ein stedtel_.' Well, I, too, come from the same town with myself. I have
gone through the dark labyrinth of life with myself in my hand. I have
felt, experienced and known the same things that Keidansky has gone
through, and--frankly--I enjoy my own writings. Sometimes my favorite
works are my own. They move me, they stir me and they stimulate me to
higher things. There is a quality about them, more human, more intimate,
more personal, that brings them nearer to me than any other writings.
The pathos is so touching, the humor so rollicking, the satire so
pungent. It is all so effective, significant and strong. Words, lines,
sentences, pages that fall flat on the ears of another, they are
pregnant with meaning, choked full of suggestion, and often so
thrilling. That one has felt, thought, said, given birth to these
things, is so fine; so splendid to watch a grand procession of the
children of your brain--particularly when you are intuitively convinced
that they are, well, a goodly and well-formed brood, and worthy of you.
They have to be quite robust to withstand that uncomfortable critical
sense.
"You see, I want a personality, a man, a certain mental attitude, a
sense of reserve force, deep-rooted sincerity and determined intentions
behind what I read, and I am sure of all that, in the case of my own
writings. This gives one a feeling of gladness and joy. In the
productions of others one must grope in darkness, painfully explore,
and so often search in vain for these qualities through their mental
manoeuvres and spiritual contortions.
"In our own work we can easily forgive the flaws, faults and
shortcomings. We know why they exist, and to what to attribute them; we
realize that they are not due to lack of talent or any cause like that.
Our characteristic carelessness, our hasty manner, impatience at the
slow accommodations of mere mechanical words, a desire to say too many
things at the same time--if it is not the one, it is the other. But we
know that we could do better if we wanted to; if we cared less about the
matter than about the form. We know that the quality is there. There is
nothing the matter with that. But somehow we cannot account so well for
the crudities, defects and deformities in the performances of others,
which jar upon us terribly and mar so much of our pleasure. Their
failings are so flagrant, their meanings so nebulous, their ideas so
hazy. It is all so far off and so unsatisfying. Why do people write
things we do not like? Oh, the rogues, we answer ourselves, as the
thought comes to us, they must be doing it for their own enjoyment. They
can fill in the gaps, read in everything that is lacking; they can make
masterpieces while they read their commonplace utterances--but we? We
ought to read our own immortal works. We ought to, if we have any
appreciation of great literature.
"One great source of the enjoyment of our own writings is that as we
read we remember when each thought came to us, whence each idea sprang
into birth, how each flying fancy originated, and every vaporous whimsy
took shape. We go over the old ground, tread the paths of the past
again, the paths overgrown with grass, or covered with the moss of the
years, and we live our life over again. Words, lines, paragraphs, pages;
each turn of a phrase brings one back to some turning-point of life;
each flash of thought is the reflection of some vital incident. Behind
every revolution of mind was a distinct period of evolution. Every old
cry conjures up a crisis. That epigram sums up an entire epoch. This
page is a condensed history of your heart. Yonder little etching, who
knows of what stuff you have woven it? It all comes back to you so
vividly, so graphically, so impressively. You read the things that you
have written, no matter how long ago, and you live your life over again.
The past reaches out its arms and hugs you to its tender breast again.
"One night, far away from the city, nigh by the sea, a painful silence
was broken by agonizing speech. One word, and the world that God had
created in seven days was annihilated for you in a second. When you came
back in the silence of a sleepless night you wrote in your note-book.
'Our dreams are crimes for which we are punished by the harsh realities
of the world.' See how ideas evolve! One day you were chided on the
shortness of your stature. You said that you have not had any time to
grow. Later you said to some one else that the shape of one's destiny
depends on the management of his time.
"The origin of a thought is greater than the thought. It is often an
entire drama; and you see it performed as you read. The crowding
multitudes of memories that your literary productions bring up! This was
suggested at a social gathering, where you felt distressingly lonely,
and it was such a soothing consolation. It was while witnessing a play
that that idea came into your mind. The play was a popular success, so
you were thinking your own thoughts. One night at a symphony concert you
wrote on the edge of a programme: 'Music makes mute poets of us all.'
You read it years after, and oh, the cherished recollections that it
brings up! But no one else can ever know how great that line is. Here is
an idea that illumined your mind while in conversation with ----. There
were so many delightful conversations, stirring discussions, endearing
episodes; there were scenes that you witnessed, events transpired of
which you were part; there were little dramas of which you were both the
villain and the hero. They have all passed away, and yet you have saved
them from oblivion because you have written, and they cannot die. All
things are immortal so long as you live. You read, and the old talks and
the old walks, the things that you have seen and done, the joys you have
felt and the sorrows you have endured come back and you enjoy them over
again. You find this in your writings and so much more. The net results
of your own ruminations are so large that there is no wonder all other
writers suffer from the comparison. Your writings are the plants, the
weeds and the flowers that have grown out of your life, and their aroma
and fragrance of earliest bloom follow you to the end of your days.
There is that in your inner consciousness which you cannot find anywhere
else.
"The whole universe is within yourself; in others there is only a queer
notion of it. Your crudest expression has more feeling and thought
behind it than the most beautiful expression of others. We all cherish
and relish our own screeds. Are we not all convinced of their merits and
superior qualities? Are we not all anxious to secure editors and
publishers? And who rejects them? These editors and the publishers, the
people who had nothing to do with the production of these undoubted
works of genius. I have piles of scraps of old bits of paper and
note-books up in my place, extending over a number of years. They
contain stray fragments of thought that I have jotted down at all places
and seasons and under all sorts of circumstances. As I come across them
now and then, I not only re-experience what has long vanished, but I am
again exalted unto all heights of human aspiration and inspiration. The
foolishness and the follies, the faith and the fervor, and the blind
hopes of my youth are mine again.
"Once I was with some Jewish actors, friends of mine, when a
long-bearded, old-fashioned Israelite came in to offer them a play that
he had written for production. It was such a touching, thrilling story,
the old man said, that it made him weep every time he read it--weep like
a child over the sad complications of the characters in his play. Oh, if
he could only see it performed, it would melt, it would break his heart.
Oh, if the actors would only take it! And as he began to read parts of
the first act we actually saw tears in his eyes. There you have it. What
Dickens, what Tolstoy, what Perez, what Gordin could probably not do for
this man, he had done for himself. His own writings made him weep.
Honestly, now," Keidansky broke out violently, "don't you enjoy your own
effusions?"
I admitted that they often gave me pleasure, and that at other times I
felt strongly disappointed over them. "Sometimes," I said, "I am puzzled
and cannot account how I have done certain things. I say to myself that
I must have been drunk to have been so witty; or I imagine that I must
have been in the company of bright people to have been so dull. Often as
I read I think that my stomach was out of order to make me so
thoughtful. And again I am sure that I was awfully hungry to have been
so ingenious." I confessed that I found it quite possible to overlook
and forgive the faults of my own compositions, and that on the whole
they were not infrequently a source of pleasure to me. I ventured to say
that I also enjoyed a few things that other people have written.
"Well," said Keidansky, and then he became silent for awhile.
"Immortal works are good enough to kill time," he said after a pause;
"but my own writings for real, downright enjoyment, every time. At the
occasion of a big convention or political gathering in a certain city
the newspaper correspondents, I am told, present a striking scene as
they assemble in the lobby of their hotel when the newspapers arrive.
Each man rushes to the news-stand and buys 'his paper,' and loses not a
minute before reading his own report. There they sit all together,
oblivious even of a good piece of news, should it happen to be near
them, each one buried in his newspaper, intently reading his complete
account of the stormy proceedings, and many of them cursing and swearing
at the stupid editors, 'who left out the best things.' Editors are
always stupid and always leave out the best things; but if they didn't
they would be idiots. My point, however, is that this scene shows how
much people enjoy their own writings. Each author has at least one great
admirer.
"And this is saying nothing of the gratification of writing, of the
thrills of pleasure one feels, when a burst of inspiration breaks upon
him, of the great, unutterable moments of exultation when a new heaven
of thoughts opens before one's mind, of the joys of perpetuating the
evanescent and the fleeting."
My friend was about to enumerate some more examples, but it was growing
late into the night, so I said:
"But you do read some things that eminent authors have written, do you
not?"
"Yes," said Keidansky, "but merely for purposes of comparison. I want to
see how total is their eclipse!"
End of Project Gutenberg's Discourses of Keidansky, by Bernard G. Richards