mainly restricts its sale? Is it certain that either cheap publication
or (what amounts to the same thing) a generous diffusion of money among
the masses would ensure the success of, let us say, good first novels—in
the present state of public taste? We have had some experience both of
cheapness and of the diffusion of money. Publication was cheap enough
before the war in all conscience. New novels could be brought out for
a shilling. Was it the common experience that the best of them proved
a commercial success? The best of them were nine times out of ten a
commercial failure. And in respect of the diffusion of money, what has
been our experience of the direction in which the diffused money has been
spent? Have the masses accumulated libraries? Have they patronised the
arts? Have they encouraged literature with discriminating taste? Have
they sought out and bought the young authors, the promising writers, the
writers of to-morrow? We know they have done nothing of the kind. The
diffused money has fallen, for the most part, into two sets of hands, the
hands of the ignorant profiteers and the hands of the ignorant masses.
And both classes have neglected literature in favour of sports and furs,
display and amusement. It is idle to pretend that things are other than
they are. We need not necessarily be discouraged by the fact, but it is
necessary to recognise the facts. And the facts in the present case
are that the people who have the money (much or little) do not care a
shilling for literature and accept no responsibility for its existence.
Their _excuse_ for the moment is that literature is too dear; but it
would be all the same if it were cheap. I have never observed that rich
or poor have complained that their sports and amusements are too dear.
Nobody appeals to cinema-proprietors or yachting entrepreneurs to pity
their clients and ruin themselves commercially. When the public wants
literature as much as it wants to be entertained, there will be no need
for anybody’s charity.
In the meanwhile, what is the young writer to do? In particular, the
young novelist? He appears to be about to be among the most miserable of
mankind. To be published and to be a commercial failure is bad enough in
a country like our own, where a _succès d’estime_ is almost a certificate
for pity. But not to be published at all is infinitely worse. Instead
of appealing to commercial publishers, however, is it not possible to
appeal to the Guild of Authors, to the fraternity whose function and
responsibility are the creation and encouragement of literature? Who
should be patrons of literature if not men of letters themselves? And
whose duty should it be, if not that of novelists as a guild, to secure
the succession and to provide for the future princes? If publishers are
willing to assume the burdens of literature—always heavy in proportion
to the ignorance of the public—let them by all means. So much the more
honour to them. But the proper shoulders for the burden, in the absence
of an enlightened public, are the shoulders of the Guild of Letters,
the shoulders, in particular, of the _successful_ men. There is no lack
of money among them. I should roughly calculate that the income of our
successful novelists is more than equal to that of all our publishers
put together. Why should they not subsidise literature? Why, out of
their abundance, should they not set aside a portion for their literary
posterity?
ON GUARD.—As one of the thirty thousand who take in and occasionally read
_The Times Literary Supplement_, I may draw attention to the danger to
truth its composite character is always creating. Being familiar with the
back-ways of publishing I am not taken in, of course, by the uniform use
of the editorial “we” in a journal like _The Times Literary Supplement_.
“We” represents a score of different people, all or most of whom are
as much at intellectual sixes and sevens as any other score; and the
editor-in-chief, whoever he may be, is just as powerless as a sovereign
is over its twenty shillings. That being granted, the situation is still
a little strange from the fact that certain sentiments are allowed
to appear in the _Literary Supplement_ which, to say the least, are
incongruous with _The Times_ and all _The Times_ stands for. Here, for
instance, are three quotations from recent issues: “Whether you beat your
neighbour by militarism or buy him by industrialism—the effect is the
same.” “That most false and nauseating of legends—‘the happy warrior.’”
“The organisation of trade is of secondary moment: what is of the first
moment is the organisation of a humane enjoyment of its benefits.” These
sentiments are true, and they are sufficiently strikingly put. But in
_The Times Literary Supplement_ they are not only incongruous, but they
are in a very subtle sense actually lies, and the more dangerous lies
from their identity with the truth. It is one of the paradoxes of truth
that a statement is only true when it is in truthful company. As the
corruption of the best is the worst, so evil communications corrupt good
statements, and a truth in bad company is the worst of lies. It is a
mystery not easily to be understood, but the intuition may, perhaps, make
something of it. Is it not the fact that the occurrence of statements
like those just quoted in _The Times Literary Supplement_ causes a
feeling of nausea? On examining the cause it will be found to lie in the
unconscious realisation that such statements are there made for no good
purpose, but are only decoy ducks for the better snaring of our suffrages
for the real policy of _The Times_ itself.
THE COMING RENAISSANCE.—The prognostication of the approach of a new
Renaissance has quite naturally been received with incredulity. Is it not
the fact that civilisation is in a thoroughly morbid condition bordering
on hysteria, and was ever the outlook for culture darker than it is at
this moment? I have just been discussing the subject with a friend who
laid this evidence before me with a touch of reproach: how _could_ I, in
the face of such a circle of gloom, pretend that we were even possibly
(which is all I affirm) on the eve of a new Renaissance? My explanation
of this part of the story is, however, quite simple. The war has
precipitated a development in external events _faster_ than the average
mind has been able to adapt itself to them, with the consequence that the
average mind has had to take refuge in hysteria. For the greater part of
hysteria is due to nothing more than an inadequacy of the mind to a given
situation; and when the situation as given to-day is a situation that
should and would, but for the war, have arisen only, let us say, twenty
years hence, there is no wonder that in the mass of the slowly developing
minds of our people an inadequacy to the occasion should be experienced
or that the result should appear as hysteria. On the other hand, hysteria
is not a stable condition of the mind; it is a transition to a more
complete adaptation to reality, or, in the alternative, to complete
disintegration. But what is to be expected from the present situation?
Not, surely, disintegration in the general sense, though it may take
place in individual cases, but a forward movement in the direction of
adaptation. This forward movement is the Renaissance, and it is thus from
the very circumstances of gloom and hysteria that we may draw the hope
that a fresh advance of the human spirit is about to be made.
It is significant that concurrently with such a social diagnosis as
anyone may make, special observers, with or without a bee in their
bonnet, are arriving at the same conclusion. There are very confident
guesses now being disseminated by the various religious and mystic
schools concerning what, in their vocabulary, they call the Second
Advent—which, however, may well be the seven hundredth or the seven
thousandth for all we know. Attach no importance, if you like, to the
phenomena in question, but the fact of the coincidence of forecast is
somewhat impressive; for while it is absurd to believe the “Second
Adventists” of all denominations when they stand alone in their
prognostications, their testimony is not negligible when it is supported
by what amounts to science. And the fact is that to-day science, no less
than mysticism, is apprehensive of a New Coming of some kind or other.
What the nature of that New Coming is likely to be, and when or how it
will manifest itself, are matters beyond direct knowledge, but the ear of
science, no less than the ear of mysticism, is a little thrilled with the
spirit of expectation.
LEONARDO DA VINCI AS PIONEER.—Leonardo da Vinci’s name has been
frequently mentioned among the intelligent during the last few years, and
it cannot be without a meaning. It may be said that his reappearance as a
subject for discussion is due to a fortuitous concurrence of publishers.
But accidents of this kind are like miracles: they do not happen; and
I, for one, am inclined to suspect the “collective unconscious” of a
design in thrusting forward at this moment the name and personality of
the great Renaissance humanist. What can we guess the design to be? What
is the interpretation of this prominent figure in our current collective
dreams? The symbols appearing in dreams are the expressive language of
the unconscious mind, and the appearance of the symbol of da Vinci is
or may be an indication that the “unconscious” is “dreaming” of a new
Renaissance. And since the dreams of the unconscious to-day are or may be
the acts of the conscious to-morrow, the prevalent interest in Leonardo
is a further possible piece of evidence that we are or may be on the eve
of a recurrence of the Italian Renaissance.
Leonardo as an artist interests us less than Leonardo as a person. That
is not to say that Leonardo was not a great artist, for, of course, he
was one of the greatest. But it is to say that the promise of which
he was an incarnation was even greater than the fulfilment which he
achieved. There is a glorious sentence in one of the Upanishads which is
attributed to the Creator on the morrow of His completion of the creation
of the whole manifested universe. “Having pervaded all this,” he says,
“I remain.” Not even the creation of the world had exhausted His powers
or even so much as diminished His self-existence. When that greatest of
works of art had been accomplished, He, the Creator, “remained.” Leonardo
was, if I may use the expression, a chip of the original block in this
respect. His works, humanly speaking, were wonderful; they were both
multitudinous and various. Nevertheless, after the last of them had been
performed, Leonardo remained as a great “promise,” still unfulfilled.
That is the character of the Renaissance type, as it is also the
character of a Renaissance period; its promise remains over even after
great accomplishment. The Renaissance man is greater than his work; he
pervades his work, but he is not submerged in it.
I should be trespassing on the domain of the psycho-analysts if I were
to attempt to indicate the _means_ by which a collective hysteria
may be resolved into an integration. Taking the Italian Renaissance,
however, as a sort of working model, and Leonardo da Vinci as its typical
figure, it would appear that the method of resolution is all-round
expression—expression in as many forms and fields as the creative powers
direct. Leonardo was not only an artist, he was a sculptor, a poet, an
epigrammatist, an engineer, a statesman, a soldier, a musician, and I
do not know what else besides. He indulged his creative or expressive
impulses in every direction his “fancy” indicated. Truly enough he was
not equally successful in an objective or critical sense in all these
fields; but quite as certainly he owed his surpassing excellence in
one or two of them to the fact that he tried them all. The anti- or
non-Renaissance type of mind would doubtless conclude that if Leonardo,
let us say, had been content to be only a painter, or only a sculptor,
he would have succeeded even more perfectly in that single mode of
expression into which _ex hypothesi_ he might have poured the energy
otherwise squandered in various subordinate channels. But concentrations
of energy of this kind are not always successful; the energies, in fact,
are not always convertible; and the attempt to concentrate may thus have
the effect, not only of failing of its direct object, but of engaging one
part of the total energy in suppressing another. At any rate, the working
hypothesis (and it did work) of the Renaissance type is that a natural
multiplicity of modes of expression is better than an unnatural or forced
concentration. The latter, if successful, may possibly lead to something
wonderful; but if unsuccessful, it ends in hysteria, in unresolved
conflicts. The former, on the other hand, while it may lead to no great
excellence in any direction (though equally it may be the condition of
excellence) is, at any rate, a resolution of the internal conflict. We
shall be well advised to deny ourselves nothing in the region of æsthetic
creation. Let us “dabble” to our hearts’ content in every art-form to
which our “fancy” invites us. The results in a critical sense may be
unimportant; “art happens,” as Whistler used to say, and it “happens,”
it may be added, in the course of play. The play is the thing, and I
have little doubt that the approaching Renaissance will be heralded by a
revival of dilettantism in all the arts.
“SHAKESPEARE” SIMPLIFIED.—English literary criticism lies under the
disgrace of accepting Shakespeare, the tenth-rate player, as Shakespeare
the divine author, and so long as a mistake of this magnitude is
admitted into the canon, nobody of any perception can treat the canon
with respect. My theory of authorship is simple, rational, and within
the support of common experience. All it requires is that we should
assume that Shakespeare the theatre-manager had on his literary staff or
within call a wonderful dramatic genius whose name we do not yet know;
that this genius was as modest as he was wonderful, and as adaptable
as he was original; and that, of the plays passed to him for licking
into shape (plays drawn from Shakespeare the actor-manager’s store),
some he scarcely touched, others he changed only here and there, while
a few, the few that appealed to his “fancy,” he completely transformed
and re-created in his own likeness. There is nothing incredible,
nothing even requiring much subtlety to accept, in this hypothesis. The
Elizabethan age was a strange age. It had very little of the passion
for self-advertisement that distinguishes our own. It contained many
anonymous geniuses of whom the obscure translators of the Bible were
only one handful. The author of the plays may well have been one of the
number—a quiet, modest, retiring sort of man, thankful to be able to
find congenial work in reshaping plays to his own liking. That, at any
rate, is my surmise, and so far from thinking the theory unimportant, I
believe it throws a beam of light on the psychology of genius during the
Elizabethan age.
THE “LONDON MERCURY” AND ENGLISH.—It goes without saying that the _London
Mercury_ had what is called a “good Press.” Without imputing it to Mr.
Squire for unrighteousness, it is a fact that Mr. Squire has a “good
Press” for whatever he chooses to do. He appears to have been born with a
silver pen in his mouth, and for quite a number of years now it has been
impossible to take up a literary journal without finding praise of Mr.
Squire in it. As a poet Mr. Squire deserves _nearly_ all that is said of
him; not for the mass of his work, but for an occasional poem of almost
supreme excellence. As a literary _causeur_, of whom _The Times_ said in
compliment that “he never makes you think,” he has the first and great
qualification of readableness. Finally, as a parodist he is without a
superior in contemporary literature. But when one has said this, one
has said all; for Mr. Squire is not a great or even a sound critic, he
is not an impressive writer, and he is not a distinguished or original
thinker. Time and Mr. Squire may prove my judgment wrong, but I do not
think, either, that he will make a great or an inspiring editor. Great
editorship is a form of creation, and the great editor is measured by
the number and quality of the writers he brings to birth—or to ripeness.
We shall see in course of time whether Mr. Squire is a creator in this
sense. So far, he has not even a dark horse in his stable.
Among the objects set out to be accomplished by the _London Mercury_ is
the advancement of English style. It is a worthy and even a momentous
object, but the _London Mercury_ is not the first modern journal to
venture upon this quest. After all, I, in my way, during the last seven
years or so, have made occasional references to current English style,
and my comments cannot be said to be distinguished by any particular
tenderness to bad English, by whomsoever it has been written. It amused
me, therefore, to read sundry and divers exhortations to Mr. Squire
to be severe, and, if need be, “savage” in criticism, and especially
when I observed that some of the names appended to the advice were of
writers who have anything but appreciated the severity, let alone the
“savagery,” of reviews addressed to themselves. Let it pass. The thing
in question is English style, and nobody can be too enthusiastic in its
maintenance and improvement. The peril of English style, I take it, lies
in its very virtue, that of directness, and its fighting edges are to
be found where the colloquial and the vernacular (or, let us say, the
idiomatic) meet and mix. The English vernacular is the most powerful
and simple language that was ever written, but the danger always lies
in wait for it of slipping into the English colloquial, which, by the
same token, is one of the worst of languages. The difference between
them is precisely the difference between Ariel and Caliban; and I am
not sure that “Shakespeare” had not this, among other things, in mind
when he dreamed his myth. Caliban is a direct enough creature to be
English, and there are writers who imagine his style to be the mirror of
perfection. But Ariel is no less direct; he is only Caliban transformed
and purified and become a thing of light. There is, of course, no
rule for distinguishing between them; between the permissible and the
forbidden use of the colloquial; for it is obvious that the vernacular
is finally derived from the colloquial. The decision rests with taste,
which alone can decide what of the colloquial shall be allowed to enter
into the vernacular. In general, I should say, the criterion is grace;
the hardest, the rarest, but the most exquisite of all the qualities of
style. I hope one day to see English written in the vernacular, with
all its strength and directness, but with grace added unto it. Newman,
perhaps, was furthest of all writers on the way to it. But Newman did
not always charm. Now I have written the word, I would substitute charm
for grace, and say that the perfect English style, which nobody has yet
written, will charm by its power.
MR. G. K. CHESTERTON ON ROME AND GERMANY.—Hovelaque’s _Les Causes
profondes de la Guerre_ is either the original or a plagiarism of Mr.
G. K. Chesterton’s theory that the war was only an episode in the
eternal “revolt” of “Germany” against “Rome.” I put these words into
quarantine to signify that they are to be handled with care; for it is
not only Germany or Rome that is in question, but the psychological
characteristics and the relation between them which they embody. Thus
raised to psychological dimensions, Germany and Rome become principles,
types of mentality: in radical opposition. Germany is of one camp,
Rome is of the other, and given the fact of their inherent antagonism,
war between them is endless. Mr. Mann, a German writer, has carried
the subject further; he has entered into particulars. In the following
pairs of qualities, tabulated by Mr. Mann, the first of each is to be
attributed to “Germany” and the other to “Rome.” Heroic, rational;
people, masses; personality, individuality; culture, civilisation;
spiritual life, social life; aristocracy, democracy; romance, classicism;
nationalism, internationalism. I do not know how Mr. Chesterton will fare
among these pairs of opposites, for it appears to me that his preferences
are to be found at least as often among the “German” group as among the
“Roman” group. There, however, they are, as drawn up by a supporter of
his general theory, and we must leave him to make the best of them.
There is another pair which Mr. Mann has not mentioned, though it has
been brought close home to many of us. The German “Persius” has confessed
that “the lie has always been one of Germany’s chief weapons, both by
land and sea.” The lie, however, is not the “Roman” way; the “Roman” way
is silence, and anybody engaged in the dissemination of ideas knows which
of the two forms of opposition is the more difficult to meet. After all,
the liar takes risks; moreover, he does the idea he opposes the honour of
noticing it if only to lie about it. But silence risks nothing; it kills
without leaving a trace.
Leaving the subject where, for the moment, it is, we can inquire whether
the suggested antagonism is not altogether false. _Is_ Rome so eternal
as all that, or Germany either? We have been familiarised with a view
that represents the map of Europe as a map primarily of mind; but I can
discover in such a map no confirmation of the statement that it is Rome
and Germany that are in permanent conflict. On the contrary, what we call
“formal mind”—in other words, the rationalistic consciousness—appears to
me to distinguish “Rome” quite as much as “Germany.” It may be true that
on the whole the “Roman” qualities are better integrated and that the
“Roman” type is more completely a “man of the world.” But, in comparison
with a type of the universal man, the man of the whole world, I doubt
whether it can be said that the “Roman” is much more inclusive than the
German. Both exclude a good deal, and thus the opposition between them is
not of principle, but of accident, the accident being that the anthology
of qualities which we call “Rome” differs from the anthology called
German. It would follow from this that so far from being in necessarily
eternal conflict “Rome” and “Germany” are susceptible of a synthesis
in which the qualities of each will complement the qualities of the
other. “Germany,” in other words, needs to Romanise, while “Rome” needs
to “Germanise.” Their approach to each other would mark the end of the
conflict.
In so far as it is true that “Germany” represents the “elemental
instincts” always in revolt against “Rome,” “the representative of the
supremacy of reason” (Hovelaque), there are grounds for believing that
a psychological _rapprochement_ is necessary to the psychic health no
less than to the peace of Europe. Long before the war we heard, even
in this country, criticism of the right of reason to supremacy; and,
strangely enough, it was from the “Roman” Mr. Chesterton that the
criticism came most powerfully. “Germany,” in that case, may certainly
be said to have taken the lead in the active revolt against Rome; but
it was, we must observe, against a Rome already weakened from within
by the dissatisfaction with Romanism of many of the leading “Romans.”
The fact is that the “supremacy of reason,” for which “Rome” stands,
is always in danger, like every other supremacy, of degenerating into
a dictatorship; and the dictatorship which reason was establishing
before the war involved precisely the suppression of the “elemental
instincts” attributed to Germany. The so-called encirclement of Germany
was, in fact, and in psychological terms, the rational encirclement
of instinct; and I must again observe that it was not in geographical
Germany alone that the encirclement was felt to be oppressive, but in
every “Germany within us,” in so far as each of us contained “elemental
instincts” of any kind. The meaning of what I am saying is that the
elemental instincts, call them German, or anything you please, cannot
be permanently tyrannised over by “reason”; nor should they be. Nor
is it necessary that reason should attempt such a dictatorship. Its
rule should be that of a constitutional monarch under the direction of
representatives, not of itself, but of the elemental instincts. The
practical conclusion to be drawn is that the “eternal antagonism” of
“Rome” and “Germany” is not a necessary fact in psychology. It becomes a
fact only when “Rome” aims at a dictatorship of reason to the inevitable
isolation and suppression of “Germany.” Reason must learn how to
cultivate its instincts.