walks in the country-places, how he read in London streets walking down
Piccadilly, crossing Pall Mall. You will remember how Trelawny describes
him in Italy standing all day leaning against the mantelpiece of his
living-room, not moving, intensely reading, and not stopping to eat, not
even when Trelawny left a plate of food by him, and went out. You will
remember how he worked on the Revolt of Islam, leaving Mary, and going
off to a little island, and writing all day without food or distraction,
undisturbed by the attractions of nature, being part of them, and as them
lost in the existence of his art.
Queen Mab was the work of a young untutored artistic mind. The
Prometheus, the Cenci, the Defence of Poetry are the creations of a
genius. The change is unusual, but not miraculous. His industry was
more intense than most, for he accomplished in less than ten years that
for which most geniuses require a lifetime. From the stage in 1811 when
“Reason is all in all”, and “poetical beauty ought to be subordinated to
the inculcated moral” to the stage in 1820 in the “Defence of Poetry”
where “There is no want of knowledge respecting what is wisest and best
in morals, government and political economy.... But we want the creative
faculty to imagine what we know,” and to the contemporaneous Hymn to
Intellectual Beauty, where Reason is no longer all in all and “the awful
shadow of some unseen power” is
“Like aught that for its grace may be
Dear, and yet dearer for its mystery.”
From the early stage to the late there is a long road of intense labor
over which Shelley in his mad and impetuous way ran like Pheidippides at
top-speed the race of death and immortality.
“No doubt Shelley’s bad health in the autumn of 1817,” writes one of his
biographers, “was partly caused by overwork, for in that year he had
written as much poetry as would take ten years in the life of a less
impetuous writer.”
All his life Shelley spent in piling up knowledge from forbidden mines
of lore. With more energy than any other poet Shelley performed the
Herculean labors of greatness, and so swiftly was it done that the
world has fallen into the error of considering him as a bird who sang
inevitable songs.
In these two cases I have shown what seems to me to be powerful evidence
of the fact that, although artists are born, geniuses are made. I have
shown the methods of greatness as applied to the lives of two great men.
Actually, perhaps, I have been talking about the artistry of the artist.
Let us turn for a moment to evidence of this same method of industry as
applied to an individual work, more strictly, perhaps, the artistry of
art.
“Love in the Valley” is unquestionably one of the great lyrics of English
literature. As unquestionably, I think, in its first published form, it
was a very mediocre, if not an utterly bad poem. Let me quote you the
first verse as it stood in the early edition:
“Under yonder beech-tree standing on the greensward,
Crouch’d with her arms behind her little head,
Her knees folded up, and her tresses on her bosom,
Lies my young love sleeping in the shade.
Had I the heart to slide one arm beneath her,
Press her dreaming lips as her waist I folded slow.
Waking on the instant she could not but embrace me,
Ah! would she hold me and never let me go?”
This is indeed a supple young lady. Consider that she is standing, and
crouching with her knees folded up, while she lies asleep in the shade. I
fancy it is a troubled sleep. Consider, too, that in this verse there is
an unhappy repetition of the word folded,—the last mention of that word
being in the wrong tense. Consider that this is the first version of the
first verse of one of the few great lyrics. It is a poor thing, at best.
There are flashes of talent, but so are there in a thousand lyrics of
young poets, nothing of whose work is counted immortal.
But George Meredith was great. With the industry of the great he came
back to this poem. Lo! it has arisen from the grave.
“Under yonder beech-tree, single on the greensward
Couch’d with her arms behind her golden head,
Knees and tresses folded to slip and ripple idly,
Lies my young love sleeping in the shade.
Had I the heart to slide an arm beneath her,
Press her parting lips, as her waist I gather slow,
Waking in amazement she could not but embrace me,
Then would she hold me and never let me go?”
The artist is primarily a temperament, but secondarily he is an artist,
and his artistry, and the artistry of his art are what determine his
greatness. Geniuses are born, and are made? But many are born, while few
are made.
I think it is our duty to encourage greatness, even, if we, ourselves,
have not the creative ability to imagine what we know.
MAXWELL E. FOSTER.
_Gossip_
Whenever, on a trip abroad, I went into one of the famous galleries to
discover my reactions to the great works of art therein exhibited, I was
struck by the realization that this was quite impossible. I found that
I was confused by all that I heard about these things beforehand. The
critics I had been advised to read, the inevitable guide-books, and my
friends with their free scraps of information seemed all in a conspiracy
to bewilder me; I was jealous of having my privilege of praising and
condemning taken away and of being permitted only to ratify.
It is useless to say that one may rid oneself of such encumbrances.
Coldness toward the official guides and an active disdain for the
guide-books will not solve the problem; for Mr. Baedecker is, after all,
one of the last to introduce us to the arts,—we do not arrive at his
authoritative though concise eulogies totally uninformed by any means.
While one may not have been made ready by intensive courses, the report
of fame is not published merely for those who take them, and you cannot
escape hearsay and the wealth of criticism that passes on the tide of
conversation. Even curt phrases such as, “You must go and see this!” or
“Oh, you _would_ love that!” are to me insidious, and the type of gossip
which they represent makes a premature effect inevitable. In fact, an
educated person wandering in a well-known exhibition needs no guidance,
other than names and authors, to recall everything to him.
I suppose those schoolgirls one meets abroad, daughters of the wealthy
studying “art” in its habitat, are the worst off in this respect. You
see them marching in herds through the museums led by their formidable
teachers, stopping to gaze and murmur and look at the people passing
while they are furnished with the necessary facts. By the time they
are finished with text-books, scrap-books, and, lastly, exhaustive
studies of the originals, no saint can hide a toe from them. They know
everything, particularly dates. Leonardo was great; the primitives
“have such feeling and are so naïve”; the teacher’s favorites are
their favorites. I sometimes wonder why they don’t carry it all a step
further. Why not organize it? Why not “Three long cheers for Raphael
now, girls! One—two—three—?” The middle-aged English maidens who form
so large a part of the tourist mob in Italy are another set of victims.
Steeped in their tawdry little enthusiasms, they always go at things
hard and correctly. If they like a thing, their appreciation is like
squirting a hose on it. One sees them make a mistake once in a while and
admire an atrocity. Nothing could be more serene than their correction
of such mistakes. I saw it happen once before a statue of Hercules. It
appears that the god was not doing what he should be; he was looking for
a giant to wrestle with instead of sweeping the stables or something of
the kind. They had attended to the wrong statue, obviously, but their
waste of five important minutes was their only chagrin and the hose was
simply switched, perhaps squirting with a little less force now—as though
punctured somewhere.
Granted, at any rate, that you do not come empty handed to the feast,
some are of the opinion that if you have studied an object, it is only
reasonable to suppose that you will be the more interested: that research
enhances its appeal. This appears to be logical. A full appreciation is
to be achieved only through an understanding of methods—of the points of
view required to get at the stirring qualities a thing possesses.
On the other hand, one hears that painting and the rest of the arts
hold the mirror up to nature, and it seems strange that we are not
furnished handbooks to the current exhibitions of the latter. “You ought
to know something about them!” we are told when we go to the galleries.
Well, if this predigestion may be furnished us by our betters for our
sight-seeing, why may we not have it ready at hand for our days in the
country? Why not look up the good and bad points of a sunny day before
leaving the house, for instance? Or know from a greater, deeper Ruskin
in exactly what the “strength” of winter, as an artist, lies and where
to look for his weaknesses? Why, in other words, cannot both types of
aesthetic appreciation be dealt with in the same free manner?
Thus the problem is made real by the seeming validity of both points of
view. And I do not see a solution.
I believe that the modern idea of education is an enemy of individuality
in the average person interested in works of art. Not that any man is
insincere, though it goes hard against the grain for him to throw aside
the sophistication he has been a long time acquiring and be simple: to
kick his education out of the way as it were and make a path for himself.
To be caught overtaxing our slim knowledge of the world and thereby to
appear ridiculous is no doubt disagreeable enough; but far more do we
fight shy of exposing any virgin soil. It seems so silly not to appear
well informed, particularly when one has the proof at hand. Besides,
it is a temptation in a more complicated sense. Why should not a man
bend every effort to see in fine works the things that many minds of
a brilliancy sharper than his own have seen? Perhaps it is best just
to ratify, or to satisfy ourselves that we are at one with the great
concensus of judgments—that all’s well with _our_ souls, at any rate. But
if we come to judge for ourselves, we are as judges who before seeing
the evidence have listened to the unanimous verdicts of countless others
ranked wiser than themselves.
As I see it, to be in sympathy with truth in this form or in any other is
a paradox except by natural inclination. To struggle against it until we
_reconcile_ ourselves to something that may, or, in the last analysis,
may not be so, does not seem entirely satisfactory. And I believe that a
person cultivated according to modern standards is unable to arrive at
a definite conclusion of the kind in question by following his natural
inclination. He may survive the temptation, more subtle in action than
in its abstract nakedness, that I have outlined, but if he does so
it is a resistance fraught with effort and as such harmful. The very
determination of a person to do justice to his individuality spoils the
adventure. The joy of a clear reaction is lost: that is the truth of the
matter.... If I see this statue by so and so all I have ever heard about
it and him flocks in upon me. At once I am all at sea. I am impressed by
its reputation; my knowledge of it is large and solid before me. Either
I notice things which otherwise would not have been obvious, or, more
probably, I fight my prejudice and go too far in the opposite direction,
wildly exclaiming that I _will_ be independent. I am trying to get my
balance. I know that this may be done, but if I succeed in it, it is
tedious work and to be accomplished only by making a series of involved
compensations; and above all, it is hard to keep from doubting the truth
of the result. Would I have been so impressed?—I say in my search for a
genuine emotion;—if only I were unhampered! The delicate mechanism of my
appreciation has been tampered with.
I find that if I go to look at some new work concerning which the
criticism of the many is not yet crystallized, it is with relish and a
fine sense of relief. I have the same feeling when, after studying under
tedious tuition some novel of a great author, I pick up another book of
his to read alone. Now then, I wonder, what is he like after all? For
I am my own final arbiter whatever happens; and I enjoy to the full my
privilege of judging what I see. This new thing at least I face as a free
individual, as one would like to face men, shorn of their reputations. I
can discover a swift, imperious dislike of it or love it vigorously, and
not share any orthodox enthusiasms. Lavish spontaneity is briefly in the
throne.
W. T. BISSELL.
_Book Reviews_
_The Cathedral._ By HUGH WALPOLE. (The Macmillan Company, 1922.)
There are two classes of men who attain a piercing perception of the
fundamental truths beneath the mantle of social usage which is loosely
termed culture, a mantle which only serves to detract the senses from
the real goal of human activities. One of these types is the stoic
mentalist, to whom everything is mind and reason. The other is the
emotional, uncontrolled realist, who lives for pleasure and dreams of
ideals. Both of these divergent types are able to see clearly the foibles
which permeate the life of mankind; the first because he realizes human
weaknesses and thereby refrains from falling into indulging in them,
while the second delves into the experiences and pleasures of the senses
and comes to a realization of the futility of it all.
Mr. Walpole has taken this antithesis as the principal theme in his
latest work, and the result is Canon Ronder and Davary. The power of
these two characters, however, is suggested rather than described, and
Mr. Walpole’s genius of omission is as commendable as his power of
description. The perpetual controversy of the Church—between that which
was once new and that which is ever rising to become the newer—is treated
dramatically by attaching the teachings of both to human characters
and having them live lives according to their interpretation of such
teachings; the relative superiority of the opposing doctrines is thus
put to the test. The splendor of the Church is seen by eyes from under
different points of view, and discord arises between the officers of
the Church. Worldly ambitions and thwarted passions are well depicted
by Mr. Walpole, while an intensely dramatic strain is refreshed by the
youthful love affair between the Bishop’s daughter and her sweetheart.
“The Cathedral” is a work of fiction which deserves to be ranked among
the best—because it is so unlike fiction.
H. H. S.
_The Hill of Dreams._ By ARTHUR MACHEN. (Alfred Knopf Company.)
This book is new only to the American public. Since its first appearance
in England a number of years ago, its popularity and power has grown
phenomenally; Knopf could scarcely have left it out of his collection of
best modern books. It is sure to make a lasting impression here upon all
those who are able to love and appreciate the remarkable beauties of a
real prose style.
But, withal, I believe the book to be weaker than Carl Van Vechten would
admit. I believe it to be weak in the same manner, and for the same
reasons, I am inclined to decry the theses of many modern writers. In a
way, “The Hill of Dream” is a study in the Psychology of Insanity. In
a way, books like “Ulysses” and “Babbitt” are studies in Sociology and
Psychology and whatnot. And, frankly, I do not like my science with my
literature.
All this sort of intellectualism strives honestly for the truth; “The
Hill of Dreams” attains a unique and unrivalled beauty, but any plot
which selects one human specimen, and insists upon our microscopic
interest in him, following the author’s experiments to the bitterest of
ends, asks of us a little too much. These things are like too-lengthy
poems, which cannot sustain our emotions through all their tomes,
howsoever clever and beautiful they may be. Our complex minds require
more complexity in our literature, more variation, less study and more
story, than they give us. Personally, again, I prefer “Vanity Fair” to
the most beautiful “-ology” ever to be written.
But that is far afield from “The Hill of Dreams”, and I should be truly
sinful to lose a reader for it by rhapsodizing. It _is_ beautiful prose,
it _is_—after its own fashion—an interesting story, and it is certainly
true to a peculiar little minority of human life. In these days when
dramatic value must be subjective to be great, it is a great book.
D. G. C.
_A Hind in Richmond Park._ By W. H. HUDSON. (E. P. Dutton.)
Reading “A Hind in Richmond Park” is like going on a long walk over
rolling fields and hillsides in the face of a stiff breeze. There is a
tang and freshness in the book which is exhilarating. You feel as if you
were with Mr. Hudson in his wanderings. As you open the book he smiles at
you and takes your hand and you are his. He takes you walking in England
or riding across the Argentine pampas and talks to you about the sights
and sounds en route, rambling smoothly from one thought to another.
He calls himself a field naturalist, but he is much more than that word
implies even in its best sense. He is a poet of nature; a sort of modern
Chaucer in his whole-hearted delight in and appreciation of the minute
details in nature. The reader will find scattered through the pages many
of his own inarticulate musings set down with charming simplicity and
depth of feelings. Mr. Hudson talks to you about smells, winds and sounds
and you find that you are listening to an expression of many of your own
thoughts.
The material of the book is a strange admixture of anecdotes, science,
and common sense which every now and then reaches an almost poetical
plain of thought. It is neither a collection of essays, nor a journal,
nor a narrative; it is really a set of printed conversations—a member of
that delightful species that may be picked up for a half-hour’s reading,
and laid aside again without the charm being broken. Nor is this because
the subjects fail to arouse interest. Anyone who has caught nature off
her guard, who has walked abroad after a thunder shower in dry weather,
or who has tramped past newly-ploughed fields, or lain among the cowslips
on a crystal-bright May morning with the fresh south wind in his face,
will find a source of quiet pleasure in “A Hind of Richmond Park”. He
will forget that there is ice and snow outside and too much tobacco smoke
within, and will shut his eyes and dream of pleasant summer days of long
ago.
M. T.
_The Waste Land._ By T. S. ELIOT. (Boni & Liveright, 1922.)
Any poem hailed by most of the really important critics of this country
and of England as “the most significant of the generation” would
naturally compel our attention. “The Waste Land” does not cease to do
that even after constant re-reading. Although we are eventually convinced
of the opinion just quoted, our peculiar conception of its significance
may vary a great deal. It would seem to me it lies in its relation to the
future of poetry. Mr. Eliot has led poetry to the cross-roads and offered
her a choice. She must either follow him along the path which he has
demonstrated with eloquent conviction is disfigured beyond hope by the
tracks of many centuries or else branch off to a new untravelled road.
The poem is enormous and epochal by virtue of its aesthetic implications.
It is pathetically foolish to find justification for its vast
incongruities and obscurities in its broad design or in isolated passages
of beauty. Those who are doing the latter give it an interpretation which
its author manifestly did not intend. If his purpose had been to create
simple lyricism there would be little sense in drowning it in a maelstrom
of references to over thirty books, written in several languages, and
ranging from Sanskrit maxims to American “rags”.
There can be no denial, however, that there is a definite and organized
pattern in the crazy-quilt. Even such lines as,
“When lovely woman stoops to folly and
Paces about her room again, alone,
She smooths her hair with automatic hand
And puts a record on the gramophone.”
are an integral part of the general plan. Superficially, that plan has to
do with the sterility of emotion in modern life and the futility of human
aspirations in all ages. But his most subtle proof of the latter is to be
found in the very form of the poem itself with its concrete negation of
all the most cherished ideals of aesthetics. Eliot has shown us in this,
as in his other work, that he is capable of writing perfect verse in any
number of conventional modes. In “The Waste Land” he gives us a sample
of each with the implication that there is not one of them but is as
worn-out and vulgarized as the London desert.
This is my reason for believing the most profound significance of the
poem consists in the threat it throws in the face of poetry. Will she
continue to adorn herself in motley made up of the battered fabrics
of past triumphs? Or, on the other hand, will some one come offering
her what she most needs to survive, something beautiful in its very
freshness? Perhaps we should be thankful for “The Waste Land”, as we
are always thankful for a warning signal. But we have no need to desire
another.
W. T.
_The Forcing House._ By ISRAEL ZANGWILL. (The Macmillan Company.)
Reading Mr. Zangwill we are often reminded of a rhyme which Olive
Herford appended to a cartoon of that author in his “Confessions of a
Caricaturist”:
“This picture, though it is not much
Like Zangwill, is not void of worth;
It has one true Zangwillian touch—
It looks like nothing else on earth.”
In “The Forcing House”, the ever-original “Izzi” has attempted an even
more impossible task than the one he set for himself in “The Cockpit”, to
which it is the sequel. He has attempted to dramatize the main feature of
the Russian Revolution and the confusions of an attendant Bolshevism. The
dramatist has proceeded in the conventional style of an allegory, but an
allegory peculiar to Mr. Zangwill. Though the whole is vastly confused,
each impression is clear enough and we finally emerge from the long,
bewildering maze of plots and counterplots, anarchies and despotisms to
find to our astonishment a remarkably precise and clear understanding of
the political and social conditions of present day Eastern Europe. The
chronicler offers no illusions. The whole is plainfully plain.
At the very beginning the author scents the weakness of the radicals. The
Jewish Banker and the fanatic Riffoni are talking:
“Gripstein: ‘But why is printing so dear? See how these trade
unions cut one another’s throats! So the proletariat won’t pay
for your ideas.’
“Riffoni: ‘They can’t afford to.’
“Gripstein: ‘Not four soldi? But think what they spend on
cinemas and cigarettes!’”
But it is not until the third act that the Duke D’Azolls lays bare the
full misconception of the Doctrine Lenin: “Not a paradise of blossoming
brotherhood, not a natural growth under God’s heaven, but a Socialism
ripened prematurely under the heat of compulsion and watered with blood;
a Socialism under a sky of glass, unstable, sterile.... And forced—good
God!—from what seed? Constricting figs in greenhouse pots will
precipitate them artificially, but there is high authority for doubting
if they can be gathered from thistles.”
Mr. Zangwill has taken upon himself a monumental task. That he has had
any success at all is remarkable.
M. W.
Editor’s Table
“Here we are,” exclaimed Richard Cory tritely; “the usual archaisms.”
“Do you mean _us_?” asked little Bukis innocently.
“No, you fool!” this from Ahaseurus, who was still wearing goloshes. “He
is referring to the manuscripts.”
Bukis flew into a passion at this and started seething through the book
reviews. There was a blare of trumpets, a rush of wind, and in burst the
red-faced Benson.
Benson started throwing poems all over Bukis, who objected. He then took
Richard Cory into a corner, and the two of them decided to go over to the
Elizabethan Club to hear Steve Benét. Bukis had a meeting of Christians.
They all left. The Egoist had resigned, anyway, and was not to be found.
They had all gone.
All but Ahaseurus. He sat there meditatively with his hands in his
overcoat pockets. Shivering, he bent over the piles of cold, white paper.
And, in the grey silence of the shadows, he made up the LIT.
AHASEURUS.
_Yale Lit. Advertiser._
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