THE RED ROOM
(1872)
In autumn occurred the death of Charles XV. With the mourning, which
was fairly sincere and widespread, there mingled gloomy anxieties for
the future. One of the young painters who belonged to John's circle of
friends had just received a royal stipend and gone to Norway. He had
now to return quite destitute and without any prospects for the future.
John was accustomed to go with him into the Zoological Gardens in order
to paint, and occupy his mind while he was waiting for an answer from
the theatrical manager to whom he had sent his drama.
There is indeed no occupation which so absorbs all the thoughts and
emotions so much as painting. John watched and enjoyed the delicate
harmonies of the lines in the branch-formation of the trees, in the
wave-like curves of the ground, but his paint-brush was too coarse to
reproduce the contours as he wished. Then he took his pen and made a
drawing in detail. But when he tried to transfer it to his canvas and
paint it, the whole appeared but a smudge.
Pelle, on the other hand, was an impressionist and look no notice
of details. He took up the landscape at a stroke, so to speak, and
gave the colours their due value, but the various objects melted into
uncertain silhouettes. John thought Pelle's landscapes more beautiful
than the reality, although he cherished great reverence for the works
of the Creator. After he had wiled away about a month in painting,
he went one evening into the Café La Croix. The first person he met
was his former editor, who said, "I have just heard from X." (a young
author) "that the Theatre Royal has refused _The Apostate_."
"I know nothing about it," answered John. He did not feel well and left
the company as soon as possible. The next day he went to his former
instructor to find how the matter stood. The latter began first to
praise, and then to criticise it, which is the right method. He said
that the characters of Olaus Petri and Gustav Wasa had been brought
down from their proper level and distorted. John, on the other hand,
held that he had given a realistic representation of them as they
probably were, before their figures had been idealised by patriotic
considerations. His friend replied that that was no good; the public
would never accept a new reading of their characters till critical
inquiry had done its preliminary work.
That was true, but the blow was a heavy one, although dealt with as
much consideration as possible, and the author was invited to remodel
his drama. He had again been premature in his attempt. There was
nothing left for him but to wait and wile away the time. To think
of remodelling it now was not possible for him, for he saw, when he
read it through again, that it was all cast in one piece and that the
details could not be altered. He could not change it, unless he changed
his thoughts, and therefore he must wait.
Now he took to reading again. Chance brought into his hand two of
"the best books which one can read." They were De Tocqueville's
_Democracy in America_ and Prévost-Paradol's _The New France._ The
former increased his doubts as to the possibility of democracy in
an uncultivated community. Written with sincere admiration for the
political institutions of America, which the author holds up as a
pattern for Europe, this work points out so sincerely the dangers of
democracy, as to make even a born hater of the aristocracy pause.
John's theories received terrible blows, but this time his good sense
triumphed over his prejudices. His loss of faith in his own powers,
however, had a demoralising effect upon him, and he was soon ripe
for absolute scepticism. Sentences such as the following admitted
at that time of no contradiction: "The moral power of the majority
is based partly upon the conviction that a number of men have more
understanding, intelligence and wisdom than an individual, and a
great number of lawgivers more than a selection of them. That is the
principle of equality applied to intellectual gifts. This doctrine
attacks the pride of humanity in its innermost citadel."
An individualist like John did not perceive that this pride can and
must be overcome. Nor did he see that wisdom and intelligence can be
spread by means of good schools among the masses.
"When a man or a party in the United States suffers injustice, to whom
shall he turn? To public opinion? That is the opinion of the majority.
To the legislative officials? They are nominated by the majority
and obey it blindly. To the executive power? That is chosen by the
majority and serves it as a passive instrument. To the military forces
of the State? They are simply the majority under arms. To juries?
They are formed by a majority which possesses the right to judge." De
Tocqueville goes on to say that the happiness of the majority which
consists in maintaining its rights deserves recognition, and that it is
better for a minority to suffer from pressure than a majority, but the
sufferings which an intelligent minority suffer from an unintelligent
majority are much greater than those which an intelligent minority
inflict upon a majority. On the other hand, the minority understands
much better than the majority what conduces to their own and the
general happiness, and therefore the tyranny of the minority is not to
be compared with that of the majority.
"Yes, but," thought John, "did not the European peoples generally
suffer from the tyranny of a minority?" The mere fact that there
were upper classes lay like a heavy cloud on the life of the masses.
Nowadays the question may be raised, "Why should a different
class-education result in an intelligent minority and an unintelligent
majority?" But such questions were not raised then. Moreover had such
a state really ever been seen in which an intelligent minority had the
power to "oppress"? No, for sovereigns, ministers and parliaments had
usually the due modicum of intelligence.
That which more than anything else inclined John to fear the power of
the masses, was the fact noted by De Tocqueville that they tyrannised
over freedom of thought.
"When one tries to ascertain," he says, "how much freedom of thought
there is in the United States it becomes apparent how much the tyranny
of the masses transcends any despotism known to Europe. I know no
country where there is, generally speaking, less independence of
opinion and real freedom of discussion than America. The majority
draw a terribly narrow circle round all thought. Within that circle
an author may say what he likes, but woe to him if he step across the
limit. He has no _auto-da-fé_ to fear, but he is made the mark for all
kinds of unpleasantness and daily persecutions. Every good quality is
denied him, even honour. Before he published his views, he thought he
had adherents; after he has made them known to all the world he sees
that he no longer has any, for his critics have raised an outcry,
and those who thought as he did, but lacked the courage to express
themselves, are silent and withdraw. He gives way; he finally collapses
under the strain of daily renewed effort, and resumes silence, as
though he regretted having spoken the truth,
"In democratic republics, tyranny lets the body alone and attacks the
soul. In them the dominant power does not say, 'You must think as I
do, or die;' it says, 'You are free to differ from me in opinion; your
life and property will remain untouched, but from the day that you
express a different view from mine, you will be a stranger among us.
You will retain your rights and privileges as a citizen, but they will
be useless to you. You will remain among men, but be deprived of all
a man's rights. When you approach your equals they will flee you as
though you were a leper; even those who believe in your innocence will
abandon you, lest they should be themselves abandoned. Go in peace!
I grant you life, but a life which shall be harder and bitterer than
death!'"
That is the true and credible picture which the noble De Tocqueville,
friend of the people and tyrant-hater as he was, has drawn of the
tyranny of the masses, those masses whose feet John had felt trampling
on him at home, at school, in the steamer and the theatre, those
masses whom he had satirised in the play _Sinking Hellas_, and whom
he had described as throwing the first stone at Olaus Petri just at
the moment when he was preaching to them of freedom! If it is thus in
America, how can one expect anything better in Europe. He found himself
in a cul-de-sac. His hereditary disposition prevented his becoming an
aristocrat, nor could he come to terms with the people. Had he not
himself suffered lately from an ignorant theatre-management behind
which stood the uncultivated public, and found the way blocked for
his new and liberal ideas. There was then already a mob-despotism in
Sweden, and the director of the Theatre Royal was only their servant.
It was all absurdity! And even suppose society were ruled by those who
knew most. Then they would be under professors with their heads full of
antiquarian ideas. Even if the director had put his drama on the stage,
it would have certainly been hissed off by the tradesmen in the stalls,
and no critics could have helped him!
His thoughts struggled like fishes in a net, and ended by being caught.
It was not worth the trouble of thinking about and he tried to banish
the thought, but could not. He felt a continual trouble and despair
in his mind that the world was going idiotically, majestically and
unalterably to the devil. "Unalterably," he thought, for as yet a large
number of strong minds had not attacked the problem, which was soluble
after all. Ten years later it was provisionally solved, when knowledge
on the subject of this sphinx-riddle had been so widely spread that
even a workman had obtained some insight into it, and in a public
meeting had declared that equality was impossible, for the block-heads
could not be equal to the sharp-sighted, and that the utmost one could
demand was equality of position. This workman was more of an aristocrat
than John dared to be in the year 1872, though he belonged to no party
which claimed the right to muzzle him.
Prévost-Paradol had dealt with the same theme as Tocqueville, but
he suggested a secret device against the tyranny of the masses--the
cumulative vote or the privilege of writing the same name several times
on the ballot-paper. But John considered this method, which had been
tried in England, doubtful.
He had set great hopes on his drama, and borrowed money on the strength
of them, and now felt much depressed. The disproportion between his
fancied and his real value galled him. Now he had to adopt a rôle,
learn it, and carry it out. He composed one for himself, consisting
of the sceptic, the materialist and the liar, and found that it
suited him excellently. This was for the simple reason that it was a
sceptical and materialistic period, and because he had unconsciously
developed into a man of his time. But he still believed that his
earlier discarded personality, ruled indeed by wild passions, but
cherishing ideals of a higher calling, love to mankind and similar
imaginations, was his true and better self which he hid from the world.
All men make similar mistakes when they value sickly sentimentality
above strong thought, when they look back to their youth and think
they were purer and more virtuous then, which is certainly untrue.
The world calls the weaker side of men their "better self," because
this weakness is more advantageous for the world and self-interest
seems to dictate its judgment. John found that in his new rôle he was
freed from all possible prejudices--religious, social, political and
moral. He had only one opinion,--that everything was absurd, only
one conviction,--that nothing could be done at present, and only one
hope,--that the time would come when one might effectively intervene,
and when there would be improvement. But from that time he altogether
gave up reading newspapers. To hear stupidity praised, selfish acts
lauded as philanthropic, and reason blasphemed,--that was too much for
a fanatical sceptic. Sometimes, however, he thought that the majority
were right in just being at the point of view where they were, and that
it was unnecessary that some few individuals, because of a specialised
education, should run far ahead of the rest. In quiet moments he
recognised that his mental development which had taken place so
rapidly, without his ever seeing an idea realised, could be a pattern
for such a slowly-working machine as society is. Why did he run so far
ahead? It was not the fault of the school or university, for they had
held him back equally with the majority.
Yes, but those already out in the world, by their own hearths, had
already reached the stage of Buckle's scepticism as regards the social
order, so that he was not so far ahead after all. The slow rate of
progress was enough to make one despair. What Schiller's Karl Moor
had seen a hundred years previously, what the French Revolution had
actually brought about were now regarded as brand-new ideas. After
the Revolution, social development had gone backwards; religious
superstitions were revived, belief in a better state of things lost,
and economic and industrial progress was accompanied by sweating and
terrible poverty. It was absurd! All minds that were awake at all
had to suffer,--suffer like every living organism when hindered in
growth and pressed backward. The century had been inaugurated by the
destruction of hopes, and nothing has such a paralysing effect on the
soul as disappointed hope, which, as statistics show, is one of the
most frequent causes of madness. Therefore all great spirits were,
vulgarly speaking, mad. Chateaubriand was a hypochondriac, Musset a
lunatic, Victor Hugo a maniac. The automatic pygmies of everyday life
cannot realise what such suffering means, and yet believe themselves
capable of judging in the matter.
The ancient poet is psychologically correct in representing
Prometheus as having his liver gnawed by a vulture. Prometheus was
the revolutionary who wished to spread mental illumination among
men. Whether he did it from altruistic motives, or from the selfish
one of wishing to breathe a purer mental atmosphere, may be left
undecided. John, who felt akin to this rebel, was aware of a pain which
resembled anxiety, and a perpetual boring "toothache in the liver." Was
Prometheus then a liver-patient who confusedly ascribed his pain to
causes outside himself? Probably not! But he was certainly embittered
when he saw that the world is a lunatic asylum in which the idiots go
about as they like, and the few who preserve reason are watched as
though dangerous to the public safety. Attacks of illness can certainly
colour men's views, and every one well knows how gloomy our thoughts
are when we have attacks of fever. But patients such as Samuel Oedmann
or Olaf Eneroth were neither sulky nor bitter, but, on the contrary,
mild, perhaps languid from want of strength. Voltaire, who was never
well, had an imperturbably good temper. And Musset did not write as he
did because he drank absinthe, but he drank from the same cause that
he wrote in that manner, _i.e_. from despair. Therefore it is not in
good faith that idealists who deny the existence of the body, ascribe
the discontent of many authors to causes such as indigestion, etc., the
supposition of which contradicts their own principles, but it must be
against their better knowledge, or with worse knowledge. Kierkegaard's
gloomy way of writing can be ascribed to an absurd education,
unfortunate family relations, dreary social surroundings, and alongside
of these to some organic defects, but not to the latter alone.
Discontent with the existing state of things will always assert itself
among those who are in process of development, and discontent has
pushed the world forwards, while content has pushed it back. Content
is a virtue born of necessity, hopelessness or superfluity; it can be
cancelled with impunity.
Catarrh of the stomach may cause ill temper, but it has never produced
a great politician, _i.e._ a great malcontent. But sickliness may
impart to a malcontent's energy a stronger colour and greater rapidity,
and therefore cannot be denied a certain influence. On the other hand,
a conscious insight into grievances can produce such a degree of mental
annoyance as can result in sickness. The loss of dear friends through
death, may in this way cause consumption, and the loss of a social
position or of property, madness.
If every modern individual shows a geological stratification of the
stages of development through which his ancestors passed, so in every
European mind are found traces of the primitive Aryan,--class-feeling,
fixed family ideas, religious motives, etc. From the early Christians
we have the idea of equality, love to our neighbour, contempt for mere
earthly life; from the mediæval monks, self-castigation and hopes of
heaven. Besides these, we inherit traits from the sensuous cultured
pagans of the Renaissance, the religious and political fanatics of the
sixteenth century, the sceptics of the "illumination" period, and the
anarchists of the Revolution. Education should therefore consist in the
obliteration of old stains which continually reappear however often we
polish them away.
John proceeded to obliterate the monk, the fanatic and the
self-tormentor in himself as well as he could, and took as the leading
principle of his provisional life (for it was only provisional till he
struck out a course for himself) the well-understood one of personal
advantage, which is actually, though unconsciously, employed by all, to
whatever creed they belong.
He did not transgress the ordinary laws, because he did not wish
to appear in a court of justice; he encroached on no one's rights
because he wished his own not to be encroached upon. He met men
sympathetically, for he did not hate them, nor did he study them
critically till they had broken their promises and shown a want of
sympathy to him. He justified them all so long as he could, and when
he could not, well,--he could not, but he tried by working to place
himself in a position to be able to do so. He regarded his talent as a
capital sum, which, although at present it yielded no interest, gave
him the right and imposed on him the duty to live at any price. He was
not the kind of man to force his way into society in order to exploit
it for his own purposes, he was simply a man of capacity conscious of
his own powers, who placed himself at the disposal of society modestly,
and in the first place to be used as a dramatist. The theatre, as a
matter of fact, needed him to contribute to its Swedish repertory.
After a solitary day's work, it was his habit to go to a café to meet
his acquaintances there. To seek "more elevated" recreations in family
circles such as meaningless gossip, card playing and such like had no
attraction for him. Whenever he entered a family circle he felt himself
surrounded by a musty atmosphere like that exhaled from stagnant
water. Married couples who had been badgering each other, were glad to
welcome him as a sort of lightning conductor, but he had no pleasure
in playing that part. Family life appeared to him as a prison in which
two captives spied on each other, as a place in which children were
tormented, and servant-girls quarrelled. It was something nasty from
which he ran away to the restaurants. In them there was a public room
where no one was guest and no one was host: one enjoyed plenty of
space and light, heard music, saw people and met friends. John and
his friends were accustomed to meet in a back room of Bern's great
restaurant which, because of the colour of the furniture, was called
the "red room." The little club consisted originally of John and a few
artistic and philosophical friends. But their circle was soon enlarged
by old friends whom they met again. They were first of all recruited
by the presentable former scholars of the Clara School,--a postal
clerk who was at the same time a bass singer, pianist and composer; a
secretary of the Court treasurer; and the trump card of the society,--a
lieutenant of artillery. To these were added later, the composer's
indispensable friend, a lithographer, who published his music, and a
notary who sang his compositions. The club was not homogeneous, but
they soon managed to shake down together.
But since the laymen had no wish to hear discussions on art, literature
and philosophy, their conversations were only on general subjects.
John, who did not wish to discuss any more problems, adopted a
sceptical tone, and baffled all attempts at discussion by a play upon
words, a quibble or a question. His ultimate "why?" behind every
penultimate assertion threw a light on the too-sure conclusions of
stupidity, and let his hearer surmise that behind the usually accepted
commonplaces there were possibilities of truths stretching out in
endless perspective. These views of his must have germinated like seeds
in most of their brains, for in a short time they were all sceptics,
and began to use a special language of their own. This healthy
scepticism in the infallibility of each other's judgments had, as a
natural consequence, a brutal sincerity of speech and thought. It was
of no use to speak of one's feelings as though they were praise worthy,
for one was cut short with "Are you sentimental, poor devil? Take
bi-carbonate."
If any one complained of toothache, all he received by way of answer
was, "That does not rouse my sympathy at all, for I have never had
toothache, and it has no effect upon my resolve to give a supper."
They were disciples of Helvetius in believing that one must regard
egotism as the mainspring of all human actions, and therefore it was
no use pretending to finer emotions. To borrow money or to get goods
on credit without being certain of being able to pay, was rightly
regarded as cheating, and so designated. For instance, if a member of
the club appeared in a new overcoat which seemed to have been obtained
on credit, he was asked in a friendly way, "Whom have you cheated about
that coat?" Or on another occasion another would say, "To-day I have
done Samuel out of a new suit."
Nevertheless, as a matter of fact, both overcoat and suit were
generally paid for, but as the purchaser at the time he took them was
not sure whether he would be able to pay, he regarded himself as a
potential swindler. This was severe morality and stern self-criticism.
Once during such a conversation the lieutenant got up to go and attend
church-parade with his company. "Where are you going?" he was asked.
"To play the hypocrite," he answered truthfully.
This tone of sincerity sometimes assumed the character of a deep
understanding of human nature and the nature of society. One day
the company were leaving John's lodgings for the restaurant. It was
winter, and Måns, who was generally ill-dressed, had no overcoat. The
lieutenant, who wore his uniform, was, it is true, somewhat uneasy, but
did not wish to hurt any one's feelings that day. When John opened the
door to go out, Måns said, "Go in front; I will come afterwards; I do
not want Jean to injure his position by going with me."
John offered to walk with Måns one way while the others should go by
another, but Jean exclaimed, "Ah! don't pretend to be noble-minded! you
feel as embarrassed at going with Måns as I do."
"True," replied John, "but...."
"Why, then, do you play the hypocrite?"
"I did not play the hypocrite; I only wished to try to be free from
prejudice."
"The deuce! what is the good of being free from prejudice when no one
else is, and it does you harm? It would really show more freedom from
prejudice to tell Måns your mind than to deceive him."
Måns had already departed, and arrived about the same time at the
restaurant as they did. He took part in the meal without betraying a
trace of ill-humour. "Your health, Måns, because you are a man of
sense," said the lieutenant to cheer him up.
The habit of speaking out one's inner thoughts without any regard to
current opinion, resulted in the overthrow of all traditional verdicts.
The terrible confusion of thought in which men live, since freedom
of thought has been fettered by compulsory regulations, has made it
possible for antiquated views of men and things to continue. Thus,
to-day a number of works of art are considered unsurpassable in spite
of the great progress made in technique and artistic conception. John
considered that if in the nineteenth century he was to give his views
on Shakespeare, he was not at all bound to give the opinion of the
eighteenth century, but of his own nineteenth, as it had been modified
by new points of view. This aroused a great deal of opposition, perhaps
because people fear being regarded as uncultivated a great deal more
than they fear being regarded as godless.
Every one attacked Christ, for He was thought to have been overthrown
by learned criticism, but they were afraid of attacking Shakespeare.
John, however, was not. Thoroughly understanding the works of the
poet, whose most important dramas he had read in the original and
whose chief commentators he had studied, he criticised the composition
and meagre character drawing of _Hamlet._ It is noteworthy that the
Swedish Shakespeare-worshipper, Shuck, through an inconsistency due to
the current confusion of thought and compulsory cowardice, made just
as severe criticisms of _Hamlet_ regarded as a work of art, though
he had previously extolled it above the skies. If John had at that
time been able to read the book of Professor Shuck, he would not have
needed courage in order to subscribe such criticisms as the following:
"_Hamlet_ is the most unsatisfactory of all ... the composition is
superficial and incoherent. After the action of the play has reached
its climax, it suddenly breaks off. Hamlet is suddenly sent to England,
but this journey does not in any way arouse the spectator's interest.
Still worse is the management of the catastrophe. It is a mere chance
that Hamlet's revenge is executed at all, and a similar caprice of
chance causes his overthrow. His killing Claudius just before his own
death has more the appearance of revenge for the attempt on his own
life, than that of a judgment executed in the name of injured morality."
And then the obscurity which envelops the motives of the principal
persons in the play! "The spectator is left in uncertainty regarding
such an important point as Ophelia's and Hamlet's madness. Moreover
in _King Lear_, Edward's treachery is so palpable that not the most
ordinarily intelligent man could have been deceived by it!"
If then the drama was defective precisely in the chief elements of a
drama, construction and characterisation, how could it be incomparable?
The reverence for what is ancient and celebrated is rooted in the
same instinct which creates gods; and pulling down the ancient has
the same effect as attacking the divine. Why else should a sensible
unprejudiced man fly in a rage when he hears some one express a
different opinion to his own (or what he thinks his own) about some old
classic? It ought to be a matter of indifference to him. The national
and intellectual Pantheon can be as angrily defended by atheists as by
monotheists, perhaps more so. People who are otherwise sincere, cringe
before a well-established reputation, and John had heard a pietistic
clergyman say that Shakespeare was a "pure" writer. In his mouth that
was certainly false. A determinist, on the other hand, would not
have used the words "pure" or "impure" because they would have been
meaningless to him. But the poor Christ-worshipper did not dare to bear
a cross for Shakespeare; he had enough already to bear for his own
Master.
Meanwhile John's method of judging old things from the modern point of
view seemed to be justified, for it gained him a following. That was
the whole secret of what was so little understood later on by theistic
and atheistic theologians--his irreverent handling of ancient things
and persons; they thought in their simplicity quite innocently that
it was what one calls in children a spirit of contradiction. His aim
rather was to bring people's confused ideas into order, and to teach
them to apply logically their materialistic point of view. If they
were materialists, they should not borrow phrases from Christianity,
nor think like idealists. This gave rise to a catchword, which showed
how what was ancient was despised--"That is old!" As new men, they
must think new thoughts, and new thoughts demanded a new phraseology.
Anecdotes and old jokes were done away with; stereotyped phrases and
borrowed expressions were suppressed. One might be plain-spoken and
call things by their right names, but one might not be vulgar; the
latest opera was not to be quoted, nor jokes from the newest comic
paper repeated. Thereby each became accustomed to produce something
from his own stock of original observation and acquired the faculty of
judging from a fresh point of view.
John had discovered that men in general were automata. All thought the
same; all judged in the same fashion; and the more learned they were,
the less independence of mind they displayed. This made him doubt the
whole value of book education. The graduates who came from Upsala
had, one and all, the same opinions on Rafael and Schiller, though
the differences in their characters would have led one to expect a
corresponding difference in their judgments. Therefore these men did
not think, although they called themselves free-thinkers, but merely
talked and were merely parrots.
But John could not perceive that it was not books _quá_ books which had
turned these learned men into automata. He himself and his unlearned
philosophical friends had been aroused to self-consciousness through
books. The danger of the university education was that it was derived
from inferior books published under sanction of the government, and
written by the upper classes in the interest of the upper classes,
_i.e_. with the object of exalting what was old and established, and
therefore of hindering further development.
Meanwhile John's scepticism had made him sterile. He had perceived
that art had nothing to do with social development, that it was simply
a reflection or phenomena, and was more perfect as art the more it
confined itself to this function. He still preserved the impulse to
re-mould things and it found expression in his painting. His poetic
art, on the other hand, went to pieces since it had to express thoughts
or serve a purpose.
His failure to have his play accepted had an adverse effect on his
pecuniary circumstances. The friends from whom he had borrowed money
came one evening to John's rooms in order to hear the play read, but
they were so tired after the day's work that, after hearing the first
act, they asked him to put off the rest for another occasion. One of
the audience who had kept more awake than the others thought that there
were too many Biblical quotations in the piece, and that these were not
suitable for the stage.
John's resources were dried up, and the spectre of want loomed upon
him, unbribeable and stone-deaf. After he had gone without his dinners
for a time, he began to feel weary of life, and looked about him for
the means of subsistence. How should he get bread in the wilderness?
The best means that suggested itself was to seek an engagement in a
provincial theatre. There mere nobodies often played leading roles
in tragedies, made themselves a name, and finished by getting an
appointment at the Theatre Royal. He quickly made his resolve, packed
his travelling bag, borrowed money for his fare, and went to Göteborg.
It was just about the time of the great November storm of 1872.
Since the environment in which he had been living had had a great
effect on him, he conceived a great dislike to this town. Gloomy,
correct, expensive, proud, reserved it lay, pent in its circle of stone
hills, and depressed the lively native of Upper Sweden, accustomed
to the rich and smiling landscape of Stockholm. It was a copy of the
capital but on a small scale, and John, as one of the upper class,
felt alienated from its inhabitants, who were in a lower stage of
development. But he noticed that there was something here that was
wanting in the capital. When he went down to the harbour he saw ships
which were nearly all destined for foreign parts, and large vessels
kept up continual communication with the continent. The people and
buildings did not look so exclusively Swedish, the papers took more
account of the great movements which were going on in the world. What
a short way it was from here to Copenhagen, Christiania, London,
Hamburg, Havre! Stockholm should have been situated here in a harbour
of the North Sea, whereas it lay in a remote corner of the Baltic.
Here was in truth the nucleus of a new centre, and he now understood
that that position was no longer occupied by Stockholm, but that
Göteborg was about to be the centre of the north. At present, however,
this reflection had no comfort for him since he was only in the
insignificant position of an actor.
John sought out the theatre-director and introduced himself as a
person who wished to do the theatre a service. The director, however,
considered himself very well served by his present staff. But he
allowed John to give a trial performance in the rôle in which he wished
to make his début. This was Dietrichson's _Workman_, the great success
of the day. John had discovered a certain likeness between Stephenson's
first locomotive and his rejected play; he wished to show how he, like
the engineer, had to face the ridicule of the ignorant crowd, the
apprehensions of the learned, and the fears of a wasted life on the
part of relatives. He gave his trial performance one evening by the
light of a candle and between bare walls. Naturally he felt hampered
and asked to repeat it in costume. But the director said it was not
necessary; he had heard enough. John, in his opinion, possessed talent,
but it was undeveloped. He offered him an engagement at twelve hundred
kronas yearly, to commence from the first of January. John considered:
Should he spend two months idly in Göteborg and then only have a
supernumerary's part in a provincial theatre? No! He would not! What
remained to be done? Nothing except to borrow money and return home,
which he did.
Thus his efforts had again ended in failure. His friends had given
him a farewell feast, lent him journey money, done all they could to
help him, and now he came back without having settled anything. Again
he had to hear the old too true accusation that he was unstable. To
be unstable in an ordered society is the extreme of unpracticality.
There persistent and exclusive cultivation of some special branch of
industry or knowledge is necessary in order to outstrip competitors.
Every orderly member of society feels a certain discomfort when he sees
some one wandering from his proper place. This discomfort does not
necessarily spring from excessive egotism, but possibly from a feeling
of solidarity and solicitude for others. John saw that his countless
changes of plan disquieted his friends; he felt ashamed and suffered on
account of it, but could not act otherwise.
So he found himself at home, and spent the long evenings in the "Red
Room," asking himself whether he really could find no place in a
society which for others opened up so many rich possibilities of a
career.
At Christmas time John travelled again to Upsala, for he had been
invited thither as one of the contributors to a Literary Calendar which
had just appeared. The _Calendar_, which was received with universal
disapprobation, was not without significance as an exponent of the
state of literature. The reader who was desired to wade through these
elegant extracts, might justifiably ask, "What have I got to do with
them?" The poetry they contained, like that of Snoilsky and Björck,
might have been written fifty or a hundred years before. It was of
indifferent quality, and sometimes even bad,--bad because it gave no
sign that the poet had developed any powers of perception, indifferent
because it was not rooted in its own period. The date of the book
was 1872, but it contained no echo of the Jubilee of 1865, no hint
of 1870, not a whiff of the conflagration of 1871. Had these young
versifiers been asleep? Yes, certainly. The great mass of students were
realists, sceptics, mockers, as befitted the children of the time, but
the poets were credulous fools with the ideals of Snoilsky and Björck
in their hearts. Their poetry was that of superannuated idealists in
form and thought, for the new views of things had not reached these
isolated individualists who still lived the Bohemian life of the
Romantics. Their poetry consisted of nothing but echoes. In fact it
was a question whether Swedish poetry had hitherto been anything else,
or could be anything else. Was Tegner's poetry anything but an echo
of Schiller, Oehlenschläger, the Eddas and the old Norse sagas? Was
Atterbom anything else than a musical box pieced together out of Tieck,
Hoffmann, Wieland, Burger? And so on with all the Swedish poets. But
this Literary Calendar was composed of echoes of echoes and dreams of
dreams. Realism, which had already made a premature entry into Sweden
with Kraemer's _Diamonds in Coal_, and had subsequently triumphed
in Snoilsky, had left no trace on these young poets. The poetry of
Snoilsky's school had been the careless expression of a careless time,
but these poems simply displayed the incapacity of their writers.
John had contributed to the _Calendar_ a free version of "An Basveig's
Saga." In this he had glorified himself as a kind of male Cinderella,
or ugly duckling of the family. He was moved to do this by the contempt
which had been evinced towards him by his patrons and middle-class
friends on account of his failure as an author. The language of the
piece was marked by a certain bluntness of expression and an attempt to
dignify low things, or at least to rub off the dirt from things which
were not really so, but were called so. Since the word Naturalism had
not yet come into fashion, his language was called coarse and vulgar.
But an acquaintance which John happened to make during his stay in
Upsala was of greater importance than the _Calendar_ or Christmas
dinner. He lodged with a friend on whose writing-table he found one day
a number of the _Svensk Tidskrift_ containing a notice of Hartmann's
_Philosophy of the Unconscious_. It was an exposition of Hartmann's
system by a Finn, A.V. Bolin, and betrayed throughout a half-concealed
admiration of it. But the editor, Hans Forssell, had appended to the
essay a note written in his usual style when he came across something
that his brain could not take in. Hartmann's doctrine was pessimism.
Conscious life is suffering because unconscious will is the motive
power of evolution and consciousness obstructs this unconscious will.
It was the old myth of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. It
was the kernel of the Buddhistic faith and the chief doctrine of
Christianity,--"Vanitas, vanitatum vanitas."
Most of the greatest and conscious minds had been pessimists, and had
seen through and unmasked the illusions of life. Only wild animals,
children, and commonplace people could therefore be happy, because they
were unconscious of the illusion, or because they held their ears when
one wanted to tell them the truth and begged not to be robbed of their
illusions.
John found all this quite natural, and had no important objection to
make. It was true then, what he had so often dreamt, that everything
was nothing! It was the suspicion of this which had governed his
point of view and made all the great and all greatness appear on a
reduced scale. This consciousness had lurked obscurely in him, when,
as a child, although well-formed, healthy and strong, he wept over
an unknown grief, the cause of which he could not find within him or
without. That was the secret of his life, that he could not admire
anything, could not hold to anything, could not live for anything; that
he was too wide awake to be subject to illusions. Life was a form of
suffering which could only be alleviated by removing as many obstacles
as possible from the path of one's will; his own life in particular
was so extremely painful because his social and economical position
constantly prevented his will from expressing itself.
When he contemplated life and especially the course of history he saw
only cycles of errors and mistakes repeating themselves.[1] The men of
the present dreamt of a republic, as Greeks and Romans had done two
thousand years before; the civilisation of the Egyptians had decayed
when they perceived its futility; Asia was wrapped in an eternal sleep
after it had been impelled by an unconscious will to conquer the
world; all nations had invented narcotics and intoxicants in order to
quench consciousness; sleep was blessedness and death the greatest
happiness. But why not take the last step and commit suicide? Because
the unconscious Will continually enticed men to live through the
illusion of hope of a better life. Pessimism, regarded as a view of the
world's order, is more consistent than meliorism, which sees in natural
development a tendency which makes for men's happiness. This latter
view seems to be a disguised relic of belief in divine providence. Can
one believe that the mechanical blindly ruling laws of nature have any
regard for the development of human society when they produce glacial
periods, floods, and volcanic outbreaks? Must an intelligent man be
called "conservative" in a contemptuous sense because he has brought
under his yoke and rules the laws of nature as Stuart Mill facetiously
expresses it? Have men devised any certain preventives against
shipwreck, strokes of lightning, economic crises, losses of relatives
by death and sickness? Can men control at pleasure the inclination of
the earth's axis, and do away with cloud-formations which are likely
to injure harvests? In spite of the present advanced state of science,
have men been able to put an end to the grape pest, to stop floods,
eradicate, superstitions, remove despots, prevent war? Is it not
presumptuous or simple-minded to believe that man, himself governed by
chemical, physical, and physiological laws of nature, stands above them
because he understands how to use some of them to his own advantage, as
birds use the wind for their progress or beavers the pressure of the
stream in constructing their dams? Are not the wings of the falcon and
the fly more perfect means of locomotion than railways and steamers?
How can men be so simple as to think that they stand above nature when
they are themselves so subordinate to nature that they cannot will or
think freely? It looks like a residue of our primitive illusions. If
the present development of European society ends in atheism, that has
already been the case with the Buddhists; if in religious freedom,
that has already been witnessed in the early history of China; if in
polygamy, that already exists among the savages of Australia; if in
community of goods, this prevailed among primitive peoples. The fact is
that Europe has been the last of all the great ethnical groups to wake
to consciousness. It is now in the act of waking and turning itself,
not like some oriental nations, to torpid quietism, but to removing as
far as possible the pains and unpleasantnesses of earthly existence,
although the best way of doing so has not been yet discovered. The
mistake of the industrial socialists is that they, according to
the formula of the ambiguous evolution theory, wish to build upon
existing conditions, which they regard as the product of necessity,
and tending to the good of all. But existing conditions rather tend
to the happiness of the few, and are therefore something abnormal to
build on, which means erecting a house on ground from which the water
has not been drained off. Probably the form of society which they
desire, however absurd it is, is a necessary mistake through which men
must pass to reach a better. Both the danger and the hope of progress
consist in the fact that the socialistic system already has its
programme drawn up and consequently works automatically, _i.e_. like a
blind, irresistible mass. If it reconstitutes society after the pattern
of the working-class who are a minority, and makes all men mechanics,
one may venture to doubt, without being regarded as quite mad, whether
that will be happiness. Socialism as a social reform is inevitable,
for Europe in its self-idolatry has not perceived how far backward it
is. Provided with an Asiatic form of government, which interferes in
details, supporting ancient superstitions, living under the terrible
tyranny of capital, which is maintained by force of arms, it sets
on foot political and religious persecutions, it venerates embalmed
monarchs like mummies of the Pharaohs, it civilises savages with waste
goods and Krupp guns; it forgets that its civilisation came from the
east, and was better then than it is now. Hartmann and the pessimists
believe that the social reform which is called socialism will come, but
that afterwards, it will be succeeded by something else.
The bourgeois is an optimist because he cannot see or think outside
the narrow circle of everyday occurrences. That is his good fortune,
but not his merit, for he has no choice in the matter. Nay, he does not
even understand what pessimism is, but thinks it means the opinion that
this is the worst of all worlds. How could any one have a well-grounded
view on that? Voltaire, who was no pessimist, wrote a whole book to
demonstrate that this world, at any rate, was not the best of worlds
for us, as Leibnitz imagined. It is naturally the best for itself,
although not for us, and the difference between the point of view of
the hypochondriac and the pessimist consists in the fact that the
former believes that the world is the worst possible for him, while
the pessimist disregards what it may be for the individual. Hartmann
is no hypochondriac as people have tried to make out, and he seeks to
alleviate the pain of life as much as possible by placing himself in a
state of unconsciousness.
The men of the younger generation of to-day are sad, because they
have awoke to consciousness and lost many illusions. But they are not
hypochondriacal, and work at bringing the world forward into the last
stage of illusion or a new social system, as though hoping thereby to
alleviate their pain, and they work the more fanatically, the deeper
they feel it.
Meanwhile, supposing that Hartmann's philosophy may be a mistake, and a
sceptic must be willing to entertain that possibility, although it has
every probability on its side, since the instinct of self-preservation,
the first condition of life, consists in the removal of pain, which
is the first motive-power,--we must seek to explain historically
how this philosophy has come to the birth and spread. Superficial
observers like the mystic Caro, do not hesitate, inconsistently
enough, to attribute it to bodily ill-health. The socialists, who
wished to arouse the expectation that their teaching was practicable,
explained it as the foreboding of overthrow in a class, of whom
Hartmann was the representative. But Hartmann believes in socialism
and the new social system, although only as transitional forms. He
is not despairing, not even melancholy. He seems to be the first
philosopher who, quite independently of Christianity, European culture
and idealism, tries to explain the world's progress from the purely
materialistic point of view. He states facts and processes exactly as
they are. From unconscious minerals we have developed into globules
of albumen, acquired conscious nerve-centres and finally brains
with ever-increasing self-consciousness. The more highly organised
the life, the greater the capacity for pain and susceptibility to
impressions. Not till our time did the cosmic brain succeed in arriving
at clear perception and, accordingly, at divining the order of the
world. Hartmann can therefore be regarded as one who arrived at the
highest degree of consciousness, and he will be remembered as the
great unmasker before whose keen gaze the bandages fell away. It is
consequently a mistake to call him "the prophet of despair." Idealists
may feel empty and despairing when confronted by the naked truth, but
the meliorist feels an inexpressible calm. Man will be modest when he
takes the measure of his littleness as an atom of the cosmic dust.
He will no longer build his happiness on a future life, but will be
impelled by pessimism to order the only life he has as well as he can
for himself and for others. He will see how useless it is to lament
over the misery of existence; he will accept pain as a fact, and
alleviate it as well as he can. Hartmann is a realist, and the title
"pessimist" in its old significance has been fastened on him out of
malice. He shudders at the misery of the world, but does not even call
it misery. He only shows that life is not so great and beautiful as men
like to make out, and pain in his view is not a mere bodily ailment,
but an impelling motive. His is a sound and healthy view of things in
contrast to which socialism may sometimes look like idealism, since it
wishes to remodel society according to its desires, not according to
the possibilities of the case.
Meanwhile the review article on Hartmann had a quickening effect on
John. There was then a system in the apparent madness of the universe,
and his consciousness had rightly foreboded that the whole scheme of
things was something very insignificant. But a new philosophic system
is not absorbed by a brain in a day. It only left a certain deposit and
gave a keynote to his thoughts. As a theoretical point of view it was
still obscured by his idealistic education, darkened by his inborn and
acquired hatred of the upper class, and his natural tendency to seek
his point of equilibrium somewhere outside himself. Taken on the large
scale, life was meaningless, but if one wanted to live, one had to come
to grips with reality, and adopt an everyday point of view, which alas!
one very readily did. Enormous difficulties stood in the way of earning
a living or making a name. Honour, viewed absolutely, was nothing, but
in relation to the petty circumstances of life it was something great,
and worth striving for. The Philistines did not understand that, and
derived much amusement, when they saw him, pessimist as he was, toiling
after distinctions. They, with their clock-work brains, thought this
inconsistent, since they did not understand that the term "honour" has
two values, an absolute and a "relative."
[1] In his pamphlet "The Conscious Will in the World-history" (1903),
Strindberg takes the opposite view to that expressed here.
End of Project Gutenberg's The Growth of a Soul, by August Strindberg