{"collection":"philosophy-ethics","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_36111/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_36111","id":"gutenberg_36111","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/36111","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Essays, Letters & Speeches","Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Maeterlinck, Maurice, 1862-1949","Nietzsche, Friedrich Wilhelm, 1844-1900","Strindberg, August, 1849-1912","Tolstoy, Leo, graf, 1828-1910"],"text":"</pre>\n\n\n\nProduced by Jana Srna and the Online Distributed\nProofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was\nproduced from images generously made available by The\nInternet Archive/American Libraries.)\n\n\n\n\n\n\n  [ Transcriber's Notes:\n\n    Every effort has been made to replicate this text as faithfully\n    as possible, including inconsistencies in spelling and hyphenation.\n    Some corrections of spelling have been made. They are listed at the\n    end of the text.\n\n    Italic text has been marked with _underscores_.\n  ]\n\n\n\n\n  PROPHETS OF DISSENT\n\n\n\n\n  BOOKS BY OTTO HELLER\n\n  HENRIK IBSEN: PLAYS AND PROBLEMS\n\n  STUDIES IN MODERN GERMAN LITERATURE\n\n  LESSING'S \"MINNA VON BARNHELM\"\n  in English\n\n\n\n\n  Prophets of Dissent: Essays\n  on Maeterlinck, Strindberg,\n  Nietzsche and Tolstoy\n\n  by\n  Otto Heller\n\n  Professor of Modern European Literature\n  in Washington University (St. Louis)\n\n\n  Is there a thing in this world that can be separated from\n  the inconceivable?\n\n  Maeterlinck, \"Our Eternity\"\n\n\n  New York\n  Mcmxviii\n  Alfred A Knopf\n\n\n\n\n  COPYRIGHT, 1918, BY\n  ALFRED A. KNOPF\n\n  PRINTED IN UNITED STATES OF AMERICA\n\n\n\n\n  To\n  HELLEN SEARS\n  staunchest of friends\n\n\n\n\nPreface\n\n\nThe collocation of authors so widely at variance in their moral and\nartistic aims as are those assembled in this little book may be defended\nby the safe and simple argument that all of these authors have exerted,\neach in his own way, an influence of singular range and potency. By\nfairly general consent they are the foremost literary expositors of\nimportant modern tendencies. It is, therefore, of no consequence whether\nor not their ways of thinking fit into our particular frame of mind;\nwhat really matters is that in this small group of writers more clearly\nperhaps than in any other similarly restricted group the basic issues of\nthe modern struggle for social transformation appear to be clearly and\nsharply joined. That in viewing them as indicators of contrarious ideal\ncurrents due allowance must be made for peculiarities of temperament,\nboth individual and racial, and, correspondingly, for the purely\n\"personal equation\" in their spiritual attitudes, does not detract to\nany material degree from their generic significance.\n\nIn any case, there are those of us who in the vortical change of the\nsocial order through which we are whirling, feel a desire to orient\nourselves through an objective interest in letters among the embattled\npurposes and policies which are now gripped in a final test of strength.\nIn a crisis that makes the very foundations of civilization quake, and\nat a moment when the salvation of human liberty seems to depend upon the\nsuccess of a united stand of all the modern forces of life against the\ndestructive impact of the most primitive and savage of all the\ninstincts, would it not be absurdly pedantic for a critical student of\nliterature to resort to any artificial selection and co-ordination of\nhis material in order to please the prudes and the pedagogues? And is it\nnot natural to seek that material among the largest literary apparitions\nof the age?\n\nIt is my opinion, then, that the four great authors discussed in the\nfollowing pages stand, respectively, for the determining strains in a\ngreat upsetting movement, and that in the aggregate they bring to view\nthe composite mental and moral impulsion of the times. Through such\nforceful articulations of current movements the more percipient class of\nreaders have for a long time been enabled to foresense, in a manner, the\ncolossal reconstruction of society which needs must follow this\nmonstrous, but presumably final, clash between the irreconcilable\nelements in the contrasted principles of right and might, the masses and\nthe monarchs.\n\nHowever, the gathering together of Maeterlinck, Nietzsche, Strindberg,\nand Tolstoy under the hospitality of a common book-cover permits of a\nsupplementary explanation on the ground of a certain fundamental\nlikeness far stronger than their only too obvious diversities. They are,\none and all, radicals in thought, and, with differing strength of\nintention, reformers of society, inasmuch as their speculations and\naspirations are relevant to practical problems of living. And yet what\ngives them such a durable hold on our attention is not their particular\napostolate, but the fact that their artistic impulses ascend from the\nsubliminal regions of the inner life, and that their work somehow brings\none into touch with the hidden springs of human action and human fate.\nThis means, in effect, that all of them are mystics by original cast of\nmind and that notwithstanding any difference, however apparently\nviolent, of views and theories, they follow the same introspective path\ntowards the recognition and interpretation of the law of life. From\nwidely separated ethical premises they thus arrive at an essentially\nuniform appraisal of personal happiness as a function of living.\n\nTo those readers who are not disposed to grant the validity of the\nexplanations I have offered, perhaps equality of rank in artistic\nimportance may seem a sufficient criterion for the association of\nauthors, and, apart from all sociologic and philosophic considerations,\nthey may be willing to accept my somewhat arbitrary selection on this\nsingle count.\n\n    O. H.\n\nApril, 1918.\n\n\n\n\nCONTENTS\n\n\n                                                     PAGE\n\n    I Maurice Maeterlinck: a study in Mysticism         3\n\n   II August Strindberg: a study in Eccentricity       71\n\n  III Friedrich Nietzsche: a study in Exaltation      109\n\n   IV Leo Tolstoy: a study in Revivalism              161\n\n\n\n\nI\n\nTHE MYSTICISM OF MAURICE MAETERLINCK\n\n\nUnder the terrific atmospheric pressure that has been torturing the\ncivilization of the entire world since the outbreak of the greatest of\nwars, contemporary literature of the major cast appears to have gone\ninto decline. Even the comparatively few writers recognized as\npossessing talents of the first magnitude have given way to that\npressure and have shrunk to minor size, so that it may be seriously\nquestioned, to say the least, whether during the past forty months or so\na single literary work of outstanding and sustained grandeur has been\nachieved anywhere. That the effect of the universal embattlement upon\nthe art of letters should be, in the main, extremely depressing, is\nquite natural; but the conspicuous loss of breadth and poise in writers\nof the first order seems less in accordance with necessity,--at least\none might expect a very superior author to rise above that necessity. In\nany case it is very surprising that it should be a Belgian whose\nliterary personality is almost unique in having remained exempt from the\ngeneral abridgment of spiritual stature.\n\nIt is true that Maurice Maeterlinck, the most eminent literary figure in\nhis sadly stricken country and of unsurpassed standing among the\ncontemporary masters of French letters, has, since the great\ncatastrophe, won no new laurels as a dramatist; and that in the other\nfield cultivated by him, that of the essay, his productiveness has been\nanything but prolific. But in his case one is inclined to interpret\nreticence as an eloquent proof of a singularly heroic firmness of\ncharacter at a time when on both sides of the great divide which now\nseparates the peoples, the cosmopolitan trend of human advance has come\nto a temporary halt, and the nations have relapsed from their\nlaboriously attained degree of world-citizenship into the homelier, but\nmore immediately virtuous, state of traditional patriotism.\n\nIt is a military necessity as well as a birthright of human nature that\nat a time like the present the patriot is excused from any pharisaical\nprofession of loving his enemy. Before the war, Maeterlinck's writings\nwere animated by humanitarian sympathies of the broadest catholicity. He\neven had a peculiar affection for the Germans, because doubtless he\nperceived the existence of a strong kinship between certain essential\ntraits in his spiritual composition and the fundamental tendencies of\nGerman philosophy and art. But when Belgium was lawlessly invaded, her\nancient towns heinously destroyed, her soil laid waste and drenched with\nthe blood of her people, Maeterlinck, as a son of Belgium, learned to\nhate the Germans to the utmost of a wise and temperate man's capacity\nfor hatred, and in his war papers collected in _Les D\u00e9bris de la\nGuerre_, (1916),(1) which ring with the passionate impulse of the\npatriot, his outraged sense of justice prevails over the disciplined\nself-command of the stoic.\n\n  (1) \"The Wrack of the Storm,\" 1916.\n\nHe refuses to acquiesce in the lenient discrimination between the guilty\nGovernment of Germany and her innocent population: \"It is not true that\nin this gigantic crime there are innocent and guilty, or degrees of\nguilt. They stand on one level, all those who have taken part in it....\nIt is, very simply, the German, from one end of his country to the\nother, who stands revealed as a beast of prey which the firm will of our\nplanet finally repudiates. We have here no wretched slaves dragged along\nby a tyrant king who alone is responsible. Nations have the government\nwhich they deserve, or rather, the government which they have is truly\nno more than the magnified and public projection of the private morality\nand mentality of the nation.... No nation can be deceived that does not\nwish to be deceived; and it is not intelligence that Germany lacks....\nNo nation permits herself to be coerced to the one crime that man cannot\npardon. It is of her own accord that she hastens towards it; her chief\nhas no need to persuade, it is she who urges him on.\"(2)\n\n  (2) \"The Wrack of the Storm,\" pp.\u00a016-18.\n\nSuch a condemnatory tirade against the despoilers of his fair homeland\nwas normally to be expected from a man of Maeterlinck's depth of\nfeeling. The unexpected thing that happened not long after was that the\nimpulsive promptings of justice and patriotism put themselves into\nharmony with the guiding principles of his entire moral evolution. The\nintegrity of his philosophy of life, the sterling honesty of his\nteachings, were thus loyally sealed with the very blood of his\nheart.--\"Before closing this book,\" he says in the Epilogue,(3) \"I wish\nto weigh for the last time in my conscience the words of hatred and\nmalediction which it has made me speak in spite of myself.\" And then,\ntrue prophet that he is, he speaks forth as a voice from the future,\nadmonishing men to prepare for the time when the war is over. What saner\nadvice could at this critical time be given the stay-at-homes than that\nthey should follow the example of the men who return from the trenches?\n\"They detest the enemy,\" says he, \"but they do not hate the man. They\nrecognize in him a brother in misfortune who, like themselves, is\nsubmitting to duties and laws which, like themselves, he too believes\nlofty and necessary.\" On the other hand, too, not many have sensed as\ndeeply as has Maeterlinck the grandeur to which humanity has risen\nthrough the immeasurable pathos of the war. \"Setting aside the\nunpardonable aggression and the inexpiable violation of the treaties,\nthis war, despite its insanity, has come near to being a bloody but\nmagnificent proof of greatness, heroism, and the spirit of sacrifice.\"\nAnd from his profound anguish over the fate of his beloved Belgium this\nconsolation is wrung: \"If it be true, as I believe, that humanity is\nworth just as much as the sum total of latent heroism which it contains,\nthen we may declare that humanity was never stronger nor more exemplary\nthan now and that it is at this moment reaching one of its highest\npoints and capable of braving everything and hoping everything. And it\nis for this reason that, despite our present sadness, we are entitled to\ncongratulate ourselves and to rejoice.\" Altogether, Maeterlinck's\nthoughts and actions throughout this yet unfinished mighty fate-drama of\nhistory challenge the highest respect for the clarity of his intellect\nand the profoundness of his humanity.\n\n  (3) In the English translation this is the chapter preceding the last\n  one and is headed \"When the War Is Over,\" p.\u00a0293\u00a0ff.; it is separately\n  published in _The Forum_ for July, 1916.\n\nThe appalling disaster that has befallen the Belgian people is sure to\nstamp their national character with indelible marks; so that it is safe\nto predict that never again will the type of civilization which before\nthe war reigned in the basins of the Meuse and the Scheldt re\u00ebstablish\nitself in its full peculiarity and distinctiveness which was the result\nof a unique coagency of Germanic and Romanic ingredients of culture. Yet\nin the amalgam of the two heterogeneous elements a certain competitive\nantithesis had survived, and manifested itself, in the individual as in\nthe national life at large, in a number of unreconciled temperamental\ncontrasts, and in the fundamental unlikeness exhibited in the material\nand the spiritual activities. Witness the contrast between the bustling\naggressiveness in the province of practical affairs and the metaphysical\ndrift of modern Flemish art. To any one familiar with the visible\nmaterialism of the population in its external mode of living it may have\nseemed strange to notice how sedulously a numerous set among the younger\nartists of the land were facing away from their concrete environment, as\nthough to their over-sensitive nervous system it were irremediably\noffensive. The vigorous solidity of Constantin Meunier, the great\nplastic interpreter of the \"Black Country\" of Belgium, found but few\nwholehearted imitators among the sculptors, while among the painters\nthat robust terrestrialism of which the work of a Rubens or Teniers and\ntheir countless disciples was the artistic upshot, was almost totally\nrelinquished, and linear firmness and colorful vitality yielded the day\nto pallid, discarnately decorative artistry even, in a measure, in the\n\"applied art\" products of a Henri van de Velde.\n\nIt is in the field of literature, naturally enough, that the contrast is\nresolved and integrated into a characteristic unity. Very recently\nProfessor A.\u00a0J. Carnoy has definitely pointed out(4) the striking\ncommixture of the realistic and imaginative elements in the work of the\nFlemish symbolists. \"The vision of the Flemings\"--quoting from his own\n_pr\u00e9cis_ of his paper--\"is very concrete, very exact in all details and\ngives a durable, real, and almost corporeal presence to the creations of\nthe imagination. All these traits are exhibited in the reveries of the\nFlemish mystics, ancient and modern. One finds them also no less plainly\nin the poetic work of Belgian writers of the last generation:\nMaeterlinck, Verhaeren, Rodenbach, Van Lerberghe, Le Roy, Elskamp, etc.\"\n\n  (4) In a paper read by title before the Modern Language Association of\n  America at Yale University, December 29, 1917.\n\nIf we take into account this composite attitude of the Flemish mind we\nshall be less surprised at the remarkable evolution of a\npoet-philosopher whose creations seem at first blush to bear no\nresemblance to the outward complexion of his own age; who seems as far\nremoved temperamentally from his locality and time as were his lineal\nspiritual ancestors: the Dutchman Ruysbroeck, the Scandinavian\nSwedenborg, the German Novalis, and the American Emerson--and who in the\nzenith of his career stands forth as an ardent advocate of practical\naction while at the same time a firm believer in the transcendental.\n\nMaeterlinck's romantic antipathy towards the main drift of the age was a\nphenomenon which at the dawn of our century could be observed in a great\nnumber of superior intelligences. Those fugitives from the dun and\nsordid materialism of the day were likely to choose between two avenues\nof escape, according to their greater or lesser inner ruggedness. The\nmore aggressive type would engage in multiform warfare for the\nreconstruction of life on sounder principles; whereas the more\nmeditative professed a real or affected indifference to practical things\nand eschewed any participation in the world's struggle for progress. And\nof the quiescent rather than the insurgent variety of the romantic\ntemper Maurice Maeterlinck was the foremost exponent.\n\nThe \"romantic longing\" seems to have come into the world in the company\nof the Christian religion with which it shares its partly outspoken,\npartly implied repugnance for the battle of life. Romantic periods occur\nin the history of civilization whenever a sufficiently influential set\nof artistically minded persons have persuaded themselves that, in quite\na literal sense of the colloquial phrase, they \"have no use\" for the\nworld; a discovery which would still be true were it stated obversely.\nThe romantic world-view, thus fundamentally oriented by world-contempt,\nentails, at least in theory, the repudiation of all earthly\njoys--notably the joy of working--and the renouncement of all worldly\nambition; it scorns the cooperative, social disposition, invites the\nsoul to a progressive withdrawal into the inner ego, and ends in\ncomplete surrender to one sole aspiration: the search of the higher\nvision, the vision, that is, of things beyond their tangible reality. To\nsuch mystical constructions of the inner eye a certain group of German\nwriters who flourished in the beginning of the nineteenth century and\nwere known as the Romantics, darkly groped their way out of the\nconfining realities of their own time. The most modern spell of\nromanticism, the one through which our own generation was but yesterday\npassing, measures its difference from any previous romantic era by the\ndifference between earlier states of culture and our own. Life with us\nis conspicuously more assertive and aggressive in its social than in its\nindividual expressions, which was by no means always so, and unless the\nromantic predisposition adapted itself to this important change it could\nnot relate itself at all intimately to our interests. Our study of\nMaeterlinck should help us, therefore, to discover possibly in the new\nromantic tendency some practical and vital bearings.\n\nWe find that in the new romanticism esthetic and philosophical impulses\nare inextricably mixed. Hence the new movement is also playing an\nindispensable r\u00f4le in the modern re-foundation of art. For while acting\nas a wholesome offset to the so-called naturalism, in its firm refusal\nto limit inner life to the superficial realities, it at the same time\ncombines with naturalism into a complete recoiling, both of the\nintellect and the emotions, from any commonplace, or pusillanimous, or\nmechanical practices of artistry. This latter-day romanticism, moreover,\nnotwithstanding its sky-aspiring outstretch, is akin to naturalism in\nthat, after all, it keeps its roots firmly grounded in the earth; that\nis to say, it seeks for its ulterior sanctions not in realms high beyond\nthe self; rather it looks within for the \"blue flower\" of contentedness.\nAlready to the romantics of old the mystic road to happiness was not\nunknown. It is, for instance, pointed by Novalis: \"Inward leads the\nmysterious way. Within us or nowhere lies eternity with its worlds;\nwithin us or nowhere are the past and the future.\" Viewed separately\nfrom other elements of romanticism, this passion for retreating within\nthe central ego is commonly referred to as mysticism; it has a strong\nhold on many among the moderns, and Maurice Maeterlinck to be properly\nunderstood has to be understood as the poet _par excellence_ of modern\nmysticism. By virtue of this special office he deals mainly in concepts\nof the transcendental, which puzzles the ordinary person accustomed to\nperceive only material and ephemeral realities. Maeterlinck holds that\nnothing matters that is not eternal and that what keeps us from enjoying\nthe treasures of the universe is the hereditary resignation with which\nwe tarry in the gloomy prison of our senses. \"In reality, we live only\nfrom soul to soul, and we are gods who do not know each other.\"(5) It\nfollows from this metaphysical foundation of his art that instead of the\ngrosser terminology suitable to plain realities, Maeterlinck must depend\nupon a code of subtle messages in order to establish between himself and\nhis audience a line of spiritual communication. This makes it somewhat\ndifficult for people of cruder endowment to appreciate his meaning, a\ngrievance from which in the beginning many of them sought redress in\nfacile scoffing. Obtuse minds are prone to claim a right to fathom the\nprofound meanings of genius with the same ease with which they expect to\ncatch the meaning of a bill of fare or the daily stock market report.\n\n  (5) Maeterlinck, \"On Emerson.\"\n\n                   *       *       *       *       *\n\nIt must be confessed, however, that even those to whom Maeterlinck's\nsphere of thought is not so utterly sealed, enter it with a sense of\nmixed perplexity and apprehension. They feel themselves helplessly\nconducted through a world situated beyond the confines of their normal\nconsciousness, and in this strange world everything that comes to pass\nappears at first extremely impracticable and unreal. The action seems\n\"wholly dissevered from common sense and ordinary uses;\" the figures\nbehave otherwise than humans; the dialogue is \"poised on the edge of a\nprecipice of bathos.\" It is clear that works so far out of the common\nhave to be approached from the poet's own point of view. \"Let the reader\nmove his standpoint one inch nearer the popular standpoint,\" thus we are\nwarned by Mr. G.\u00a0K. Chesterton, \"and his attitude towards the poet will\nbe harsh, hostile, unconquerable mirth.\" There are some works that can\nbe appreciated for their good story, even if we fail to realize the\nauthor's moral attitude, let alone to grasp the deeper content of his\nwork. \"But if we take a play by Maeterlinck we shall find that unless we\ngrasp the particular fairy thread of thought the poet rather lazily\nflings to us, we cannot grasp anything whatever. Except from one extreme\npoetic point of view, the thing is not a play; it is not a bad play, it\nis a mass of clotted nonsense. One whole act describes the lovers going\nto look for a ring in a distant cave when they both know they have\ndropped it down the well. Seen from some secret window on some special\nside of the soul's turret, this might convey a sense of faerie futility\nin our human life. But it is quite obvious that unless it called forth\nthat one kind of sympathy, it would call forth nothing but laughter. In\nthe same play, the husband chases his wife with a drawn sword, the wife\nremarking at intervals, 'I am not gay.' Now there may really be an idea\nin this; the idea of human misfortune coming most cruelly upon the\nopportunism of innocence; that the lonely human heart says, like a child\nat a party, 'I am not enjoying myself as I thought I should.' But it is\nplain that unless one thinks of this idea, and of this idea only, the\nexpression is not in the least unsuccessful pathos,--it is very broad\nand highly successful farce!\"\n\nAnd so the atmosphere of Maeterlinck's plays is impregnated throughout\nwith oppressive mysteries, and until the key of these mysteries is found\nthere is very little meaning to the plays. Moreover, these mysteries, be\nthey never so stern and awe-inspiring, are irresistibly alluring. The\nreason is, they are our own mysteries that have somehow escaped our\ngrasp, and that we fain would recapture, because there dwells in every\nhuman breast a vague assent to the immortal truth of Goethe's assertion:\n\"The thrill of awe is man's best heritage.\"(6)\n\n  (6) \"_Das Schaudern ist der Menschheit bestes Teil._\"\n\nThe imaginative equipment of Maeterlinck's dramaturgy is rather limited\nand, on its face value, trite. In particular are his dramatis personae\ncreatures by no means calculated to overawe by some extraordinary\nweirdness or power. And yet we feel ourselves touched by an elemental\ndread and by an overwhelming sense of our human impotence in the\npresence of these figures who, without seeming supernatural, are\ncertainly not of common flesh and blood; they impress us as surpassingly\nstrange mainly because somehow they are instinct with a life\nfundamentally more real than the superficial reality we know. For they\nare the mediums and oracles of the fateful powers that stir human beings\ninto action.\n\nThe poet of mysticism, then, delves into the mystic sources of our\ndeeds, and makes us stand reverent with him before the unknowable forces\nby which we are controlled. Naturally he is obliged to shape his visions\nin dim outline. His aim is to shadow forth that which no naked eye can\nsee, and it may be said in passing that he attains this aim with a\nmastery and completeness incomparably beyond the dubious skill displayed\nmore recently by the grotesque gropings of the so-called futurist\nschool. Perhaps one true secret of the perturbing strangeness of\nMaeterlinck's figures lies in the fact that the basic principle of their\nlife, the one thoroughly vital element in them, if it does not sound too\nparadoxical to say so, is the idea of death. Maeterlinck's mood and\ntemper are fully in keeping with the religious dogma that life is but a\nshort dream--with Goethe he believes that \"all things transitory but as\nsymbols are sent,\" and apparently concurs in the creed voiced by one of\nArthur Schnitzler's characters,--that death is the only subject in life\nworthy of being pondered by the serious mind. \"From our death onwards,\"\nso he puts it somewhere, \"the adventure of the universe becomes our own\nadventure.\"\n\n                   *       *       *       *       *\n\nIt will be useful to have a bit of personal information concerning our\nauthor. He started his active career as a barrister; not by any means\nauspiciously, it seems, for already in his twenty-seventh year he laid\nthe toga aside. Experience had convinced him that in the forum there\nwere no laurels for him to pluck. The specific qualities that make for\nsuccess at the bar were conspicuously lacking in his make-up. Far from\nbeing eloquent, he has at all times been noted for an unparalleled\nproficiency in the art of self-defensive silence. He shuns banal\nconversation and the sterile distractions of promiscuous social\nintercourse, dreads the hubbub of the city, and has an intense dislike\nfor travel, to which he resorts only as a last means of escape from\ninterviewers, reporters, and admirers. Maeterlinck, it is seen, is\nanything but _multorum vir hominum_. In order to preserve intact his\nlove of humanity, he finds it expedient to live for the most part by\nhimself, away from the throng \"whose very plaudits give the heart a\npang;\" his fame has always been a source of annoyance to him. The only\ncompany he covets is that of the contemplative thinkers of bygone\ndays,--the mystics, gnostics, cabalists, neo-Platonists. Swedenborg and\nPlotinus are perhaps his greatest favorites. That the war has produced a\nmighty agitation in the habitual calm of the great Belgian\npoet-philosopher goes without saying. His love of justice no less than\nhis love of his country aroused every red corpuscle in his virile\npersonality to violent resentment against the invader. Since the war\nbroke out, however, he has published nothing besides a number of\nringingly eloquent and singularly pathetic articles and appeals,--so\nthat the character portrait derived from the body of his work has not at\nthis time lost its application to his personality.\n\nIn cast of mind, Maeterlinck is sombrously meditative, and he has been\nwise in framing his outer existence so that it would accord with his\nhabitual detachment. The greater part of his time used to be divided\nbetween his charming retreat at _Quatre Chemins_, near Grasse, and the\ngrand old abbey of St. Wandrille in Normandy, which he managed to snatch\nin the very nick of time from the tightening clutch of a manufacturing\nconcern. With the temperament of a hermit, he has been, nevertheless, a\nkeen observer of life, though one preferring to watch the motley\nspectacle from the aristocratic privacy of his box, sheltered, as it\nwere, from prying curiosity. Well on in middle age, he is still an\nenthusiastic out-of-doors man,--gardener, naturalist, pedestrian,\nwheelman, and motorist, and commands an extraordinary amount of special\nknowledge in a variety of sports and sciences. In \"The Double Garden\" he\ndiscusses the automobile with the authority of an expert watt-man and\nmechanician. In one of his other books he evinces an extraordinary\nerudition in all matters pertaining to the higher education of dogs; and\nhis work on \"The Life of the Bee\" passes him beyond question with high\nrank among \"thirty-third degree\" apiculturists.\n\nOne of the characteristics that seem to separate his books, especially\nthose of the earlier period, from the literary tendencies of his age, is\ntheir surprising inattention to present social struggles. His\nmetaphysical bias makes him dwell almost exclusively, and with great\nmoral and logical consistency, on aspects of life that are slightly\nconsidered by the majority of men yet which he regards as ulteriorly of\nsole importance.\n\nWhen men like Maeterlinck are encountered in the world of practical\naffairs, they are bound to impress us as odd, because of this inversion\nof the ordinary policies of behavior. But before classing them as\n\"cranks,\" we might well ask ourselves whether their appraisal of the\ncomponent values of life does not, after all, correspond better to their\ntrue relativity than does our own habitual evaluation. With the average\nsocial being, the transcendental bearing of a proposition is synonymous\nwith its practical unimportance. But in his essay on \"The Invisible\nGoodness\" Maeterlinck quite properly raises the question: \"Is visible\nlife alone of consequence, and are we made up only of things that can be\ngrasped and handled like pebbles in the road?\"\n\nThroughout his career Maeterlinck reveals himself in the double aspect\nof poet and philosopher. In the first period his philosophy, as has\nalready been amply hinted, is characterized chiefly by aversion from the\nexternalities of life, and by that tense introversion of the mind which\nforms the mystic's main avenue to the goal of knowledge. But if, in\norder to find the key to his tragedies and puppet plays, we go to the\nthirteen essays representing the earlier trend of his philosophy and\nissued in 1896 under the collective title, \"The Treasure of the Humble,\"\nwe discover easily that his cast of mysticism is very different from\nthat of his philosophic predecessors and teachers in the fourteenth and\nnineteenth centuries, in particular from the devotional mysticism of the\n\"Admirable\" John Ruysbroeck, and Friedrich von Hardenberg-Novalis.\nMaeterlinck does not strive after the so-called \"spiritual espousals,\"\nexpounded by the \"doctor ecstaticus,\" Ruysbroeck, in his celebrated\ntreatise where Christ is symbolized as the divine groom and Human Nature\nas the bride glowing with desire for union with God. Maeterlinck feels\ntoo modernly to make use of that ancient sensuous imagery. The main\nthesis of his mystical belief is that there are divine forces dormant in\nhuman nature; how to arouse and release them, constitutes the paramount\nproblem of human life. His doctrine is that a life not thus energized by\nits own latent divineness is, and must remain, humdrum and worthless. It\nwill at once be noticed that such a doctrine harmonizes thoroughly with\nthe romantic aspiration. Both mystic and romantic teach that, in the\nlast resort, the battlefield of our fate lies not out in the wide world\nbut that it is enclosed in the inner self, within the unknown quantity\nwhich we designate as our soul. The visible life, according to this\nmodern prophet of mysticism, obeys the invisible; happiness and\nunhappiness flow exclusively from the inner sources.\n\nMaeterlinck's speculations, despite their medieval provenience, have a\npractical orientation. He firmly believes that it is within the ability\nof mankind to raise some of the veils that cover life's central secret.\nIn unison with some other charitable students of society, he holds to\nthe faith that a more highly spiritualized era is dawning, and from the\nobserved indications he prognosticates a wider awakening of the\nsleepbound soul of man. And certainly some of the social manifestations\nthat appeared with cumulative force during the constructive period\nbefore the war were calculated to justify that faith. The revival of\ninterest in the metaphysical powers of man which expressed itself almost\nepidemically through such widely divergent cults as Theosophy and\nChristian Science, was indubitable proof of spiritual yearnings in the\nbroader masses of the people. And it had a practical counterpart in\ncivic tendencies and reforms that evidenced a great agitation of the\nsocial conscience. And even to-day, when the great majority feel that\nthe universal embroilment has caused civilized man to fall from his\nlaboriously achieved level, this sage in his lofty solitude feels the\nredeeming spiritual connotation of our great calamity. \"Humanity was\nready to rise above itself, to surpass all that it had hitherto\naccomplished. It has surpassed it.... Never before had nations been seen\nthat were able as a whole to understand that the happiness of each of\nthose who live in this time of trial is of no consequence compared with\nthe honor of those who live no more or the happiness of those who are\nnot yet alive. We stand on heights that had not been attained before.\"\n\nBut even for those many who find themselves unable to build very large\nhopes on the spiritual uplift of mankind through disaster, Maeterlinck's\nphilosophy is a wholesome tonic. In the essay on \"The Life Profound\" in\n\"The Treasure of the Humble,\" we are told: \"Every man must find for\nhimself in the low and unavoidable reality of common life his special\npossibility of a higher existence.\" The injunction, trite though it\nsound, articulates a moral very far from philistine. For it urges the\npursuit of the transcendental self through those feelings which another\nvery great idealist, Friedrich Schiller, describes in magnificent\nmetaphor as\n\n    ...\u00a0\"der dunklen Gef\u00fchle Gewalt,\n    die im Herzen wunderbar schliefen.\"\n\nIn the labyrinth of the subliminal consciousness there lurks, however, a\ngreat danger for the seeker after the hidden treasures: the paralyzing\neffect of fatalism upon the normal energies. Maeterlinck was seriously\nthreatened by this danger during his earlier period. How he eventually\ncontrived his liberation from the clutch of fatalism is not made\nentirely clear by the progress of his thought. At all events, an era of\ngreater intellectual freedom, which ultimately was to create him the\nundisputed captain of his soul and master of his fate, was soon to\narrive for him. It is heralded by another book of essays: \"Wisdom and\nDestiny.\" But, as has been stated, we may in his case hardly hope to\ntrace the precise route traveled by the mind between the points of\ndeparture and arrival.\n\n                   *       *       *       *       *\n\nSo closely are the vital convictions in this truthful writer linked with\nthe artistic traits of his work that without some grasp of his\nmetaphysics even the technical peculiarities of his plays cannot be\nfully appreciated. To the mystic temper of mind, all life is secretly\npregnant with great meaning, so that none of its phenomena can be deemed\ninconsequential. Thus, while Maeterlinck is a poet greatly preoccupied\nwith spiritual matters yet nothing to him is more wonderful and worthy\nof attention than the bare facts and processes of living. Real life,\njust like the theatre which purports to represent it, manipulates a\nmultiform assortment of stage effects, now coarse and obvious and\nclaptrap, now refined and esoteric, to suit the diversified taste and\ncapacity of the patrons. To the cultured esthetic sense the tragical\ntendency carries more meaning than the catastrophic finale; our author\naccordingly scorns, and perhaps inordinately, whatsoever may appear as\nmerely adventitious in the action of plays. \"What can be told,\" he\nexclaims, \"by beings who are possessed of a fixed idea and have no time\nto live because they have to kill off a rival or a mistress?\" The\ninternalized action in his plays is all of one piece with the profound\nphilosophical conviction that the inner life alone matters; that\nconsequently the small and unnoticed events are more worthy of attention\nthan the sensational, cataclysmic moments. \"Why wait ye,\" he asks in\nthat wonderful rhapsody on \"Silence\"(7) \"for Heaven to open at the\nstrike of the thunderbolt? Ye should attend upon the blessed hours when\nit silently opens--and it is incessantly opening.\"\n\n  (7) \"The Treasure of the Humble.\"\n\nHis purpose, then, is to reveal the working of hidden forces in their\nintricate and inseparable connection with external events; and in order\nthat the _vie int\u00e9rieure_ might have the right of way, drama in his\npractice emancipates itself very far from the traditional realistic\nmethods. \"Poetry,\" he maintains, \"has no other purpose than to keep open\nthe great roads that lead from the visible to the invisible.\" To be\nsure, this definition postulates, rather audaciously, a widespread\nspiritual susceptibility. But in Maeterlinck's optimistic anthropology\nno human being is spiritually so deadened as to be forever out of all\ncommunication with the things that are divine and infinite. He fully\nrealizes, withal, that for the great mass of men there exists no\nintellectual approach to the truly significant problems of life. It is\nrather through our emotional capacity that our spiritual experience\nbrings us into touch with the final verities. Anyway, the poet of\nmysticism appeals from the _impasse_ of pure reasoning to the voice of\nthe inner oracles. But how to detect in the deepest recesses of the soul\nthe echoes of universal life and give outward resonance to their faint\nreverberations? That is the artistic, and largely technical, side of the\nproblem.\n\nObvious it is that if the beholder's collaboration in the difficult\nenterprise is to be secured, his imagination has to be stirred to a\nsuper-normal degree. Once a dramatist has succeeded in stimulating the\nimaginative activity, he can dispense with a mass of descriptive detail.\nBut he must comply with two irremissible technical demands. In the first\nplace, the \"_vie int\u00e9rieure_\" calls forth a _dialogue int\u00e9rieur_; an\nesoteric language, I would say, contrived predominantly for the\n\"expressional\" functions of speech, as differenced from its\n\"impressional\" purposes. Under Swedenborg's fanciful theory of\n\"correspondences\" the literal meaning of a word is merely a sort of\nprotective husk for its secret spiritual kernel. It is this inner,\nessential meaning that Maeterlinck's dialogue attempts to set free. By a\nfairly simple and consistent code of intimations the underlying meaning\nof the colloquy is laid bare and a basis created for a more fundamental\nunderstanding of the dramatic transactions. Maeterlinck going, at first,\nto undue lengths in this endeavor, exposed the diction of his dramas to\nmuch cheap ridicule. The extravagant use of repetition, in particular,\nmade him a mark for facile burlesque. The words of the Queen in\n_Princesse Maleine_: \"_Mais ne r\u00e9petez pas toujours ce que l'on dit_,\"\nwere sarcastically turned against the poet himself.\n\nAs a result of the extreme simplicity of his dialogue, Maeterlinck was\nreproached with having invented the \"monosyllabic theatre,\" the \"theatre\nwithout words,\" and with having perpetrated a surrogate sort of drama, a\nhybrid between libretto and pantomime.\n\nThe fact, however, is, his characters speak a language which, far from\nbeing absurd, as it was at first thought to be by many of his readers,\nis instinct with life and quite true to life--to life, that is, as made\narticulate in the intense privacy of dreams, or hallucinations, or\nmoments of excessive emotional perturbation.\n\nThe other principal requisite for the attainment of the inner dramatic\nvitalness in drama is a pervasive atmospheric mood, a sustained\n_Stimmung_. This, in the case of Maeterlinck, is brought about by the\ncombined employment of familiar and original artistic devices.\n\nThe grave and melancholy mood that so deeply impregnates the work of\nMaeterlinck is tinged in the earlier stage, as has been pointed out,\nwith the sombre coloring of fatalism. In the first few books, in\nparticular, there hovers a brooding sense of terror and an undefinable\nfeeling of desolation. Through _Serres Chaudes_ (\"Hot Houses\"), his\nfirst published book, (1889), there runs a tenor of weariness, of ideal\nyearnings overshadowed by the hopelessness of circumstances. Even in\nthis collection of poems, where so much less necessity exists for a\nunity of mood than in the plays, Maeterlinck's predilection for scenic\neffects suggestive of weirdness and superstitious fear became apparent\nin the recurrent choice of sombre scenic motifs: oppressive nocturnal\nsilence,--a stagnant sheet of water,--moonlight filtered through green\nwindows, etc. The diction, too, through the incessant use of terms like\n_morne_, _las_, _p\u00e2le_, _d\u00e9sire_, _ennui_, _ti\u00e8de_, _indolent_,\n_malade_, exhales as it were a lazy resignation. Temporarily, then, the\nfatalistic strain is uppermost both in the philosophy and the poetry of\nthe rising young author; and to make matters worse, his is the fatalism\nof pessimistic despair: Fate is forsworn against man. The objective\npoint of life is death. We constantly receive warnings from within, but\nthe voices are not unequivocal and emphatic enough to save us from\nourselves.\n\nProbing the abysses of his subliminal self, the mystic may sense, along\nwith the diviner promptings of the heart, the lurking demons that\nundermine happiness,--\"the malignant powers,\"--again quoting\nSchiller--\"whom no man's craft can make familiar\"--that element in human\nnature which in truth makes man \"his own worst enemy.\" It is a search\nwhich at this stage of his development Maeterlinck, as a mystic, cannot\nbring himself to relinquish, even though, pessimistically, he\nanticipates that which he most dreads to find; in this way, fatalism and\npessimism act as insuperable barriers against his artistic\nself-assertion. His fixed frame of mind confines him to the\nrepresentation of but one elemental instinct, namely, that of fear. The\nrustic in the German fairy tale who sallied forth to learn how to\nshudder,--_gruseln_,--would have mastered the art to his complete\nsatisfaction if favored with a performance or two of such plays as\n\"Princess Maleine,\" \"The Intruder,\" or \"The Sightless.\" Perhaps no other\ndramatist has ever commanded a similarly well-equipped arsenal of\nthrills and terrible foreshadowings. The commonest objects are fraught\nwith ominous forebodings: a white gown lying on a _prie-dieu_, a curtain\nsuddenly set swaying by a puff of air, the melancholy soughing of a\nclump of trees,--the simplest articles of daily use are converted into\nawful symbols that make us shiver by their whisperings of impending\ndoom.\n\nNor in the earlier products of Maeterlinck are the cruder practices of\nmelodrama scorned or spared,--the crash and flash of thunder and\nlightning, the clang of bells and clatter of chains, the livid light and\nghastly shadows, the howling hurricane, the ominous croaking of ravens\namid nocturnal solitude, trees illumined by the fiery eyes of owls, bats\nwhirring portentously through the gloom,--so many harbingers of dread\nand death. And the prophetic import of these tokens and their sort is\nreinforced by repeated assertions from the persons in the action that\nnever before has anything like this been known to occur. To such a\nfearsome state are we wrought up by all this uncanny apparatus that at\nthe critical moment a well calculated knock at the door is sufficient to\nmake our flesh creep and our hair stand on end.\n\nThus, the _vie int\u00e9rieure_ would seem to prerequire for its\nexternalization a completely furnished chamber of horrors. And when it\nis added that the scene of the action is by preference a lonely\nchurchyard or a haunted old mansion, a crypt, a cavern, a silent forest\nor a solitary tower, it is easy to understand why plays like \"Princess\nMaleine\" could be classed by superficial and unfriendly critics with the\ngruesome ebullitions of that fantastic quasi-literary occupation to\nwhich we owe a well known variety of \"water-front\" drama and, in\nfiction, the \"shilling shocker.\" Their immeasurably greater\npsychological refinement could not save them later on from condemnation\nat the hands of their own maker. And yet they are not without very great\nartistic merits. Octave Mirbeau, in his habitual enthusiasm for the\nout-of-the-ordinary, hailed Maeterlinck, on the strength of \"Princess\nMaleine,\" as the Belgian Shakespeare, evidently because Maeterlinck\nderived some of his motifs from \"Hamlet\": mainly the churchyard scene,\nand Prince Hjalmar's defiance of the queen, as well as his general want\nof decision. As a matter of fact, Maeterlinck has profoundly studied,\nnot Shakespeare alone, but the minor Elizabethans as well. He has made\nan admirable translation of \"Macbeth.\" Early in his career he even\ntranslated one of John Ford's Plays, \"'Tis Pity She's a Whore,\" one of\nthe coarsest works ever written for the stage, but to which he was\nattracted by the intrinsic human interest that far outweighs its\noffensiveness. As for any real kinship of Maeterlinck with Shakespeare,\nthe resemblance between the two is slight. They differ philosophically\nin the fundamental frame of mind, ethically in the outlook upon life,\ndramaturgically in the value attached to external action, and\nhumanly,--much to the disadvantage of the Belgian,--in their sense of\nhumor. For unfortunately it has to be confessed that this supreme gift\nof the gods has been very sparingly dispensed to Maeterlinck.\nAltogether, whether or no he is to be counted among the disciples of\nShakespeare, his works show no great dependence on the master. With far\nbetter reason might he be called a debtor to Germanic folklore,\nespecially in its fantastic elements.\n\nA German fairy world it is to which we are transported by Maeterlinck's\nfirst dramatic attempt, \"Princess Maleine,\" (1889), a play refashioned\nafter Grimm's tale of the Maid Maleen; only that in the play all the\nprincipals come to a harrowing end and that in it an esoteric meaning\nlies concealed underneath the primitive plot. The action, symbolically\ninterpreted, illustrates the fatalist's doctrine that man is nothing but\na toy in the hands of dark and dangerous powers. Practical wisdom does\nnot help us to discern the working of these powers until it is too late.\nNeither can we divine their presence, for the prophetic apprehension of\nthe future resides not in the expert and proficient, but rather in the\nhelpless or decrepit,--the blind, the feeble-minded, and the stricken in\nyears, or again in young children and in dumb animals. Take the scene in\n\"Princess Maleine\" where the murderers, having invaded the chamber, lie\nthere in wait, with bated breath. In the corridor outside, people are\nunconcernedly passing to and fro, while the only creatures who,\nintuitively, sense the danger, are the little Prince and a dog that\nkeeps anxiously scraping at the door.\n\nIn _L'Intruse_ (\"The Intruder\"), (1890), a one-act play on a theme which\nis collaterally developed later on in _Les Aveugles_ (\"The Sightless\"),\nand in _L'Int\u00e9rieur_ (\"Home\"), the arriving disaster that cannot be shut\nout by bolts or bars announces itself only to the clairvoyant sense of a\nblind old man. The household gathered around the table is placidly\nwaiting for the doctor. Only the blind grandfather is anxious and\nheavy-laden because he alone knows that Death is entering the house, he\nalone can feel his daughter's life withering away under the breath of\nthe King of Terror: the sightless have a keener sensitiveness than the\nseeing for what is screened from the physical eye.\n\nIt would hardly be possible to name within the whole range of dramatic\nliterature another work so thoroughly pervaded with the chilling horror\nof approaching calamity. The talk at the table is of the most\ncommonplace,--that the door will not shut properly, and they must send\nfor the carpenter to-morrow. But from the mechanism of the environment\nthere comes cumulative and incremental warning that something\nextraordinary and fatal is about to happen. The wind rises, the trees\nshiver, the nightingales break off their singing, the fishes in the pond\ngrow restive, the dogs cower in fear,--an unseen Presence walks through\nthe garden. Then the clanging of a scythe is heard. A cold current of\nair rushes into the room. Nearer and nearer come the steps. The\ngrandfather insists that a stranger has seated himself in the midst of\nthe family. The lamp goes out. The bell strikes midnight. The old man is\nsure that somebody is rising from the table. Then suddenly the baby\nwhose voice has never been heard starts crying. Through an inner door\nsteps a deaconess silently crossing herself: the mother of the house is\ndead.\n\nThese incidents in themselves are not necessarily miraculous. There are\nnone of them but might be accounted for on perfectly natural grounds. In\nfact, very plausible explanations do offer themselves for the weirdest\nthings that come to pass. So, especially, it was a real, ordinary mower\nthat chanced to whet his scythe; yet the apparition of the Old Reaper in\nperson could not cause the chilling consternation produced by this\ntrivial circumstance coming as it does as the climax of a succession of\ncommonplace happenings exaggerated and distorted by a fear-haunted\nimagination. To produce an effect like that upon an audience whose\ncredulity refuses to be put to any undue strain is a victorious proof of\nprime artistic ability.\n\n_Les Aveugles_ (\"The Sightless\"), (1891), is pitched in the same\npsychological key. The atmosphere is surcharged with unearthly\napprehension. A dreary twilight--in the midst of a thick forest--on a\nlonely island; twelve blind people fretting about the absence of their\nguardian. He is gone to find a way out of the woods--what can have\nbecome of him? From moment to moment the deserted, helpless band grows\nmore fearstricken. The slightest sound becomes the carrier of evil\nforebodings: the rustling of the foliage, the flapping of a bird's\nwings, the swelling roar of the nearby sea in its dash against the\nshore. The bell strikes twelve--they wonder is it noon or night? Then\nquestions, eager and calamitous, pass in whispers among them: Has the\nleader lost his way? Will he never come back? Has the dam burst apart\nand will they all be swallowed by the ocean? The pathos is greatly\nheightened by an extremely delicate yet sure individuation of the\nfigures, as when at the mention of Heaven those not sightless from birth\nraise their countenance to the sky. And where in the meanwhile is the\nlost leader? He is seated right in their midst, but smitten by death.\nThey learn it at last through the actions of the dog; besides whom--in\nstriking parallel to \"Princess Maleine\"--the only other creature able to\nsee is a little child. The horror-stricken unfortunates realize that\nthey can never get home, and that they must perish in the woods.\n\nIn _Les Sept Princesses_ (\"The Seven Princesses\"), (1891), although it\nis one of Maeterlinck's minor achievements, some of the qualities that\nare common to all his work become peculiarly manifest. This is\nparticularly true of the skill shown in conveying the feeling of the\nstory by means of suitable scenic devices. Most of his plays depend to a\nconsiderable degree for their dark and heavy nimbus of unreality upon a\nstudied combination of paraphernalia in themselves neither numerous nor\nfar-sought. In fact, the resulting scenic repertory, too, is markedly\nlimited: a weird forest, a deserted castle with marble staircase and\ndreamy moonlit terrace, a tower with vaulted dungeons, a dismal corridor\nflanked by impenetrable chambers, a lighted interior viewed from the\ngarden, a landscape bodefully cr\u00eaped with twilight--the list nearly\nexhausts his store of \"sets.\"\n\nThe works mentioned so far are hardly more than able exercises\npreparatory for the ampler and more finished products which were to\nsucceed them. Yet they represent signal steps in the evolution of a new\ndramatic style, designed, as has already been intimated, to give\npalpable form to emotional data descried in moments anterior not only to\narticulation but even to consciousness itself; and for this reason, the\nplane of the dramatic action lies deep below the surface of life, down\nin the inner tabernacle where the mystic looks for the hidden destinies.\nIn his style, Maeterlinck had gradually developed an unprecedented\ncapacity for bringing to light the secret agencies of fate. A portion of\nthe instructed public had already learned to listen in his writings for\nthe finer reverberations that swing in the wake of the uttered phrase,\nto heed the slightest hints and allusions in the text, to overlook no\nglance or gesture that might betray the mind of the acting characters.\nIt is true that art to be great must be plain, but that does not mean\nthat the sole test of great art is the response of the simple and\napathetic.\n\nIn Maeterlinck's first masterpiece, _P\u00e9ll\u00e9as et M\u00e9lisande_, (1892), the\nmotives again are drawn up from the lower regions of consciousness; once\nmore the plot is born of a gloomy fancy, and the darkling mood hovering\nover scene and action attests the persistence of fatalism in the poet.\nThe theory of old King Arkel, the spokesman of the author's personal\nphilosophy, is that one should not seek to be active; one should ever\nwait on the threshold of Fate. Even the younger people in the play are\ninfected by the morbid doctrine of an inevitable necessity for all\nthings that happen to them: \"We do not go where we would go. We do not\ndo that which we would do.\" Perhaps, however, these beliefs are here\nenounced for the last time with the author's assent or acquiescence.\n\nIn artistic merit \"P\u00e9ll\u00e9as and M\u00e9lisande\" marks a nearer approach to\nmastery, once the integral peculiarities of the form and method have\nbeen granted. Despite a noticeable lack of force, directness, and\nplasticity in the characterization, the _vie int\u00e9rieure_ is most\nconvincingly expressed. In one of the finest scenes of the play we see\nthe principals at night gazing out upon a measureless expanse of water\ndotted with scattered lights. The atmosphere is permeated with a\nreticent yearning of love. The two young creatures, gentle, shy, their\nsouls tinged with melancholy, are drawn towards one another by an\nineluctable mutual attraction. Yet, though their hearts are filled to\noverflowing, not a word of affection is uttered. Their love reveals\nitself to us even as to themselves, without a loud and jarring\ndeclaration, through its very speechlessness, as it were. The situation\nwell bears out the _roi sage_ in _Alladine et Palomides_: \"There is a\nmoment when souls touch one another and know everything without a need\nof our opening the lips.\" There are still other scenes in this play so\ntense with emotion that words would be intrusive and dissonant. There is\nthat lovely picture of M\u00e9lisande at the window; P\u00e9ll\u00e9as cannot reach up\nto her hand, but is satisfied to feel her loosened hair about his face.\nIt is a question whether even that immortal love duet in \"Romeo and\nJuliet\" casts a poetic spell more enchanting than this. At another\nmoment in the drama, we behold the lovers in Maeterlinck's beloved\nhalf-light, softly weeping as they stare with speechless rapture into\nthe flames. And not until the final parting does any word of love pass\ntheir lips. In another part of the play Goland, M\u00e9lisande's aging\nhusband, who suspects his young stepbrother, P\u00e9ll\u00e9as, of loving\nM\u00e9lisande, conducts him to an underground chamber. We are not told why\nhe has brought him there, and why he has led him to the brink of the\npitfall from which there mounts a smell of death. If it be a heinous\ndeed he is brooding, why does he pause in its execution? His terrible\nstruggle does not reveal itself through speech, yet it is eloquently\nexpressed in the wildness of his looks, the trembling of his voice, and\nthe sudden anguished outcry: \"P\u00e9ll\u00e9as! P\u00e9ll\u00e9as!\"\n\nEvidently Maeterlinck completely achieves the very purpose to which the\nso-called Futurists think they must sacrifice all traditional\nconceptions of Art; and achieves it without any brutal stripping and\nskinning of the poetic subject, without the hideous exhibition of its\n_disjecta membra_, and above all, without that implied disqualification\nfor the higher artistic mission which alone could induce a man to limit\nhis service to the dishing-up of chunks and collops, \"cubic\" or\namorphous.\n\nIn recognition of a certain tendency towards mannerism that lay in his\ntechnique, Maeterlinck, in a spirit of self-persiflage, labeled the book\nof one-act plays which he next published, (1894), _Trois Petits Drames\npour Marionettes_ (\"Three Little Puppet Plays\"). They are entitled,\nseverally: _Alladine et Palomides_, _Int\u00e9rieur_, and _La Mort de\nTintagiles_. While in motifs and materials as well as in the principal\npoints of style these playlets present a sort of epitome of his artistic\nprogression up to date, they also display some new and significant\nqualities. Of the three the first named is most replete with suggestive\nsymbolism and at the same time most remindful of the older plays,\nespecially of \"P\u00e9ll\u00e9as and M\u00e9lisande.\" King Ablamore is in character and\ndemeanor clearly a counterpart of King Arkel. To be sure he makes a\ntemporary stand against the might of Fate, but his resistance is meek\nand futile, and his wisdom culminates in the same old fatalistic\nformula: \"_Je sais qu'on ne fait pas ce que l'on voudrait faire._\"\n\n_L'Int\u00e9rieur_ (\"Home\") handles a theme almost identical with that of\n_L'Intruse_: Life and Death separated only by a thin pane of glass,--the\nsudden advent of affliction from a cloudless sky. In this little tragedy\na family scene, enacted in \"dumb show,\" is watched from the outside. The\nplay is without suspense in the customary use of the term, since after\nthe first whispered conversation between the bringers of the fateful\ntidings the audience is fully aware of the whole story:--the daughter of\nthe house, for whose return the little group is waiting, has been found\ndead in the river. The quiescent mood is sustained to the end; no great\noutburst of lamentation; the curtain drops the instant the news has been\nconveyed. But the poignancy of the tragic strain is only enhanced by the\nrepression of an exciting climax.\n\n\"The Death of Tintagiles\" repeats in a still more harrowing form the\nfearful predicament of a helpless child treated with so much dramatic\ntension in Maeterlinck's first tragedy. Again, as in \"Princess Maleine,\"\nthe action of this dramolet attains its high point in a scene where\nmurderous treachery is about to spring the trap set for an innocent\nyoung prince. Intuitively he senses the approach of death, and in vain\nbeats his little fists against the door that imprisons him. The\nsituation is rendered more piteous even than in the earlier treatment of\nthe motif, because the door which bars his escape also prevents his\nfaithful sister Ygraine from coming to the rescue.\n\nWe have observed in all the plays so far a marked simplicity of\nconstruction. _Aglavaine et Selysette_, (1896), denotes a still further\nsimplification. Here the scenic apparatus is reduced to the very\nminimum, and the psychological premises are correspondingly plain. The\nstory presents a \"triangular\" love entanglement strangely free from the\nsensual ingredient; two women dream of sharing, in all purity, one\nlover--and the dream ends for one of them in heroic self-sacrifice\nbrought to secure the happiness of the rival. However, more noteworthy\nthan the structure of the plot is the fact that the philosophic current\nflowing through it has perceptibly altered its habitual direction. The\nspiritual tendency is felt to be turning in its course, and even though\nfatalism still holds the rule, with slowly relaxing grip, yet a changed\nethical outlook is manifest. Also, this play for the first time\nproclaims, though in no vociferous manner, the duty of the individual\ntoward himself, the duty so emphatically proclaimed by two of\nMaeterlinck's greatest teachers, Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henrik Ibsen.\n\n                   *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe inner philosophic conflict was but of short duration. In 1898 _La\nSagesse et La Destin\u00e9e_ (\"Wisdom and Destiny\") saw the light. The\nmetaphor might be taken in a meaning higher and more precise than the\ncustomary, for, coming to this book from those that preceded is indeed\nlike emerging from some dark and dismal cave into the warm and cheering\nlight of the sun. \"Wisdom and Destiny\" is a collection of essays and\naphorisms which stands to this second phase of Maeterlinck's dramaturgy\nin a relation closely analogous to that existing between \"The Treasure\nof the Humble\" and the works heretofore surveyed. Without amounting to a\nwholesale recantation of the idea that is central in the earlier set of\nessays, the message of the newer set is of a very different kind. The\nauthor of \"Wisdom and Destiny\" has not changed his view touching the\nsuperiority of the intuitional function over the intellectual. The\nsignificant difference between the old belief and the new consists\nsimply in this: the latent force of life is no longer imagined as an\nantagonistic agency; rather it is conceived as a benign energy that\nmakes for a serene acceptance of the world that is. Of this turn in the\noutlook, the philosophic affirmation of life and the consent of the will\nto subserve the business of living are the salutary concomitants.\nWisdom, in expanding, has burst the prison of fatalism and given freedom\nto vision. The world, beheld in the light of this emancipation, is not\nto be shunned by the wise man. Let Fortune bring what she will, he can\nstrip his afflictions of their terrors by transmuting them into higher\nknowledge. Therefore, pain and suffering need not be feared and shirked;\nthey may even be hailed with satisfaction, for, as is paradoxically\nsuggested in _Aglavaine et Selysette_, they help man \"_\u00eatre heureux en\ndevenant plus triste_,\"--to be happy in becoming sadder. The poet, who\ntill now had clung to the conviction that there can be no happy fate,\nthat all our destinies are guided by unlucky stars, now on the contrary\npersuades us to consider how even calamity may be refined in the medium\nof wisdom in such fashion as to become an asset of life, and warns us\nagainst recoiling in spirit from any reverse of our fortunes. He holds\nthat blows and sorrows cannot undo the sage. Fate has no weapons save\nthose we supply, and \"wise is he for whom even the evil must feed the\npyre of love.\" In fine, Fate obeys him who dares to command it. After\nall, then, man has a right to appoint himself the captain of his soul,\nthe master of his fate.\n\nYet, for all that, the author of \"Wisdom and Destiny\" should not be\nregarded as the partizan and apologist of sadness for the sake of\nwisdom. If sorrow be a rich mine of satisfaction, joy is by far the\nricher mine. This new outlook becomes more and more optimistic because\nof the increasing faculty of such a philosophy to extract from the mixed\nofferings of life a more near-at-hand happiness than sufferings can\npossibly afford; not perchance that perpetual grinning merriment over\nthe comicality of the passing spectacle which with so many passes for a\n\"sense of humor,\" but rather a calm and serious realization of what is\nlastingly beautiful, good, and true. A person's attainment of this\nbeatitude imposes on him the clear duty of helping others to rise to a\nsimilar exalted level of existence. And this duty Maeterlinck seeks to\ndischarge by proclaiming in jubilant accents the concrete reality of\nhappiness. _L'Oiseau Bleu_ (\"The Blue Bird\"), above all other works,\nillustrates the fact that human lives suffer not so much for the lack of\nhappiness as for the want of being clearly conscious of the happiness\nthey possess. It is seen that the seed of optimism in \"The Treasure of\nthe Humble\" has sprouted and spread out, and at last triumphantly shot\nforth through the overlaying fatalism. The newly converted, hence all\nthe more thoroughgoing, optimist, believing that counsel and consolation\ncan come only from those who trust in the regenerative power of hope,\nthrows himself into a mental attitude akin to that of the Christian\nScientist, and confidently proceeds to cure the ills of human kind by a\ncategorical denial of their existence. Or perhaps it would be more just\nto say of Maeterlinck's latter-day outlook, the serenity of which even\nthe frightful experience of the present time has failed to destroy, that\ninstead of peremptorily negating evil, he merely denies its supremacy.\nAll about him he perceives in the midst of the worst wrongs and evils\nmany fertile germs of righteousness; vice itself seems to distil its own\nantitoxin.\n\nTogether with Maeterlinck's optimistic strain, his individualism gains\nan unexpected emphasis. \"Before one exists for others, one must exist\nfor one's self. The egoism of a strong and clear-sighted soul is of a\nmore beneficent effect than all the devotion of a blind and feeble\nsoul.\" Here we have a promulgation identical in gist with Emerson's\nunqualified declaration of moral independence when he says: \"Whoso would\nbe a man must be a nonconformist. He who would gather immortal palms\nmust not be hindered by the name of goodness, but must explore if it be\ngoodness. Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind.\nNo law can be sacred to me but that of my nature.\"(8)\n\n  (8) \"Self-Reliance.\"\n\nHis attitude of countenancing the positive joys of living causes\nMaeterlinck in his later career to reverse his former judgment, and to\ninveigh, much in the manner of Nietzsche, against the \"parasitical\nvirtues.\" \"Certain notions about resignation and self-sacrifice sap the\nfinest moral forces of mankind more thoroughly than do great vices and\neven crimes. The alleged triumphs over the flesh are in most cases only\ncomplete defeats of life.\" When to such rebellious sentiments is joined\nan explicit warning against the seductions and intimidations held out by\nthe official religions--their sugar plums and dog whips, as Maeterlinck\nputs it--one can only wonder how his writings escaped as long as they\ndid the attention of the authorities that swing the power of imprimatur\nand anathema.\n\nMaeterlinck may not be classed unreservedly as a radical individualist.\nFor whereas a philosophy like that of Nietzsche takes no account of the\n\"much-too-many,\" who according to that great fantasist do not interest\nanybody except the statistician and the devil, Maeterlinck realizes the\nsupreme importance of the great mass as the ordained transmitters of\ncivilization. The gulf between aristocratic subjectivism, devoted\nsingle-mindedly to the ruthless enforcement of self-interest, and, on\nthe other hand, a self-forgetful social enthusiasm, is bridged in\nMaeterlinck by an extremely strong instinct for justice and, moreover,\nby his firm belief--at least for the time being--that the same strong\ninstinct exists universally as a specific trait of human nature. By such\na philosophy Justice, then, is discerned not as a supra-natural\nfunction, but as a function of human nature as distinguished from nature\nat large. The restriction is made necessary by our knowledge of the\nobservable operations of nature. In particular would the principle of\nheredity seem to argue against the reign of justice in the\nadministration of human destinies, inasmuch as we find ourselves quite\nunable to recognize in the apportionment of pleasure and pain anything\nlike a due ratio of merit. And yet Maeterlinck realizes that perhaps\nnature measures life with a larger standard than the individual's short\nspan of existence, and warns us in his essay on \"Justice\" not to indulge\nour self-conceit in a specious emulation of ways that are utterly beyond\nour comprehension. After all, then, our poet-philosopher succeeds _foro\nconscienti\u00e6_ in reconciling his cult of self with devotion to the common\ninterest. Morality, in that essay, is defined as the co-ordination of\npersonal desire to the task assigned by nature to the race. And is it\nnot true that a contrary, that is, ascetic concept of morality reduces\nitself to absurdity through its antagonism to that primal human instinct\nthat makes for the continuity of life?\n\n                   *       *       *       *       *\n\nFrom the compromise effected between two fairly opposite ethical\nprinciples, there emerges in the works of this period something akin to\na socialistic tendency. It is organically related to the mystical\nprepossession of the author's manner of thinking. Maeterlinck gratefully\nacknowledges that by the search-light of science the uppermost layers of\ndarkness have been dispelled; but realizes also that the deep-seated\ncentral enigma still remains in darkness: as much as ever are the\nprimordial causes sealed against a glimpse of finite knowledge. We have\nchanged the names, not the problems. Instead of God, Providence, or\nFate, we say Nature, Selection, and Heredity. But in reality do we know\nmore concerning Life than did our ancestors?\n\nWhat, then, questions the persevering pursuer of the final verities,\nshall we do in order that we may press nearer to Truth? May we not\nperchance steep our souls in light that flows from another source than\nscience? And what purer light is there to illumine us than the halo\nsurrounding a contented worker performing his task, not under coercion,\nbut from a voluntary, or it may be instinctive, submission to the law of\nlife? If such subordination of self constitutes the basis of rational\nliving, we shall do well to study its workings on a lowlier and less\ncomplicated plane than the human; for instance, in the behavior of the\ncreature that is proverbial for its unflagging industry. For this\nindustry is not motivated by immediate or selfish wants; it springs from\ninstinctive self-dedication to the common cause. Some people expected\nfrom _La Vie des Abeilles_ (\"The Life of the Bee\"), (1901), much\nbrand-new information about matters of apiculture. But in spite of his\ntwenty-five years' experience, Maeterlinck had no startling discoveries\nto convey to his fellow-hivers. His book on bees is not primarily the\nresult of a specialist's investigations but a poetical record of the\nobservations made by a mind at once romantic and philosophical and\nstrongly attracted to the study of this particular form of community\nlife, because by its organization on a miniature scale it spreads before\nthe student of society a synoptic view of human affairs.\n\nOf the great change that had by now taken place in his conception of\nlife, Maeterlinck was fully cognizant, and made no concealment of it. In\nthe essay on \"Justice\" he says, with reference to his earlier dramas:\n\"The motive of these little plays was the fear of the Unknown by which\nwe are constantly surrounded,\" and passes on to describe his religious\ntemper as a sort of compound of the Christian idea of God with the\nantique idea of Fate, immersed in the profound gloom of hopeless\nmystery. \"The Unknown took chiefly the aspect of a power, itself but\nblindly groping in the dark, yet disposing with inexorable unfeelingness\nof the fates of men.\"\n\nEvidently those same plays are passed once more in self-critical review\nin _Ardiane et Barbe-Bleue_ (\"Ardiane and Blue-Beard\"), (1899),\nnotwithstanding the fact that the author disclaims any philosophic\npurpose and presents his work as a mere libretto. We cannot regard it as\npurely accidental that of Blue-Beard's terror-stricken wives,\nfour,--Selysette, M\u00e9lisande, Ygraine, Alladine,--bear the names of\nearlier heroines, and, besides, that each of these retains with the name\nalso the character of her namesake. The symbolism is too transparent.\nThe child-wives of the cruel knight, forever in a state of trembling\nfear, are too passive to extricate themselves from their fate, whereas\nArdiane succeeds instantly in breaking her captivity, because she has\nthe spirit and strength to shatter the window and let in the light and\nair. The contrast between her resolute personality and those five inert\nbundles of misery undoubtedly connotes the difference between the\nauthor's paralyzing fatalism in the past and his present dynamic\noptimism.\n\nA like contrast between dejection and resilience would be brought to\nlight by a comparison of the twelve lyric poems, _Douze Chansons_,\n(1897), with the _Serres Chaudes_. The mood is still greatly subdued;\nthe new poetry is by no means free from sadness and a strain of\nresignation. But the half-stifled despair that cries out from the older\nbook returns no dissonant echo in the new.\n\nEven his dramatic technique comes under the sway of Maeterlinck's\naltered view of the world. The far freer use of exciting and eventful\naction testifies to increased elasticity and force. This is a marked\nfeature of _Soeur Beatrice_ (\"Sister Beatrice\"), (1900), a miracle play\nfounded on the old story about the recreant nun who, broken from sin and\nmisery, returns to the cloister and finds that during the many years of\nher absence her part and person have been carried out by the Holy Virgin\nherself.\n\nEqually, the three other dramas of this epoch--_Aglavaine et Selysette_,\n_Monna Vanna_, and _Joyzelle_--are highly available for scenic\nenactment. Of the three, _Monna Vanna_, (1902), in particular is\nconspicuous for a wholly unexpected aptitude of characterization, and\nfor the unsurpassed intensity of its situations, which in this isolated\ncase are not cast in a single mood as in the other plays, but are\nindividually distinct and full of dramatic progress, whereas everywhere\nelse the action moves rather sluggishly.\n\n\"Monna Vanna\" is one of the most brilliantly actable plays of modern\ntimes, despite its improbability. A certain incongruity between the\nrealistic and the romantic aspects in the behavior of the principals is\nsaved from offensiveness by a disposition on the part of the spectator\nto refer it, unhistorically, to the provenience of the story. But as a\nmatter of fact the actors are not fifteenth century Renaissance men and\nwomen at all, but mystics, modern mystics at that, both in their\nreasoning and their morality. It is under a cryptical soul-compulsion\nthat Giovanna goes forth to the unknown condottiere prepared to lay down\nher honor for the salvation of her people, and that her husband at last\nconquers his repugnance to her going. Prinzivalle, Guido, Marco, are\nmystics even to a higher degree than Vanna.\n\nThe poignant actualism of \"Monna Vanna\" lies, however, in the author's\nfrank sympathy with a distinctively modern zest for freedom. The\nsituation between husband and wife is reminiscent of \"A Doll's House\" in\nthe greedily possessive quality of Guido's affection, with which quality\nhis tyrannous unbelief in Prinzivalle's magnanimity fully accords. But\nMaeterlinck here goes a step beyond Ibsen. In her married life with\nGuido, Vanna was meekly contented, \"at least as happy as one can be when\none has renounced the vague and extravagant dreams which seem beyond\nhuman life.\" When the crisis arrives she realizes that \"it is never too\nlate for one who has found a love that can fill a life.\" Her final\nrebellion is sanctioned by the author, who unmistakably endorses the\nvenerable Marco's profession of faith that life is always in the right.\n\n\"Joyzelle,\" (1903), inferior to \"Monna Vanna\" dramaturgically, and in\nform the most distinctly fantastic of all Maeterlinck's productions, is\nstill farther removed from the fatalistic atmosphere. This play sounds,\nas the author himself has stated, \"the triumph of will and love over\ndestiny or fatality,\" as against the converse lesson of _Monna Vanna_.\nThe idea is symbolically expressed in the temptations of Lanceor and in\nthe liberation of Joyzelle and her lover from the power of Merlin and\nhis familiar, Arielle, who impersonates the secret forces of the heart.\n\n_Aglavaine et Selysette_, _Monna Vanna_, and _Joyzelle_ mark by still\nanother sign the advent of a new phase in Maeterlinck's evolution;\nnamely, by the characterization of the heroines. Previously, the women\nin his plays were hardly individualized and none of them can be said to\npossess a physiognomy strictly her own. Maeterlinck had returned with\ngreat partiality again and again to the same type of woman: languid and\nlistless, without stamina and strength, yet at the same time full of\ndeep feeling, and capable of unending devotion--pathetic incorporeal\nfigures feeling their way along without the light of self-consciousness,\nlike some pre-raphaelite species of somnambulists. In the new plays, on\nthe contrary, women of a courageous and venturesome spirit and with a\nself-possessive assurance are portrayed by preference and with\nunmistakable approval.\n\nAs the technique in the more recent creations of Maeterlinck, so the\ndiction, too, accommodates itself to altered tendencies. Whereas\nformerly the colloquy was abrupt and fragmentary, it is now couched in\ncadenced, flowing language, which, nevertheless, preserves the old-time\nsimplicity. The poet himself has criticized his former dialogue. He said\nit made those figures seem like deaf people walking in their sleep, whom\nsomebody is endeavoring to arouse from a heavy dream.\n\n                   *       *       *       *       *\n\nFor the limited purpose of this sketch it is not needful to enter into a\ndetailed discussion of Maeterlinck's latest productions, since such\nlines as they add to his philosophical and artistic physiognomy have\nbeen traced beforehand. His literary output for the last dozen years or\nso is embodied in six or seven volumes: about two years to a book seems\nto be his normal ratio of achievement, the same as was so regularly\nobserved by Henrik Ibsen, and one that seems rather suitable for an\nauthor whose reserve, dictated by a profound artistic and moral\nconscience, like his actual performance, calls for admiration and\ngratitude. During the war he has written, or at least published, very\nlittle. It is fairly safe to assume that the emotional experience of\nthis harrowing period will control his future philosophy as its most\npotent factor; equally safe is it to predict, on the strength of his\npublished utterances, that his comprehensive humanity, that has been put\nto such a severe test, will pass unscathed through the ordeal.\n\nOf the last group of Maeterlinck's works only two are dramas, namely,\n\"The Blue Bird,\" (1909), and \"Mary Magdalene,\" (1910). The baffling\nsymbolism of \"The Blue Bird\" has not stood in the way of a tremendous\ninternational stage success; the fact is due much less to the simple\nline of thought that runs through the puzzle than to the exuberant fancy\nthat gave rise to it and its splendid scenical elaboration. Probably Mr.\nHenry Rose is right, in his helpful analysis of \"The Blue Bird,\" in\nventuring the assertion that \"by those who are familiar with\nSwedenborg's teaching 'The Blue Bird' must be recognized as to a very\nlarge extent written on lines which are in accordance with what is known\nas the Science of Correspondences--a very important part of Swedenborg's\nteachings.\" But the understanding of this symbolism in its fullness\noffers very great difficulties. That a definite and consistent meaning\nunderlies all its features will be rather felt than comprehended by the\ngreat majority who surely cannot be expected to go to the trouble first\nof familiarizing themselves with Maeterlinck's alleged code of symbols\nand then of applying it meticulously to the interpretation of his plays.\n\n\"Mary Magdalene,\" judged from the dramatic point of view, is a quite\nimpressive tragedy, yet a full and sufficient treatment of the very\nsuggestive scriptural legend it is not. The converted courtezan is\ncharacterized too abstractly. Instead of presenting herself as a woman\nconsumed with blazing sensuality but in whom the erotic fire is\ntransmuted into religious passion, she affects us like an enacted\ncommentary upon such a most extraordinary experience.\n\nFinally, there are several volumes of essays, to some of which reference\nhas already been made.(9) _Le Temple Enseveli_ (\"The Buried Temple\"),\n(1902), consists of six disquisitions, all dealing with metaphysical\nsubjects: Justice, The Evolution of Mystery, The Reign of Matter, The\nPast, Chance, The Future. _Le Double Jardin_ (\"The Double Garden\"),\n(1904), is much more miscellaneous in its makeup. These are its\nheterogeneous subjects: The Death of a Little Dog, Monte Carlo, A Ride\nin a Motor Car, Dueling, The Angry Temper of the Bees, Universal\nSuffrage, The Modern Drama, The Sources of Spring, Death and the Crown\n(a discussion upon the fatal illness of Edward\u00a0VII), a View of Rome,\nField Flowers, Chrysanthemums, Old-fashioned Flowers, Sincerity, The\nPortrait of Woman, and Olive Branches (a survey of certain now, alas,\nobsolete ethical movements of that day). _L'Intelligence des Fleurs_ (in\nthe translation it is named \"Life and Flowers,\" in an enlarged issue\n\"The Measure of the Hours,\" both 1907), takes up, besides the theme of\nthe general caption, the manufacture of perfumes, the various\ninstruments for measuring time, the psychology of accident, social duty,\nwar, prize-fighting, and \"King Lear.\" In 1912, three essays on Emerson,\nNovalis, and Ruysbroeck appeared collectively, in English, under the\ntitle \"On Emerson and Other Essays.\" These originally prefaced certain\nworks of those writers translated by Maeterlinck in his earlier years.\n\n  (9) Considerable liberty has been taken by Maeterlinck in the grouping\n  and naming of his essay upon their republication in the several\n  collections. The confusion caused thereby is greatly increased by the\n  deviation of some of the translated editions from the original volumes\n  as to the sequence of articles, the individual and collective titles,\n  and even the contents themselves.\n\nMaeterlinck's most recent publications are _La Mort_ (published in\nEnglish in a considerably extended collection under the title \"Our\nEternity\"), (1913), \"The Unknown Guest,\" (1914), and _Les D\u00e9bris de la\nGuerre_ (\"The Wrack of the Storm\"), (1916).(10) The two first named,\nhaving for their central subject Death and the great concomitant problem\nof the life beyond, show that the author has become greatly interested\nin psychical research; he even goes so far as to affirm his belief in\nprecognition. In these essays, Theosophy and Spiritism and kindred\noccult theories are carefully analyzed, yet ingenious as are the\nauthor's speculations, they leave anything like a solution of the\nperplexing riddles far afield. On the whole he inclines to a telepathic\nexplanation of the psychical phenomena, yet thinks they may be due to\nthe strivings of the cosmic intelligence after fresh outlets, and\nbelieves that a careful and persistent investigation of these phenomena\nmay open up hitherto undreamt of realms of reality. In general, we find\nhim on many points less assertive than he was in the beginning and\ninclined to a general retrenchment of the dogmatic element in his\nphilosophic attitude. A significant passage in \"The Buried Treasure\"\nteaches us not to deplore the loss of fixed beliefs. \"One should never\nlook back with regret to those hours when a great belief abandons us. A\nfaith that becomes extinct, a means that fails, a dominant idea that no\nlonger dominates us because we think it is our turn to dominate\nit--these things prove that we are living, that we are progressing, that\nwe are using up a great many things because we are not standing still.\"\nOf the gloomy fatalism of his literary beginnings hardly a trace is to\nbe found in the Maeterlinck of to-day. His war-book, \"The Wrack of the\nStorm,\" breathes a calm optimism in the face of untold disaster. The\nwill of man is put above the power of fate. \"Is it possible that\nfatality--by which I mean what perhaps for a moment was the\nunacknowledged desire of the planet--shall not regain the upper hand? At\nthe stage which man has reached, I hope and believe so.... Everything\nseems to tell us that man is approaching the day whereon, seizing the\nmost glorious opportunity that has ever presented itself since he\nacquired a consciousness, he will at last learn that he is able, when he\npleases, to control his whole fate in this world.\"(11) His faith in\nhumanity is built on the heroic virtues displayed in this war. \"To-day,\nnot only do we know that these virtues exist: we have taught the world\nthat they are always triumphant, that nothing is lost while faith is\nleft, while honor is intact, while love continues, while the soul does\nnot surrender.\" ... Death itself is now threatened with extinction by\nour heroic race: \"The more it exercises its ravages, the more it\nincreases the intensity of that which it cannot touch; the more it\npursues its phantom victories, the better does it prove to us that man\nwill end by conquering death.\"\n\n  (10) \"The Light Beyond\" (1917) is not a new work at all, but merely a\n  combination of parts from \"Our Eternity\" and \"The Wrack of the Storm.\"\n\n  (11) \"The Wrack of the Storm,\" p.\u00a0144\u00a0f.\n\nIn the concluding chapter of \"Our Eternity,\" the romantic modification\nof Maeterlinck's mysticism is made patent in his confession regarding\nthe problem of Knowledge: \"I have added nothing to what was already\nknown. I have simply tried to separate what may be true from that which\nis assuredly not true.... Perhaps through our quest for that\nundiscoverable Truth we shall have accustomed our eyes to pierce the\nterror of the last hour by looking it full in the face.... We need have\nno hope that any one will utter on this earth the word that shall put an\nend to our uncertainties. It is very probable, on the contrary, that no\none in this world, nor perhaps in the next, will discover the great\nsecret of the universe. And ... it is most fortunate that it should be\nso. We have not only to resign ourselves to living in the\nincomprehensible, but to rejoice that we cannot get out of it. If there\nwere no more insoluble questions ... infinity would not be infinite; and\nthen we should have forever to curse the fate that placed us in a\nuniverse proportionate to our intelligence. The unknown and the\nunknowable are necessary and will perhaps always be necessary to our\nhappiness. In any case, I would not wish my worst enemy, were his\nunderstanding a thousandfold loftier and a thousandfold mightier than\nmine, to be condemned eternally to inhabit a world of which he had\nsurprised an essential secret....\"(12)\n\n  (12) Quoted from the excellent translation by A.\u00a0T. de Mattos.\n\nSo the final word of Maeterlinck's philosophy, after a lifetime of\nardent search, clears up none of the tantalizing secrets of our\nexistence. And yet somehow it bears a message that is full of\nconsolation. The value of human life lies in the perpetual movement\ntowards a receding goal. Whoever can identify himself with such a\nphilosophy and accept its great practical lesson, that we shall never\nreach Knowledge but acquire wisdom in the pursuit, should be able to\nenvisage the veiled countenance of Truth without despair, and even to\nface with some courage the eternal problem of our being, its reason and\nits destination.\n\n\n\n\nII\n\nTHE ECCENTRICITY OF AUGUST STRINDBERG\n\n\nOne cannot speak of August Strindberg with much _gusto_. The most\nbroadminded critic will find himself under necessity to disapprove of\nhim as a man and to condemn so many features of his production that\nalmost one might question his fitness as a subject of literary\ndiscussion. Nevertheless, his importance is beyond dispute and quite\nabove the consideration of personal like or dislike, whether we view him\nin his creative capacity,--as an intellectual and ethical spokesman of\nhis time,--or in his human character,--as a typical case of certain\nmental and moral maladies which somehow during his time were more or\nless epidemic throughout the lettered world. We have it on excellent\nauthority that at his d\u00e9but in the literary theatre he made the stage\nquake with the elemental power of his personality. Gigantic rebels like\nIbsen, Bjoernson, Nietzsche, and Tolstoy, we are told, dwindled to\nnormal proportions beside his titanic stature. He aimed to conquer and\nconvert the whole world by his fanatical protest against the rotten\ncivilization of his time. The attempt proved an utter failure. He never\ncould grow into a world-figure, because he lacked the courage as well as\nthe cosmopolitan adaptability needed for intellectual expatriation.\nHence, in great contrast to Ibsen, he remained to Europe at large the\nuncouth Scandinavian, while in the eyes of Scandinavia he was\nspecifically the Swede; and his country-men, even though they\nacknowledged him their premier poet, treated him, because of his\neccentricity, as a national gazing-stock rather than as a genuine\nnational asset. Yet for all that, he ranks as the foremost writer of his\ncountry and one of the representative men of the age. His poetic genius\nis admitted by practically all the critics, while the greatest among\nthem, George Brandes, pronounces him in addition an unsurpassed master\nin the command of his mother tongue. But his position as a writer is by\nno means limited to his own little country. For his works have been\ntranslated into all civilized languages, and if the circulation of\nliterary products is a safe indication of their influence, then several\nof Strindberg's books at least must be credited with having done\nsomething toward shaping the thought of our time upon some of its\nleading issues. In any case, the large and durable interest shown his\nproductions marks Strindberg as a literary phenomenon of sufficient\nconsequence to deserve some study.\n\nReaders of Strindberg who seek to discover the reason why criticism\nshould have devoted so much attention to an author regarded almost\nuniversally with strong disapproval and aversion, will find that reason\nmost probably in the extreme subjectiveness that dominates everything he\nhas written; personal confession, novels, stories, and plays alike share\nthis equality, and even in his historical dramas the figures, despite\nthe minute accuracy of their delineation, are moved by the author's\npassion, not their own. Rarely, if ever, has a writer of eminence\ndemonstrated a similar incapacity to reproduce the thoughts and feelings\nof other people. It has been rightly declared that all his leading\ncharacters are merely the outward projections of his own sentiments and\nideas,--that at bottom he, August Strindberg, is the sole protagonist in\nall his dramaturgy and fiction.\n\nStrindberg was a man with an omnivorous intellectual curiosity, and he\ncommanded a vast store of knowledge in the fields of history, science,\nand languages. His \"History of the Swedish People\" is recognized by\ncompetent judges as a very brilliant and scholarly performance. Before\nhe was launched in his literary career, and while still obscurely\nemployed as minor assistant at a library, he earned distinction as a\nstudent of the Chinese language, and one product of his research work in\nthat field was even deemed worthy of being read before the _Acad\u00e9mie des\nInscriptions et Belles Lettres_. In Geology, Chemistry, Botany, he was\nequally productive. But the taint of eccentricity in his mental fibre\nprevented his imposing scientific accomplishments from maintaining him\nin a state of intellectual equilibrium. He laid as much store by things\nof which he had a mere smattering as by those on which he was an\nauthority, and his resultant unsteadiness caused him to oscillate\nbetween opposite scientific enthusiasms even as his self-contradictory\npersonal character involved him in abrupt changes of position, and made\nhim jump from one extreme of behavior to the other.\n\n                   *       *       *       *       *\n\nStrindberg first attracted public notice by the appearance in 1879 of a\nnovel named \"The Red Room.\" Its effect upon a country characterized by\nso keen an observer as George Brandes as perhaps the most conservative\nin Europe resembled the excitement caused by Schiller's \"The Robbers\"\nalmost precisely one hundred years before. It stirred up enough dust to\nchange, though not to cleanse, the musty atmosphere of Philistia. For\nhere was instantly recognized the challenge of a radical spirit uprisen\nin full and ruthless rebellion against each and every time-hallowed\nusage and tradition. The recollection of that hot-spur agitator bent\nwith every particle of his strength to rouse the world up from its\nlethargy by his stentorian \"J'accuse\" and to pass sentence upon it by\nsheer tremendous vociferation, is almost entirely obliterated to-day by\nthe remembrance of quite another Strindberg:--the erstwhile stormy\nidealist changed into a leering cynic; a repulsive embodiment of\nnegation, a grimacing Mephistopheles who denies life and light or\nanything that he cannot comprehend, and to whom the face of the earth\nappears forever covered with darkness and filth and death and\ncorruption. Indeed this final depictment of August Strindberg, whether\nor no it be accurately true to life, is a terrible example of what life\ncan make of a man, or a man of his life, if he is neither light enough\nto be borne by the current of his time, nor strong enough to set his\nface against the tide and breast it.\n\nThe question is, naturally, was Strindberg sincere in the fanatical\ninsurgency of his earlier period, or was his attitude merely a\ntheatrical pose and his social enthusiasm a ranting declamation? In\neither case, there opens up this other question: Have we reason to doubt\nthe sincerity of the mental changes that were yet to follow,--the\ngenuineness of his pessimism, occultism, and, in the final stage, of his\nreligious conversion? His unexampled hardihood in reversing his opinions\nand going dead against his convictions could be illustrated in nearly\nevery sphere of thought. At one time a glowing admirer of Rousseau and\nloudly professing his gospel of nature, he forsook this allegiance, and\nchose as his new idol Rousseau's very antipode, Voltaire. For many years\nhe was a democrat of the purest water, identified himself with the\nproletarian cause, and acted as the fiery champion of the poor\nlabor-driven masses against their oppressors; but one fine day, no\nmatter whether it came about directly through his contact with Nietzsche\nor otherwise, he repudiated socialism, scornfully denouncing it as a\ntattered remnant of his cast-off Christianity, and arrayed himself on\nthe side of the elect, or self-elect, against the \"common herd,\" the\n\"much-too-many.\" License for the best to govern the rest, became\ntemporarily his battle-cry; and his political ideal suggested nothing\nless completely absurd than a republic presided over by an oligarchy of\nautocrats. His unsurpassed reputation as an anti-feminist would hardly\nprepare us to find his earlier works fairly aglow with sympathy for the\nwoman cause. He held at one time, as did Tolstoy, that art and poetry\nhave a detrimental effect upon the natural character; for which reason\nthe peasant is a more normal being than the lettered man. Especially was\nhe set against the drama, on the ground that it throws the public mind\ninto confusion by its failure to differentiate sharply between the\nauthor's own opinions and those of the characters. Literature, he held,\nshould pattern itself after a serious newspaper: it should seek to\ninfluence, not entertain. Not only did he drop this pedantic restriction\nof literature in the end, but in his own practice he had always defied\nit, because, despite his fierce campaign against art, he could not\novercome the force of his artistic impulses. And so in other provinces\nof thought, too, he reversed his judgment with a temerity and swiftness\nthat greatly offended the feelings and perplexed the intelligence of his\nfollowers for the time being and justified the question whether\nStrindberg had any principles at all. In politics he was by quick turns\nAnarchist and Socialist, Radical and Conservative, Republican and\nAristocrat, Communist and Egoist; in religion, Pietist, Protestant,\nDeist, Atheist, Occultist, and Roman Catholic. And yet unquestionably he\nwas honest. To blame him merely because he changed his views, and be it\nnever so radically, would be blaming a man for exercising his right to\ndevelop. In any man of influence, an unalterable permanency of opinion\nwould be even more objectionable than a frequent shift of his point of\nview. In recent times the presumable length of a person's intellectual\nusefulness has been a live subject of discussion which has resulted in\nsome legislation of very questionable wisdom, for instance the setting\nof an arbitrary age limit for the active service of high-grade teachers.\nIn actual experience men are too old to teach, or through any other\nfunction to move the minds of younger people in a forward direction,\nwhenever they have lost the ability to change their own mind. Yet at all\nevents, an eminent author's right of self-reversal must not be exercised\nat random; he should refrain from the propagation of new opinions that\nhave not ripened within himself. Which is the same as saying that he\nshould stick to his old opinions until he finds himself inwardly\ncompelled to abandon them. But as a matter of fact, a man like\nStrindberg, propelled by an unbridled imagination, alert with romantic\ntendencies, nervously overstrung, kept constantly under a strain by his\nmorbidly sensitive temperament,--and whose brain is consequently a\nseething chaos of conflicting ideas, is never put to the necessity of\nchanging his mind; his mind keeps changing itself.\n\nIt must be as difficult for the literary historian to do Strindberg full\njustice as it was for the great eccentric himself; when in taking stock,\nas it were, of his mental equipment, during one of his protracted\nperiods of despondency, he summed himself up in the following\npicturesque simile: \"A monstrous conglomeration, changing its forms\naccording to the observer's point of view and possessing no more reality\nthan the rainbow that is visible to the eyes and yet does not exist.\"\nHis evolution may be tracked, however, in the detailed autobiography in\nwhich he undertook, by a rigorous application of Hippolyte Taine's\nwell-known theory and method, to account for his temperamental\npeculiarities on the basis of heredity and the milieu and to describe\nthe gradual transformation of his character through education and the\nexternal pressure of contemporary intellectual movements. This\nremarkable work is like a picture book of ideals undermined, hollowed,\nand shattered; a perverse compound of cynicism and passion, it is\nunspeakably loathsome to the sense of beauty and yet, in the last\nartistic reckoning, not without great beauty of its own. It divides the\nstory of Strindberg's life into these consecutive parts: The Son of the\nServant; The Author; The Evolution of a Soul; The Confession of a Fool;\nInferno; Legends; The Rupture; Alone. The very titles signalize the\nbrutal frankness, or, shall we say, terrible sincerity of a tale that\nrummages without piety among the most sacred privacies, and drags forth\nfrom intimate nooks and corners sorrow and squalor and shame enough to\nhave wrecked a dozen average existences. There is no mistaking or\nevading the challenge hurled by this story: See me as I am, stripped of\nconventional lies and pretensions! Look upon my naked soul, covered with\nscars and open sores. Behold me in my spasms of love and hate, now in\ndemoniacal transports, now prostrate with anguish! And if you want to\nknow how I came to be what I am, consider my ancestry, my bringing up,\nmy social environment, and be sure also to pocket your own due share of\nthe blame for my destruction!--Certainly Strindberg's autobiography is\nnot to be recommended as a graduation gift for convent-bred young\nladies, or as a soothing diversion for convalescents, but if accepted in\na proper sense, it will be found absorbing, informative, and even\nhelpful.\n\nStrindberg never forgave his father for having married below his\nstation. He felt that the good blood of the Strindbergs,--respectable\nmerchants and ministers and country gentlemen,--was worsened by the\nproletarian strain imported into it through a working girl named\nEleonore Ulrike Norling, the mother of August Strindberg and his eleven\nbrothers and sisters. During August's childhood the family lived in\nextremely straitened circumstances. When a dozen people live cooped up\nin three rooms, some of them are more than likely to have the joy of\nyouth crushed out of them and crowded from the premises. Here was the\nfirst evil that darkened Strindberg's life: he simply was cheated out of\nhis childhood.\n\nSchool was no happier place for him than home. His inordinate pride,\nonly sharpened by the consciousness of his parents' poverty which\nbordered on pauperism, threw him into a state of perpetual rebellion\nagainst comrades and teachers. And all this time his inner life was\ntossed hither and thither by a general intellectual and emotional\nrestlessness due to an insatiable craving for knowledge. At fifteen\nyears of age he had reached a full conviction on the irredeemable\nevilness of life; and concluded, in a moment of religious exaltation, to\ndedicate his own earthly existence to the vicarious expiation of\nuniversal sin through the mortification of the flesh. Then, of a sudden,\nhe became a voracious reader of rationalistic literature, and turned\natheist with almost inconceivable dispatch, but soon was forced back by\nremorse into the pietistic frame of mind,--only to pass through another\nreaction immediately after. At this time he claims that earthly life is\na punishment or a probation; but that it lies in man's power to make it\nendurable by freeing himself from the social restraints. He has become a\nconvert to the fantastic doctrine of Jean Jacques Rousseau, that man is\ngood by nature but has been depraved by civilization. Now in his\nearliest twenties, he embraces communism with all its implications,--free\nlove, state parenthood, public ownership of utilities, equal\ndivision of the fruits of labor, and so forth,--as the sole\nand sure means of salvation for humanity.\n\nIn the \"Swiss Stories,\" subtitled \"Utopias in Reality,\"(13) Strindberg\ndemonstrated to his own satisfaction the smooth and practical workings\nof that doctrine. It was difficult for him to understand why the major\npart of the world seemed so hesitant about adopting so tempting and\nequitable a scheme of living. Yet, for his own person, too, he soon\ndisavowed socialism, because under a socialistic r\u00e9gime the individual\nwould be liable to have his ideas put into uniform, and the remotest\nthreat of interference with his freedom of thought was something this\nfanatical apostle of liberty could not brook.\n\n  (13) The stories deal among other things with the harmonious communal\n  life in Godin's _Phalanst\u00e8re_. Strindberg wrote two descriptions of\n  it, one before, the other after visiting the colony.\n\nIn the preface to the \"Utopias,\" he had referred to himself as \"a\nconvinced socialist, like all sensible people\"; whereas now he writes:\n\"Idealism and Socialism are two maladies born of laziness.\" Having thus\nscientifically diagnosed the disease and prescribed the one true\nspecific for it, namely--how simple!--the total abolition of the\nindustries, he resumes the preaching of Rousseauism in its simon-pure\nform, orders every man to be his maid-of-all-work and jack-of-all-trades,\nputs the world on a vegetarian diet, and then wonders why\nthe socialists denounce and revile him as a turncoat and an\napostate.\n\n                   *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe biography throws an especially vivid light on Strindberg's relation\nto one of the most important factors of socialism, to wit, the question\nof woman's rights. His position on this issue is merely a phase of that\nextreme and practically isolated position in regard to woman in general\nthat has more than any other single element determined the feeling of\nthe public towards him and by consequence fixed his place in\ncontemporary literature. That this should be so is hardly unfair,\nbecause no other element has entered so deeply into the structure and\nfibre of his thought and feeling.\n\nStrindberg, as has been stated, was not from the outset, or perchance\nconstitutionally, an anti-feminist. In \"The Red Room\" he preaches\nequality of the sexes even in marriage. The thesis of the book is that\nman and woman are not antagonistic phenomena of life, rather they are\nmodifications of the same phenomenon, made for mutual completion; hence,\nthey can only fulfill their natural destiny through close co\u00f6perative\ncomradeship. But there were two facts that prevented Strindberg from\nproceeding farther along this line of thought. One was his incorrigible\npropensity to contradiction, the other his excessive subjectiveness\nwhich kept him busy building up theories on the basis of personal\nexperience. The prodigious feminist movement launched in Scandinavia by\nIbsen and Bjoernson was very repugnant to him, because he felt, not\nwithout some just reason, that the movement was for a great many people\nlittle more than a fad. So long as art and literature are influenced by\nfashion, so long there will be and should be revolts against the vogue.\nMoreover, Strindberg felt that the movement was being carried too far.\nHe was prepared to accompany Ibsen some distance on the way of reform,\nbut refused to subscribe to his verdict that the whole blame for our\ncrying social maladjustments rests with the unwillingness of men to\nallot any rights whatsoever to women.\n\nStrindberg's play, \"Sir Bengt's Wife,\" printed in 1882, but of much\nearlier origin, is interpreted by Brandes as a symbolical portrayal of\nfeminine life in Scandinavia during the author's early manhood. The\nleading feminine figure, a creature wholly incapable of understanding or\nappreciating the nobler traits in man, is nevertheless treated with\nsympathy, on the whole. She is represented,--like Selma Bratsberg in\nIbsen's \"The League of Youth,\" and Nora Helmer, in \"A Doll's House,\"--as\nthe typical and normal victim of a partial and unfair training. Her\nfaults of judgment and errors of temper are due to the fact so\nforcefully descanted upon by Selma, that women are not permitted to\nshare the interests and anxieties of their husbands. We are expressly\ninformed by Strindberg that this drama was intended, in the first place,\nas an attack upon the romantic proclivities of feminine education; in\nthe second, as an illustration of the power of love to subdue the will;\nin the third, as a defense of the thesis that woman's love is of a\nhigher quality than man's; and lastly, as a vindication of the right of\nwoman to be her own master. Again, in \"Married\" he answers the query,\nShall women vote? distinctly in the affirmative, although here the fixed\nidea about the congenital discordance between the sexes, and the\nidentification of love with a struggle for supremacy, has already seized\nhold of him.\n\nTo repeat, there was at first nothing absolutely preposterous about\nStrindberg's position in regard to the woman movement. On the contrary,\nhis view might have been endorsed as a not altogether unwholesome\ncorrective for the ruling fashion of dealing with the issue by the\nadvocacy of extremes. But by force of his supervening personal grievance\nagainst the sex, Strindberg's anti-feminism became in the long run the\nfixed pole about which gravitated his entire system of social and\nethical thought. His campaign against feminism, which otherwise could\nhave served a good purpose by curbing wild militancy, was defeated by\nits own exaggerations. Granting that feminists had gone too far in the\ndenunciation of male brutality and despotism, Strindberg went still\nfarther in the opposite direction, when he deliberately set out to lay\nbare the character of woman by dissecting some of her most diabolical\nincarnations. As has already been said, he was utterly incapable of\nobjective thinking, and under the sting of his miseries in love and\nmarriage, dislike of woman turned into hatred and hatred into frenzy.\nHenceforth, the entire spectacle of life presented itself to his\ndistorted vision as a perpetual state of war between the sexes: on the\none side he saw the male, strong of mind and heart, but in the\ngenerosity of strength guileless and over-trustful; on the other side,\nthe female, weak of body and intellect, but shrewd enough to exploit her\nfrailness by linking iniquity to impotence and contriving by her\ntreacherous cunning to enslave her natural superior:--it is the story of\nSamson and Delilah made universal in its application. Love is shown up\nas the trap in which man is caught to be shorn of his power. The case\nagainst woman is classically drawn up in \"The Father,\" one of the\nstrangest and at the same time most powerful tragedies of Strindberg.\nThe principals of the plot stand for the typical character difference\nbetween the sexes as Strindberg sees it; the man being kind-hearted,\ngood-natured, and aspiring, whereas the woman, setting an example for\nall his succeeding portraits of women, is cunning, though unintelligent\nand coarse-grained, soulless, yet insanely ambitious and covetous of\npower. In glaring contrast to the situation made so familiar by Ibsen,\nwe here see the man struggling away from the clutches of a woman who\ndeclares frankly that she has never looked at a man without feeling\nconscious of her superiority over him. In this play the man, a person of\nideals and real ability, who is none other than Strindberg himself in\none of his matrimonial predicaments, fails to extricate himself from the\nsnare, and ends--both literally and figuratively--by being put into the\nstraitjacket.\n\nWithout classing Strindberg as one of the great world dramatists, it\nwould be narrow-minded, after experiencing the gripping effect of some\nof his plays, to deny them due recognition, for indeed they would be\nremarkable for their perspicacity and penetration, even if they were\ndevoid of any value besides. They contain the keenest analyses ever made\nof the vicious side of feminine character, obtained by specializing, as\nit were, on the more particularly feminine traits of human depravity.\nAssuredly the procedure is onesided, but the delineation of a single\nside of life is beyond peradventure a legitimate artistic enterprise as\nlong as it is not palmed upon us as an accurate and complete picture.\nUnfortunately, Strindberg's abnormal vision falsifies the things he\nlooks at, and, being steeped in his insuperable prejudice, his pictures\nof life, in spite of the partial veracity they possess, never rise above\nthe level of caricatures.\n\nHe was incompetent to pass judgment upon an individual woman separately;\nto him all women were alike, and that means, all unmitigatedly bad! To\nthe objection raised by one of the characters in \"The Father\": \"Oh,\nthere are so many kinds of women,\" the author's mouthpiece makes this\nclinching answer: \"Modern investigation has pronounced that there is\nonly one kind.\"\n\nThe autobiography of Strindberg is largely inspired by his unreasoning\nhatred of women; the result, in the main, of his three unfortunate\nventures into the uncongenial field of matrimony. In its first part, the\naccount of his life is not without some traces of healthy humor, but as\nthe story progresses, his entire philosophy of life becomes more and\nmore aberrant under the increasing pressure of that obsession. He gets\nbeside himself at the mere mention of anything feminine, and blindly\nhits away, let his bludgeon land where it will; logic, common sense, and\ncommon decency go to the floor before his vehement and brutal assault.\nEvery woman is a born liar and traitor. Her sole aim in life is to\nthrive parasitically upon the revenue of her favors. Since marriage and\nprostitution cannot provide a living for all, the oversupply now clamor\nfor admission to the work-mart; but they are incompetent and lazy, and\ninveterate shirkers of responsibility. With triumphant malice he points\nto the perfidious readiness of woman to perform her tasks by proxy, that\nis, to delegate them to hired substitutes: her children are tended and\ntaught by governesses and teachers; her garments are made by dressmakers\nand seamstresses; the duties of her household she unloads on\nservants,--and from selfish considerations of vanity, comfort, and love\nof pleasure, she withdraws even from the primary maternal obligation and\nlets her young be nourished at the breast of a stranger. Strindberg in\nhis rage never stops to think that the deputies in these cases,--cooks\nand housemaids and nurses and so forth,--themselves belong to the female\nsex, by which fact the impeachment is in large part invalidated.\n\nThe play bearing the satirical title \"Comrades\" makes a special\napplication of the theory about the pre-established antagonism of the\nsexes. In a situation similar to that in \"The Father,\" husband and wife\nare shown in a yet sharper antithesis of character: a man of sterling\ncharacter and ability foiled by a woman in all respects his inferior,\nyet imperiously determined to dominate him. At first she seems to\nsucceed in her ambition, and in the same measure as she assumes a more\nand more mannish demeanor, the husband's behavior grows more and more\neffeminate. But the contest leads to results opposite to those in \"The\nFather.\" Here, the man, once he is brought to a full realization of his\nplight, arouses himself from his apathy, reasserts his manhood, and, in\nthe ensuing fight for supremacy, routs the usurper and comes into his\nown. The steps by which he passes through revolt from subjection to\nself-liberation, are cleverly signaled by his outward transformation, as\nhe abandons the womanish style of dressing imposed on him by his wife's\nwhim and indignantly flings into a corner the feminine costume which she\nwould make him wear at the ball.\n\n                   *       *       *       *       *\n\nLeaving aside, then, all question as to their artistic value,\nStrindberg's dramas are deserving of attention as experiments in a\nfairly unexplored field of analytic psychology. They are the first\nliterary creations of any great importance begotten by such bitter\nhatred of woman. The anti-feminism of Strindberg's predecessors, not\nexcepting that arch-misogynist, Arthur Schopenhauer himself, sprang from\ncontempt, not from abhorrence and abject fear. In Strindberg, misogyny\nturns into downright gynophobia. To him, woman is not an object of\ndisdain, but the cruel and merciless persecutor of man. In order to\ndisclose the most dangerous traits of the feminine soul, Strindberg\ndissects it by a method that corresponds closely to Ibsen's astonishing\ndemonstration of masculine viciousness. The wide-spread dislike for\nStrindberg's dramas is due, in equal parts, to the detestableness of his\nmale characters, and to the optimistic disbelief of the general public\nin the reality of womanhood as he represents it. Strindberg's\nportraiture of the sex appears as a monstrous slander, principally\nbecause no other painter has ever placed the model into the same\ndisadvantageous light, and the authenticity of his pictures is rendered\nsuspicious by their abnormal family resemblance. He was obsessed with\nthe petrifying vision of a uniform cruel selfishness staring out of\nevery woman's face: countess, courtezan, or kitchen maid, all are cast\nin the same gorgon mold.\n\nStrindberg's aversion towards women was probably kindled into action, as\nhas already been intimated, by his disgust at the sudden irruption of\nwoman worship into literature; but, as has also been made clear, only\nthe disillusionments and grievances of his private experience hardened\nthat aversion into implacable hatred. At first he simply declined to\nally himself with the feminist cult, because the women he knew seemed\nunworthy of being worshipped,--little vain dolls, frivolous coquettes,\nand pedants given to domestic tyranny, of such the bulk was made up.\nUnder the maddening spur of his personal misfortunes, his feeling passed\nfrom weariness to detestation, from detestation to a bitter mixture of\nfear and furious hate. He conceived it as his supreme mission and\ncentral purpose in life to unmask the demon with the angel's face, to\ntear the drapings from the idol and expose to view the hideous ogress\nthat feeds on the souls of men. Woman, in Strindberg's works, is a bogy,\nconstructed out of the vilest ingredients that enter into the\ncomposition of human nature, with a kind of convulsive life infused by a\nremnant of great artistic power. And this grewsome fabric of a diseased\nimagination, like Frankenstein's monster, wreaks vengeance on its maker.\nHis own mordant desire for her is the lash that drives him irresistibly\nto his destruction.\n\nIt requires no profound psychologic insight to divine in this odious\nchimera the deplorable abortion of a fine ideal. The distortion of truth\nemanates in Strindberg's work, as it does in any significant satire or\ncaricature, from indignation over the contrast between a lofty\nconception and a disappointing reality. What, after all, can be the\nmission of this hard-featured gallery of females,--peevish, sullen,\nimpudent, grasping, violent, lecherous, malignant, and vindictive,--if\nit is not to mark pravity and debasement with a stigma in the name of a\npure and noble womanhood?\n\n                   *       *       *       *       *\n\nIt should not be left unmentioned that we owe to August Strindberg some\nworks of great perfection fairly free from the black obsession and with\na constructive and consistently idealistic tendency: splendid\ndescriptions of a quaint people and their habitat, tinged with a fine\nsense of humor, as in \"The Hemsoe-Dwellers\"; charming studies of\nlandscape and of floral and animal life, in the \"Portraits of Flowers\nand Animals\"; the colossal work on the Swedish People, once before\nreferred to, a history conceived and executed in a thoroughly modern\nscientific spirit; two volumes of \"Swedish Fortunes and Adventures\";\nmost of his historic dramas also are of superior order. But these works\nlie outside the scope of the more specific discussion of Strindberg as a\nmystic and an eccentric to which this sketch is devoted. We may conclude\nby briefly considering the final phases of Strindberg's checkered\nintellectual career, and by summing up his general significance for the\nage.\n\nIt will be recalled that during the middle period of his life, (in\n1888), Strindberg came into personal touch with Nietzsche. The effect of\nthe latter's sensational philosophy is clearly perceptible in the works\nof that period, notably in \"Tschandala\" and \"By the Open Sea.\"\nEvidently, Nietzsche, at first, was very congenial to him. For both men\nwere extremely aristocratic in their instincts. For a while, Strindberg\nendorsed unqualifiedly the heterodox ethics of the towering paranoiac.\nFor one thing, that philosophy supplied fresh food and fuel to his\nburning rage against womankind, and that was enough to bribe him into\nswallowing, for the time being, the entire substance of Nietzsche's\nfantastic doctrine. He took the same ground as Nietzsche, that the race\nhad deteriorated in consequence of its sentimentality, namely through\nthe systematic protection of physical and mental inferiority and\nunchecked procreation of weaklings. He seconded Nietzsche's motion that\nsociety should exterminate its parasites, instead of pampering them.\nMankind can only be reinvigorated if the strong and healthy are helped\nto come into their own. The dreams of the pacifists are fatal to the\npragmatic virtues and to the virility of the race. The greatest need is\nan aggressive campaign for the moral and intellectual sanitation of the\nworld. So let the brain rule over the heart,--and so forth in the same\nstrain.\n\nVery soon, however, Strindberg passed out of the sphere of Nietzsche's\ninfluence. The alienation was due as much to his general instability as\nto the disparity between his pessimistic temper and the joyous\nexaltation of Zarathustra-ism. His striking reversion to orthodoxy was\nby no means illogical. Between pessimism and faith there exists a\nrelation that is not very far to seek. When a person has forfeited his\npeace of soul and cannot find grace before his own conscience, he might\nclutch as a last hope the promise of vicarious redemption. Extending the\nsignificance of his own personal experience to everything within his\nhorizon, and erecting a dogmatic system upon this tenuous\ngeneralisation, Strindberg reached the conviction that the purpose of\nliving is to suffer, a conviction that threw his philosophy well into\nline with the religious and ethical ideas of the middle age. Yet even at\nthis juncture his cynicism did not desert him, as witness this comment\nof his: \"Religion must be a punishment, because nobody gets religion who\ndoes not have a bad conscience.\" This avowal preceded his saltatory\napproach to Roman Catholicism.\n\nIn the later volumes of his autobiography he minutely describes the\nsuccessive crises through which he passed in his agonizing search for\ncertitude and salvation before his spirit found rest in the idea of\nDestiny which formerly to him was synonymous with Fate and now became\nsynonymous with Providence. \"Inferno\" pictures his existence as a\nprotracted and unbroken nightmare. He turned determinist, then fatalist,\nthen mystic. The most trifling incidents of his daily life were spelt\nout according to Swedenborg's \"Science of Correspondences\" and thereby\nassumed a deep and terrifying significance. In the most trivial events,\nsuch as the opening or shutting of a door, or the curve etched by a\nraindrop on a dusty pane of glass, he perceived intimations from the\noccult power that directed his life. Into the most ordinary occurrence\nof the day he read a divine order, or threat, or chastisement. He was\ntormented by terrible dreams and visions; in the guise of ferocious\nbeasts, his own sins agonized his flesh. And in the midst of all these\ntortures he studied and practised the occult arts: magic, astrology,\nnecromancy, alchemy; he concocted gold by hermetical science! To all\nappearances utterly deranged, he was still lucid enough at intervals to\ncarry on chemical, botanical, and physiological experiments of\nlegitimate worth. Then his reason cleared up once again and put a sudden\nend to an episode which he has described in these words: \"To go in quest\nof God and to find the devil,--that is what happened to me.\"\n\nHe took leave of Swedenborg as he had taken leave of Nietzsche, yet\nretained much gratitude for him; the great Scandinavian seer had brought\nhim back to God, so he averred, even though the conversion was effected\nby picturings of horror.\n\n\"Legends,\" the further continuation of his self-history, shows him\nvividly at his closest contact with the Catholic Church. But the most\nsatisfactory portion of the autobiography from a human point of view,\nand from a literary point perhaps altogether the best thing Strindberg\nhas done, is the closing book of the series, entitled \"Alone.\" He wrote\nit at the age of fifty, during a period of comparative tranquillity of\nmind, and that fact is manifested by the composure and moderation of its\nstyle. Now at last his storm-tossed soul seems to have found a haven. He\naccepts his destiny, and resigns himself to believing, since knowledge\nis barred.\n\nBut even this state of serenity harbored no permanent peace; it\nsignified merely a temporary suspension of those terrific internal\ncombats.\n\nIn Strindberg's case, religious conversion is not an edifying, but on\nthe contrary a morbid and saddening spectacle; it is equal to a\ndeclaration of complete spiritual bankruptcy. He turns to the church\nafter finding all other pathways to God blocked. His type of\nChristianity does not hang together with the labors and struggles of his\nsecular life. A break with his past can be denied to no man; least of\nall to a leader of men. Only, if he has deserted the old road, he should\nbe able to lead in the new; he must have a new message if he sees fit to\ncancel the old. Strindberg, however, has nothing to offer at the end. He\nstands before us timorous and shrinking, the accuser of his fellows\nturned self-accuser, a beggar stretching forth empty, trembling hands\nimploring forgiveness of his sins and the salvation of his soul through\ngracious mediation. His moral asseverations are either blank truisms, or\nintellectual aberrations. Strindberg has added nothing to the stock of\nhuman understanding. A preacher, of course, is not in duty bound to\ngenerate original thought. Indeed if such were to be exacted, our\npulpits would soon be as sparsely peopled as already are the pews.\nMinisters who are wondering hard why so many people stay away from\nchurch might well stop to consider whether the reason is not that a\nlarge portion of mankind has already secured, theoretically, a religious\nor ethical basis of life more or less identical with the one which\nchurches content themselves with offering. The greatest religious\nteacher of modern times, Leo Tolstoy, was not by any means a bringer of\nnew truths. The true secret of the tremendous power which nevertheless\nhe wielded over the souls of men was that he extended the practical\napplication of what he believed. If, therefore, we look for a lesson in\nStrindberg's life as recited by himself, we shall not find it in his\nreligious conversion.\n\n                   *       *       *       *       *\n\nTaken in its entirety, his voluminous yet fragmentary life history is\none of the most painful human documents on record. One can hardly peruse\nit without asking: Was Strindberg insane? It is a question which he\noften put to himself when remorse and self-reproach gnawed at his\nconscience and when he fancied himself scorned and persecuted by all his\nformer friends. \"Why are you so hated?\" he asks himself in one of his\ndialogues, and this is his answer: \"I could not endure to see mankind\nsuffer, and so I said and wrote: 'Free yourselves, I shall help.' And so\nI said to the poor: 'Do not let the rich suck your blood.' And to woman:\n'Do not let man oppress you.' And to the children: 'Do not obey your\nparents if they are unjust.' The consequences,--well, they are quite\nincomprehensible; for of a sudden I had both sides against me, rich and\npoor, men and women, parents and children; add to that sickness and\npoverty, disgraceful pauperism, my divorce, lawsuits, exile, loneliness,\nand now, to top the climax,--do you believe that I am insane?\" From his\nultra-subjective point of view, the explanation here given of the total\ncollapse of his fortunes is fairly accurate, at least in the essential\naspects. Still, many great men have been pursued by a similar conflux of\ncalamities. Overwhelming misfortunes are the surest test of manhood. How\nhigh a person bears up his head under the blows of fate is the best gage\nof his stature. But Strindberg, in spite of his colossal physique, was\nnot cast in the heroic mold. The breakdown of his fortunes caused him to\nturn traitor to himself, to recant and destroy his intellectual past.\n\nWhether he was actually insane is a question for psychiaters to settle;\nnormal he certainly was not. In medical opinion his modes of reacting to\nthe obstructions and difficulties of the daily life were conclusively\nsymptomatic of neurasthenia. Certain obsessive ideas and idiosyncracies\nof his, closely bordering upon phobia, would seem to indicate grave\npsychic disorder. His temper and his world-view were indicative of\nhypochondria: he perceived only the hostile, never the friendly, aspects\nof events, people, and phenomena. Dejectedly he declares: \"There is\nfalseness even in the calm air and the sunshine, and I feel that\nhappiness has no place in my lot.\"\n\nDestiny had assembled within him all the doubts and pangs of the modern\nsoul, but had neglected to counterpoise them with positive and\nconstructive convictions; so that when his small store of hopes and\nprospects was exhausted, he broke down from sheer hollowness of heart.\nHe died a recluse, a penitent, and a renegade to all his past ideas and\npersuasions.\n\nEvidently, with his large assortment of defects both of character and of\nintellect, Strindberg could not be classed as one of the great\nconstructive minds of our period. Viewed in his social importance, he\nwill interest future students of morals chiefly as an agitator, a\npolemist, and in a fashion, too, as a prophet; by his uniquely\naggressive veracity, he rendered a measure of valuable service to his\ntime.\n\nBut viewed as a creative writer, both of drama and fiction, he has an\nincontestable claim to our lasting attention. His work shows artistic\nability, even though it rarely attains to greatness and is frequently\nmarred by the bizarre qualities of his style. Presumably his will be a\npermanent place in the history of literature, principally because of the\nextraordinary subjective animation of his work. And perhaps in times\nless depressed than ours its gloominess may act as a valuable antidote\nupon the popular prejudice against being serious. His artistic\nprofession of faith certainly should save him from wholesale\ncondemnation. He says in one of his prefaces: \"Some people have accused\nmy tragedy of being too sad, as though one desired a merry tragedy.\nPeople clamor for Enjoyment as though Enjoyment consisted in being\nfoolish. I find enjoyment in the powerful and terrible struggles of\nlife; and the capability of experiencing something, of learning\nsomething, gives me pleasure.\"\n\nThe keynote to his literary productions is the cry of the agony of\nbeing. Every line of his works is written in the shadow of the sorrow of\nliving. In them, all that is most dismal and terrifying and therefore\nmost tragical, becomes articulate. They are propelled by an abysmal\npessimism, and because of this fact, since pessimism is one of the\nmightiest inspiring forces in literature, August Strindberg, its\nforemost spokesman, deserves to be read and understood.\n\n\n\n\nIII\n\nTHE EXALTATION OF FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE\n\n\nIn these embattled times it is perfectly natural to expect from any\ndiscourse on Nietzsche's philosophy first of all a statement concerning\nthe relation of that troublesome genius to the origins of the war; and\nthis demand prompts a few candid words on that aspect of the subject at\nthe start.\n\nFor more than three years the public has been persistently taught by the\npress to think of Friedrich Nietzsche mainly as the powerful promoter of\na systematic national movement of the German people for the conquest of\nthe world. But there is strong and definite internal evidence in the\nwritings of Nietzsche against the assumption that he intentionally\naroused a spirit of war or aimed in any way at the world-wide\npreponderance of Germany's type of civilization. Nietzsche had a\ntemperamental loathing for everything that is brutal, a loathing which\nwas greatly intensified by his personal contact with the horrors of war\nwhile serving as a military nurse in the campaign of 1870. If there were\nstill any one senseless enough to plead the erstwhile popular cause of\nPan-Germanism, he would be likely to find more support for his argument\nin the writings of the de-gallicized Frenchman, Count Joseph Arthur\nGobineau, or of the germanized Englishman, Houston Stewart Chamberlain,\nthan in those of the \"hermit of Maria-Sils,\" who does not even suggest,\nlet alone advocate, German world-predominance in a single line of all\nhis writings. To couple Friedrich Nietzsche with Heinrich von Treitschke\nas the latter's fellow herald of German ascendancy is truly\npreposterous. Treitschke himself was bitterly and irreconcilably set\nagainst the creator of Zarathustra,(14) in whom ever since\n\"Unzeitgem\u00e4sse Betrachtungen\" he had divined \"the good European,\"--which\nto the author of the _Deutsche Geschichte_ meant the bad Prussian, and\nby consequence the bad German.\n\n  (14) As is convincingly pointed out in a footnote of J.\u00a0A. Cramb's\n  \"Germany and England.\"\n\nAs a consummate individualist and by the same token a cosmopolite to the\nfull, Nietzsche was the last remove from national, or strictly speaking\neven from racial, jingoism. Even the imputation of ordinary patriotic\nsentiments would have been resented by him as an insult, for such\nsentiments were to him a sure symptom of that gregarious disposition\nwhich was so utterly abhorrent to his feelings. In his German\ncitizenhood he took no pride whatsoever. On every occasion that offered\nhe vented in mordant terms his contempt for the country of his birth,\nboastfully proclaiming his own derivation from alien stock. He bemoaned\nhis fate of having to write for Germans; averring that people who drank\nbeer and smoked pipes were hopelessly incapable of understanding him. Of\nthis extravagance in denouncing his countrymen the following account by\none of his keenest American interpreters gives a fair idea. \"No epithet\nwas too outrageous, no charge was too farfetched, no manipulation or\ninterpretation of evidence was too daring to enter into his ferocious\nindictment. He accused the Germans of stupidity, superstitiousness, and\nsilliness; of a chronic weakness of dodging issues, a fatuous\n'barn-yard' and 'green-pasture' contentment, of yielding supinely to the\ncommands and exactions of a clumsy and unintelligent government; of\ndegrading education to the low level of mere cramming and examination\npassing; of a congenital inability to understand and absorb the culture\nof other peoples, and particularly the culture of the French; of a\nboorish bumptiousness, and an ignorant, ostrichlike complacency; of a\nsystematic hostility to men of genius, whether in art, science, or\nphilosophy; of a slavish devotion to the two great European narcotics,\nalcohol and Christianity; of a profound beeriness, a spiritual\ndyspepsia, a puerile mysticism, an old-womanish pettiness, and an\nineradicable liking for the obscure, evolving, crepuscular, damp, and\nshrouded.\"(15) It certainly requires a violent twist of logic to hold\nthis catalogue of invectives responsible for the transformation of a\nsluggish and indolent bourgeoisie into a \"Volk in Waffen\" unified by an\nindomitable and truculent rapacity.\n\n  (15) H.\u00a0L. Mencken, \"The Mailed Fist and Its Prophet.\" _Atlantic\n  Monthly_, November, 1914.\n\nNeither should Nietzsche's general condemnation of mild and tender\nforbearance--on the ground that it blocks the purpose of nature--be\ninterpreted as a call to universal militancy. By his ruling it is only\nsupermen that are privileged to carry their will through. But undeniably\nhe does teach that the world belongs to the strong. They may grab it at\nany temporary loss to the common run of humanity and, if need be, with\nsanguinary force, since their will is, ulteriorly, identical with the\ncosmic purpose.\n\nOf course this is preaching war of some sort, but Nietzsche was not in\nfavor of war on ethnic or ethical grounds, like that fanatical\nmilitarist, General von Bernhardi, whom the great mass of his countrymen\nin the time before the war would have bluntly rejected as their\nspokesman. Anyway, Nietzsche did not mean to encourage Germany to\nsubjugate the rest of the world. He even deprecated her victory in the\nbloody contest of 1870, because he thought that it had brought on a form\nof material prosperity of which internal decay and the collapse of\nintellectual and spiritual ideals were the unfortunate concomitants. At\nthe same time, the universal decrepitude prevented the despiser of his\nown people from conceiving a decided preference for some other country.\nHe held that all European nations were progressing in the wrong\ndirection,--the deadweight of exaggerated and misshapen materialism\ndragged them back and down. English life he deemed almost irredeemably\nclogged by utilitarianism. Even France, the only modern commonwealth\ncredited by Nietzsche with an indigenous culture, was governed by what\nhe stigmatizes as the life philosophy of the shopkeeper. Nietzsche is\ndestitute of national ideals. In fact he never thinks in terms of\npolitics. He aims to be \"a good European, not a good German.\" In his\naversion to the extant order of society he never for a moment advocates,\nlike Rousseau or Tolstoy, a breach with civilization. Cataclysmic\nchanges through anarchy, revolution, and war were repugnant to his\nideals of culture. For two thousand years the races of Europe had toiled\nto humanize themselves, school their character, equip their minds,\nrefine their tastes. Could any sane reformer have calmly contemplated\nthe possible engulfment in another Saturnian age of the gains purchased\nby that enormous expenditure of human labor? According to Nietzsche's\nconviction, the new dispensation could not be entered in a book of blank\npages. A higher civilization could only be reared upon a lower. So it\nseems that he is quite wrongly accused of having been an \"accessory\nbefore the deed,\" in any literal or legal sense, to the stupendous\ninternational struggle witnessed to-day. And we may pass on to consider\nin what other way he was a vital factor of modern social development.\nFor whatever we may think of the political value of his teachings, it is\nimpossible to deny their arousing and inspiriting effect upon the\nintellectual, moral, and artistic faculties of his epoch and ours.\n\n                   *       *       *       *       *\n\nIt should be clearly understood that the significance of Nietzsche for\nour age is not to be explained by any weighty discovery in the realm of\nknowledge. Nietzsche's merit consists not in any unriddling of the\nuniverse by a metaphysical key to its secrets, but rather in the\ndiffusion of a new intellectual light elucidating human consciousness in\nregard to the purpose and the end of existence. Nietzsche has no\nobjective truths to teach, indeed he acknowledges no truth other than\nsubjective. Nor does he put any faith in bare logic, but on the contrary\npronounces it one of mankind's greatest misfortunes. His argumentation\nis not sustained and progressive, but desultory, impressionistic, and\nfreely repetitional; slashing aphorism is its most effective tool. And\nso, in the sense of the schools, he is not a philosopher at all; quite\nthe contrary, an implacable enemy of the _m\u00e9tier_. And yet the formative\nand directive influence of his vaticinations, enunciated with tremendous\nspiritual heat and lofty gesture, has been very great. His conception of\nlife has acted upon the generation as a moral intoxicant of truly\nincalculable strength.\n\nWithal his published work, amounting to eighteen volumes, though\nflagrantly irrational, yet does contain a perfectly coherent doctrine.\nOnly, it is a doctrine to whose core mere peripheric groping will never\nnegotiate the approach. Its essence must be caught by flashlike seizure\nand cannot be conveyed except to minds of more than the average\nimaginative sensibility. For its central ideas relate to the remotest\nultimates, and its dominant prepossession, the _Overman_, is, in the\nfinal reckoning, the creature of a Utopian fancy. To be more precise,\nNietzsche extorts from the Darwinian theory of selection a set of\namazing connotations by means of the simultaneous shift from the\nbiological to the poetic sphere of thought and from the averagely\nsocialized to an uncompromisingly self-centred attitude of mind. This\ndoubly eccentric position is rendered feasible for him by a whole-souled\nindifference to exact science and an intense contempt for the practical\nadjustments of life. He is, first and last, an imaginative schemer,\nwhose visions are engendered by inner exuberance; the propelling power\nof his philosophy being an intense temperamental enthusiasm at one and\nthe same time lyrically sensitive and dramatically impassioned. It is\nthese qualities of soul that made his utterance ring with the force of a\nhigh moral challenge. All the same, he was not any more original in his\nethics than in his theory of knowledge. In this field also his receptive\nmind threw itself wide open to the flow of older influences which it\nencountered. The religion of personal advantage had had many a prophet\nbefore Nietzsche. Among the older writers, Machiavelli was its\nweightiest champion. In Germany, Nietzsche's immediate predecessor was\n\"Max Stirner,\"(16) and as regards foreign thinkers, Nietzsche declared\nas late as 1888 that to no other writer of his own century did he feel\nhimself so closely allied by the ties of congeniality as to Ralph Waldo\nEmerson.\n\n  (16) His real name was Kaspar Schmidt; he lived from 1806-1856.\n\nThe most superficial acquaintance with these writers shows that\nNietzsche is held responsible for certain revolutionary notions of which\nhe by no means was the originator. Of the connection of his doctrine\nwith the maxims of \"The Prince\" and of \"The Ego and His Own\" (_Der\nEinzige und sein Eigentum_)(17) nothing further need be said than that\nto them Nietzsche owes, directly or indirectly, the principle of\n\"non-morality.\" However, he does not employ the same strictly\nintellectual methods. They were logicians rather than moralists, and\ntheir ruler-man is in the main a construction of cold reasoning, while\nthe ruler-man of Nietzsche is the vision of a genius whose eye looks\ndown a much longer perspective than is accorded to ordinary mortals.\nThat a far greater affinity of temper should have existed between\nNietzsche and Emerson than between him and the two classic\nnon-moralists, must bring surprise to the many who have never recognized\nthe Concord Sage as an exponent of unfettered individualism. Yet in fact\nEmerson goes to such an extreme of individualism that the only thing\nthat has saved his memory from anathema is that he has not many readers\nin his after-times, and these few do not always venture to understand\nhim. And Emerson, though in a different way from Nietzsche's, was also a\nrhapsodist. In his poetry, where he articulates his meaning with far\ngreater unrestraint than in his prose, we find without any difficulty\nfull corroboration of his spiritual kinship with Nietzsche. For\ninstance, where may we turn in the works of the latter for a stronger\nstatement of the case of Power versus Pity than is contained in \"The\nWorld Soul\"?\n\n    \"He serveth the servant,\n     The brave he loves amain,\n     He kills the cripple and the sick,\n     And straight begins again;\n     For gods delight in gods,\n     And thrust the weak aside,--\n     To him who scorns their charities\n     Their arms fly open wide.\"\n\nFrom such a world-view what moral could proceed more logically than that\nof Zarathustra: \"And him whom ye do not teach to fly, teach--how to fall\nquicker\"?\n\n  (17) By Machiavelli and Stirner, respectively.\n\nBut after all, the intellectual origin of Nietzsche's ideas matters but\nlittle. Wheresoever they were derived from, he made them strikingly his\nown by raising them to the splendid elevation of his thought. And if\nnevertheless he has failed to take high rank and standing among the\nsages of the schools, this shortage in his professional prestige is more\nthan counterbalanced by the wide reach of his influence among the laity.\nWhat might the re-classification, or perchance even the\nre-interpretation, of known facts about life have signified beside\nNietzsche's lofty apprehension of the sacredness of life itself? For\nwhatever may be the social menace of his reasoning, his commanding\nproclamation to an expectant age of the doctrine that Progress means\ninfinite growth towards ideals of perfection has resulted in a singular\nreanimation of the individual sense of dignity, served as a potent\nremedy of social dry-rot, and furthered our gradual emergence from the\nimpenetrable darkness of ancestral traditions.\n\nIn seeking an adequate explanation of his power over modern minds we\nreadily surmise that his philosophy draws much of its vitality from the\nsystem of science that underlies it. And yet while it is true enough\nthat Nietzsche's fundamental thesis is an offshoot of the Darwinian\ntheory, the violent individualism which is the driving principle of his\nentire philosophy is rather opposed to the general orientation of\nDarwinism, since that is social. Not to the author of the \"Descent of\nMan\" directly is the modern ethical glorification of egoism indebted for\nits measure of scientific sanction, but to one of his heterodox\ndisciples, namely to the bio-philosopher W.\u00a0H. Rolph, who in a volume\nnamed \"Biologic Problems,\" with the subtitle, \"An Essay in Rational\nEthics,\"(18) deals definitely with the problem of evolution in its\ndynamical bearings. The question is raised, Why do the extant types of\nlife ascend toward higher goals, and, on reaching them, progress toward\nstill higher goals, to the end of time? Under the reason as explained by\nDarwin, should not evolution stop at a definite stage, namely, when the\nobject of the competitive struggle for existence has been fully\nattained? Self-preservation naturally ceases to act as an incentive to\nfurther progress, so soon as the weaker contestants are beaten off the\nfield and the survival of the fittest is abundantly secured. From there\non we have to look farther for an adequate causation of the ascent of\nspecies. Unless we assume the existence of an absolutistic teleological\ntendency to perfection, we are logically bound to connect upward\ndevelopment with favorable external conditions. By substituting for the\nDarwinian \"struggle for existence\" a new formula: \"struggle for\nsurplus,\" Rolph advances a new fruitful hypothesis. In all creatures the\nacquisitive cravings exceed the limit of actual necessity. Under\nDarwin's interpretation of nature, the struggle between individuals of\nthe same species would give way to pacific equilibrium as soon as the\nbare subsistence were no longer in question. Yet we know that the\nstruggle is unending. The creature appetites are not appeased by a\nnormal sufficiency; on the contrary, \"_l'appetit vient en mangeant_\";\nthe possessive instinct, if not quite insatiable, is at least\ncoextensive with its opportunities for gratification. Whether or not it\nbe true--as Carlyle claims--that, after all, the fundamental question\nbetween any two human beings is, \"Can I kill thee, or canst thou kill\nme?\"--at any rate in civilized human society the contest is not waged\nmerely for the naked existence, but mainly for life's increments in the\nform of comforts, pleasures, luxuries, and the accumulation of power and\ninfluence; and the excess of acquisition over immediate need goes as a\nresiduum into the structure of civilization. In plain words, then,\nsocial progress is pushed on by individual greed and ambition. At this\npoint Rolph rests the case, without entering into the moral implicates\nof the subject, which would seem to obtrude themselves upon the\nattention.\n\n  (18) _Biologische Probleme, zugleich als Versuch einer rationellen\n  Ethik._ Leipzig, 1882.\n\nNow to a believer in progressive evolution with a strong ethical bent\nsuch a theory brings home man's ulterior responsibility for the\nbetterment of life, and therefore acts as a call to his supreme duty of\npreparing the ground for the arrival of a higher order of beings. The\nargument seems simple and clinching. Living nature through a long file\nof species and genera has at last worked up to the _homo sapiens_ who as\nyet does not even approach the perfection of his own type. Is it a\nlegitimate ambition of the race to mark time on the stand which it has\nreached and to entrench itself impregnably in its present mediocrity?\nNietzsche did not shrink from any of the inferential conclusions\nlogically to be drawn from the biologic argument. If growth is in the\npurpose of nature, then once we have accepted our chief office in life,\nit becomes our task to pave the way for a higher genus of man. And the\nonly force that makes with directness for that object is the Will to\nPower. To foreshadow the resultant human type, Nietzsche resurrected\nfrom Goethe's vocabulary the convenient word _\u00dcbermensch_--\"Overman.\"\n\n                   *       *       *       *       *\n\nAny one regarding existence in the light of a stern and perpetual combat\nis of necessity driven at last to the alternative between making the\nbest of life and making an end of it; he must either seek lasting\ndeliverance from the evil of living or endeavor to wrest from the world\nby any means at his command the greatest sum of its gratifications. It\nis serviceable to describe the two frames of mind respectively as the\noptimistic and the pessimistic. But it would perhaps be hasty to\nconclude that the first of these attitudes necessarily betokens the\ngreater strength of character.\n\nFriedrich Nietzsche's philosophy sprang from pessimism, yet issued in an\noptimism of unheard-of exaltation; carrying, however, to the end its\nplainly visible birthmarks. He started out as an enthusiastic disciple\nof Arthur Schopenhauer; unquestionably the adherence was fixed by his\nown deep-seated contempt for the complacency of the plebs. But he was\nbound soon to part company with the grandmaster of pessimism, because he\ndiscovered the root of the philosophy of renunciation in that same\ndetestable debility of the will which he deemed responsible for the\nbovine lassitude of the masses; both pessimism and philistinism came\nfrom a lack of vitality, and were symptoms of racial degeneracy. But\nbefore Nietzsche finally rejected Schopenhauer and gave his shocking\ncounterblast to the undermining action of pessimism, he succumbed\ntemporarily to the spell of another gigantic personality. We are not\nconcerned with Richard Wagner's musical influence upon Nietzsche, who\nwas himself a musician of no mean ability; what is to the point here is\nthe prime principle of Wagner's art theory. The key to the Wagnerian\ntheory is found, also, in Schopenhauer's philosophy. Wagner starts from\nthe pessimistic thesis that at the bottom of the well of life lies\nnothing but suffering,--hence living is utterly undesirable. In one of\nhis letters to Franz Liszt he names as the duplex root of his creative\ngenius the longing for love and the yearning for death. On another\noccasion, he confesses his own emotional nihilism in the following\nsummary of _Tristan und Isolde_: \"_Sehnsucht, Sehnsucht, unstillbares,\newig neu sich geb\u00e4rendes Verlangen--Schmachten und Dursten; einzige\nErl\u00f6sung: Tod, Sterben, Untergehen,--Nichtmehrerwachen._\"(19) But from\nthe boundless ocean of sorrow there is a refuge. It was Wagner's\nfundamental dogma that through the illusions of art the individual is\nenabled to rise above the hopelessness of the realities into a new\ncosmos replete with supreme satisfactions. Man's mundane salvation\ntherefore depends upon the ministrations of art and his own artistic\nsensitiveness. The glorification of genius is a natural corollary of\nsuch a belief.\n\n  (19) \"Longing, longing, unquenchable desire, reproducing itself\n  forever anew--thirst and drought; sole deliverance: death,\n  dissolution, extinction,--and no awaking.\"\n\nNietzsche in one of his earliest works examines Wagner's theory and\namplifies it by a rather casuistic interpretation of the evolution of\nart. After raising the question, How did the Greeks contrive to dignify\nand ennoble their national existence? he points, by way of an\nillustrative answer, not perchance to the Periclean era, but to a far\nmore primitive epoch of Hellenic culture, when a total oblivion of the\nactual world and a transport into the realm of imagination was\nuniversally possible. He explains the trance as the effect of\nintoxication,--primarily in the current literal sense of the word. Such\nwas the significance of the cult of Dionysos. \"Through singing and\ndancing,\" claims Nietzsche, \"man manifests himself as member of a higher\ncommunity. Walking and talking he has unlearned, and is in a fair way to\ndance up into the air.\" That this supposititious Dionysiac phase of\nHellenic culture was in turn succeeded by more rational stages, in which\nthe impulsive flow of life was curbed and dammed in by operations of the\nintellect, is not permitted by Nietzsche to invalidate the argument. By\nhis arbitrary reading of ancient history he was, at first, disposed to\nlook to the forthcoming _Universal-Kunstwerk_(20) as the complete\nexpression of a new religious spirit and as the adequate lever of a\ngeneral uplift of mankind to a state of bliss. But the typical disparity\nbetween Wagner and Nietzsche was bound to alienate them. Wagner, despite\nall appearance to the contrary, is inherently democratic in his\nconvictions,--his earlier political vicissitudes amply confirm this\nview,--and fastens his hope for the elevation of humanity through art\nupon the sort of genius in whom latent popular forces might combine to a\nnew summit. Nietzsche on the other hand represents the extreme\naristocratic type, both in respect of thought and of sentiment. \"I do\nnot wish to be confounded with and mistaken for these preachers of\nequality,\" says he. \"For within _me_ justice saith: men are not equal.\"\nHis ideal is a hero of coercive personality, dwelling aloft in solitude,\ndespotically bending the gregarious instincts of the common crowd to his\nown higher purposes by the dominating force of his Will to Might.\n\n  (20) Work of all arts.\n\nThe concept of the Overman rests, as has been shown, upon a fairly solid\nsubstructure of plausibility, since at the bottom of the author's\nreasoning lies the notion that mankind is destined to outgrow its\ncurrent status; the thought of a humanity risen to new and wondrous\nheights of power over nature is not necessarily unscientific for being\nsupremely imaginative. The Overman, however, cannot be produced ready\nmade, by any instantaneous process; he must be slowly and persistently\nwilled into being, through love of the new ideal which he is to embody:\n\"All great Love,\" speaketh Zarathustra, \"seeketh to create what it\nloveth. _Myself_ I sacrifice into my love, and _my neighbor_ as myself,\nthus runneth the speech of all creators.\" Only the fixed conjoint\npurpose of many generations of aspiring men will be able to create the\nOverman. \"Could you create a God?--Then be silent concerning all gods!\nBut ye could very well create Beyond-man. Not yourselves perhaps, my\nbrethren! But ye could create yourselves into fathers and fore-fathers\nof Beyond-man; and let this be your best creating. But all creators are\nhard.\"\n\nNietzsche's startlingly heterodox code of ethics coheres organically\nwith the Overman hypothesis, and so understood is certain to lose some\nof its aspect of absurdity. The racial will, as we have seen, must be\ntaught to aim at the Overman. But the volitional faculty of the\ngeneration, according to Nietzsche, is so debilitated as to be utterly\ninadequate to its office. Hence, advisedly to stimulate and strengthen\nthe enfeebled will power of his fellow men is the most imperative and\nimmediate task of the radical reformer. Once the power of willing, as\nsuch, shall have been,--regardless of the worthiness of its\nobject,--brought back to active life, it will be feasible to give the\nWill to Might a direction towards objects of the highest moral grandeur.\n\nUnfortunately for the race as a whole, the throng is ineligible for\npartnership in the auspicious scheme of co-operative procreation: which\nfact necessitates a segregative method of breeding. The Overman can only\nbe evolved by an ancestry of master-men, who must be secured to the race\nby a rigid application of eugenic standards, particularly in the matter\nof mating. Of marriage, Nietzsche has this definition: \"Marriage, so\ncall I the will of two to create one who is more than they who created\nhim.\" For the bracing of the weakened will-force of the human breed it\nis absolutely essential that master-men, the potential progenitors of\nthe superman, be left unhampered to the impulse of \"living themselves\nout\" (_sich auszuleben_),--an opportunity of which under the regnant\ncode of morals they are inconsiderately deprived. Since, then, existing\ndictates and conventions are a serious hindrance to the requisite\nautonomy of the master-man, their abolishment might be well. Yet on the\nother hand, it is convenient that the _Vielzuviele_, the\n\"much-too-many,\" i.\u00a0e. the despised generality of people, should\ncontinue to be governed and controlled by strict rules and regulations,\nso that the will of the master-folk might the more expeditiously be\nwrought. Would it not, then, be an efficacious compromise to keep the\ncanon of morality in force for the general run, but suspend it for the\nspecial benefit of master-men, prospective or full-fledged? From the\nhistory of the race Nietzsche draws a warrant for the distinction. His\ncontention is that masters and slaves have never lived up to a single\ncode of conduct. Have not civilizations risen and fallen according as\nthey were shaped by this or that class of nations? History also teaches\nwhat disastrous consequences follow the loss of caste. In the case of\nthe Jewish people, the domineering type or morals gave way to the\nservile as a result of the Babylonian captivity. So long as the Jews\nwere strong, they extolled all manifestations of strength and energy.\nThe collapse of their own strength turned them into apologists of the\nso-called \"virtues\" of humility, long-suffering, forgiveness,--until,\naccording to the Jud\u00e6o-Christian code of ethics, being good came to mean\nbeing weak. So races may justly be classified into masters and slaves,\nand history proves that to the strong goes the empire. The ambitions of\na nation are a sure criterion of its worth.\n\n    \"I walk through these folk and keep mine eyes open. They have become\n    _smaller_ and are becoming ever smaller. _And the reason of that is\n    their doctrine of happiness and virtue._\n\n    For they are modest even in their virtue; for they are desirous of\n    ease. But with ease only modest virtue is compatible.\n\n    True, in their fashion they learn how to stride and to stride\n    forward. That I call their _hobbling_. Thereby they become an\n    offense unto every one who is in a hurry.\n\n    And many a one strideth on and in doing so looketh backward, with a\n    stiffened neck. I rejoice to run against the stomachs of such.\n\n    Foot and eyes shall not lie, nor reproach each other for lying. But\n    there is much lying among small folk.\n\n    Some of them _will_, but most of them _are willed_ merely. Some of\n    them are genuine, but most of them are bad actors.\n\n    There are unconscious actors among them, and involuntary actors. The\n    genuine are always rare, especially genuine actors.\n\n    Here is little of man; therefore women try to make themselves manly.\n    For only he who is enough of a man will save the woman in woman.\n\n    And this hypocrisy I found to be worst among them, that even those\n    who command feign the virtues of those who serve.\n\n    'I serve, thou servest, we serve.' Thus the hypocrisy of the rulers\n    prayeth. And, alas, if the highest lord be merely the highest\n    servant!\n\n    Alas! the curiosity of mine eye strayed even unto their hypocrisies,\n    and well I divined all their fly-happiness and their humming round\n    window panes in the sunshine.\n\n    So much kindness, so much weakness see I. So much justice and\n    sympathy, so much weakness.\n\n    Round, honest, and kind are they towards each other, as grains of\n    sand are round, honest, and kind unto grains of sand.\n\n    Modestly to embrace a small happiness--they call 'submission'! And\n    therewith they modestly look sideways after a new small happiness.\n\n    At bottom they desire plainly one thing most of all: to be hurt by\n    nobody. Thus they oblige all and do well unto them.\n\n    But this is _cowardice_; although it be called 'virtue.'\n\n    And if once they speak harshly, these small folk,--I hear therein\n    merely their hoarseness. For every draught of air maketh them\n    hoarse.\n\n    Prudent are they; their virtues have prudent fingers. But they are\n    lacking in clenched fists; their fingers know not how to hide\n    themselves behind fists.\n\n    For them virtue is what maketh modest and tame. Thereby they have\n    made the wolf a dog and man himself man's best domestic animal.\n\n    'We put our chair in the midst'--thus saith their simpering unto\n    me--'exactly as far from dying gladiators as from happy swine.'\n\n    This is mediocrity; although it be called moderation.\"(21)\n\n  (21) \"Thus Spake Zarathustra,\" pp.\u00a0243-245.\n\nThe only law acknowledged by him who would be a master is the bidding of\nhis own will. He makes short work of every other law. Whatever clogs the\nflight of his indomitable ambition must be ruthlessly swept aside.\nObviously, the enactment of this law that would render the individual\nsupreme and absolute would strike the death-knell for all established\nforms and institutions of the social body. But such is quite within\nNietzsche's intention. They are noxious agencies, ingeniously devised\nfor the enslavement of the will, and the most pernicious among them is\nthe Christian religion, because of the alleged divine sanction conferred\nby it upon subserviency. Christianity would thwart the supreme will of\nnature by curbing that lust for domination which the laws of nature as\nrevealed by science sanction, nay prescribe. Nietzsche's ideas on this\nsubject are loudly and over-loudly voiced in _Der Antichrist_ (\"The\nAnti-Christ\"), written in September 1888 as the first part of a planned\ntreatise in four instalments, entitled _Der Wille zur Macht. Versuch\neiner Umwertung aller Werte_. (\"The Will to Power. An Attempted\nTransvaluation of All Values\".)\n\n                   *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe master-man's will, then, is his only law. That is the essence of\n_Herrenmoral_. And so the question arises, Whence shall the conscience\nof the ruler-man derive its distinctions between the Right and the\nWrong? The arch-iconoclast brusquely stifles this na\u00efve query beforehand\nby assuring us that such distinctions in their accepted sense do not\nexist for personages of that grander stamp. Heedless of the\ntime-hallowed concepts that all men share in common, he enjoins\nmastermen to take their position uncompromisingly outside the confining\narea of conventions, in the moral independence that dwells \"beyond good\nand evil.\" Good and Evil are mere denotations, devoid of any real\nsignificance. Right and Wrong are not ideals immutable through the ages,\nnor even the same at any time in all states of society. They are vague\nand general notions, varying more or less with the practical exigencies\nunder which they were conceived. What was right for my great-grandfather\nis not _ipso facto_ right for myself. Hence, the older and better\nestablished a law, the more inapposite is it apt to be to the living\ndemands. Why should the ruler-man bow down to outworn statutes or\nstultify his self-dependent moral sense before the artificial and\nstupidly uniform moral relics of the dead past? Good is whatever\nconduces to the increase of my power,--evil is whatever tends to\ndiminish it! Only the weakling and the hypocrite will disagree.\n\nUnmistakably this is a straightout application of the \"pragmatic\"\ncriterion of truth. Nietzsche's unconfessed and cautious imitators, who\ncall themselves pragmatists, are not bold enough to follow their own\nlogic from the cognitive sphere to the moral. They stop short of the\nnatural conclusion to which their own premises lead. Morality is\nnecessarily predicated upon specific notions of truth. So if Truth is an\nalterable and shifting concept, must not morality likewise be variable?\nThe pragmatist might just as well come out at once into the broad light\nand frankly say: \"Laws do not interest me in the abstract, or for the\nsake of their general beneficence; they interest me only in so far as\nthey affect me. Therefore I will make, interpret, and abolish them to\nsuit myself.\"\n\nTo Nietzsche the \"quest of truth\" is a palpable evasion. Truth is merely\na means for the enhancement of my subjective satisfaction. It makes not\na whit of difference whether an opinion or a judgment satisfies this or\nthat scholastic definition. I call true and good that which furthers my\nwelfare and intensifies my joy in living; and,--to vindicate my\nself-gratification as a form, indeed the highest, of \"social\nservice,\"--the desirable thing is that which matters for the improvement\nof the human stock and thereby speeds the advent of the Superman. \"Oh,\"\nexclaims Zarathustra, \"that ye would understand my word: Be sure to do\nwhatever ye like,--but first of all be such as _can will_! Be sure to\nlove your neighbor as yourself,--but first of all be such as _love\nthemselves_,--as love themselves with great love, with contempt. Thus\nspeaketh Zarathustra, the ungodly.\"\n\nBy way of throwing some light upon this phase of Nietzsche's moral\nphilosophy, it may be added that ever since 1876 he was an assiduous\nstudent of Herbert Spencer, with whose theory of social evolution he was\nfirst made acquainted by his friend, Paul R\u00e9e, who in two works of his\nown, \"Psychologic Observations,\" (1875), and \"On the Origin of Moral\nSentiments,\" (1877), had elaborated upon the Spencerian theory about the\ngenealogy of morals.\n\nThe best known among all of Nietzsche's works, _Also Sprach Zarathustra_\n(\"Thus Spake Zarathustra\"), is the Magna Charta of the new moral\nemancipation. It was composed during a sojourn in southern climes\nbetween 1883 and 1885, during the convalescence from a nervous collapse,\nwhen after a long and critical depression his spirit was recovering its\naccustomed resilience. Nietzsche wrote his _magnum opus_ in solitude, in\nthe mountains and by the sea. His mind always was at its best in\nsettings of vast proportions, and in this particular work there breathes\nan exaltation that has scarcely its equal in the world's literature.\nStyle and diction in their supreme elation suit the lofty fervor of the\nsentiment. From the feelings, as a fact, this great rhapsody flows, and\nto the feelings it makes its appeal; its extreme fascination must be\nlost upon those who only know how to \"listen to reason.\" The wondrous\nplastic beauty of the language, along with the high emotional pitch of\nits message, render \"Zarathustra\" a priceless poetic monument; indeed\nits practical effect in chastening and rejuvenating German literary\ndiction can hardly be overestimated. Its value as a philosophic document\nis much slighter. It is not even organized on severely logical lines. On\nthe contrary, the four component parts are but brilliant variations upon\na single generic theme, each in a different clef, but harmoniously\nunited by the incremental ecstasy of the movement. The composition is\nfree from monotony, for down to each separate aphorism every part of it\nhas its special lyric nuance. The whole purports to convey in the form\nof discourse the prophetic message of Zarathustra, the hermit sage, an\nidealized self-portrayal of the author.\n\nIn the first book the tone is calm and temperate. Zarathustra exhorts\nand instructs his disciples, rails at his adversaries, and discloses his\nsuperiority over them. In the soliloquies and dialogues of the second\nbook he reveals himself more fully and freely as the Superman. The third\nbook contains the meditations and rhapsodies of Zarathustra now dwelling\nwholly apart from men, his mind solely occupied with thought about the\nEternal Return of the Present. In the fourth book he is found in the\ncompany of a few chosen spirits whom he seeks to imbue with his\nperfected doctrine. In this final section of the work the deep lyric\ncurrent is already on the ebb; it is largely supplanted by irony,\nsatire, sarcasm, even buffoonery, all of which are resorted to for the\npitiless excoriation of our type of humanity, deemed decrepit by the\nSage. The author's intention to present in a concluding fifth division\nthe dying Zarathustra pronouncing his benedictions upon life in the act\nof quitting it was not to bear fruit.\n\n\"Zarathustra\"--Nietzsche's terrific assault upon the fortifications of\nour social structure--is too easily mistaken by facile cavilers for the\nravings of an unsound and desperate mind. To a narrow and superficial\nreading, it exhibits itself as a wholesale repudiation of all moral\nresponsibility and a maniacal attempt to subvert human civilization for\nthe exclusive benefit of the \"glorious blonde brute, rampant with greed\nfor victory and spoil.\" Yet those who care to look more deeply will\ndetect beneath this chimerical contempt of conventional regulations no\nwant of a highminded philanthropic purpose, provided they have the\nvision necessary to comprehend a love of man oriented by such extremely\ndistant perspectives. At all events they will discover that in this\nrebellious propaganda an advancing line of life is firmly traced out.\nThe indolent and thoughtless may indeed be horrified by the appalling\ndangers of the gospel according to Zarathustra. But in reality there is\nno great cause for alarm. Society may amply rely upon its agencies, even\nin these stupendous times of universal war, for protection from any\ndisastrous organic dislocations incited by the teachings of Zarathustra,\nat least so far as the immediate future is concerned--in which alone\nsociety appears to be interested. Moreover, our apprehensions are\nappeased by the sober reflection that by its plain unfeasibleness the\nwhole supersocial scheme of Nietzsche is reduced to colossal absurdity.\nIts limitless audacity defeats any formulation of its \"war aims.\" For\nwhat compels an ambitious imagination to arrest itself at the goal of\nthe superman? Why should it not run on beyond that first terminal? In\none of Mr. G.\u00a0K. Chesterton's labored extravaganzas a grotesque sort of\nsuper-overman _in spe_ succeeds in going beyond unreason when he\ncontrives this lucid self-definition: \"I have gone where God has never\ndared to go. I am above the silly supermen as they are above mere men.\nWhere I walk in the Heavens, no man has walked before me, and I am alone\nin a garden.\" It is enough to make one gasp and then perhaps luckily\nrecall Goethe's consoling thought that under the care of Providence the\ntrees will not grow into the heavens. (\"_Es ist daf\u00fcr gesorgt, dass die\nB\u00e4ume nicht in den Himmel wachsen._\") As matter of fact, the ideas\npromulgated in _Also Sprach Zarathustra_ need inspire no fear of their\nwinning the human race from its venerable idols, despite the fact that\nthe pull of natural laws and of elemental appetites seems to be on their\nside. The only effect to be expected of such a philosophy is that it\nwill act as an antidote for moral inertia which inevitably goes with the\nflock-instinct and the lazy reliance on the accustomed order of things.\n\nNietzsche's ethics are not easy to valuate, since none of their\nstandards are derived from the orthodox canon. His being a truly\npersonalized form of morality, his principles are strictly cognate to\nhis temperament. To his professed ideals there attaches a definite\ntheory of society. And since his philosophy is consistent in its\nsincerity, its message is withheld from the man-in-the-street, deemed\nunworthy of notice, and delivered only to the _\u00e9lite_ that shall beget\nthe superman. To Nietzsche the good of the greatest number is no valid\nconsideration. The great stupid mass exists only for the sake of an\noligarchy by whom it is duly exploited under nature's decree that the\nstrong shall prey upon the weak. Let, then, this favored set further the\ndesign of nature by systematically encouraging the elevation of their\nown type.\n\n                   *       *       *       *       *\n\nWe have sought to dispel the fiction about the shaping influence of\nNietzsche upon the thought and conduct of his nation, and have accounted\nfor the miscarriage of his ethics by their fantastic impracticability.\nYet it has been shown also that he fostered in an unmistakable fashion\nthe class-consciousness of the aristocrat, born or self-appointed. To\nthat extent his influence was certainly malign. Yet doubtless he did\nperform a service to our age. The specific nature of this service,\nstated in the fewest words, is that to his great divinatory gift are we\nindebted for an unprecedented strengthening of our hold upon reality. In\norder to make this point clear we have to revert once more to\nNietzsche's transient intellectual relation to pessimism.\n\nWe have seen that the illusionism of Schopenhauer and more particularly\nof Wagner exerted a strong attraction on his high-strung artistic\ntemperament.\n\nNevertheless a certain realistic counter-drift to the ultra-romantic\ntendency of Wagner's theory caused him in the long run to reject the\nfaith in the power of Art to save man from evil. Almost abruptly, his\npersonal affection for the \"Master,\" to whom in his eventual mental\neclipse he still referred tenderly at lucid moments, changed to bitter\nhostility. Henceforth he classes the glorification of Art as one of the\nthree most despicable attitudes of life: Philistinism, Pietism, and\nEstheticism, all of which have their origin in _cowardice_, represent\nthree branches of the ignominious road of escape from the terrors of\nliving. In three extended diatribes Nietzsche denounces Wagner as the\narchetype of modern decadence; the most violent attack of all is\ndelivered against the point of juncture in which Wagner's art gospel and\nthe Christian religion culminate: the promise of redemption through\npity. To Nietzsche's way of thinking pity is merely the coward's\nacknowledgment of his weakness. For only insomuch as a man is devoid of\nfortitude in bearing his own sufferings is he unable to contemplate with\nequanimity the sufferings of his fellow creatures. Since religion\nenjoins compassion with all forms of human misery, we should make war\nupon religion. And for the reason that Wagner's crowning achievement,\nhis _Parsifal_, is a veritable sublimation of Mercy, there can be no\ntruce between its creator and the giver of the counsel: \"Be hard!\"\nPerhaps this notorious advice is after all not as ominous as it sounds.\nIt merely expresses rather abruptly Nietzsche's confidence in the value\nof self-control as a means of discipline. If you have learned calmly to\nsee others suffer, you are yourself able to endure distress with manful\ncomposure. \"Therefore I wash the hand which helped the sufferer;\ntherefore I even wipe my soul.\" But, unfortunately, such is the frailty\nof human nature that it is only one step from indifference about the\nsufferings of others to an inclination to exploit them or even to\ninflict pain upon one's neighbors for the sake of personal gain of one\nsort or another.\n\n    Why so hard? said once the charcoal unto the diamond, are we not\n    near relations?\n\n    Why so soft? O my brethren, thus I ask you. Are ye not my brethren?\n\n    Why so soft, so unresisting, and yielding? Why is there so much\n    disavowal and abnegation in your hearts? Why is there so little fate\n    in your looks?\n\n    And if ye are not willing to be fates, and inexorable, how could ye\n    conquer with me someday?\n\n    And if your hardness would not glance, and cut, and chip into\n    pieces--how could ye create with me some day?\n\n    For all creators are hard. And it must seem blessedness unto you to\n    press your hand upon millenniums as upon wax,--\n\n    Blessedness to write upon the will of millenniums as upon\n    brass,--harder than brass, nobler than brass. The noblest only is\n    perfectly hard.\n\n    This new table, O my brethren, I put over you: Become hard!(22)\n\n  (22) \"Thus Spake Zarathustra,\" p.\u00a0399, sec.\u00a029.\n\nThe repudiation of Wagner leaves a tremendous void in Nietzsche's soul\nby depriving his enthusiasm of its foremost concrete object. He loses\nhis faith in idealism. When illusions can bring a man like Wagner to\nsuch an odious outlook upon life, they must be obnoxious in themselves;\nand so, after being subjected to pitiless analysis, they are disowned\nand turned into ridicule. And now, the pendulum of his zeal having swung\nfrom one emotional extreme to the other, the great rhapsodist finds\nhimself temporarily destitute of an adequate theme. However, his fervor\ndoes not long remain in abeyance, and soon it is absorbed in a new\nobject. Great as is the move it is logical enough. Since illusions are\nonly a hindrance to the fuller grasp of life which behooves all free\nspirits, Nietzsche energetically turns from self-deception to its\nopposite, self-realization. In this new spiritual endeavor he relies far\nmore on intuition than on scientific and metaphysical speculation. From\nhis own stand he is certainly justified in doing this. Experimentation\nand ratiocination at the best are apt to disassociate individual\nrealities from their complex setting and then proceed to palm them off\nas illustrations of life, when in truth they are lifeless, artificially\npreserved specimens.\n\n    \"Encheiresin naturae nennt's die Chemie,\n     Spottet ihrer selbst und weiss nicht wie.\"(23)\n\nNietzsche's realism, by contrast, goes to the very quick of nature,\ngrasps all the gifts of life, and from the continuous flood of phenomena\nextracts a rich, full-flavored essence. It is from a sense of gratitude\nfor this boon that he becomes an idolatrous worshiper of experience,\n\"_der grosse Jasager_,\"--the great sayer of Yes,--and the most\nstimulating optimist of all ages. To Nietzsche reality is alive as\nperhaps never to man before. He plunges down to the very heart of\nthings, absorbs their vital qualities and meanings, and having himself\nlearned to draw supreme satisfaction from the most ordinary facts and\nevents, he makes the common marvelous to others, which, as was said by\nJames Russell Lowell, is a true test of genius. No wonder that\ndeification of reality becomes the dominant _motif_ in his philosophy.\nBut again that onesided aristocratic strain perverts his ethics. To\ndrain the intoxicating cup at the feast of life, such is the divine\nprivilege not of the common run of mortals but only of the elect. They\nmust not let this or that petty and artificial convention, nor yet this\nor that moral command or prohibition, restrain them from the exercise of\nthat higher sense of living, but must fully abandon themselves to its\njoys. \"Since man came into existence he hath had too little joy. That\nalone, my brethren, is our original sin.\"(24) The \"much-too-many\" are\ndoomed to inanity by their lack of appetite at the banquet of life:\n\n    Such folk sit down unto dinner and bring nothing with them, not even\n    a good hunger. And now they backbite: \"All is vanity!\"\n\n    But to eat well and drink well, O my brethren, is, verily, no vain\n    art! Break, break the tables of those who are never joyful!(25)\n\n  (23) Goethe's _Faust_, II, ll.\u00a01940-1. Bayard Taylor translates:\n  _Encheiresin naturae_, this Chemistry names, nor knows how herself she\n  banters and blames!\n\n  (24) \"Thus Spake Zarathustra,\" p.\u00a0120.\n\n  (25) _Ibid._, p.\u00a0296, sec.\u00a013.\n\nThe Will to Live holds man's one chance of this-worldly bliss, and\nsupersedes any care for the remote felicities of any problematic future\nstate. Yet the Nietzschean cult of life is not to be understood by any\nmeans as a banal devotion to the pleasurable side of life alone. The\ntrue disciple finds in every event, be it happy or adverse, exalting or\ncrushing, the factors of supreme spiritual satisfaction: joy and pain\nare equally implied in experience, the Will to Live encompasses jointly\nthe capacity to enjoy and to suffer. It may even be paradoxically said\nthat since man owes some of his greatest and most beautiful achievements\nto sorrow, it must be a joy and a blessing to suffer. The unmistakable\nsign of heroism is _amor fati_, a fierce delight in one's destiny, hold\nwhat it may.\n\nConsequently, the precursor of the superman will be possessed, along\nwith his great sensibility to pleasure, of a capacious aptitude for\nsuffering. \"Ye would perchance abolish suffering,\" exclaims Nietzsche,\n\"and we,--it seems that we would rather have it even greater and worse\nthan it has ever been. The discipline of suffering,--tragical\nsuffering,--know ye not that only this discipline has heretofore brought\nabout every elevation of man?\" \"Spirit is that life which cutteth into\nlife. By one's own pain one's own knowledge increaseth;--knew ye that\nbefore? And the happiness of the spirit is this: to be anointed and\nconsecrated by tears as a sacrificial animal;--knew ye that before?\" And\nif, then, the tragical pain inherent in life be no argument against\nJoyfulness, the zest of living can be obscured by nothing save the fear\nof total extinction. To the disciple of Nietzsche, by whom every moment\nof his existence is realized as a priceless gift, the thought of his\nirrevocable separation from all things is unbearable. \"'Was this life?'\nI shall say to Death. 'Well, then, once more!'\" And--to paraphrase\nNietzsche's own simile--the insatiable witness of the great\ntragi-comedy, spectator and participant at once, being loath to leave\nthe theatre, and eager for a repetition of the performance, shouts his\nendless _encore_, praying fervently that in the constant repetition of\nthe performance not a single detail of the action be omitted. The\nyearning for the endlessness not of life at large, not of life on any\nterms, but of _this my life_ with its ineffable wealth of rapturous\nmoments, works up the extreme optimism of Nietzsche to its stupendous _a\npriori_ notion of infinity, expressed in the name _die ewige Wiederkehr_\n(\"Eternal Recurrence\"). It is a staggeringly imaginative concept, formed\napart from any evidential grounds, and yet fortified with a fair amount\nof logical armament. The universe is imagined as endless in time,\nalthough its material contents are not equally conceived as limitless.\nSince, consequently, there must be a limit to the possible variety in\nthe arrangement and sequence of the sum total of data, even as in the\ncase of a kaleidoscope, the possibility of variegations is not infinite.\nThe particular co-ordination of things in the universe, say at this\nparticular moment, is bound to recur again and again in the passing of\nthe eons. But under the nexus of cause and effect the resurgence of the\npast from the ocean of time is not accidental nor is the configuration\nof things haphazard, as is true in the case of the kaleidoscope; rather,\nhistory, in the most inclusive acceptation of the term, is predestined\nto repeat itself; this happens through the perpetual progressive\nresurrection of its particles. It is then to be assumed that any aspect\nwhich the world has ever presented must have existed innumerable\nmillions of times before, and must recur with eternal periodicity. That\nthe deterministic strain in this tremendous _Vorstellung_ of a cyclic\nrhythm throbbing in the universe entangles its author's fanatical belief\nin evolution in a rather serious self-contradiction, does not detract\nfrom its spiritual lure, nor from its wide suggestiveness, however\nincapable it may be of scientific demonstration.\n\nFrom unfathomed depths of feeling wells up the p\u00e6an of the prophet of\nthe life intense.\n\n    O Mensch! Gib Acht!\n    Was spricht die tiefe Mitternacht?\n    Ich schlief, ich schlief--,\n    Aus tiefem Traum bin ich erwacht:--\n    Die Welt ist tief,\n    Und tiefer als der Tag gedacht.\n    Tief ist ihr Weh--,\n    Lust--tiefer noch als Herzeleid:\n    Weh spricht: Vergeh!\n    Doch alle Lust will Ewigkeit--\n    Will tiefe, tiefe Ewigkeit!(26)\n\n  (26)\n\n      O man! Lose not sight!\n      What saith the deep midnight?\n      \"I lay in sleep, in sleep;\n      From deep dream I woke to light.\n      The world is deep,\n      And deeper than ever day though! it might.\n      Deep is its woe,--\n      And deeper still than woe--delight.\"\n      Saith woe: \"Pass, go!\n      Eternity's sought by all delight,--\n      Eternity deep--by all delight.\n\n  \"Thus Spake Zarathustra,\" The Drunken Song, p.\u00a0174.--The translation\n  but faintly suggests the poetic appeal of the original.\n\nA timid heart may indeed recoil from the iron necessity of reliving _ad\ninfinitum_ its woeful terrestrial fate. But the prospect can hold no\nterror for the heroic soul by whose fiat all items of experience have\nassumed important meanings and values. He who has cast in his lot with\nDestiny in spontaneous submission to all its designs, cannot but revere\nand cherish his own fate as an integral part of the grand unalterable\nfatality of things.\n\n                   *       *       *       *       *\n\nIf this crude presentment of Friedrich Nietzsche's doctrine has not\nentirely failed of its purpose, the _leitmotifs_ of that doctrine will\nhave been readily referred by the reader to their origin; they can be\nsubsumed under that temperamental category which is more or less\naccurately defined as the _romantic_. Glorification of violent\npassion,--quest of innermost mysteries,--boundless expansion of\nself-consciousness,--visions of a future of transcendent magnificence,\nand notwithstanding an ardent worship of reality a quixotically\nimpracticable detachment from the concrete basis of civic life,--these\noutstanding characteristics of the Nietzschean philosophy give\nunmistakable proof of a central, driving, romantic inspiration:\nNietzsche shifts the essence and principle of being to a new center of\ngravity, by substituting the Future for the Present and relying on the\nuntrammeled expansion of spontaneous forces which upon closer\nexamination are found to be without definite aim or practical goal.\n\nFor this reason, critically to animadvert upon Nietzsche as a social\nreformer would be utterly out of place; he is simply too much of a poet\nto be taken seriously as a statesman or politician. The weakness of his\nphilosophy before the forum of Logic has been referred to before.\nNothing can be easier than to prove the incompatibility of some of his\ntheorems. How, for instance, can the absolute determinism of the belief\nin Cyclic Recurrence be reconciled with the power vested in superman to\ndeflect by his autonomous will the straight course of history? Or, to\ntouch upon a more practical social aspect of his teaching,--if in the\norder of nature all men are unequal, how can we ever bring about the\nright selection of leaders, how indeed can we expect to secure the due\nascendancy of character and intellect over the gregarious grossness of\nthe demos?\n\nAgain, it is easy enough to controvert Nietzsche almost at any pass by\ndemonstrating his unphilosophic onesidedness. Were Nietzsche not\nstubbornly onesided, he would surely have conceded--as any sane-minded\nperson must concede in these times of suffering and sacrifice--that\ncharity, self-abnegation, and self-immolation might be viewed, not as\nconclusive proofs of degeneracy, but on the contrary as signs of growth\ntowards perfection. Besides, philosophers of the _m\u00e9tier_ are sure to\nobject to the haziness of Nietzsche's idea of Vitality which in truth is\noriented, as is his philosophy in general, less by thought than by\nsentiment.\n\nNotwithstanding his obvious connection with significant contemporaneous\ncurrents, the author of \"Zarathustra\" is altogether too much _sui\ngeneris_ to be amenable to any crude and rigid classification. He may\nplausibly be labelled an anarchist, yet no definition of anarchism will\nwholly take him in. Anarchism stands for the demolition of the extant\nsocial apparatus of restraint. Its battle is for the free determination\nof personal happiness. Nietzsche's prime concern, contrarily, is with\ninternal self-liberation from the obsessive desire for personal\nhappiness in any accepted connotation of the term; such happiness to him\ndoes not constitute the chief object of life.\n\nThe cardinal point of Nietzsche's doctrine is missed by those who,\narguing retrospectively, expound the gist of his philosophy as an\nincitation to barbarism. Nothing can be more remote from his intentions\nthan the transformation of society into a horde of ferocious brutes. His\nimpeachment of mercy, notwithstanding an appearance of reckless impiety,\nis in the last analysis no more and no less than an expedient in the\ntruly romantic pursuit of a new ideal of Love. Compassion, in his\nopinion, hampers the progress towards forms of living that shall be\npregnant with a new and superior type of perfection. And in justice to\nNietzsche it should be borne in mind that among the various\nmanifestations of that human failing there is none he scorns so deeply\nas cowardly and petty commiseration of self. It also deserves to be\nemphasized that he nowhere endorses selfishness when exercised for small\nor sordid objects. \"I love the brave. But it is not enough to be a\nswordsman, one must also know against whom to use the sword. And often\nthere is more bravery in one's keeping quiet and going past, in order to\nspare one's self for a worthier enemy: Ye shall have only enemies who\nare to be hated, but not enemies who are to be despised.\"(27) Despotism\nmust justify itself by great and worthy ends. And no man must be\npermitted to be hard towards others who lacks the strength of being even\nharder towards himself.\n\n  (27) \"Thus Spake Zarathustra,\" p.\u00a0304.\n\nAt all events it must serve a better purpose to appraise the practical\nimportance of Nietzsche's speculations than blankly to denounce their\nimmoralism. Nietzsche, it has to be repeated, was not on the whole a\ncreator of new ideas. His extraordinary influence in the recent past is\nnot due to any supreme originality or fertility of mind; it is\npredominantly due to his eagle-winged imagination. In him the emotional\nurge of utterance was, accordingly, incomparably more potent than the\npurely intellectual force of opinion: in fact the texture of his\nphilosophy is woven of sensations rather than of ideas, hence its\ndecidedly ethical trend.\n\nThe latent value of Nietzsche's ethics in their application to specific\nsocial problems it would be extremely difficult to determine. Their\nsuccessful application to general world problems, if it were possible,\nwould mean the ruin of the only form of civilization that signifies to\nus. His philosophy, if swallowed in the whole, poisons; in large\npotations, intoxicates; but in reasonable doses, strengthens and\nstimulates. Such danger as it harbors has no relation to grossness. His\ncall to the Joy of Living and Doing is no encouragement of vulgar\nhedonism, but a challenge to persevering effort. He urges the supreme\nimportance of vigor of body and mind and force of will. \"O my brethren,\nI consecrate you to be, and show unto you the way unto a new nobility.\nYe shall become procreators and breeders and sowers of the future.--Not\nwhence ye come be your honor in future, but whither ye go! Your will,\nand your foot that longeth to get beyond yourselves, be that your new\nhonor!\"(28)\n\n  (28) \"Thus Spake Zarathustra,\" p.\u00a0294.\n\nIt would be a withering mistake to advocate the translation of\nNietzsche's poetic dreams into the prose of reality. Unquestionably his\nUtopia if it were to be carried into practice would doom to utter\nextinction the world it is devised to regenerate. But it is generally\nacknowledged that \"prophets have a right to be unreasonable,\" and so, if\nwe would square ourselves with Friedrich Nietzsche in a spirit of\nfairness, we ought not to forget that the daring champion of reckless\nunrestraint is likewise the inspired apostle of action, power,\nenthusiasm, and aspiration, in fine, a prophet of Vitality and a\nmessenger of Hope.\n\n\n\n\nIV\n\nTHE REVIVALISM OF LEO TOLSTOY\n\n\nIn the intellectual record of our times it is one of the oddest events\nthat the most impressive preacher who has taken the ear of civilized\nmankind in this generation raised up his voice in a region which in\nrespect of its political, religious, and economic status was until\nrecently, by fairly common consent, ruled off the map of Europe. The\ngreatest humanitarian of his century sprang up in a land chiefly\ncharacterized in the general judgment of the outside world by the\nreactionism of its government and the stolid ignorance of its populace.\nA country still teeming with analphabeticians and proverbial for its\ndense medievalism gave to the world a writer who by the great quality of\nhis art and the lofty spiritualism of his teaching was able not only to\nobtain a wide hearing throughout all civilized countries, but to become\na distinct factor in the moral evolution of the age. The stupefying\nevents that have recently revolutionized the Russian state have given\nthe world an inkling of the secrets of the Slavic type of temperament,\nso mystifying in its commixture of simplicity and strength on the one\nhand with grossness and stupidity, and on the other hand with the\nhighest spirituality and idealism. For such people as in these\ninfuriated times still keep up some objective and judicious interest in\nproducts of the literary art, the volcanic upheaval in the social life\nof Russia has probably thrown some of Tolstoy's less palpable figures\ninto a greater plastic relief. Tolstoy's own character, too, has become\nmore tangible in its curious composition. The close analogy between his\npersonal theories and the dominant impulses of his race has now been\nmade patent. We are better able to understand the people of whom he\nwrote because we have come to know better the people for whom he wrote.\n\nThe emphasis of Tolstoy's popular appeal was unquestionably enhanced by\ncertain eccentricities of his doctrine, and still more by his\npicturesque efforts to conform his mode of life, by way of necessary\nexample, to his professed theory of social elevation. The personality of\nTolstoy, like the character of the Russian people, is many-sided, and\nsince its aspects are not marked off by convenient lines of division,\nbut are, rather, commingled in the great and varied mass of his literary\nachievements, it is not easy to make a definitive forecast of his\nhistoric position. Tentatively, however, the current critical estimate\nmay be summed up in this: as a creative writer, in particular of novels\nand short stories, he stood matchless among the realists, and the\nverdict pronounced at one time by William Dean Howells when he referred\nto Tolstoy as \"the only living writer of perfect fiction\" is not likely\nto be overruled by posterity. Nor will competent judges gainsay his\nsupreme importance as a critic and moral revivalist of society, even\nthough they may be seriously disposed to question whether his principles\nof conduct constitute in their aggregate a canon of much practical worth\nfor the needs of the western world. As a philosopher or an original\nthinker, however, he will hardly maintain the place accorded him by the\nless discerning among his multitudinous followers, for in his persistent\nattempt to find a new way of understanding life he must be said to have\nsignally failed. Wisdom in him was hampered by Utopian fancies; his\ndogmas derive from idiosyncrasies and lead into absurdities. Then, too,\nmost of his tenets are easily traced to their sources: in his vagaries\nas well as in his noblest and soundest aspirations he was merely\ncontinuing work which others had prepared.\n\n                   *       *       *       *       *\n\nAn objective survey of Tolstoy's work in realistic fiction, in which he\nranked supreme, should start with the admission that he was by no means\nthe first arrival among the Russians in that field. Nicholas Gogol,\nFedor Dostoievsky, and Ivan Turgenieff had the priority by a small\nmargin. Of these three powerful novelists, Dostoievsky (1821-1881) has\nprobably had an even stronger influence upon modern letters than has\nTolstoy himself. He was one of the earliest writers of romance to show\nthe younger generation how to found fiction upon deeper psychologic\nknowledge. His greatest proficiency lay, as is apt to be the case with\nwriters of a realistic bent, in dealing with the darkest side of life.\nThe wretched and outcast portion of humanity yielded to his skill its\nmost congenial material. His novels--\"Poor Folk,\" (1846), \"Memoirs from\na Dead House,\" (1862), \"Raskolnikoff,\" (1866), \"The Idiot,\" (1868), \"The\nKaramasoffs,\" (1879)--take the reader into company such as had\nheretofore not gained open entrance to polite literature: criminals,\ndefectives, paupers, and prostitutes. Yet he did not dwell upon the\nwretchedness of that submerged section of humanity from any perverse\ndelight in what is hideous or for the satisfaction of readers afflicted\nwith morbid curiosity, but from a compelling sense of pity and brotherly\nlove. His works are an appeal to charity. In them, the imperdible grace\nof the soul shines through the ugliest outward disguise to win a glance\nfrom the habitual indifference of fortune's _enfants g\u00e2t\u00e9s_. Dostoievsky\npreceded Tolstoy in frankly enlisting his talents in the service of his\noutcast brethren. With the same ideal of the writer's mission held in\nsteady view, Tolstoy turned his attention from the start, and then more\nand more as his work advanced, to the pitiable condition of the lower\norders of society. It must not be forgotten in this connection that his\ncareer was synchronous with the growth of a social revolution which,\nhaving reached its full force in these days, is making Russia over for\nbetter or for worse, and whose wellsprings Tolstoy helps us to fathom.\n\n                   *       *       *       *       *\n\nFor the general grouping of his writings it is convenient to follow\nTolstoy's own division of his life. His dreamy poetical childhood was\nsucceeded by three clearly distinct stages: first, a score of years\nfilled up with self-indulgent worldliness; next, a nearly equal length\nof time devoted to artistic ambition, earnest meditation, and helpful\nsocial work; last, by a more gradual transition, the ascetic period,\ncovering a long stretch of years given up to religious illumination and\nto the strenuous advocacy of the Simple Life.\n\nThe remarkable spiritual evolution of this great man was apparently\ngoverned far more by inborn tendencies than by the workings of\nexperience. Of Tolstoy in his childhood, youth, middle age, and\nsenescence we gain trustworthy impressions from numerous\nautobiographical documents, but here we shall have to forego anything\nmore than a passing reference to the essential facts of his career. He\nwas descended from an aristocratic family of German stock but domiciled\nin Russia since the fourteenth century. The year of his birth was 1828,\nthe same as Ibsen's. In youth he was bashful, eccentric, and amazingly\nill-favored. The last-named of these handicaps he outgrew but late in\nlife, still later did he get over his bashfulness, and his eccentricity\nnever left him. His penchant for the infraction of custom nearly put a\npremature stop to his career when in his urchin days he once threw\nhimself from a window in an improvised experiment in aerial navigation.\nAt the age of fourteen he was much taken up with subtile speculations\nabout the most ancient and vexing of human problems: the future life,\nand the immortality of the soul. Entering the university at fifteen, he\ndevoted himself in the beginning to the study of oriental languages, but\nlater on his interest shifted to the law. At sixteen he was already\nimbued with the doctrines of Jean Jacques Rousseau that were to play\nsuch an important r\u00f4le in guiding his conduct. In 1846 he passed out of\nthe university without a degree, carrying away nothing but a lasting\nregret over his wasted time. He went directly to his ancestral estates,\nwith the idealistic intention to make the most of the opportunity\nafforded him by the patriarchal relationship that existed in Russia\nbetween the landholder and the _adscripti glebae_ and to improve the\ncondition of his seven hundred dependents. His efforts, however, were\nforedoomed to failure, partly through his lack of experience, partly\nalso through a certain want of sincerity or tenacity of purpose. The\nexperiment in social education having abruptly come to its end, the\ndisillusionized reformer threw himself headlong into the diversions and\ndissipations of the capital city. In his \"Confession\" he refers to that\nchapter of his existence as made up wholly of sensuality and\nworldliness. He was inordinately proud of his noble birth,--at college\nhis inchoate apostleship of the universal brotherhood of man did not\nshield him from a general dislike on account of his arrogance,--and he\ncultivated the most exclusive social circles of Moscow. He freely\nindulged the love of sports that was to cling through life and keep him\nstrong and supple even in very old age. (Up to a short time before his\ndeath he still rode horseback and perhaps none of the renunciations\nexacted by his principles came so hard as that of giving up his favorite\npastime of hunting.) But he also fell into the evil ways of gilded\nyouth, soon achieving notoriety as a toper, gambler, and _courreur des\nfemmes_. After a while his brother, who was a person of steadier habits\nand who had great influence over him, persuaded him to quit his\nprofligate mode of living and to join him at his military post. Under\nthe bracing effect of the change, the young man's moral energies quickly\nrevived. In the wilds of the Caucasus he at once grew freer and cleaner;\nhis deep affection for the half-civilized land endeared him both to the\nCossack natives and the Russian soldiers. He entered the army at\ntwenty-three, and from November, 1853, up to the fall of Sebastopol in\nthe summer of 1855, served in the Crimean campaign. He entered the\nfamous fortress in November, 1854, and was among the last of its\ndefenders. The indelible impressions made upon his mind by the heroism\nof his comrades, the awful scenes and the appalling suffering he had to\nwitness, were responsible then and later for descriptions as harrowing\nand as stirring as any that the war literature of our own day has\nproduced.\n\nIn the Crimea he made his d\u00e9but as a writer. Among the tales of his\nmartial period the most popular and perhaps the most excellent is the\none called \"The Cossacks.\" Turgenieff pronounced it the best short story\never written in Russian, and it is surely no undue exaggeration to say\nof Tolstoy's novelettes in general that in point of technical mastery\nthey are unsurpassed.\n\nSick at heart over the unending bloodshed in the Caucasus the young\nofficer made his way back to Petrograd, and here, lionized in the salons\ndoubly, fur his feats at arms and in letters, he seems to have returned,\nwithin more temperate limits, to his former style of living. At any\nrate, in his own judgment the ensuing three years were utterly wasted.\nThe mental inanity and moral corruption all about him swelled his sense\nof superiority and self-righteousness. The glaring humbug and hypocrisy\nthat permeated his social environment was, however, more than he could\nlong endure.\n\nHaving resigned his officer's commission he went abroad in 1857, to\nSwitzerland, Germany, and France. The studies and observations made in\nthese travels sealed his resolution to settle down for good on his\ndomain and to consecrate his life to the welfare of his peasants. But a\nsurvey of the situation found upon his return made him realize that\nnothing could be done for the \"muzhik\" without systematic education:\ntherefore, in order to prepare himself for efficacious work as a\nteacher, he spent some further time abroad for special study, in 1859.\nAfter that, the educational labor was taken up in full earnest. The lord\nof the land became the schoolmaster of his subjects, reenforcing the\neffect of _viva voce_ teaching by means of a periodical published\nexpressly for their moral uplift. This work he continued for about three\nyears, his hopes of success now rising, now falling, when in a fit of\ndespondency he again abandoned his philanthropic efforts. About this\ntime, 1862, he married Sophia Andreyevna Behrs, the daughter of a Moscow\nphysician. With characteristic honesty he forced his private diary on\nhis fianc\u00e9e, who was only eighteen, so that she might know the full\ntruth about his pre-conjugal course of living.\n\nAbout the Countess Tolstoy much has been said in praise and blame. Let\nher record speak for itself. Of her union with the great novelist\nthirteen children were born, of whom nine reached an adult age. The\nmother nursed and tended them all, with her own hands made their\nclothes, and until they grew to the age of ten supplied to them the\nplace of a schoolmistress. It must not be inferred from this that her\nhorizon did not extend beyond nursery and kitchen, for during the\nearlier years she acted also as her husband's invaluable amanuensis.\nBefore the days of the typewriter his voluminous manuscripts were all\ncopied by her hand, and recopied and revised--in the case of \"War and\nPeace\" this happened no less than seven times, and the novel runs to\nsixteen hundred close-printed pages!--and under her supervision his\nnumerous works were not only printed but also published and circulated.\nMoreover, she managed his properties, landed, personal, and literary, to\nthe incalculable advantage of the family fortune. This end, to be sure,\nshe accomplished by conservative and reliable methods of business; for\nwhile of his literary genius she was the greatest admirer, she never was\nin full accord with his communistic notions. And the highest proof of\nall her extraordinary _T\u00fcchtigkeit_ and devotion is that by her common\nsense and tact she was enabled to function for a lifetime as a sort of\nbuffer between her husband's world-removed dreamland existence and the\nrigid and frigid reality of facts.\n\nThus Tolstoy's energies were left to go undivided into literary\nproduction; its amount, as a result, was enormous. If all his writings\nwere to be collected, including the unpublished manuscripts now reposing\nin the Rumyantzoff Museum, which are said to be about equal in quantity\nto the published works, and if to this collection were added his\ninnumerable letters, most of which are of very great interest, the\ncomplete set of Tolstoy's works would run to considerably more than one\nhundred volumes. To discuss all of Tolstoy's writings, or even to\nmention all, is here quite out of the question. All those, however, that\nseem vital for the purpose of a just estimate and characterization will\nbe touched upon.\n\n                   *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe literary fame of Tolstoy was abundantly secured already in the\nearlier part of his life by his numerous short stories and sketches. The\nthree remarkable pen pictures of the siege of Sebastopol, and tales such\nas \"The Cossacks,\" \"Two Hussars,\" \"Polikushka,\" \"The Snow-Storm,\" \"The\nEncounter,\" \"The Invasion,\" \"The Captive in the Caucasus,\" \"Lucerne,\"\n\"Albert,\" and many others, revealed together with an exceptional depth\nof insight an extraordinary plastic ability and skill of motivation; in\nfact they deserve to be set as permanent examples before the eyes of\nevery aspiring author. In their characters and their setting they\npresent true and racy pictures of a portentous epoch, intimate studies\nof the human soul that are full of charm and fascination,\nnotwithstanding their tragic sadness of outlook. Manifestly this author\nwas a prose poet of such marvelous power that he could abstain\nconsistently from the use of sweeping color, overwrought sentiment, and\nhigh rhetorical invective.\n\nAt this season Tolstoy, while he refrained from following any of the\napproved literary models, was paying much attention to the artistic\nrefinement of his style. There was to be a time when he would abjure all\nconsiderations of artistry on the ground that by them the ethical issue\nin a narration is beclouded. But it would be truer to say conversely\nthat in his own later works, since \"Anna Karenina,\" the clarity of the\nartistic design was dimmed by the obtrusive didactic purpose.\nFortunately the artistic interest was not yet wholly subordinated to the\nreligious urge while the three great novels were in course of\ncomposition: \"War and Peace,\" (1864-69), \"Anna Karenina,\" (first part,\n1873; published complete in 1877), and \"Resurrection,\" (1899). To the\nfirst of these is usually accorded the highest place among all of\nTolstoy's works; it is by this work that he takes his position as the\nchief epic poet of modern times. \"War and Peace\" is indeed an epic\nrather than a novel in the ordinary meaning. Playing against the\nbackground of tremendous historical transactions, the narrative sustains\nthe epic character not only in the hugeness of its dimensions, but\nequally in the qualities of its technique. There is very little comment\nby the author upon the events, and merely a touch of subjective irony\nhere and there. The story is straightforwardly told as it was lived out\nby its characters. Tolstoy has not the self-complacency to thrust in the\nodds and ends of his personal philosophy, as is done so annoyingly even\nby a writer of George Meredith's consequence, nor does he ever treat his\nreaders with the almost simian impertinence so successfully affected by\na Bernard Shaw. If \"War and Peace\" has any faults, they are the faults\nof its virtues, and spring mainly from an unmeasured prodigality of the\ncreative gift. As a result of Tolstoy's excessive range of vision, the\norderly progress of events in that great novel is broken up somewhat by\nthe profusion of shapes that monopolize the attention one at a time much\nas individual spots in a landscape do under the sweeping glare of the\nsearch-light. Yet although in the externalization of this crowding\nmultitude of figures no necessary detail is lacking, the grand movement\nas a whole is not swamped by the details. The entire story is governed\nby the conception of events as an emanation of the cosmic will, not\nmerely as the consequence of impulses proceeding from a few puissant\ngeniuses of the Napoleonic order.\n\nIt is quite in accord with such a view of history that the machinery of\nthis voluminous epopee is not set in motion by a single conspicuous\nprotagonist. As a matter of fact, it is somewhat baffling to try to name\nthe principals in the story, since in artistic importance all the\nfigures are on an equal footing before their maker; possibly the fact\nthat Tolstoy's ethical theory embodied the most persistent protest ever\nraised against the inequality of social estates proved not insignificant\nfor his manner of characterization. Ethical justice, however, is carried\nto an artistic fault, for the feelings and reactions of human nature in\nso many diverse individuals lead to an intricacy and subtlety of\nmotivation which obscures the organic causes through overzeal in making\nthem patent. Anyway, Tolstoy authenticates himself in this novel as a\npast master of realism, particularly in his utterly convincing\ndepictment of Russian soldier life. And as a painter of the battlefield\nhe ranks, allowing for the difference of the medium, with Vasili\nVerestschagin at his best. It may be said in passing that these two\nRussian pacifists, by their gruesome exposition of the horrors of war,\naroused more sentiment against warfare than did all the spectacular and\nexpensive peace conferences inaugurated by the crowned but hollow head\nof their nation, and the splendid declamations of the possessors of, or\naspirants for, the late Mr. Nobel's forty-thousand dollar prize.\n\nLike all true realists, Tolstoy took great pains to inform himself even\nabout the minuti\u00e6 of his subjects, but he never failed, as did in large\nmeasure Zola in _La D\u00e9b\u00e2cle_, to infuse emotional meaning into the\nstatic monotony of facts and figures. In his strong attachment for his\nown human creatures he is more nearly akin to the idealizing or\nsentimentalizing type of realists, like Daudet, Kipling, Hauptmann, than\nto the downright matter-of-fact naturalists such as Zola or Gorki. But\nto classify him at all would be wrong and futile, since he was never\nleagued with literary creeds and cliques and always stood aloof from the\nheated theoretical controversies of his time even after he had hurled\nhis great inclusive challenge to art.\n\n\"War and Peace\" was written in Tolstoy's happiest epoch, at a time,\ncomparatively speaking, of spiritual calm. He had now reached some\nsatisfying convictions in his religious speculations, and felt that his\npersonal life was moving up in the right direction. His moral change is\nmade plain in the contrast between two figures of the story, Prince\nAndrey and Peter Bezukhoff: the ambitious worldling and the honest\nseeker after the right way.\n\nIn his second great novel, \"Anna Karenina,\" the undercurrent of the\nauthor's own moral experience has a distinctly greater carrying power.\nIt is through the earnest idealist, Levine, that Tolstoy has recorded\nhis own aspirations. Characteristically, he does not make Levine the\ncentral figure.\n\n\"Anna Karenina\" is undoubtedly far from \"pleasant\" reading, since it is\nthe tragical recital of an adulterous love. But the situation, with its\nappalling consequence of sorrow, is seized in its fullest psychological\ndepth and by this means saved from being in any way offensive. The\nrelation between the principals is viewed as by no means an ordinary\nliaison. Anna and Vronsky are serious-minded, honorable persons, who\nhave struggled conscientiously against their mutual enchantment, but are\nswept out of their own moral orbits by the resistless force of Fate.\nThis fatalistic element in the tragedy is variously emphasized; so at\nthe beginning of the story, where Anna, in her emotional confusion still\nhalf-ignorant of her infatuation, suddenly realizes her love for\nVronsky; or in the scene at the horse races where he meets with an\naccident. Throughout the narrative the psychological argumentation is\nbeyond criticism. Witness the description of Anna's husband, a sort of\ncousin-in-kind of Ibsen's Thorvald Helmer, reflecting on his future\ncourse after his wife's confession of her unfaithfulness. Or that other\nepisode, perhaps the greatest of them all, when Anna, at the point of\ndeath, joins together the hands of her husband and her lover. Or,\nfinally, the picture of Anna as she deserts her home leaving her son\nbehind in voluntary expiation of her wrong-doing, an act, by the way,\nthat betrays a nicety of conscience far too subtle for the Rhadamantine\ninquisitors who demand to know why, if Anna would atone to Karenin, does\nshe go with Vronsky? How perfectly true to life, subsequently, is the\nrapid _d\u00e9gringolade_ of this passion under the gnawing curse of the\nhomeless, workless, purposeless existence which little by little\ndisunites the lovers! Only the end may be somewhat open to doubt, with\nits metastasis of the heroine's character,--unless indeed we consider\nthe sweeping change accounted for by the theory of duplex personality.\nShe herself believes that there are two quite different women alive in\nher, the one steadfastly loyal to her obligations, the other blindly\ndriven into sin by the demon of her uncontrollable temperament.\n\nIn the power of analysis, \"Anna Karenina\" is beyond doubt Tolstoy's\nmasterpiece, and yet in its many discursive passages it already\nforeshadows the disintegration of his art, or more precisely, its\nultimate capitulation to moral propagandism. For it was while at work\nupon this great novel that the old perplexities returned to bewilder his\nsoul. In the tumultuous agitation of his conscience, the crucial and\nfundamental questions, Why Do We Live? and How Should We Live? could\nnevermore be silenced. Now a definitive attitude toward life is forming;\nto it all the later works bear a vital relation. And so, in regard to\ntheir moral outlook, Tolstoy's books may fitly be divided into those\nwritten before and those written since his \"conversion.\" \"Anna Karenina\"\nhappens to be on the dividing line.\n\nHe was a man well past fifty, of enviable social position, in prosperous\ncircumstances, widely celebrated for his art, highly respected for his\ncharacter, and in his domestic life blessed with every reason for\ncontentment. Yet all the gifts of fortune sank into insignificance\nbefore that vexing, unanswered Why? In the face of a paralyzing\nuniversal aimlessness, there could be to him no abiding sense of life in\nhis personal enjoyments and desires. The burden of life became still\nless endurable face to face with the existence of evil and with the\nwretchedness of our social arrangements. With so much toil and trouble,\nsqualor, ignorance, crime, and every conceivable kind of bodily and\nmental suffering all about me, why should I be privileged to live in\nluxury and idleness? This ever recurring question would not permit him\nto enjoy his possessions without self-reproach. To think of thousands of\nfellowmen lacking the very necessaries, made affluence and its\nconcomitant ways of living odious to him. We know that in 1884, or\nthereabouts, he radically changed his views and modes of life so as to\nbring them into conformity with the laws of the Gospel. But before this\nconversion, in the despairing anguish that attacked him after the\ncompletion of \"Anna Karenina,\" he was frequently tempted to suicide.\nAlthough the thought of death was very terrible to him then and at all\ntimes, still he would rather perish than live on in a world made heinous\nand hateful by the iniquity of men. Then it was that he searched for a\nreason why the vast proportion of humanity endure life, nay enjoy it,\nand why self-destruction is condemned by the general opinion, and this\nin spite of the fact that for most mortals existence is even harder than\nit could have been for him, since he at least was shielded from material\nwant and lived amid loving souls. The answer he found in the end seemed\nto lead by a straight road out of the wilderness of doubt and despair.\nThe great majority, so he ascertained, are able to bear the burden of\nlife because they heed the ancient injunction: \"_ora et labora_\"; they\n_work_ and they _believe_. Might he not sweeten his lot after the same\nprescription? Being of a delicate spiritual sensibility, he had long\nrealized that people of the idle class were for the most part inwardly\nindifferent to religion and in their actions defiant of its spirit. In\nthe upper strata of society religious thought, where it exists, is\nlargely adulterated or weakened; sophisticated by education, doctored by\nscience, thinned out with worldly ambitions and with practical needs and\nconsiderations. The faith that supports life is found only among simple\nfolk. For faith, to deserve the name, must be absolute, uncritical,\nunreasoning. Starting from these convictions as a basis, Tolstoy\nresolutely undertook _to learn to believe_; a determination which led\nhim, as it has led other ardent religionists, so far astray from\necclesiastical paths that in due course of time he was unavoidably\nexcommunicated from his church. His convictions made him a vehement\nantagonist of churchdom because of its stiffness of creed and laxness of\npractice. For his own part he soon arrived at a full and absolute\nacceptance of the Christian faith in what he considered to be its\nprimitive and essential form. In \"Walk Ye in the Light,\" (1893), the\nreversion of a confirmed worldling to this original conception of\nChristianity gives the story of the writer's own change of heart.\n\nTo the period under discussion belongs Tolstoy's drama, \"The Power of\nDarkness,\" (1886).(29) It is a piece of matchless realism, probably the\nfirst unmixedly naturalistic play ever wrought out. It is brutally,\nterribly true to life, and that to life at its worst, both in respect of\nthe plot and the actors, who are individualized down to the minutest\ncharacteristics of utterance and gesture. Withal it is a species of\nmodern morality, replete with a reformatory purpose that reflects deeply\nthe author's tensely didactic state of mind. His instructional zeal is\nheightened by intimate knowledge of the Russian peasant, on his good\nside as well as on his bad. Some of his short stories are crass pictures\nof the muzhik's bestial degradation, veritable pattern cards of human\nand inhuman vices. In other stories, again, the deep-seated piety of the\nmuzhik, and his patriarchal simplicity of heart are portrayed. As\ninstance, the story of \"Two Old Men,\" (1885), who are pledged to attain\nthe Holy Land: the one performs his vow to the letter, the other, much\nthe godlier of the two, is kept from his goal by a work of practical\ncharity. In another story a muzhik is falsely accused of murder and\naccepts his undeserved punishment in a devout spirit of non-resistance.\nIn a third, a poor cobbler who intuitively walks in the light is deemed\nworthy of a visit from Christ.\n\n  (29) The only tragedy brought out during his life time.\n\nIn \"The Power of Darkness,\" the darkest traits of peasant life prevail,\nyet the frightful picture is somehow Christianized, as it were, so that\neven the miscreant Nikita, in spite of his monstrous crimes, is sure of\nour profound compassion. We are gripped at the very heartstrings by that\ngreat confession scene where he stutters out his budget of malefactions,\nforced by his awakened conscience and urged on by his old father: \"Speak\nout, my child, speak it off your soul, then you will feel easier.\"\n\n\"The Power of Darkness\" was given its counterpart in the satirical\ncomedy, \"Fruits of Culture,\" (1889). The wickedness of refined society\nis more mercilessly excoriated than low-lived infamy. But artistically\nconsidered the peasant tragedy is far superior to the \"society play.\"\n\n                   *       *       *       *       *\n\nTolstoy was a pessimist both by temperament and philosophical\npersuasion. This is made manifest among other things by the prominent\nplace which the idea of Death occupies in his writings. His feelings are\nexpressed with striking simplicity by one of the principal characters in\n\"War and Peace\": \"One must often think of death, so that it may lose its\nterrors for us, cease to be an enemy, and become on the contrary a\nfriend that delivers us from this life of miseries.\" Still, in Tolstoy's\nstories, death, as a rule, is a haunting spectre. This conception comes\nto the fore even long after his conversion in a story like \"Master and\nMan.\" Throughout his literary activity it has an obsessive hold on his\nmind. Even the shadowing of the animal mind by the ubiquitous spectre\ngives rise to a story: \"Cholstomjer, The Story of a Horse,\" (1861), and\nin one of the earlier tales even the death of a tree is pictured. Death\nis most terrifying when, denuded of its heroic embellishments in battle\npieces such as \"The Death of a Soldier\" (\"Sebastopol\") or the\ndescription of Prince Andrey's death in \"War and Peace,\" it is exposed\nin all its bare and grim loathsomeness. Such happens in the short novel\npublished in 1886 under the name of \"The Death of Ivan Ilyitch,\"--in\npoint of literary merit one of Tolstoy's greatest performances. It is a\nplain tale about a middle-aged man of the official class, happy in an\nunreflecting sort of way in the jog-trot of his work and domestic\narrangements. Suddenly his fate is turned,--by a trite mishap resulting\nin a long, hopeless sickness. His people at first give him the most\nanxious care, but as the illness drags on their devotion gradually\nabates, the patient is neglected, and soon almost no thought is given to\nhim. In the monotonous agony of his prostration, the sufferer slowly\ncomes to realize that he is dying, while his household has gone back to\nits habitual ways mindless of him, as though he were already dead, or\nhad never lived. All through this lengthened crucifixion he still clings\nto life, and it is only when the family, gathering about him shortly\nbefore the release, can but ill conceal their impatience for the end,\nthat Ivan at last accepts his fate: \"I will no longer let them suffer--I\nwill die; I will deliver them and myself.\" So he dies, and the world\npursues its course unaltered,--in which consists the after-sting of this\npoignant tragedy.\n\n                   *       *       *       *       *\n\nBetween the years 1879 and 1886 Tolstoy published the main portion of\nwhat may be regarded as his spiritual autobiography, namely, \"The\nConfession,\" (1879, with a supplement in 1882), \"The Union and\nTranslation of the Four Gospels,\" (1881-2), \"What Do I Believe?\" (also\ntranslated under the title \"My Religion,\" 1884) and \"What Then Must We\nDo?\" (1886). He was now well on the way to the logical ultimates of his\nethical ideas, and in the revulsion from artistic ambitions so plainly\nforeshown in a treatise in 1887: \"What is True Art?\" he repudiated\nunequivocally all his earlier work so far as it sprang from any motives\nother than those of moral teaching. Without a clear appreciation of\nthese facts a just estimate of \"The Kreutzer Sonata\" (1889) is\nimpossible.\n\nThe central character of the book is a commonplace, rather well-meaning\nfellow who has been tried for the murder of his wife, slain by him in a\nfit of insensate jealousy, and has been acquitted because of the\nextenuating circumstances in the case. The object of the story is to lay\nbare the causes of his crime. Tolstoy's ascetic proclivity had long\nsince set him thinking about sex problems in general and in particular\nupon the ethics of marriage. And by this time he had arrived at the\nconclusion that the demoralized state of our society is chiefly due to\npolygamy and polyandrism; corroboration of his uncompromising views on\nthe need of social purity he finds in the evangelist Matthew, v:27-28,\nwhere the difference between the old command and its new, far more\nrigorous, interpretation is bluntly stated: \"Ye have heard that it was\nsaid by them of old time, Thou shalt not commit adultery: But I say unto\nyou that whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed\nadultery with her already in his heart.\"\n\nNow Tolstoy thinks that society, far from concurring in the scriptural\ncondemnation of lewdness, caters systematically to the appetites of the\nvoluptuary. If Tolstoy is right in his diagnosis, then the euphemistic\nterm \"social evil\" has far wider reaches of meaning than those to which\nit is customarily applied. With the head person in \"The Kreutzer\nSonata,\" Tolstoy regards society as no better than a _maison de\ntol\u00e9rance_ conducted on a very comprehensive scale. Women are reared\nwith the main object of alluring men through charms and accomplishments;\nthe arts of the hairdresser, the dressmaker, and milliner, as well as\nthe exertions of governesses, music masters, and linguists all converge\ntoward the same aim: to impart the power of attracting men. Between the\nwoman of the world and the professional courtezan the main difference in\nthe light of this view lies in the length of the service. Pozdnicheff\naccordingly divides femininity into long term and short term\nprostitutes, which rather fantastic classification Tolstoy follows up\nintrepidly to its last logical consequence.\n\nThe main idea of \"The Kreutzer Sonata,\" as stated in the postscript, is\nthat sexless life is best. A recommendation of celibacy as mankind's\nhighest ideal to be logical should involve a wish for the disappearance\nof human life from the globe. A world-view of such pessimistic sort\nprevents itself from the forfeiture of all bonds with humanity only by\nits concomitant reasoning that a race for whom it were better not to be\nis the very one that will struggle desperately against its _summum\nbonum_. Since race suicide, then, is a hopeless desideratum, the\nreformer must turn to more practicable methods if he would at least\nalleviate the worst of our social maladjustments. Idleness is the mother\nof all mischief, because it superinduces sensual self-indulgence.\nTherefore we must suppress anything that makes for leisure and pleasure.\nAt this point we grasp the meaning of Tolstoy's vehement recoil from\nart. It is, to a great extent, the strong-willed resistance of a highly\nimpressionable puritan against the enticements of beauty,--their\ndistracting and disquieting effect, and principally their power of\nsensuous suggestion.\n\nThe last extensive work published by Tolstoy was \"Resurrection,\" (1889).\nIn artistic merit it is not on a level with \"War and Peace\" and \"Anna\nKarenina,\" nor can this be wondered at, considering the opinion about\nthe value of art that had meanwhile ripened in the author.\n\n\"Resurrection\" was written primarily for a constructive moral purpose,\nyet the subject matter was such as to secrete, unintendedly, a corrosive\ncriticism of social and religious cant. The satirical connotation of the\nnovel could not have been more grimly brought home than through this\nfact, that the hero by his unswerving allegiance to Christian principles\nof conduct greatly shocks, at first, our sense of the proprieties,\ninstead of eliciting our enthusiastic admiration. In spite of our\nhighest moral notions Prince Nekhludoff, like that humbler follower of\nthe voice of conscience in Gerhart Hauptmann's novel, impresses us as a\n\"Fool in Christ.\" The story, itself, leads by degrees from the\nunder-world of crime and punishment to a great spiritual elevation.\nMaslowa, a drunken street-walker, having been tried on a charge of\nmurder, is wrongfully sentenced to transportation for life, because--the\njury is tired out and the judge in a hurry to visit his mistress. Prince\nNekhludoff, sitting on that jury, recognizes in the victim of justice a\ngirl whose downfall he himself had caused. He is seized by penitence and\nresolves to follow the convict to Siberia, share her sufferings,\ndedicate his life to her redemption. She has sunk so low that his hope\nof reforming her falters, yet true to his resolution he offers to marry\nher. Although the offer is rejected, yet the suggestion of a new life\nwhich it brings begins to work a change in the woman. In the progress of\nthe story her better nature gradually gains sway until a thorough moral\nrevolution is completed.\n\n\"Resurrection\" derives its special value from its clear demonstration of\nthose rules of conduct to which the author was straining with every\nmoral fiber to conform his own life. From his ethical speculations and\nsocial experiments are projected figures like that of Maria Paulovna, a\nrich and beautiful woman who prefers to live like a common workingwoman\nand is drawn by her social conscience into the revolutionary vortex. In\nthis figure, and more definitely still in the political convict\nSimonson, banished because of his educational work among the common\npeople, Tolstoy studies for the first time the so-called \"intellectual\"\ntype of revolutionist. His view of the \"intellectuals\" is sympathetic,\non the whole. They believe that evil springs from ignorance. Their\nagitation issues from the highest principles, and they are capable of\nany self-sacrifice for the general weal. Still Tolstoy, as a thoroughly\nanti-political reformer, deprecates their organized movement.\n\nAltogether, he repudiated the systems of social reconstruction that go\nby the name of socialism, because he relied for the regeneration of\nsociety wholly and solely upon individual self-elevation. In an\nessential respect he was nevertheless a socialist, inasmuch as he strove\nfor the ideal of universal equality. His social philosophy, bound up\ninseparably with his personal religious evolution, is laid down in a\nvast number of essays, letters, sketches, tracts, didactic tales, and\nperhaps most comprehensively in those autobiographical documents already\nmentioned. Sociologically the most important of these is a book on the\nproblem of property, entitled, \"What Then Must We Do?\" (1886), which\nexpounds the passage in Luke iii:10, 11: \"And the people asked him,\nsaying, What shall we do then? He answered and saith unto them, He that\nhath two coats, let him impart to him that hath none; and he that hath\nmeat, let him do likewise.\" Not long before that, he had thought of\ndevoting himself entirely to charitable work, but practical experiments\nat Moscow demonstrated to him the futility of almsgiving. Speaking on\nthat point to his English biographer, Aylmer Maude,(30) he remarked:\n\"All such activity, if people attribute importance to it, is worthless.\"\nWhen his interviewer insisted that the destitute have to be provided for\nsomehow and that the Count himself was in the habit of giving money to\nbeggars, the latter replied: \"Yes, but I do not imagine that I am doing\ngood! I only do it for myself, because I know that I have no right to be\nwell off while they are in misery.\" It is worth mention in passing that\nduring the famine of 1891-2 this determined opponent of organized\ncharity, in noble inconsistency with his theories, led in the\ndispensation of relief to the starving population of Middle Russia.\n\n  (30) \"The Life of Tolstoy,\" Later Years, p.\u00a0643\u00a0f.\n\nBut in \"What Then Must We Do?\" he treats the usual organized dabbling in\ncharity as utterly preposterous: \"Give away all you have or else you can\ndo no good.\" ... \"If I give away a hundred thousand and still withhold\nfive hundred thousand, I am far from acting in the spirit of charity,\nand remain a factor of social injustice and evil. At the sight of the\nfreezing and hungering I must still feel responsible for their plight,\nand feel that since we should live in conditions where that evil can be\nabstained from, it is impossible for me in the position in which I\ndeliberately place myself to be anything other than a source of general\nevil.\"\n\nIt was chiefly due to the influence of two peasants, named Sutayeff and\nBondareff, that Tolstoy decided by a path of religious reasoning to\nabandon \"parasitical existence,\"--that is, to sacrifice all prerogatives\nof his wealth and station and to share the life of the lowly. He\nreasoned as follows: \"Since I am to blame for the existence of social\nwrong, I can lessen my blame only by making myself like unto those that\nlabor and are heavy-laden.\" Economically, Tolstoy reasons from this\nfallacy: If all men do not participate equitably in the menial work that\nhas to be performed in the world, it follows that a disproportionate\nburden of work falls upon the shoulders of the more defenseless portion\nof humanity. Whether this undue amount of labor be exacted in the form\nof chattel slavery, or, which is scarcely less objectionable, in the\nform of the virtual slavery imposed by modern industrial conditions,\nmakes no material difference. The evil conditions are bound to continue\nso long as the instincts that make for idleness prevail over the\nco-operative impulses. The only remedy lies in the simplification of\nlife in the upper strata of the social body, overwork in the laboring\nclasses being the direct result of the excessive demands for the\npleasures and luxuries of life in the upper classes.\n\nTo Bondareff in particular Tolstoy confessedly owes the conviction that\nthe best preventive for immorality is physical labor, for which reason\nthe lower classes are less widely removed from grace than the upper.\nBondareff maintained on scriptural grounds that everybody should employ\nat least a part of his time in working the land. This view Tolstoy\nshared definitely after 1884. Not only did he devote a regular part of\nhis day to agricultural labor; he learned, in addition, shoemaking and\ncarpentry, meaning to demonstrate by his example that it is feasible to\nreturn to those patriarchal conditions under which the necessities of\nlife were produced by the consumer himself. From this time forth he\nmodelled his habits more and more upon those of the common rustic. He\nadopted peasant apparel and became extremely frugal in his diet.\nAlthough by natural taste he was no scorner of the pleasures of the\ntable, he now eliminated one luxury after another. About this time he\nalso turned strict vegetarian, then gave up the use of wine and spirits,\nand ultimately even tobacco, of which he had been very fond, was made to\ngo the way of flesh. He practiced this self-abnegation in obedience to\nthe Law of Life which he interpreted as a stringent renunciation of\nphysical satisfactions and personal happiness. Nor did he shirk the\nultimate conclusion to which his premises led: if the Law of Life\nimposes the suppression of all natural desires and appetites and\ncommands the voluntary sacrifice of every form of property and power, it\nmust be clear that life itself is devoid of sense and utterly\nundesirable. And so it is expressly stated in his \"Thoughts.\"(31)\n\n  (31) No. 434.\n\n                   *       *       *       *       *\n\nTo what extent Tolstoy was a true Christian believer may best be\ngathered from his own writings, \"What Do I Believe?\" (1884), \"On Life,\"\n(1887), and \"The Kingdom of God is within You,\" (1893). Although at the\nage of seventeen he had ceased to be orthodox, there can be no question\nwhatever that throughout his whole life religion remained the deepest\nsource of his inspiration. By the early eighties he had emerged from\nthat acute scepticism that well-nigh cost him life and reason, and had,\noutwardly at least, made his peace with the church, attending services\nregularly, and observing the feasts and the fasts; here again in\nimitating the muzhik in his religious practices he strove apparently to\nattain also to the muzhik's actual gift of credulity. But in this\nendeavor his superior culture proved an impediment to him, and his\nwidening doctrinal divergence from the established church finally drew\nupon his head, in 1891, the official curse of the Holy Synod. And yet a\nleading religious journal was right, shortly after his death, in this\ncomment upon the religious meaning of his life: \"If Christians\neverywhere should put their religious beliefs into practice with the\nsimplicity and sincerity of Tolstoy, the entire religious, moral, and\nsocial life of the world would be revolutionized in a month.\" The\northodox church expelled him from its communion because of his\nradicalism; but in his case radicalism meant indeed the going to the\nroots of Christian religion, to the original foundations of its\ndoctrines. In the teachings of the _primitive_ church there presented\nitself to Tolstoy a dumfoundingly simple code for the attainment of\nmoral perfection. Hence arose his opposition to the _established_ church\nwhich seemed to have strayed so widely from its own fundamentals.\n\nSince Tolstoy's life aimed at the progressive exercise of\nself-sacrifice, his religious belief could be no gospel of joy. In fact,\nhis is a sad, gray, ascetic religion, wholly devoid of poetry and\nemotional uplift. He did not learn to believe in the divinity of Christ\nnor in the existence of a God in any definite sense personal, and it is\nnot even clear whether he believed in an after-life. And yet he did not\nwrongfully call himself a Christian, for the mainspring of his faith and\nhis labor was the message of Christ delivered to his disciples in the\nSermon on the Mount. This, for Tolstoy, contained all the philosophy and\nthe theology of which the modern world stands in need, since in the\nprecept of non-resistance is joined forever the issue between the Law\nand the Gospel: \"Ye have heard that it hath been said, An eye for an\neye, and a tooth for a tooth: But I say unto you, That ye resist not\nevil: but whosoever shall smite thee on the right cheek, turn to him the\nother also.\"\n\nAnd farther on: \"Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love\nthy neighbor, and hate thine enemy. But I say unto you. Love your\nenemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and\npray for them that despitefully use you, and persecute you.\"\u00a0...\n\nIn this commandment Tolstoy found warrant for unswerving forbearance\ntoward every species of private and corporate aggression. Offenders\nagainst individuals or the commonwealth deserve nothing but pity.\nPrisons should be abolished and criminals never punished. Tolstoy went\nso far as to declare that even if he saw his own wife or daughters being\nassaulted, he would abstain from using force in their defense. The\ninfliction of the death penalty was to him the most odious of crimes. No\nlife, either human or animal, should be wilfully destroyed.\n\nThe doctrine of non-resistance removes every conceivable excuse for war\nbetween the nations. A people is as much bound as is an individual by\nthe injunction: \"Whosoever shall smite thee on the right cheek, turn to\nhim the other also.\" War is not to be justified on patriotic grounds,\nfor patriotism, far from being a virtue, is an enlarged and unduly\nglorified form of selfishness. Consistently with his convictions,\nTolstoy put forth his strength not for the glory of his nation but for\nthe solidarity of mankind.\n\nThe cornerstones of Tolstoy's religion, then, were these three articles\nof faith. First, True Faith gives Life. Second, Man must live by labor.\nThird, Evil must never be resisted by means of evil.\n\n                   *       *       *       *       *\n\nOutside of the sphere of religious thought it is inaccurate to speak of\na specific Tolstoyan philosophy, and it is impossible for the student to\nsubscribe unconditionally to the hackneyed formula of the books that\nTolstoy \"will be remembered as perhaps the most profound influence of\nhis day on human thought.\" Yet the statement might be made measurably\ntrue if it were modified in accordance with the important reservation\nmade earlier in this sketch. In the field of thought he was not an\noriginal explorer. He was great only as the promulgator, not as the\ninventor, of ideas. His work has not enriched the wisdom of man by a\nsingle new thought, nor was he a systematizer and expounder of thought\nor a philosopher. In fact he possessed slight familiarity with\nphilosophical literature. Among the older metaphysicians his principal\nguide was Spinoza, and in more modern speculative science he did not\nadvance beyond Schopenhauer. To the latter he was not altogether unlike\nin his mental temper. At least he showed himself indubitably a pessimist\nin his works by placing in fullest relief the bad side of the social\nstate. We perceive the pessimistic disposition also through his personal\nbehavior, seeing how he desponded under the discords of life, how easily\nhe lost courage whenever he undertook to cope with practical problems,\nand how sedulously he avoided the contact with temptations. It was only\nby an almost total withdrawal from the world, and by that entire relief\nfrom its daily and ordinary affairs which he owed to the devotion of his\nwife that Tolstoy was enabled during his later years to look upon the\nworld less despairingly.\n\nLike his theology, so, too, his civic and economic creed was marked by\nthe utmost and altogether too primitive simplicity. Political questions\nwere of slight interest to him, unless they touched upon his vital\nprinciples. If, therefore, we turn from his very definite position in\nmatters of individual conduct to his political views, we shall find that\nhe was wanting in a program of practical changes. His only positive\ncontribution to economic discussion was a persistent advocacy of\nagrarian reform. Under the influence of Henry George he became an\neloquent pleader for the single tax and the nationalization of the land.\nThis question he discussed in numerous places, with especial force and\nclearness in a long article entitled \"A Great Iniquity.\"(32) He takes\nthe view that the mission of the State, if it have any at all, can only\nconsist in guaranteeing the rights of every one of its denizens, but\nthat in actual fact the State protects only the rights of the\npropertied. Intelligent and right-minded citizens must not conspire with\nthe State to ride rough-shod over the helpless majority. Keenly alive to\nthe unalterable tendency of organized power to abridge the rights of\nindividuals and to dominate both their material and spiritual existence,\nTolstoy fell into the opposite extreme and would have abolished with a\nclean sweep all factors of social control, including the right of\nproperty and the powers of government, and transformed society into a\ncommunity of equals and brothers, relying for its peace and well-being\nupon a universal love of liberty and justice.\n\n  (32) Printed in the (London) _Times_ of September 10, 1905.\n\nBy his disbelief in authority, the rejection of the socialists' schemes\nof reconstruction, his mistrust of fixed institutions and reliance on\nindividual right-mindedness for the maintenance of the common good,\nTolstoy in the sphere of civic thought separated himself from the\npolitical socialists by the whole diameter of initial principle: he\nmight not unjustly be classified, therefore, as an anarchist, if this\ndefinition were neither too narrow nor too wide. The Christian\nSocialists might claim him, because he aspires ardently to ideals\nessentially Christian in their nature, and there is surely truth in the\nthesis that \"every thinker who understands and earnestly accepts the\nteaching of the Master is at heart a socialist.\" At the same time,\nChristianity and Socialism do not travel the whole way together. For a\nreligion that enjoins patience and submission can hardly be conducive to\nthe full flowering of Socialism. And Tolstoy's attitude towards the\nchurch differs radically from that of the Christian Socialists. On the\nwhole one had best abstain from classifying men of genius.\n\nThe base of Tolstoy's social creed was the non-recognition of private\nproperty. The effect of the present system is to maintain the inequality\nof men and thereby to excite envy and stir up hatred among them. Eager\nto set a personal example and precedent, Tolstoy rendered himself\nnominally penniless by making all his property, real and personal, over\nto his wife and children. Likewise he abdicated his copyrights. Thus he\nreduced himself to legal pauperism with a completeness of success that\ncannot but stir with envy the bosom of any philanthropist who shares Mr.\nAndrew Carnegie's conviction that to die rich is to die disgraced.\n\nTolstoy's detractors have cast a plausible suspicion upon his sincerity.\nThey pointed out among other things that his relinquishment of pecuniary\nprofit in his books was apparent, not real. Since Russia has no\ncopyright conventions with other countries, it was merely making a\nvirtue of necessity to authorize freely the translation of his works\ninto foreign languages. As for the Russian editions of his writings, it\nis said that in so far as the heavy hand of the censor did not prevent,\nthe Countess, as her husband's financial agent, managed quite skilfully\nto exploit them.\n\n                   *       *       *       *       *\n\nAltogether, did Tolstoy practice what he professed? Inconsistency\nbetween principles and conduct is a not uncommon frailty of genius, as\nis notoriously illustrated by Tolstoy's real spiritual progenitor, Jean\nJacques Rousseau.\n\nNow there are many discreditable stories in circulation about the muzhik\nlord of Yasnaya Polyana. He urged upon others the gospel commands: \"Lay\nnot up for yourselves treasures upon earth\" and: \"Take what ye have and\ngive to the poor,\" and for his own part lived, according to report, in\nsumptuous surroundings. He went ostentatiously on pilgrimages to holy\nplaces, barefooted but with an expert pedicure attending him. He dressed\nin a coarse peasant blouse, but underneath it wore fine silk and linen.\nHe was a vegetarian of the strictest observance, yet so much of an\nepicure that his taste for unseasonable dainties strained the domestic\nresources. He preached simplicity, and according to rumor dined off\npriceless plate; taught the equality of men, and was served by lackies\nin livery. He abstained from alcohol and tobacco, but consumed six cups\nof strong coffee at a sitting. Finally, he extolled the sexless life and\nwas the father of thirteen children. It was even murmured that\nnotwithstanding his professed affection for the muzhik and his incessant\nproclamation of universal equality, the peasantry of Yasnaya Polyana was\nthe most wretchedly-treated to be found in the whole province and that\nthe extortionate landlordism of the Tolstoys was notorious throughout\nthe empire.\n\nMuch of this, to be sure, is idle gossip, unworthy of serious attention.\nNevertheless, there is evidence enough to show that Tolstoy's insistence\nupon a literal acceptance of earlier Christian doctrines led him into\nunavoidable inconsistencies and shamed him into a tragical sense of\ndishonesty.\n\nUnquestionably Tolstoy lived very simply and laboriously for a man of\ngreat rank, means, and fame, but his life was neither hard nor cramped.\nHaving had no personal experience of garret and hovel, he could have no\nfirst-hand practical knowledge of the sting of poverty, nor could he\nobtain hardship artificially by imposing upon himself a mild imitation\nof physical discomfort. For the true test of penury is not the suffering\nof to-day but the oppressive dread of to-morrow. His ostensible muzhik\nexistence, wanting in none of the essentials of civilization, was a\nromance that bore to the real squalid pauperism of rural Russia about\nthe same relation that the bucolic make-belief of Boucher's or Watteau's\nswains and shepherdesses bore to the unperfumed truth of a sheep-farm or\na hog-sty. As time passed, and the sage turned his thoughts to a more\nrigid enforcement of his renunciations, it was no easy task for a\ndevoted wife to provide comfort for him without shaking him too rudely\nout of his fond illusion that he was enduring privations.\n\nAfter all, then, his practice did not tally with his theory; and this\nconsciousness of living contrary to his own teachings was a constant\nsource of unhappiness which no moral quibbles of his friends could\nstill.\n\nYet no man could be farther from being a hypocrite. If at last he broke\ndown under a burden of conscience, it was a burden imposed by the\nreality of human nature which makes it impossible for any man to live up\nto intentions of such rigor as Tolstoy's. From the start he realized\nthat he did not conform his practice entirely to his teachings, and as\nhe grew old he was resolved that having failed to harmonize his life\nwith his beliefs he would at least corroborate his sincerity by his\nmanner of dying. Even in this, however, he was to be thwarted. In his\ndramatic ending, still plainly remembered, we feel a grim consistency\nwith the lifelong defeat of his will to suffer.\n\nEarly in 1910 a student by the name of Manzos addressed a rebuke to\nTolstoy for simulating the habits of the poor, denouncing his mode of\nlife as a form of mummery. He challenged the sage to forsake his\ncomforts and the affections of his family, and to go forth and beg his\nway from place to place. \"Do this,\" entreated the young fanatic, \"and\nyou will be the first true man after Christ.\" With his typical\nlarge-heartedness, Tolstoy accepted the reproof and said in the course\nof his long reply:(33) ... \"The fact that I am living with wife and\ndaughter in terrible and shameful conditions of luxury when poverty\nsurrounds me on all sides, torments me ever more and more, and there is\nnot a day when I am not thinking of following your advice. I thank you\nvery, very much for your letter.\" As a matter of fact, he had more than\nonce before made ready to put his convictions to a fiery proof by a\nfinal sacrifice,--leaving his home and spending his remaining days in\nutter solitude. But when he finally proceeded to carry out this ascetic\nintention and actually set out on a journey to some vague and lonely\ndestination, he was foiled in his purpose. If ever Tolstoy's behavior\nirresistibly provoked misrepresentation of his motives it was by this\nsomewhat theatrical hegira. The fugitive left Yasnaya Polyana, not\nalone, but with his two favorite companions, his daughter Alexandra and\na young Hungarian physician who for some time had occupied the post of\nprivate secretary to him. After paying a farewell visit to his sister, a\nnun cloistered in Shamardin, he made a start for the Trans-Caucasus. His\nidea was to go somewhere near the Tolstoy colony at the Black Sea. But\nin an early stage of the journey, a part of which was made in an\nordinary third-class railway compartment, the old man was overcome by\nillness and fatigue. He was moved to a trackman's hut at the station of\nAstopovo, not farther than eighty miles from his home, and\nhere,--surrounded by his hastily summoned family and tenderly nursed for\nfive days,--he expired. Thus he was denied the summit of martyrdom to\nwhich he had aspired,--a lonely death, unminded of men.\n\n  (33) February 17, 1910.\n\n                   *       *       *       *       *\n\nEven a summary review like this of Tolstoy's life and labors cannot be\nconcluded without some consideration of his final attitude toward the\nesthetic embodiment of civilization. The development of his philosophy\nof self-abnegation had led irresistibly, as we have seen, to the\ncondemnation of all self-regarding instincts. Among these, Art appeared\nto him as one of the most insidious. He warned against the cultivation\nof the beautiful on the ground that it results in the suppression and\ndestruction of the moral sense. Already in 1883 it was known that he had\nmade up his mind to abandon his artistic aspirations out of loyalty to\nhis moral theory, and would henceforth dedicate his talents exclusively\nto the propagation of humanitarian views. In vain did the dean of\nRussian letters, Turgenieff, appeal to him with a death-bed message: \"My\nfriend, great writer of the Russians, return to literary work! Heed my\nprayer.\" Tolstoy stood firm in his determination. Nevertheless, his\ngenius refused to be throttled by his conscience; he could not paralyze\nhis artistic powers; he could merely bend them to his moral aims.\n\nAs a logical corollary to his opposition to art for art's sake, Tolstoy\ncast from him all his own writings antedating \"Confession,\"--and\ndenounced all of them as empty manifestations of worldly conceit. His\nauthorship of that immortal novel, \"War and Peace,\" filled him with\nshame and remorse. His views on Art are plainly and forcibly expounded\nin the famous treatise on \"What is Art?\" and in the one on\n\"Shakespeare.\" In both he maintains that Art, no matter of what sort,\nshould serve the sole purpose of bringing men nearer to each other in\nthe common purpose of right living. Hence, no art work is legitimate\nwithout a pervasive moral design. The only true touchstone of an art\nwork is the uplifting strength that proceeds from it. Therefore, a\npainting like the \"Angelus,\" or a poem like \"The Man with the Hoe\" would\ntranscend in worth the creations of a Michael Angelo or a Heinrich Heine\neven as the merits of Sophocles, Shakespeare, and Goethe are outmatched\nin Tolstoy's judgment by those of Victor Hugo, Charles Dickens, and\nGeorge Eliot. By the force of this na\u00efve reasoning and his theoretical\nantipathy toward true art, he was led to see in \"Uncle Tom's Cabin\" the\nveritable acme of literary perfection, for the reason that this book\nwielded such an enormous and noble influence upon the most vital\nquestion of its day. He strongly discountenanced the literary practice\nof revamping ancient themes, believing with Ibsen that modern writers\nshould impart their ideas through the medium of modern life. Yet at the\nsame time he was up in arms against the self-styled \"moderns\"! They took\ntheir incentives from science, and this Tolstoy decried, because science\ndid not fulfill its mission of teaching people how rightly to live. In\nthis whole matter he reasoned doggedly from fixed ideas, no matter to\nwhat ultimates the argument would carry him. For instance, he did not\nstick at branding Shakespeare as an utter barbarian, and to explain the\nreverence for such \"disgusting\" plays as \"King Lear\" as a crass\ndemonstration of imitative hypocrisy.\n\nArt in general is a practice aiming at the production of the beautiful.\nBut what is \"beautiful\"? asked Tolstoy. The current definitions he\npronounced wrong because they were formulated from the standpoint of the\npleasure-seeker. Such at least has been the case since the Renaissance.\nFrom that time forward, Art, like all cults of pleasure, has been evil.\nTo the pleasure-seeker, the beautiful is that which is enjoyable; hence\nhe appraises works of art according to their ability to procure\nenjoyment. In Tolstoy's opinion this is no less absurd than if we were\nto estimate the nutritive value of food-stuffs by the pleasure\naccompanying their consumption. So he baldly declares that we must\nabolish beauty as a criterion of art, or conversely, must establish\ntruth as the single standard of beauty. \"The heroine of my stories whom\nI strive to represent in all her beauty, who was ever beautiful, is so,\nand will remain so, is Truth.\"\n\nHis views on art have a certain analogy with two modern schools,--much\nagainst his will, since he strenuously disavows and deprecates\neverything modern; they make us think on the one hand of the\n\"naturalists,\" inasmuch as like them Tolstoy eschews all intentional\ngraces of style and diction: and on the other hand of the\n\"impressionists,\" with whom he seems united by his fundamental\ndefinition of art, namely that it is the expression of a dominant\nemotion calculated to reproduce itself in the reader or beholder.\nLacking, however, a deep and catholic understanding for art, Tolstoy, in\ncontrast with the modern impressionists, would restrict artists to the\nexpression of a single type of sentiments, those that reside in the\nsphere of religious consciousness. To him art, as properly conceived and\npracticed, must be ancillary to religion, and its proper gauge is the\nmeasure of its agreement with accepted moral teachings. Remembering,\nthen, the primitive form of belief to which Tolstoy contrived to attain,\nwe find ourselves face to face with a theory of art which sets up as the\nfinal arbiter the man \"unspoiled by culture,\" and he, in Tolstoy's\njudgment, is the Russian muzhik.\n\n                   *       *       *       *       *\n\nThis course of reasoning on art is in itself sufficient to show the\nimpossibility for any modern mind of giving sweeping assent to Tolstoy's\nteachings. And a like difficulty would be experienced if we tried to\nfollow him in his meditations on any other major interest of life.\nSeeking with a tremendous earnestness of conscience to reduce the\nbewildering tangle of human affairs to elementary simplicity, he\nenmeshed himself in a new network of contradictions. The effect was\ndisastrous for the best part of his teaching; his own extremism stamped\nas a hopeless fantast a man incontestably gifted by nature, as few men\nhave been in history, with the cardinal virtues of a sage, a reformer,\nand a missionary of social justice. Because of this extremism, his voice\nwas doomed to remain that of one crying in the wilderness.\n\nThe world could not do better than to accept Tolstoy's fundamental\nprescriptions: simplicity of living, application to work, and\nconcentration upon moral culture. But to apply his radical scheme to\nexisting conditions would amount to a self-stultification of the race,\nfor it would entail the unpardonably sinful sacrifice of some of the\nfinest and most hard-won achievements of human progress. For our\nquotidian difficulties his example promises no solution. The great mass\nof us are not privileged to test our individual schemes of redemption in\nthe leisured security of an ideal experiment station; not for every man\nis there a Yasnaya Polyana, and the Sophia Andreyevnas are thinly sown\nin the matrimonial market.\n\nBut even though Tolstoyism will not serve as a means of solving the\ngreat social problems, it supplies a helpful method of social criticism.\nAnd its value goes far beyond that: the force of his influence was too\ngreat not to have strengthened enormously the moral conscience of the\nworld; he has played, and will continue to play, a leading part in the\nestablishing and safeguarding of democracy. After all, we do not have to\nseparate meticulously what is true in Tolstoy's teaching from what is\nfalse in order to acknowledge him as a Voice of his epoch. For as Lord\nMorley puts the matter in the case of Jean Jacques Rousseau: \"There are\nsome teachers whose distinction is neither correct thought, nor an eye\nfor the exigencies of practical organization, but simply depth and\nfervor of the moral sentiment, bringing with it the indefinable gift of\ntouching many hearts with love of virtue and the things of the spirit.\"\n\n\n\n\n  [ Transcriber's Note:\n\n    The following is a list of corrections made to the original.\n    The first line is the original line, the second the corrected one.\n\n  sublimal regions of the inner life, and that their work somehow brings\n  subliminal regions of the inner life, and that their work somehow brings\n\n  in the writings of the de-gallisized Frenchman, Count Joseph Arthur\n  in the writings of the de-gallicized Frenchman, Count Joseph Arthur\n\n  the same time, the universal decreptitude prevented the despiser of his\n  the same time, the universal decrepitude prevented the despiser of his\n\n  artistic design was dimmed by the obstrusive didactic purpose.\n  artistic design was dimmed by the obtrusive didactic purpose.\n\n  ]\n\n\n\n\n\n\n<pre id=\"pg-footer\">","title":"Prophets of Dissent : Essays on Maeterlinck, Strindberg, Nietzsche and Tolstoy","tradition":"philosophy-ethics","translated_text":null,"word_count":42587}