been\npraised. The New York _Outlook_ said of Mr. Gibson: \"He is bringing a\nmessage which might well rouse his day and generation to an\nunderstanding of and a sympathy with life's disinherited--the\noverworked masses.\" Mr. Masefield's _The Everlasting Mercy_ and his\nseries of realistic poems of the same order have been lavishly\neulogised in exactly the same way--and for a similar reason. Each of\nthese poems contains a rousing story; each subserves the purpose of an\nexcellent moral. They are realistic enough, but only in rare passages\nare they beautiful. \"Nothing,\" said Shelley, \"can be equally well\nexpressed in prose that is not tedious and supererogatory in verse.\" I\nhave felt that Mr. Masefield's long narrative poems might equally well\nhave been expressed in prose.\n\nI believe this to be no more than a passing phase in Mr. Masefield. A\npoet who could write the charming lyrical poem which, by a curious\naccident, was published at the end of _The Everlasting Mercy_ in the\n_English Review_ will not long be content to write sensational tracts;\nwe may even be glad that these tracts have been written if they bring\nthe public to attend to the more significant work of so finely gifted\nan author.\n\nBut I am very far from suggesting that the effort made by Mr. Gibson\nand Mr. Masefield to bring poetry into touch with modern life is\nwithout significance. It represented reaction against the\nquerulousness, the vagueness, the mere prettiness which have so often\nresulted in nauseous verse. It had its source in the same impulse\nwhich led J.M. Synge to create his finest imaginative effects by means\nof a severely realistic method. And still earlier Mr. Doughty, who\nholds a solitary position in modern poetry, had expressed himself in\nthe only way that was natural to him, through an archaic language, the\nlanguage in which he thought, which lent itself to the hard, vivid,\nand superbly brutal images belonging to his primitive, barbarian, and\nas it were primeval theme. Mr. Doughty belongs neither to our own nor\nto any other age, but he has not been without influence upon men of\nour time. To appreciate _The Dawn in Britain_ or _Adam Cast Forth_ is\nto long for the hardness and masculinity which have been rare in\nEnglish poetry for a hundred years; to feel that what poetry needs is\nmore grit and more brain; and to plead for these is to plead for more\npoetry, for a stronger imagination.\n\nThere is one among the younger poets who has given promise of\nsatisfying these needs, though it remains to be seen whether he may\nnot perhaps be over-weighted on the side of intellect. But in _Mary\nand the Bramble_ and _The Sale of St. Thomas_ he has shown us how the\npoetic imagination ripens into food for adults when virility and\nintellect have gone to the making of it. There is no mere prettiness\nin Mr. Abercrombie's writing. The wearisome refrain of sex,\ndisappointed or desirous, neither has part in the argument nor\nsupplies him with images or asides. Innumerable things and events upon\nthe earth appeal to him because of that full-bodied experience which\nthey carry to the wakeful and the zestful, experience which is\nmanifold, which fills all the chinks of memory, which may recall pain,\nwhich may be charged with pathos, but is never morbid; beautifully he\nmasses vigorous impressions of sense under a large imaginative idea.\nHere there is no pale, languishing phantom of beauty, but that which\nmen delight in without the verbal distractions of the \u00e6sthete.\n\nIn _Mary and the Bramble_ he has taken an intellectual idea and\ntreated it allegorically, and essentially poetically. The Virgin Mary\nin his story symbolises the \"upward meaning mind,\" fastened in\n\"substance,\" yet pure and \"seemly to the Lord;\" and the bramble which\nclutches her and seeks to smirch her purity is the folly, the\nmuddiness, the stupid cruelty of the world which mocks at all vision,\nat all idealism--it is the mortal trying to drag down the immortal\npart of man. Mary is the love of beauty, or of God; the bramble is the\nstupidity and grossness of the practical world.\n\nBut Mary, \"in her rapt girlhood,\" with her \"eyes like the\nrain-shadowed sea,\" is not the less sweet because she stands for an\nidea.\n\n    Through meadows flowering with happiness\n    Went Mary, feeling not the air that laid\n    Honours of gentle dew upon her head;\n    Nor that the sun now loved with golden stare\n    The marvellous behaviour of her hair,\n    Bending with finer swerve from off her brow\n    Than water which relents before a prow;\n    Till in the shrinking darkness many a gleam\n    Of secret bronze-red lustres answered him.\n\nAnd when the Spirit of Life vaunts itself in her,\n\n    Not vain his boast; for seemly to the Lord,\n    Blue-robed and yellow-kerchieft, Mary went.\n    There never was to God such worship sent\n    By any angel in the Heavenly ways,\n    As this that Life had utter'd for God's praise,\n    This girlhood--as the service that Life said\n    In the beauty and the manners of this maid.\n    Never the harps of Heaven played such song\n    As her grave walking through the grasses long.\n\nI cannot dwell upon the subject of _The Sale of St. Thomas_. The\ndialogue between Thomas and the captain gives opportunity for\ndescription and metaphor almost Elizabethan in their ferocity, though\nthe reflections of Thomas have a spiritual quality which is entirely\nmodern. We hear\n\n    Of monkeys, those lewd mammets of mankind.\n\nAnd of flies staring\n\n    Out of their little faces of gibbous eyes.\n\nAnd there are lines such as\n\n    Men there have been who could so grimly look\n    That soldiers' hearts went out like candle flames\n    Before their eyes, and the blood perisht in them,\n\nwhich might be placed side by side with Marlowe's:\n\n    The frowning looks of fiery _Tamburlaine_\n    That with his terrour and imperious eies,\n    Commands the hearts of his associates.\n\nAnd we may contrast these vehement records of things with the more\nphilosophic passages:\n\n    Thou must not therefore stoop thy spirit's sight\n    To pore only within the candle-gleam\n    Of conscious wit and reasonable brain;\n    But search into the sacred darkness lying\n    Outside thy knowledge of thyself, the vast\n    Measureless fate, full of the power of stars,\n    The outer noiseless heavens of thy soul.\n\nWe may well think that the immediate future of poetry depends upon men\nof the stamp of Mr. Abercrombie, men for whom poetry is neither a\nplaything nor a sweet-sounding expression of desire or anguish or\nvague dreams; but a serious attempt to grapple with life through\ncombined experience, thought, and vision. Long ago Meredith urged that\nif fiction was to go on living, it must give us \"brain-stuff\" and\n\"food-stuff.\" But no poet has since arisen to make some similar claim\nfor poetry; to urge that within its proper sphere and in its own\nappropriate way it should attack the larger life of man with\nintelligence, with common sense, and with virile passion.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nMr. W.H. Davies stands apart from them all. I should not like to try\nto account in any way for Mr. Davies any more than he could account\nfor a singing-bird by describing the trees among which it lived. His\npoetry is unlike any other poetry that is written to-day. It is fresh\nand sweet like a voice from a younger and lustier world. It is charged\nwith no clarion message of prophecy; it is burdened with no exactly\nformulated philosophy of life. There is no rhetoric in it, no\nrhodomontade. It is the melody of a man's voice singing for the\npleasure of singing, now vehemently, from the sheer delight in things\nphysical and outward, now sadly, as some evanescent object induces\nmelancholy, now in a naively reflective way, as past or future brings\nmemories or expectations. He never reaches quite the exquisite\nmelodies of Herrick, but when he writes of love he is as simple as\nHerrick, and he is more direct, more heart-whole, less of the perfect\nsinger, perhaps, but more of the lover. If he writes with wide-eyed\nwonder at the simpler marvels of life, it is in the manner of Blake\nin _Songs of Innocence_, where outwardness of manner and lyrical\nsimplicity leave an impression of something unearthly in its\nstrangeness. Occasionally in the slight extravagance of his imagery we\ncan see that the influence of the seventeenth-century \"metaphysical\"\npoets has not left him unscathed, as when he likens love to the\ninfluence of spring opening up navigation.\n\nBut it is a sure instinct which has taken him to the simpler lyrical\npoets and led him to mould his style on theirs. His interests lie in\nthe purely personal affairs of the heart; the simpler emotions may be\nbest expressed in those lyrical forms in which the older English\nliterature is pre-eminent, which eschew the fervid rhythms of the\nsoulful nineteenth century. But he is not merely imitative. Sometimes\nin the same poem we see him, now conforming to the manner of the\ntraditional love-poet, now revivifying it or bursting through it with\nimages and ideas that are wholly personal to himself.\n\n    She had two eyes as blue as Heaven,\n      Ten times as warm they shone;\n    And yet her heart was hard and cold\n      As any shell or stone.\n\n    Her mouth was like a soft red rose\n      When Ph\u0153bus drinks its dew;\n    But oh, that cruel thorn inside\n      Pierced many a fond heart through.\n\n    She had a step that walked unheard,\n      It made the stones like grass;\n    Yet that light step has crushed a heart,\n      As light as that step was.\n\n    Those glowing eyes, those smiling lips,\n      I have lived now to prove\n    Were not for me, were not for me,\n      But came of her self-love.\n\n    Yet, like a cow for acorns that\n      Have made it suffer pain,\n    So, though her charms are poisonous,\n      I moan for them again.\n\nIn any other poet the cow and the acorns would be an intolerable\nextravagance; but not so from Mr. Davies, who knows and loves all\nbeasts of the field; who knows what it is to tramp over stones and to\ntread the grass, so that his \"stones like grass\" rings freshly, while\nthe dew-drinking Ph\u0153bus is stale.\n\nBut if he seems to belong to an older tradition, and to have little in\ncommon with the self-conscious modern poet, that is only because his\nlife has kept him away from the fashions and fashionable ideas which\nare the intellectual superficies of our time, which distinguish the\nculture of one age from the culture of another. He loves with the\nstrength of intimate friendship the unchanging things in the natural\nworld, the sea, things that grow, and animals and birds. And he is\nacquainted with the other unchanging things--love, the desire for\nfood, hatred of death, friendship. He is also too keen in his\nsympathies and interests not to be modern in the sense, for instance,\nthat the romantic appeal has had its effect on him, or that the ugly\nfacts of modern life have stirred and pained him. There is a great\nvariety of emotions registered in his poems. There is the grim ballad\ncalled _Treasures_. There is a bold union of magical romanticism and\nsensuous passion in the poem beginning:\n\n    I met her in the leafy woods,\n      Early a summer's night;\n    I saw her white teeth in the dark,\n      There was no better light.\n\nThere is a remarkable confidence and elation in the little poem _The\nElements_, wherein he identifies himself with Nature--it could only be\nquoted entire. And he records his impression of a tramcar which sweeps\nalong Westminster in the twilight carrying its load of sleeping men to\nwork. He can also write in a vein wholly unlike that of his simple and\nmore characteristic lyrical verses. Thus he describes his childish\nimpressions of a mariner \"no good in port or out,\" as his granddad\nsaid:\n\n    And all his flesh was pricked with Indian ink,\n    His body marked as rare and delicate\n    As dead men struck by lightning under trees,\n    And pictured with fine twigs and curled ferns;\n    Chains on his neck and anchors on his arms;\n    Rings on his fingers, bracelets on his wrist;\n    And on his breast the Jane of Appledore\n    Was schooner rigged, and in full sail at sea.\n    He could not whisper with his strong hoarse voice,\n    No more than could a horse creep quietly;\n    He laughed to scorn the men that muffled close\n    For fear of wind, till all their neck was hid,\n    Like Indian corn wrapped up in long green leaves;\n    He knew no flowers but seaweeds brown and green,\n    He knew no birds but those that followed ships,\n    Full well he knew the water-world; he heard\n    A grander music there than we on land.\n\nAll of it is the intensely personal and direct poetry of a man of many\nmoods, many sympathies, but happily removed from the cramping effects\nof current fashions of thoughts, and talk about thought. He has lived\nin the open air and among simple people, but always companioned by the\npoets. And so we have in him a singer fresh and unspoilt, writing from\nimpulse, probably with little conscious technique, about things which\nhe knows and the immediate experiences of life.\n\n\n\n\nVI\n\nJ.M. SYNGE\n\n\nFour volumes, none too thick, contain the collected works of the man\nwho is coming to be regarded as the greatest of Irish dramatists. As\nwe turn over the pages, and observe that they contain no more than six\nplays--three of them very short--a few Poems and Translations, the\nvolume on the Aran Islands, and a volume of miscellaneous studies of\nhis experiences among the folk of Wicklow, Kerry, and the Congested\nDistricts, it is to feel wonder that a man with so profound an\nimagination, so wide a knowledge of the folk, and such genius for\ncreation, should have produced only this for his life-work. And then\nwe remember the lamentable fact of his early death--he was born in\n1871--and the no less important fact that he was one for whom\nexperience of living counted equally with the experience of art, and\nthat he wrought as few English authors work, being at the pains to\nwrite and re-write till he had the result to his mind.\n\nAnd so in these four volumes there is nothing whatever to\nregret--nothing that can be passed over as dull or indifferent,\nnothing that has not both a hard basis of actuality and also an\nintensity of imagination that lifts it into the region of poetry. In\none of his later moments of self-consciousness he uttered a sentence\nof criticism worthy to be treasured by the modern poet, and perhaps by\nthe Irish poet especially. \"It may almost be said that before verse\ncan be human again it must learn to be brutal.\" What would we not give\nto have Synge's \"brutality\" introduced into the over-idealised and\nsonorous poetry of Mr. Yeats? He does not mean the brutality of our\nEnglish realists, or ugliness, sheer fact, mis-called truth, without\nbeauty; what he wants is fidelity to _common_ truth, a realisation of\nthe root, primitive facts--the most grim primitive facts--that hard\nbasis of fact which must be accepted before the imagination can bear\nfruit.\n\nOne of the most singular qualities of Synge is the extraordinary\ncommon sense which sustains the gruesomeness of his tragic imagination\non the one side, and his no less gruesome humour on the other. It\nholds together this humour and this grimness which are so truthfully\nunited in his work. It is the common sense of the old-fashioned poet,\nthe common sense which is all-pervading in Homer's Odyssey--based upon\na strong, keen sense for the concrete, ordinary things of life. It is\nthis which makes him find the masterly conclusion to _Riders of the\nSea_, when old Maurya, lamenting the death of her sons, comforts\nherself, \"No man at all can be living for ever, and we must be\nsatisfied;\" it is this which gives Naisi the ancient love of life,\n\"It's a hard and bitter thing leaving the earth;\" which produces so\nadmirable a proverb as, \"Who would listen to an old woman with one\nthing and she saying it over?\"; and enables Pegeen, in _The Playboy of\nthe Western World_, to perceive, if only from pique, the\npreposterousness of her infatuation--\"There's a great gap,\" she\nsays--and this is the gist of the matter--\"between a gallous story and\na dirty deed.\" But never does such common sense stay the flight of the\npoetic dream. Pegeen may know the difference \"between a gallous story\nand a dirty deed,\" but that does not stop her from breaking out into\nwild lamentations: \"Oh, my grief, I've lost him surely. I've lost the\nonly Playboy of the Western World.\"\n\nIt is by never departing far from the high-road of common fact that\nSynge suggests to us the fascinations, the dangers, and romance of the\nby-paths. I think that when he travels a very long way from that\nhigh-road he does not hold us with so firm a hand. Beautiful as is the\nprose-poetry of _Deirdre of the Sorrows_, and fine as is the idealised\nportrait of Deirdre, yet, as a whole, this play does not grip so well\nas his other, even his slighter, plays. Is it not because he is moving\naway from the common life, which he knows so well how to light up into\nthe uncommon atmosphere of the grim, the fanciful, the romantic, into\nthe already half-conventionalised art atmosphere of the old heroic\nSaga? Most of his success in _Deirdre of the Sorrows_ is due to the\nfact that he has treated Deirdre as if she were just one of the\npeasant women whom he has known; but the ready-made plot has hampered\nhim, and he is shut off from the use of those little \"brutalities\"\nwhich give savour to his modern plays. The actual life is not there to\nsecure him, and he falls into the characteristic Irish vagueness in\npraising the poet-hero--even Pegeen, in _The Playboy_, had spoken of\npoets as \"fine, fiery fellows with great rages when their temper's\nroused\" (it is just so that the Irish poets like to be pictured; and\nMr. Jack Yeats, in a drawing usually much admired, has transformed\nSynge himself into just such a \"fine, fiery fellow\" of the tradition).\nIn _Deirdre of the Sorrows_, Synge could not, of course, free his mind\nfrom the traditional story, or from the poetry of all the poets who\nhave sung of Deirdre; but should Deirdre herself, at the tragic moment\nwhen her lover lies dead, be thinking of \"the way there will be a\nstory told of a ruined city and a raving king and a woman will be\nyoung for ever?\" This is like many Irish poets, but it is not worthy\nof Synge.\n\nIt was his genius to be able to tell the stories that have not been\ntraditionalised, and to tell them in a wonderful dialect which may or\nmay not be true to any actual speech, but which, unlike the jargon\nthat is affectation in many Irish writers, used by him, has the power\nof affecting us as the old Ionic could move those who spoke in Attic\nGreek. It helps us to get into the fanciful and grotesque atmosphere\nwhich he conjured up out of the most real life. In all his modern\nplays there are character, dramatic intensity, fidelity to the folk\nlife--and that life, with its brutality and its delicacy, attains the\nutmost that life can hold, seen through the poetic vision of Synge,\nmade poignant and vivid by his imagination.\n\n\n\n\nVII\n\nTHE SHRAMANA EKAI KAWAGUCHI\n\n\nBooks are like places of entertainment in that they often afford a\npleasure wholly different in kind from that intended by the author. An\noriginal and cultured gentleman of my acquaintance has a habit of\nvisiting suburban music-halls, and deriving therefrom a delight\nexquisite beyond the dreams of the artists who forgather at the\nWormwood Scrubs Empire. In like manner there are books which have come\nto be accepted as classics on the ground of excellences not aimed at\nby their authors, not necessarily because the authors were artless,\nbut because their conscious art had no relation to the quality in them\nwhich pleases. Pepys was a first-rate Admiralty official and a\ndesirable boon companion, but to his many excellences, known to\nhimself no less than to his friends, that of being a master in English\nliterature would never have been added. A still better example is the\n_Little Flowers of St. Francis of Assisi_. We read them now because of\nwhat we are accustomed to call their \"human interest,\" because they\nshow us the robust, ordinary, fleshly, and ideal side of pious\nmedi\u00e6val Catholics; they appeal to us humorously and pathetically;\nthey are tragi-comedies of the transcendental life. But they were\nwritten to commemorate the pious acts of the saints, and the authors\nwould have been shocked to think that they were contributing to the\nprofane delight of the general and possibly heretical reader. In the\nsame way the _Journal of John Wesley_ is a delight to many people to\nwhom Wesley's peculiar excellences make no appeal. He was a great\nevangelist, a powerful emotional influence, a considerable thinker, a\nscholar, a robust man, and a gentleman of the Church of England. But\nwhen we have named all these qualities we have scarcely begun to\naccount for the endless delight of his _Journal_. That which he\nconsciously aimed at is not that which gives all of us pleasure.\n\nTo books of this class I should be disposed to add that of the\nShramana Ekai Kawaguchi, a distinguished Japanese priest, scholar, and\ntraveller, who wrote a book entitled _Three Years in Tibet_. It must\nnot be supposed that the Shramana is a simple or unsophisticated\nwriter, or that he has not studied literary effects; but his\nintentional effects have the charm of _na\u00efvet\u00e9_ to an English reader,\nand his narrative is wholly unstudied in respect of all that delights\nus in it.\n\nSuch a book as this makes us distrustful of all our standards. It is\nan example of art as unconscious as that of the song of some vain, but\nfor the moment solitary, child. It declares to us that Nature, when we\ncan bring to it our own appreciation, is the first thing, and that the\nidealism of art is the second-best with which we content ourselves\nwhen Nature, with its direct appeal, is in abeyance.\n\nThe Shramana accomplished a journey which has few parallels in the\nhistory of travel. He spent three years residing and travelling in the\nuplands of Tibet, after the exclusion of strangers had become a\nrigorous policy, and before the British punitive expedition had\ninspired fear of the long-handed foreigner. He had with him no\norganised escort of men and mules such as accompanied Sir Sven Hedin\nin his more recent and better advertised expedition. He went alone and\nin disguise, as Burton went on his pilgrimage to Mecca; on intimate\nterms with the natives as Mr. Doughty was with the Arabs; a mendicant\nas Arminius Vambery has been in Asiatic Turkey and Persia. And he had\nan advantage which none of these travellers had, one which he did not\nscruple to use to the utmost--he was a Buddhist, like the Tibetans,\nand not only a Buddhist, but an exceptionally learned priest,\npossessed of a knowledge of things holy which he used with a religious\nfervour tempered with Odysseian guile. He was no missionary, but he\ncarried the true Buddhism about with him in Tibet as discreetly as\nBorrow carried his Bibles in Spain; and his style has a curious\nresemblance to that of our English gipsy. With everyone whom he meets\nhe converses on religion, philology, love, or the stars, in the gayest\nargumentative manner, and these dialogues come as interludes to\nadventures as thrilling as any that ever fall to the lot of man. In a\nfew paragraphs he will dwell on the almost inconceivable perils he\nexperienced from mountains, floods, storms, and famine, and in the\nnext he is dryly recording the discourse of a holy lama, the wayside\ngossip of robbers, or the passionate advances of a love-sick maiden,\nagainst whose enticements he steeled himself with the fortitude\nbecoming to his profession. He tells us with what joy he preached the\nsimpler truths of Buddhism to the attentive nomads, and in the next\npage remarks somewhat inconsistently: \"I had my own reasons for being\npainstaking in these preachings. I knew that religious talks always\nsoftened the hearts of my companions, and this was very necessary, as\nI might otherwise have been killed by them.... Fortunately my sermons\nwere well received by my companions.\" His whole journey was\nnecessarily a long and systematic tissue of deception, but when set on\nby robbers he disdains to preserve his worldly trash by a concealment\nof the truth. When his friends in Lhassa discover that he is not, as\nhe has been supposed to be, a Chinaman, but a foreigner from Japan, he\nbegs them to save themselves and send him in fetters to the Dalai\nLama; but sacred meditation and a supernatural voice add themselves\nopportunely to the persuasions of his friends, and with this divine\nsanction he makes good his escape.\n\nThe book, indeed, has a fourfold value; it reveals artlessly and\nperfectly the character of the Shramana Ekai Kawaguchi, and that is\nworth knowing in itself. Secondly, it unfolds the emotional and\nintellectual aspects of Japanese Buddhism, showing this religion both\non its theological side and as a practical working influence. Thirdly,\nit introduces us to a host of Tibetan persons, one after another,\npresenting not a vague, impressionist account of them, but individuals\nwith whom he lived on intimate equal terms in daily social\nintercourse. And in the fourth place it gives us what we may take to\nbe an authoritative account of the whole social system of Tibet--the\npriesthood and religion, administration, finance, trade, and the\nrelations between the sexes and castes.\n\nHaving in 1891 given up the rectorship of a monastery in Tokyo, he\nlived for some years as a hermit and devoted himself to the study of\nBuddhistic books in the Chinese language. In the course of his studies\nhe learnt that there were Tibetan translations of the sacred text\nwhich, though inferior in general meaning to the Chinese, were\nsuperior as literal translations. He determined, therefore, to\nundertake a journey to the forbidden land and travel there alone as a\nmendicant priest. The many presents his friends offered him before his\ndeparture he \"declined to accept, save in the form of sincerely given\npledges\" (and the sum of 430 yen, mentioned subsequently).\n\nFrom a fisherman he exacted the promise to discontinue the cruel habit\nof catching fish; from a poultry-man he secured a promise not to kill\nfowls; and \"from immoderate smokers I asked the immediate\ndiscontinuance of the habit that would end in nicotine poisoning.\nAbout forty persons willingly granted my appeal for this somewhat\nnovel kind of farewell presents.\" We are reminded of John Wesley's\nexhortations to his followers to abstain from the pernicious habit of\ndrinking tea--\"I proposed it to about forty of those whom I believed\nto be strong in faith; and the next morning to about sixty more,\nentreating them all to speak their minds freely. They did so; and in\nthe end saw the good which might ensue.\" In many moments of dire peril\nexperienced by the Shramana in Tibet, these \"effective\" gifts, it\nseems, \"contributed largely toward my miraculous escapes.\"\n\nBefore he could begin the most arduous part of his journey it was\nnecessary that he should serve an apprenticeship of no less than three\nyears in Darjeeling and Nepaul, studying the Tibetan language and\ngrammar, and Tibetan Buddhism, befriending beggars with the double\nobject of bestowing charity and gaining information, and ascertaining\nthe possible routes across the Himalayas. Then one day he was\nconducted to the summit of a lofty and unguarded pass, whence, on July\n4, 1900, with his luggage on his back, alone, he stepped on to the\nsoil of Tibet, and entered upon an unknown and apparently interminable\nwilderness.\n\nIn his wanderings over mountains, deserts, and rivers there was no\nform of hardship and danger which he had not to encounter. Now he\nspent a night in the open, nearly frozen by snow, the pain of the cold\nbeing interrupted only by the abstraction of \"meditation\" and the joy\nof composing _utas_ (short poems). Now he was nearly drowned in\nfording a river, from which he was saved at the moment he was\nexpressing a desire to be born again. Now he was overtaken by a\nsandstorm, now bereft of his money, now nearly perishing of hunger.\nBut from every danger he emerged triumphant. When he approached the\ntents of nomads or pilgrims and had pointed his staff at the\nthreatening dogs, he was generally received with hospitality, and on\none occasion he fell in with a party of robbers who were undergoing a\nperiod of penance at Manasarova, and made him their guest for two\nmonths. They approach the sacred peak of Kailasa:\n\n    It inspired me with the profoundest feelings of pure reverence,\n    and I looked up to it as a \"natural mandala,\" the mansion of a\n    Buddha and Bodhisattvas. Filled with soul-stirring thoughts and\n    fancies I addressed myself to this sacred pillar of nature,\n    confessed my sins, and performed to it the obeisance of one\n    hundred and eight bows. I also took out the manuscript of my\n    \"twenty-two desires,\" and pledged their accomplishment to the\n    Buddha. I then considered myself the luckiest of men, to have\n    thus been enabled to worship such a holy emblem of Buddha's\n    power and to vow such vows in its sacred presence, and I mused:\n\n    Whate'er my sufferings here and dangers dire,\n      Whate'er befalls me on my onward march,\n    All, all, I feel, is for the common good\n      For others treading on Salvation's path\n\n    The night of my performance of these devotional practices must\n    have been a matter of wonder and mystery to my companions. They\n    had been watching me like gaping and astonished children, and\n    were all intensely curious to know why I had bowed so many\n    times, and read out such strange Chinese sentences. I was glad\n    to explain to them the general meaning of my conduct and they\n    seemed to be deeply struck with its significance. They said they\n    had never known the Chinese Lamas were men of such Bodhisattvic\n    mind! The upshot was that they asked me to preach to them that\n    night, a request to which I was very glad to accede. The\n    preaching which followed, which I purposely made as simple and\n    as appealing to the heart as possible, seemed to affect them\n    profoundly, and to make the best possible impression on them; so\n    much so that they even shed tears of joy. The preaching over,\n    they said in all sincerity that they were glad of companionship,\n    and even offered to regard me as their guest during the two\n    months which they intended to spend in pilgrimage to and round\n    the Kang Rinpoche. They thought that their pilgrimage over such\n    holy ground, while serving such a holy man as I now was to them,\n    would absolve them completely from their sins.\n\nIt was during this pilgrimage that there occurred the tender episode\nalready alluded to, from which the Shramana, though \"neither a block\nof wood, nor a piece of stone,\" emerged even more creditably than John\nWesley when similarly tempted in Georgia.\n\nI can give no account here of his arrival in Lhassa, the reputation he\ngained as a \"Chinese\" physician, his kindly reception by the Dalai\nLama, or his intimate friendships with the apothecary and the\nex-Minister of Finance. He gives a vivid picture of the life of the\ndifferent classes of priests and monks, and the corrupt state of the\nTibetan hierarchy. He describes the rudimentary system of education,\nthe harsh and haphazard administration, the brutality of punishments,\nthe system of espionage, the free position of women and the practice\nof polyandry, the filthy personal habits of the people, their\nsuperstitions, their occupations, their festivals. I do not dwell upon\nthese matters, partly because many of the features described are\ncommon to other oriental countries, but mainly because I am here\nconsidering the peculiar excellence of the book as a book of travel, a\n\"human document\"--as the phrase goes--a record of experience which has\ntaken the stamp of a most interesting personality.\n\n\n\n\nVIII\n\nFRANCIS THOMPSON\n\n\nIn _The Blue Bird_ of Maeterlinck we are told of a child who puts on a\nmagic hat and turns a fairy diamond and sees all that was ugly and\nsordid transformed into something transcendently beautiful. There was\nno need for Francis Thompson to find a magic hat; the poetic instinct\nwhich was always with him gave him the insight into another poet's\nnature; he saw through, around, and beyond those unlovely passages in\nthe life of Shelley which made Matthew Arnold, for once so strangely\nan adherent of Mrs. Grundy, exclaim, \"What a set! What a world!\" There\nare few appreciations in the English language comparable to his essay\non Shelley. Fixing his eyes on what seems to him essential in the man,\nThompson finds that everything else explains itself to the observer\nwho will see with the poet, who can understand his sufferings, and\nimagine his delights. And so his essay is no ordinary study in\ncriticism. He sets himself, indeed, as Pater would have done, to find\nwhat it is that makes the specific worth of the poet. But there is no\nlaborious calculating of values; rather a lavish pouring forth of the\njust meed of praise, an interpretation, a vindication of Shelley, like\nSwinburne's vindication of Blake, in language less passionate,\nperhaps, but more perfect in its melody, and more significant in its\nimagery, responding to its theme with tremulous beauty.\n\nMr. Wyndham, I think, did not go far from the truth when he said that\nthis \"is the most important contribution to pure letters written in\nEnglish during the last twenty years.\" For in a certain sense it seems\nto reach an even greater height than Thompson's poetry. For whilst he\nhas written exalted poetry, thought-compelling poetry, magnificent in\ndiction and appealing to the deeper emotions, there is in this essay a\nsimplicity which was often lacking in the former, and a passionate\npleading which combines the cogent lucidity of a Newman with the\nother-worldness of a St. Francis. If it has a fault, it is that of\nbeing too rich in its imagery, too lavish of its judgments, too\noverbearing in its vision of beauty, so that some critics will say\nthat it is too poetical for prose. It is, indeed, the prose of a poet,\nand such as only a poet would or could write; but its harmony, its\nstructural balance, its masterly transitions are, save in a few cases,\nthose which are proper to prose.\n\nThere is, perhaps, something a little forced in the opening passage in\nwhich he commends the services of poetry to the charity of the Church,\nparagraphs which were designed to conciliate the editor of the _Dublin\nReview_. He passes to consider the defect which has \"mildewed\" all the\npoetry written since Shelley, \"the predominance of art over\ninspiration, of body over soul.\" Not, he holds, that inspiration has\nbeen lacking--\"the warrior is there, but he is hampered by his\narmour.\" \"We are self-conscious to the finger-tips; and this inherent\nquality, entailing on our poetry the inevitable loss of spontaneity,\nensures that whatever poets, of whatever excellence, may be born to us\nof the Shelleian stock, its founder's spirit can take among us no\nreincarnation. An age that is ceasing to produce child-like children\ncannot produce a Shelley. For both as poet and man he was essentially\na child.\"\n\n\"To the last,\" he exclaims, \"he was the enchanted child.\" And he\nexplains what he means in words that may seem fantastic: \"It is to\nhave a spirit yet streaming from the waters of baptism; it is to\nbelieve in love, to believe in loveliness, to believe in belief.\" And\nhe suggests that \"Shelley never could have been a man, for he never\nwas a boy. And the reason lay in the persecution which over-clouded\nhis school days.\" He was a grown-up child when he sailed his paper\nboats on the Isis, when in his loves he gave way to that \"straying,\nstrange and deplorable, of the spirit,\" when he rebelled petulantly\nbut not ungenerously against the order of the world, and when he\nsoared with the cloud or the skylark like the \"child-like peoples\namong whom mythologies have their rise.\" In his poetry \"he is still at\nplay, save only that his play is such as manhood stops to watch, and\nhis playthings are those which the gods give their children. The\nuniverse is his box of toys. He dabbles his fingers in the day-fall.\nHe is gold-dusty with his tumbling amidst the stars. He makes bright\nmischief with the moon.\"\n\nAnd, in the same, full way, Thompson explains in what sense Shelley\nwas a poet of Nature; in what manner images poured naturally from his\nlips as they ought to have done, but never did, pour from the lips of\nthe metaphysical poets; by what \"instinctive perception of the\nunderlying analogies, the secret subterranean passages, between matter\nand soul,\" he was able to make such imaginative play with\nabstractions; and, finally, how in his shorter poems he \"forgets for a\nwhile all that ever makes his verse turbid; forgets that he is\nanything but a poet, forgets sometimes that he is anything but a\nchild.\" And all the time the essayist is dropping phrases which surely\nare unforgettable, striking us alike by their truth and their\npregnance--\"this beautiful, wild, feline poetry, wild because left to\nrange the wilds.\"--\"His Muse has become a veritable Echo, whose body\nhas dissolved from about her voice.\"--\"He stood thus at the very\njunction-lines of the visible and the invisible, and could shift the\npoints as he willed. His thoughts became a mounted infantry, passing\nwith baffling swiftness from horse to foot or foot to horse.\"\n\nEven to-day, five years after his death, Thompson has not attained the\nfull fame which he merits. It is true his very first book won the\nhighest praise from critics no less distinguished than Coventry\nPatmore, Mr. Arthur Symons, and Mr. H.D. Traill, and long before his\ndeath it was no small circle of admirers who looked eagerly for each\nnew poem from his pen.\n\nYet his genius is not of that kind which instantly communicates itself\nto a generation. Living apart in a spiritual atmosphere of his own,\nhis heart divested of the desires which form half the life of most\nmen, his gaze was fixed on the inner mysteries of the spirit and on\nthose outer forms which are the vehicles of beauty. The very language\nhe used was as far remote as possible from \"the brutish jargon we\ninherit.\" He belonged to the hierarchy of the poets of all ages, and\npressed into his service lovely, half-forgotten words which made his\npoetry seem strange and bizarre to those who were too much immersed in\nthe language and literature of their day. And those subtler minds who\ninstantly perceived its beauty, and saw how his language and his\nimagery often recalled those of the seventeenth-century metaphysicals,\nsuch as Crashaw, too readily perhaps asserted a bond between his\nthought and theirs. Like them, it is true, he turned his back on the\ndelusive splendours of the world; he accepted and expressed in song\nthe divine ordinance of the universe. But he was afflicted with the\npain of modern doubt; fear and speculative curiosity struggled with\nhis faith; sometimes the sheer beauty of the external world, so far\nfrom proving the divine beauty, seemed to him as a possible refuge in\nhis vain flight from the \"Hound of Heaven.\"\n\nHe cannot be allocated to a single school. In his reading he had\nranged through the poets of all ages, and he had assimilated a mighty\nvariety of emotions, and we may see how his form shows the influence\nnow of one poet, now another--Milton, Cowley, Shelley, Hood, Poe, and\nRossetti--yet each influence, as it came upon him, was passed through\nthe crucible of his own defined temperament, and the resultant is\nwholly his own, a creature which speaks of half-suppressed emotion,\nyet fantastically rich in phrase, rhythm, and image. His study of all\nthe poets seems to have opened to him more avenues of beauty than were\nopen to any poet of the middle seventeenth century. There is in his\nblood the fantastical romance of the Elizabethans; the love of\nspiritual contemplation which marked the seventeenth-century mystic;\nthe passionate adoration of Nature and the open air which came with\nthe early nineteenth century; modern introspectiveness; and that habit\nof symbolism with which Rossetti and his school have made us familiar.\n\nSometimes his pregnant phrases, his literary imagery, his stately,\nsweeping rhetoric, and the note of underlying melancholy would lead us\nto compare him with Virgil rather than with any modern poet.\n\n    Under this dreadful brother uterine,\n    This kinsman feared, Tellus, behold me come,\n    Thy son stern-nursed; who mortal-mother-like,\n    To turn thy weanlings' mouth averse, embitter'st,\n    Thine over-childed breast. Now, mortal-sonlike,\n    I thou hast suckled, Mother, I at last\n    Shall sustenant be to thee. Here I untrammel,\n    Here I pluck loose the body's cerementing,\n    And break the tomb of life; here I shake off\n    The bur o' the world, man's congregation shun,\n    And to the antique order of the dead\n    I take the tongueless vows.\n\nBut those last lines:\n\n    And to the antique order of the dead\n    I take the tongueless vows.\n\nwe cannot compare with any model. They stand by themselves,\nunsurpassable, lines such as are only to be found here and there even\nin the great poets.\n\nThe more one reads this poetry of Thompson's the more one discovers\nthat it is something essentially individual. Harmonies that one may\nmiss on a first reading become more apparent and more insistent as one\nreads again, and the exquisite, haunting melody of his verse pursues\nus, and its faultless, rich rhythms seem to create new patterns of\nform. One may miss not a little of his thought, because the engrossing\nbeauty of the language lays hold of the senses. In almost every poem\none finds some lingering phrase:\n\n              Whatso looks lovelily\n    Is but the rainbow on life's weeping rain.\n\nOr:\n\n    The little sweetness making grief complete.\n\nOften he shows that exact sense of lyrical fitness which Milton\npre-eminently possessed, and, second only to him, Shelley. We see it\nin the passage which begins:\n\n    Suffer me at your leafy feast\n    To sit apart, a somewhat alien guest,\n    And watch your mirth,\n    Unsharing in the liberal laugh of earth.\n\n_The Hound of Heaven_, I think, has rightly been pronounced his\ngreatest poem, for whilst in its wealth of melody, its magnificence of\nimagery, and its pathos, it is unsurpassed, it reveals also the finest\ndepths of his thought as he takes us \"down the labyrinthine ways\" of\nhis mind's flight. But next to that I would put _The Making of Viola_,\na poem which no other, except Rossetti or his sister Christina, could\nhave written:\n\n                          I\n\n    _The Father of Heaven._\n            Spin, daughter Mary, spin,\n            Twirl your wheel with silver din;\n            Spin, daughter Mary, spin,\n                Spin a tress for Viola.\n\n    _Angels._\n            Spin, Queen Mary, a\n            Brown tress for Viola!\n\n                          II\n\n    _The Father of Heaven._\n            Weave, hands angelical,\n            Weave a woof of flesh to pall\n            Weave, hands evangelical--\n                Flesh to pall our Viola.\n\n    _Angels._\n            Weave, singing brothers, a\n            Velvet flesh for Viola!\n\n                          III\n\n    _The Father of Heaven._\n            Scoop, young Jesus, for her eyes,\n            Wood-browned pools of Paradise--\n            Young Jesus, for the eyes,\n                For the eyes of Viola.\n\n    _Angels._\n            Tint, Prince Jesus, a\n            Dusked eye for Viola!\n\nIt may be that he will always be a poet for the few; that his\nmystical, esoteric spirit, finding its proper expression in baffling\nimagery and elusive, other-worldly rhythms, will never be wholly\ncongenial to the many. But his place is assured; for he had no traffic\nwith the things of a day or the language of a day. The beauty which\nhaunts his prose and his verse is of that universal order which can\nhardly fade by the mere passing of time. Only a change in the human\nspirit can make it dim.\n\n\n\n\nNOTE\n\n\n    Many of the foregoing chapters are based upon articles which\n    have been published in periodicals. My thanks are due to the\n    Editors of the following journals, which I name in the order of\n    my indebtedness:--_The English Review_, _The Nation_, _The Daily\n    News_, _The North American Review_, _The British Review_, and\n    _The Athen\u00e6um_.\n\n\n\n\nTHE COMPLETE DRAMATIC WORKS OF\n\n=Gerhart Hauptmann=\n\nAUTHORIZED EDITION IN SIX VOLUMES\n\n\nIt is generally conceded that Gerhart Hauptmann is the most notable\ndramatist of the present day. His work combines literary,\npsychological and dramatic interest in greater measure than that of\nany other contemporary writer, and the award of the Nobel prize in\nliterature was a public recognition of his genius.\n\nAn authorized translation of his dramas makes it possible at last for\nEnglish people to study and enjoy Hauptmann. Excellent translations of\na few plays had already been made and these, by arrangement with the\nrespective translators, will be adapted to the present edition, but\nnew translation will be made whenever it seems necessary in order to\nmaintain the highest standard. The editor of the edition is Professor\nLudwig Lewisohn. He supplies a general introduction to Hauptmann's\nworks in Volume I, and a briefer introduction to each succeeding\nvolume.\n\n\nCONTENTS\n\nVolume I\n\n_Social Dramas_\nBefore Dawn\nThe Weavers\nThe Beaver Coat\nThe Conflagration\n\nVolume II\n\n_Social Dramas_\nDrayman Henschel\nRose Bernd\nThe Rats\n\nVolume III\n\n_Domestic Dramas_\nThe Reconciliation\nLonely Lives\nColleague Crampton\nMichael Kramer\n\nVolume IV\n\n_Symbolic and Legendary Dramas_\nHannele\nThe Sunken Bell\nHenry of Aue\n\nVolume V\n\n_Symbolic and Historical Dramas_\nSchluck and Jau\nAnd Pippa Dances\nCharlemagne's Hostage\n\nVolume VI\n\n_Later Dramas in Prose_\nThe Maidens of the Mount\nGriselda\nGabriel Schilling's Flight\n\n_Each Volume Crown 8vo. Price Five Shillings net_\n\n\n\n\n_TWO NEW VOLUMES IN THIS SERIES_\n\n\nWALT WHITMAN\n\nA CRITICAL STUDY\n\nBY\n\nBASIL DE SELINCOURT\n\n\n\nWALTER PATER\n\nA CRITICAL STUDY\n\nBY\n\nEDWARD THOMAS\n\n\n\nEach Volume Demy Octavo. With a Frontispiece\nPortrait in Photogravure.\nPrice 7s. 6d. net.\n\n\n\n\n_UNIFORM WITH \"PEOPLE AND QUESTIONS\"_\n\n\nDRAMATIC PORTRAITS\n\nBy P.P. HOWE\n\nThroughout this book a particular point of view has been adhered to,\nfrom which the drama is looked upon as a separate art from literature,\nand from which especial attention is paid to the manner of its\npractice. Thus nearly all the plays of the dramatists passed under\nreview are to be studied in book form, but they are spoken of here, as\nfar as possible, in terms of their actual presentation in the theatre.\nThe dramatists include Pinero, Henry Arthur Jones, Henry James, Oscar\nWilde, Bernard Shaw, Barrie, Hubert Henry Davies, Granville Barker,\nHankin, Galsworthy and Masefield. It is a book for all playgoers who\nhave done their playgoing in the English theatre of the last\ntwenty-five years.\n\nThe portraits which illustrate it are from camera studies by Mr. E.O.\nHopp\u00e9, reproduced by a new process which does full justice to his\noriginal prints.\n\n_Large Crown 8vo. Price 5s. net._\n\n\n\n\nNEW FICTION\n\n\n  SINISTER STREET\n    By COMPTON MACKENZIE\n      Author of \"Carnival.\"\n\n  THE STORY OF LOUIE\n    By OLIVER ONIONS\n      Author of \"The Debit Account.\"\n\n  HANDS UP!\n    By FREDERICK NIVEN\n      Author of \"The Porcelain Lady.\"\n\n  TELLING THE TRUTH\n    By WILLIAM HEWLETT\n      Author of \"Uncle's Advice.\"\n\n  UNDERGROWTH\n    By F. and E. BRETT YOUNG\n      A First Novel.\n\n  THE BANKRUPT\n    By HORACE HORSNELL\n      A First Novel.\n\n  THE FOOL'S TRAGEDY\n    By A. SCOTT CRAVEN\n      A First Novel.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n    +-----------------------------------------------------------+\n    | Typographical errors corrected in text:                   |\n    |                                                           |\n    | Page  33: poietic replaced with poetic                    |\n    |                                                           |\n    +-----------------------------------------------------------+","title":"Personality in Literature","tradition":"philosophy-ethics","translated_text":null,"word_count":62261}