“Laughter,” said the Angel Æthereal, applying his wineglass to his
nose, “has ever distinguished mankind from all other animals with
the exception of the dog. And the power of laughing at nothing
distinguishes man even from that quadruped.”
“I would go further, sir,” returned his dragoman, “and say that the
power of laughing at that which should make him sick distinguishes the
Englishman from all other varieties of man except the negro. Kindly
observe!” He rose, and taking the Angel by the waist, fox-trotted him
among the little tables.
“See!” he said, indicating the other supper-takers with a circular
movement of his beard, “they are consumed with laughter. The habit of
fox-trotting in the intervals of eating has been known ever since it
was introduced by Americans a generation ago, at the beginning of the
Great Skirmish, when that important people had as yet nothing else
to do; but it still causes laughter in this country. A distressing
custom,” he wheezed, as they resumed their seats, “for not only does it
disturb the oyster, but it compels one to think lightly of the human
species. Not that one requires much compulsion,” he added, “now that
music-hall, cinema, and restaurant are conjoined. What a happy idea it
was of Berlin’s, and how excellent for business! Kindly glance for a
moment--but not more--at the left-hand stage.”
The Angel turned his eyes towards a cinematograph film which was being
displayed. He contemplated it for the moment without speaking.
“I do not comprehend,” he said at last, “why the person with the
arrested moustaches is hitting so many people with that sack of flour.”
“To cause amusement, sir,” replied his dragoman. “Look at the laughing
faces around you.”
“But it is not funny,” said the Angel.
“No, indeed,” returned his dragoman. “Be so good as to carry your eyes
now to the stage on the right, but not for long. What do you see?”
“I see a very red-nosed man beating a very white-nosed man about the
body.”
“It is a real scream, is it not?”
“No,” said the Angel drily. “Does nothing else ever happen on these
stages?”
“Nothing. Stay! _Revues_ happen!”
“What are _revues_?” asked the Angel.
“Criticisms of life, sir, as it would be seen by persons inebriated on
various intoxicants.”
“They should be joyous.”
“They are accounted so,” his dragoman replied; “but for my part, I
prefer to criticise life for myself, especially when I am drunk.”
“Are there no plays, no operas?” asked the Angel from behind his glass.
“Not in the old and proper sense of these words. They disappeared
towards the end of the Great Skirmish.”
“What food for the mind is there, then?” asked the Angel, adding an
oyster to his collection.
“None in public, sir, for it is well recognised, and has been
ever since those days, that laughter alone promotes business and
removes the thought of death. You cannot recall, as I can, sir, the
continual stream which used to issue from theatres, music-halls, and
picture-palaces in the days of the Great Skirmish, nor the joviality of
the Strand and the more expensive restaurants. I have often thought,”
he added with a touch of philosophy, “what a height of civilisation we
must have reached to go jesting, as we did, to the Great Unknown.”
“Is that really what the English did at the time of the Great
Skirmish?” asked the Angel.
“It is,” replied his dragoman solemnly.
“Then they are a very fine people, and I can put up with much about
them which seems to me distressing.”
“Ah! sir, though, being an Englishman, I am sometimes inclined to
disparage the English, I am yet convinced that you could not fly a
week’s journey and come across another race with such a peculiar
nobility, or such an unconquerable soul, if you will forgive my using
a word whose meaning is much disputed. May I tempt you with a clam?”
he added more lightly. “We now have them from America--in fair
preservation, and very nasty they are, in my opinion.”
The Angel took a clam.
“My Lord!” he said, after a moment of deglutition.
“Quite so!” replied his dragoman. “But kindly glance at the right-hand
stage again. There is a _revue_ on now. What do you see?”
The Angel made two holes with his forefingers and thumbs and, putting
them to his eyes, bent a little forward.
“Tut, tut!” he said; “I see some attractive young females with very few
clothes on, walking up and down in front of what seem to me, indeed,
to be two grown-up men in collars and jackets as of little boys. What
precise criticism of life is this conveying?”
His dragoman answered in reproachful accents:
“Do you not feel, sir, from your own sensations, how marvellously this
informs one of the secret passions of mankind? Is there not in it a
striking revelation of the natural tendencies of the male population?
Remark how the whole audience, including your august self, is leaning
forward and looking through their thumb-holes?”
The Angel sat back hurriedly.
“True,” he said, “I was carried away. But that is not the criticism of
life which art demands. If it had been, the audience, myself included,
would have been sitting back with their lips curled dry, instead of
watering.”
“For all that,” replied his dragoman, “it is the best we can give you;
anything which induces the detached mood of which you spoke, has been
banned from the stage since the days of the Great Skirmish; it is so
very bad for business.”
“Pity!” said the Angel, imperceptibly edging forward; “the mission of
art is to elevate.”
“It is plain, sir,” said his dragoman, “that you have lost touch with
the world as it is. The mission of art--now truly democratic--is to
level--in principle up, in practice down. Do not forget, sir, that
the English have ever regarded æstheticism as unmanly, and grace as
immoral; when to that basic principle you add the principle of serving
the taste of the majority, you have perfect conditions for a sure and
gradual decrescendo.”
“Does taste, then, no longer exist?” asked the Angel.
“It is not wholly, as yet, extinct, but lingers in the communal
kitchens and canteens, as introduced by the Young Men’s Christian
Association in the days of the Great Skirmish. While there is
appetite there is hope, nor is it wholly discouraging that taste
should now centre in the stomach; for is not that the real centre of
man’s activity? Who dare affirm that from so universal a foundation
the fair structure of æstheticism shall not be rebuilt? The eye,
accustomed to the look of dainty dishes and pleasant cookery, may
once more demand the architecture of Wren, the sculpture of Rodin,
the paintings of--dear me--whom? Why, sir, even before the days of
the Great Skirmish, when you were last on earth, we had already begun
to put the future of æstheticism on a more real basis, and were
converting the concert-halls of London into hotels. Few at the time
saw the far-reaching significance of that movement, or realised that
æstheticism was to be levelled down to the stomach, in order that it
might be levelled up again to the head, on true democratic principles.”
“But what,” said the Angel, with one of his preternatural flashes of
acumen, “what if, on the other hand, taste should continue to sink and
lose even its present hold on the stomach? If all else has gone, why
should not the beauty of the kitchen go?”
“That indeed,” sighed his dragoman, placing his hand on his heart,
“is a thought which often gives me a sinking sensation. Two liqueur
brandies,” he murmured to the waiter. “But the stout heart refuses
to despair. Besides, advertisements show decided traces of æsthetic
advance. All the great painters, poets, and fiction writers are working
on them; the movement had its origin in the propaganda demanded by
the Great Skirmish. You will not recollect the war poetry of that
period, the patriotic films, the death cartoons, and other remarkable
achievements. We have just as great talents now, though their object
has not perhaps the religious singleness of those stirring times.
Not a food, corset, or collar which has not its artist working for
it! Toothbrushes, nut-crackers, babies’ baths--the whole caboodle
of manufacture--are now set to music. Such themes are considered
subliminal if not sublime. No, sir, I will not despair; it is only
at moments when I have dined poorly that the horizon seems dark.
Listen--they have turned on the ‘Kalophone,’ for you must know that all
music now is beautifully made by machine--so much easier for every one.”
The Angel raised his head, and into his eyes came the glow associated
with celestial strains.
“The tune,” he said, “is familiar to me.”
“Yes, sir,” answered his dragoman, “for it is _The Messiah_ in
ragtime. No time is wasted, you notice; all, even pleasure, is
intensively cultivated, on the lines of least resistance, thanks to
the feverishness engendered in us by the Great Skirmish, when no one
knew if he would have another chance, and to the subsequent need for
fostering industry. But whether we really enjoy ourselves is perhaps a
question to answer which you must examine the English character.”
“That I refuse to do,” said the Angel.
“And you are wise, sir, for it is a puzzler, and many have cracked
their heads over it. But have we not been here long enough? We can
pursue our researches into the higher realms of art to-morrow.”
A beam from the Angel’s lustrous eyes fell on a lady at the next table.
“Yes, perhaps we had better go,” he sighed.
V
“And so it is through the fields of true art that we shall walk this
morning?” said the Angel Æthereal.
“Such as they are in this year of Peace 1947,” responded his dragoman,
arresting him before a statue; “for the development of this hobby has
been peculiar since you were here in 1910, when the childlike and
contortionist movement was just beginning to take hold of the British.”
“Whom does this represent?” asked the Angel.
“A celebrated publicist, recently deceased at a great age. You see him
unfolded by this work of multiform genius, in every aspect known to
art, religion, nature, and the population. From his knees downwards
he is clearly devoted to nature, and is portrayed as about to enter
his bath. From his waist to his knees he is devoted to religion--mark
the complete disappearance of the human aspect. From his neck to his
waist he is devoted to public affairs; observe the tweed coat, the
watch-chain, and other signs of practical sobriety. But the head
is, after all, the crown of the human being, and is devoted to art.
This is why you cannot make out that it is a head. Note its pyramidal
severity, its cunning little ears, its box-built, water-tightal
structure. The hair you note to be in flames. Here we have the touch
of beauty--the burning shrub. In the whole you will observe that
aversion from natural form and the single point of view, characteristic
of all twentieth-century æsthetics. The whole thing is a very great
masterpiece of childlike contortionism. To do things as irresponsibly
as children and contortionists--what a happy discovery of the line of
least resistance in art that was! Mark, by the way, this exquisite
touch about the left hand.”
“It appears to be deformed,” said the Angel, going a step nearer.
“Look closer still,” returned his dragoman, “and you will see that
it is holding a novel of the great Russian, upside down. Ever since
that simple master who so happily blended the childlike with the
contortionist became known in this country they have been trying to go
him one better, in letters, in painting, in sculpture, and in music,
refusing to admit that he was the last cry; and until they have beaten
him this movement simply cannot cease; it may therefore go on for ever,
for he was the limit. That hand symbolises the whole movement.”
“How?” said the Angel.
“Why, sir, somersault is its mainspring. Did you never observe the
great Russian’s method? Prepare your characters to do one thing, and
make them very swiftly do the opposite. Thus did that terrific novelist
demonstrate his overmastering range of vision and knowledge of the
depths of human nature. Since his characters never varied this routine
in the course of some eight thousand pages, people have lightly said
that he repeated himself. But what of that? Consider what perfect
dissociation he thereby attained between character and action; what
nebulosity of fact; what a truly childlike and mystic mix-up of all
human values hitherto known! And here, sir, at the risk of tickling
you, I must whisper.” The dragoman made a trumpet of his hand: “Fiction
can only be written by those who have exceptionally little knowledge of
ordinary human nature, and great fiction only by such as have none at
all.”
“How is that?” said the Angel, somewhat disconcerted.
“Surprise, sir, is the very kernel of all effects in art, and in real
life people _will_ act as their characters and temperaments determine
that they shall. This dreadful and unmalleable trait would have upset
all the great mystic masters from generation to generation if they
had only noticed it. But did they? Fortunately not. These greater
men naturally put into their books the greater confusion and flux in
which their extraordinary selves exist! The nature they portray is not
human, but super- or subter-human, which you will. Who would have it
otherwise?”
“Not I,” said the Angel. “For I confess to a liking for what is called
the ‘tuppence coloured.’ But Russians are not as other men, are they?”
“They are not,” said his dragoman, “but the trouble is, sir, that since
the British discovered him, every character in our greater fiction has
a Russian soul, though living in Cornwall or the Midlands, in a British
body under a Scottish or English name.”
“Very piquant,” said the Angel, turning from the masterpiece before
him. “Are there no undraped statues to be seen?”
“In no recognisable form. For, not being educated to the detached
contemplation which still prevailed to a limited extent even as late as
the days of the Great Skirmish, the populace can no longer be trusted
with such works of art; they are liable to rush at them, for embrace,
or demolition, as their temperaments may dictate.”
“The Greeks are dead, then,” said the Angel.
“As door-nails, sir. They regarded life as a thing to be enjoyed--a
vice you will not have noticed in the British. The Greeks were an
outdoor people, who lived in the sun and the fresh air, and had none of
the niceness bred by the life of our towns. We have long been renowned
for our delicacy about the body; nor has the tendency been decreased by
constituting Watch Committees of young persons in every borough. These
are now the arbiters of art, and nothing unsuitable to the child of
seven passes their censorship.”
“How careful!” said the Angel.
“The result has been wonderful,” remarked his dragoman. “Wonderful!” he
repeated, dreamily. “I suppose there is more smouldering sexual desire
and disease in this country than in any other.”
“Was that the intention?” asked the Angel.
“Oh! no, sir! That is but the natural effect of so remarkably pure
a surface. All is within instead of without. Nature has now wholly
disappeared. The process was sped-up by the Great Skirmish. For,
since then, we have had little leisure and income to spare on the
gratification of anything but laughter; this and the ‘unco guid’
have made our art-surface glare in the eyes of the nations, thin and
spotless as if made of tin.”
The Angel raised his eyebrows. “I had hoped for better things,” he said.
“You must not suppose, sir,” pursued his dragoman, “that there is not
plenty of the undraped, so long as it is vulgar, as you saw just now
upon the stage, for that is good business; the line is only drawn at
the danger-point of art, which is always very bad business in this
country. Yet even in real life the undraped has to be grotesque to be
admitted; the one fatal quality is natural beauty. The laugh, sir, the
laugh--even the most hideous and vulgar laugh--is such a disinfectant.
I should, however, say in justice to our literary men, that they have
not altogether succumbed to the demand for cachinnations. A school,
which first drew breath before the Great Skirmish began, has perfected
itself, till now we have whole tomes where hardly a sentence would
be intelligible to any save the initiate; this enables them to defy
the Watch Committees, with other Philistines. We have writers who
mysteriously preach the realisation of self by never considering
anybody else; of purity through experience of exotic vice; of courage
through habitual cowardice; and of kindness through Prussian behaviour.
They are generally young. We have others whose fiction consists of
autobiography interspersed with philosophic and political fluencies.
These may be of any age from eighty odd to the bitter thirties. We have
also the copious and chatty novelist; and transcribers of the life of
the Laborious, whom the Laborious never read. Above all, we have the
great Patriotic school, who put the national motto first, and write
purely what is good for trade. In fact, we have every sort, as in the
old days.”
“It would appear,” said the Angel, “that the arts have stood somewhat
still.”
“Except for a more external purity, and a higher internal corruption,”
replied his dragoman.
“Are artists still noted for their jealousies?” asked the Angel.
“They are, sir; for that is inherent in the artistic temperament, which
is extremely touchy about fame.”
“And do they still get angry when those gentlemen--the----”
“Critics,” his dragoman suggested. “They get angry, sir; but critics
are usually anonymous, and from excellent reasons; for not only are the
passions of an angry artist very high, but the knowledge of an angry
critic is not infrequently very low, especially of art. It is kinder to
save life, where possible.”
“For my part,” said the Angel, “I have little regard for human life,
and consider that many persons would be better buried.”
“That may be,” his dragoman retorted with some irritation; “‘_errare
est humanum_.’ But I, for one, would rather be a dead human being any
day than a live angel, for I think they are more charitable.”
“Well,” said the Angel genially, “you have the prejudice of your kind.
Have you an artist about the place, to show me? I do not recollect any
at Madame Tussaud’s.”
“They have taken to declining that honour. We could see one in real
life if we went to Cornwall.”
“Why Cornwall?”
“I cannot tell you, sir. There is something in the air which affects
their passions.”
“I am hungry, and would rather go to the Savoy,” said the Angel,
walking on.
“You are in luck,” whispered his dragoman, when they had seated
themselves at a table covered with prawns; “for at the next on your
left is our most famous exponent of the mosaic school of novelism.”
“Then here goes!” replied the Angel. And, turning to his neighbour, he
asked pleasantly: “How do you do, sir? What is your income?”
The gentleman addressed looked up from his prawn, and replied wearily:
“Ask my agent. He may conceivably possess the knowledge you require.”
“Answer me this, at all events,” said the Angel, with more dignity, if
possible: “How do you write your books? For it must be wonderful to
summon around you every day the creatures of your imagination. Do you
wait for afflatus?”
“No,” said the author; “er--no! I--er----” he added weightily, “sit
down every morning.”
The Angel rolled his eyes and, turning to his dragoman, said in a
well-bred whisper: “He sits down every morning! My Lord, how good for
trade!”