talk. We spoke of Dickens’ many characters and interwoven stories, and
Virginia maintained that many had nothing to do with the plot, that they
were soon forgotten, and there seemed to be no special reason for them.
Marian saw, however, that at times six or seven plots might be woven
into a single story. Instead of fitting the standard to Dickens, they
fitted Dickens to the standard, and found, indeed, that “The Tale of Two
Cities,” which had least characters and distracting stories, was most
interesting, and well constructed. Virginia spoke of “Lorna Doone,” and
we all agreed with her that the long descriptions of how things were
done—fishing, for instance—which the author gave because he was
interested in the country, and which had nothing whatever to do with
characters and story, made it monotonous and almost spoiled an otherwise
delightful book.
Virginia said: “He even tells what pattern of suit he wore when he went
fishing.”
They found the same fault with Scott. Indeed, none of them likes Scott.
The criticisms were amusing. His blonde heroines were always weak, his
dark ones strong, but none of them interesting. Ivanhoe was a flabby
nobody.
We spoke of Shakespeare, of the part his clowns played in the story.
Marian said: “I see in what sense his plays are complete, and I feel in
him wonderful understanding of men and great sympathy. But he doesn’t
uplift me.”
“Do you want to be uplifted into the lofty nothing?” I asked. “Is not
humanity good enough for you?”
We spoke, too, of “Little Women,” a much beloved book. We noticed how
Louisa Alcott had changed the story to make it a story.
I pointed out to them what it was that made melodrama; namely, the
intrusion of events coming from without, not springing from the reaction
of characters upon one another, or the intrinsic situation—such as
robbers, marvellous rescues, or fortunes left by distant relatives. We
had a long talk on this subject, and the children told many stories. But
I doubt whether all finally quite understood the distinction, which is
often hard to make. Is the coming and going of the ships in “The
Merchant of Venice” melodramatic? I told them I should not call it so,
since it was bound up with the whole story, almost like the persons. I
said that the melodramatic was more like life than the purely dramatic,
because in life, with its thousand relations, outside events made
changes constantly. But the story was more true if it contained within
itself its own complete world, like a miniature universe. Each work of
art must represent the whole. “And this is why,” I said, “in a really
well-built play or novel, a trained person usually can foretell the
outcome. Suppose that we knew everything in the universe, and all the
relations of all things to each other, we should be able to foretell
every event.”
“Perhaps that is why novels grow tiresome,” said Ruth, “for we get to
know just how they will end.”
I spoke of the author leaving out his one-sided moral verdict of his own
story. After representing life, the artist should not judge; first,
because his judgment is usually partial and incomplete, and breaks the
unity; second, because he thereby shows lack of understanding and
respect for his reader, who might be trusted to draw his own
conclusions. Hawthorne’s stories are often spoiled by his moral comment
at the end. At this point I spoke of missing Henry. I am certain he
would not have agreed as readily as the others.
I said moral discussions were in place in books on moral subjects, not
in artistic works. I mentioned especially the worth, ability and good
influence of the writers of so-called “muckraking” articles in the
magazines. Virginia waxed enthusiastic. She asked why should Dickens not
write of abuses in his novels, when by so doing he actually brought
about social reforms? I said that for the social reformer they were
right, but not for the artist. I warned her not to confuse the two.
Here Marian spoke of Milton, and of his giving up his artistic work for
years to serve his country in politics.
One could not wish he had done otherwise. A man’s life comes before art,
before any other expression. I said many of the “muckrakers” were men
who might have been artists, but who felt called to work in this more
direct way for the beauty of life, because they could not tolerate its
ugliness. But they were not artists; they were something different.
“That may be so,” answered Virginia, “but just the same I admire those
brave, muckraking men more than artists.”
“They are often more admirable,” I said, “but that does not make them
artists. If you admire a soldier more than a poet, that does not make
him a poet.”
They spoke of the reformers working for the present, the artist for all
time.
“But,” said Virginia, “the result of the reformer’s work will last for
all time, too.”
I spoke again of “for” and “against” in books, of how we felt that
writer to be the greatest who understood and loved the villains as well
as the heroes, and saw the strength and weakness of both alike. They all
agreed to this, and quoted plenteous incidents; among others, the
outcast in “Bob, Son of Battle,” which they had all read and loved. “How
I cried over him!” said Marian; and Ruth and Virginia had cried, too.
Here Alfred came in with his enthusiasm.
“Didn’t you cry over it?” asked Marian.
“No,” he answered, “but I almost did.”
“Oh, of course not,” she said. “I forgot you are a boy.”
“He wouldn’t dare admit it, even if he did,” I said.
Virginia said she usually loved the bad characters more than the good
ones.
We saw how the false simplicity of villains and heroes—as represented
in the poor novel—of all good and all bad, and their appropriate
punishment and reward, was untrue to life and human nature. Surely, they
said, all men had in them both good and bad. Scott, they insisted, made
this mistake.
I spoke of the psychological and the dramatic methods in novels. I said
to Marian:
“George Eliot, of whom you spoke the other day, is an example of the
psychological method.” I explained the two methods to them, the one
going into minute details of motive and thought, the other suggesting to
us the motive and thought through the action itself.
Marian does not like George Eliot. She greatly prefers Dickens and
Thackeray.
I said I liked George Eliot, but still I preferred the dramatic method
for several reasons. I thought that the passions, moods and changes of
the soul were too complicated ever to be put down by any author so as to
give the impression of truth.
Ruth agreed with me, and said: “Perhaps that is why I like plays
better.”
To put down how a man would act under any particular circumstances is
much more convincing than to tell how he would feel; for life always
expresses itself in creative action. I said: “A reader likes to be
trusted and understood by the author. He would rather imagine the minute
details of feeling as part of the whole swing of action, to fill out the
picture for himself, to be recognized by the author as a fellow genius.”
Ruth said novels tired her, because most novelists had only three or
four characters which they used over and over again. I answered her that
this was because they wrote out of their own lives, and their characters
were usually but different sides of themselves. I said many great
painters used only few models. Virginia said she had remarked that many
painters always painted faces that resembled themselves.
At this point, just as I was beginning to speak of wit and humor,
Virginia’s brother came into the room—in this case, for many reasons,
an unavoidable interruption. I had so far always kept these two hours
closed against all visitors. Although he sat down in the adjoining room,
and was warned to listen and not to talk, his presence made them at once
self-conscious and superficial. I asked them whether they knew any
distinction between wit and humor.
Virginia answered: “I always think of a witty person as one who has good
thoughts and expresses them cleverly, and of a humorous person as a boor
and booby, like that one in the next room.”
After the laugh had passed, I said: “Virginia, I can think of only one
expression that will fit you just now, and that is slang. I think you
are talking——”
“Through my hat?”
“Yes, exactly. This to me seems the difference between wit and humor:
The witty man is he who says or writes clever, funny things, just to
show how clever and keen he is. Conceits are witty, because wit is
essentially conceited. It may be very interesting and entertaining, but
it always makes you think of the author rather than of his characters.
It is always superficial, the trick of words, and it doesn’t keep well
through the ages. A pun, for instance, is always witty.”
“Ough!” said Virginia, “not always!”
“Bernard Shaw,” I said, “is a good example of wit. Humor is the
understanding of the petty foibles, humors and lovable weaknesses of
men. Remember that the word humor really means mood or state of the
blood, that it is a word very like the word ‘human.’ Humor is always
human. It is the large, genial way of looking at life of him who sees
how little men are, and how great they are at the same time. It is a
sense of absurd contradictions, of the unity of utterly unlike things,
almost a parody of completeness. All humor, all wit, everything funny is
an incongruous bringing together of things that do not seem to belong
together.”
“I suppose,” Marian said, “that is why we laugh when we see some one
fall in the street?”
“Yes,” said Virginia, “for their heads and the sidewalk don’t belong
together.”
“Now, seriously,” asked Marian, “what makes me want to laugh when I see
any one fall, especially a grown person? And I must laugh, especially if
it is a fat person, no matter how hard I may try to be polite.”
“That’s because you expect a grown person and a fat person to be
dignified, and to fall is very undignified. Imagine his high hat flying
one way, his gold-headed cane another, and his heels in the air. But if
a little boy falls you don’t laugh, because little boys are meant to
fall.”
“When my mother falls,” Ruth said, “I can’t keep from laughing, though I
hate to see her fall.”
“But everything funny grows stale very soon,” said Marian.
“That is,” I answered, “because when we get used to a combination it no
longer seems incongruous.”
“Well,” asked Marian, “when you laugh at people because they are boors
and funny, why is that?”
“That is,” I said, “because you feel yourself to be so vastly superior.”
“Is it?” she asked. “I suppose so.”
“And next time you want to laugh at any one,” I said mock-seriously,
“just think of it first, that you are considering how superior you are.”
She seemed greatly impressed and quite cast down by this remark.
I said: “Perhaps a good distinction to make between wit and humor is
that wit laughs at people and humor laughs with them.”
“Isn’t satire wit?” asked Marian.
I thought a moment. “Yes, surely,” I answered.
As I spoke again of the relation of beauty to our subject, Ruth said:
“What has all this about wit and humor to do with our subject?”
“Not much,” I said, “except that it shows how the spirit of fun has a
part in harmony; and that it shows humor to be understanding and a human
thing. But it is interesting for itself, isn’t it?”
“Yes,” she answered, “it is very interesting.”
NINTH MEETING
Ruth was unable to come.
Not a single paper this week! When all but Florence and Marian had
arrived without papers, I began to be disappointed; but when they came
in, I said:
“I am going to give up the club.”
You should have seen Marian’s serious face. “Why?” she exclaimed.
“Because you haven’t brought me any paper.”
They all were too busy. But Florence had given Henry a good little talk
on the meeting he had missed.
I asked them whether they had enjoyed these meetings on art as much as
the first meetings. They all said yes, quite as much. I spoke again of
the relation of our idea to art. It seemed to them all that art was the
expression of the religious ideal. Virginia said: “It relates us with
others and gives us sympathy.” Henry said it was the action of religious
feeling.
“Just as,” he added, “it is said one knows a man by his actions.”
“You know what I mean,” said I; “it might be well expressed in a single
phrase that would stay in your minds. Art is the symbol of completeness.
It must be in itself a tiny world, a miniature universe. Do you remember
the delight you used to get when you were little, from a tiny doll’s
house, from a little thing that seemed real, that seemed a small,
perfect world in itself? This joy you get from every work of art, the
joy of a complete world.”
“As in the novel,” said Marian, “which is not like real life, with its
incompleteness and distraction, but has within itself all the people and
all the things necessary to itself.”
I spoke again of the way in which I meant to discuss questions of
conduct according to the rules of art. I said: “Life can be made
beautiful and complete in the same way, and by learning these large laws
we may avoid the pettiness of moral discussion. You, being a self, are
the symbol of the whole Self.
“Now,” I continued, “we will speak of poetry, of painting, of all the
arts, and you will see that the laws of all are the same laws. What is
the difference between prose and poetry?”
They mentioned various differences, such as subject-matter, form, manner
of treatment.
“The chief difference between prose and poetry,” I said, “is that poetry
is written in poetry.”
That seemed an evident difference.
“Metre, rhyme, musical measure of the words are qualities of poetry
alone.”
“But all poetry doesn’t rhyme,” said Virginia.
“No,” I answered, “but all poetry has metre. Tell me another difference.
In what way does poetry affect you differently from prose?”
“I know what you mean,” said Florence. “You mean because it has metaphor
and simile.”
“That, too, but something else.”
Marian answered, with some hesitation: “Poetry is emotional. It stirs
your feelings more than prose.”
“That is what I meant,” I said; “it resembles music because it stirs you
as much by the sound as by the sense. And just because it is more unreal
and distant, it seems more real and close and complete in its grip. A
thing must be far off to give us the sense of completeness and beauty.
Music is to me the art of arts, because it expresses everything and
defines nothing; because it is like life itself, rather than a
description of life.” Henry assented enthusiastically. I went on: “You
spoke of metaphor and simile. We find it not only in all poetry, but in
all prose. And what is it but the relationing of things to one another,
the likeness and the bond between things unlike? And so keen is it, so
natural, so close to us, that we use it every day, we are poets every
moment in this respect, for we hardly ever speak without using metaphor.
We say a sharp look, a piercing look, and so use metaphor. Do you see?”
Marian said: “When we say in school, for instance, that our teacher
looked daggers, we are using metaphor.”
“Yes,” I answered, “and even slang is often good metaphor.”
Alfred asked: “If you call a person a lemon, is that metaphorical?”
“Surely,” I said; “but I think it would hardly do in poetry, because it
is too unsympathetic.”
“How about 23 skidoo?” asked Virginia. “Is that simile or metaphor?”
“That,” said I, “is less metaphor than nonsense.”
I said that in the modern play, which could not use the figurative
language of poetry, the metaphor and simile were replaced by the symbol.
I could not go into this, however, as none of them, except Florence, had
read any modern plays. So I spoke of the fairy story, and how it often
stood for something which was not itself. “Yes, like Brandt,” said
Florence. I did not dwell on this point, but went on to the subject of
taking sides in poetry. I said that good poetry could not possibly take
sides; that all didactic and party poetry was poor.
“I don’t see that,” answered Henry.
“No,” said Florence, “he wouldn’t let me convince him of it the other
day.”
Henry went on: “Take Whittier’s war-time poems; they were written with a
purpose and taking sides.”
I said: “I don’t consider Whittier a great poet. But that’s not the
point. His war-time poems are some of them good, perhaps, but the best
are not partisan. A man may sing of freedom, and still not be partisan,
as a man may sing of his native land, and need not therefore say mean
things of his neighbor.”
“It seems to me,” said Henry, “that every work of art should have a
purpose.”
“Surely,” I answered. “I never said it should not have a purpose. I said
it should not take sides. Every work of art has the purpose of being
beautiful, complete and true. So I suppose you might say that art is
against ugliness. But ugliness is only a discord, a false vision which
art overcomes with its beauty.”
“I understand,” said Henry. “You mean one might be for something without
being against anything.”
“Yes,” I said, “one can be for completeness, for unity, for beauty,
which includes all things. An artist pictures life; in telling a story
he may see that some things lead to ruin and some to happiness, but he
will not say he is for some and against others. He will stand far above
them and see them all as they are, he will love them all, he will create
a complete and individual world.”
Virginia said: “I suppose you don’t consider Burns a great poet.”
“Yes, I do,” I answered, “except in his didactic poems.”
“Well,” she said, “‘Scots wha’ ha’ wi’ Wallace bled’ is partisan.”
“No,” I answered, “it is martial, but it gives the foe his due. ‘Break
proud Edward’s power.’ That, it seems to me, is a tribute to Edward.”
At first they dissented, but finally agreed with me that most martial
poems—all great ones—give the enemy his due. Marian spoke, in this
relation, of Homer.
We considered high-falutin style and books that are all climax, without
rhythm and reservations of strength, unlike life, which is all
heartbeats and pulsations. Florence told of a book which had “six
climaxes on every page.” I spoke of the conventional phrases which mar
style, because we feel them to be imitated.
“They are not original,” said Henry.
“No,” I answered; “and originality simply means truth in the writer.”
“We feel,” said Virginia, “that he didn’t take the trouble to think for
himself.” Then she spoke of having been made, in school, to compare the
like thoughts of different authors, and asked whether their being alike
made them less original.
“No,” I answered, “for two might see life in the same way, each for
himself.”
I went on to speak of music. “To me,” I said, “it seems the most perfect
of arts, because it is in itself harmony, the very word we associate
with this idea of completeness. I don’t know much of the laws of musical
composition, but I know they are the laws of rhythm and harmony, the
laws of all motion. Of course, it is figurative to speak of the music of
the stars, and yet in a sense their motion is music, because it follows
the laws of music. Music is the least definite of all arts, yet the most
real and near. It arouses our emotions as nothing else can do.”
Most of them felt as I, that music was most gripping in its effects.
Marian, however, did not, since she is not at all musical. I spoke of
words and intellectual ideas in relation to music. Virginia said it made
her feel glad to hear music, that she had to beat time. The others all
enjoy music most when it has a literary annotation, either in opera, or
in concerts with verbal explanations. At least they want to know the
name of every melody. In this I said I agreed with them, because knowing
the name immediately put me into the mood the composer wished, and saved
me those first five minutes of uncertainty which every strange music
awakens.
Henry said: “When I learn a new piece on the piano my teacher and I
always talk it over. I have a piece called ‘Spring in the Wood.’ We say,
‘Now we are in the border of the wood, now we hear the water rippling
far off, now there are the ferns at the edge.’”
We spoke of painting.
I explained to them the point of interest, the point around which all
other lines, colors and interests must centre, to which all are made
subordinate. Virginia said: “But it need not be in the centre of the
picture.”
“No,” I answered, “it had better not, since that would be monotonous and
stiff. But wherever it is, it makes itself a centre, and makes the
picture a complete whole.”
Virginia told of the plan of completing the central figure in a sketch,
and leaving the rest unfinished—as a substitute, as I showed her, for
the effectiveness of color. All eyes should be directed to the central
figure.
I went into technical details of lines, angles and motion, with help
from Virginia, to show how color might express mood and action, as well
as did the figures, and so would make the whole harmonious. Virginia
spoke of “curly clouds” in a picture of a burial, made at the art
school, where the lines of the clouds were too gay, and spoiled the
solemn effect of vertical lines.
From balance of line we went on to balance of light and shade and color.
First I explained to them—what most of them knew—the complementary
colors, and the cycle of color; that a picture containing blue and
orange, or green and red, has within itself all the color there is.
Think of the hideousness of a blue and yellow or red and blue picture!
“It would have to be toned down with the third color,” said Virginia.
I spoke of the literary intrusion into painting, of the necessity of a
complete idea in the picture itself; the difference between illustration
and art. A picture may have an illustrative name, but if it be complete,
beautiful and satisfying without any name, it is not illustration.
What is excellent craftsmanship might be bad art.
Virginia and Marian spoke of some pictures in the Metropolitan Museum,
which they had been told to admire, and could not; some of them pictures
by Meissonnier, in which satins, silks and velvets were done to
perfection. Henry spoke, too, of certain pictures of German monasteries
which were painted for the purpose of picturing the life, with precise
detail, and were not beautiful. I told them of the difference between
art and craft. Art is a complete expression of life by one man. Craft is
part of a big completeness, the work of one man which has a purpose in
relation to the work of others; as a craftsman may make the cornice in a
palace which an artist designed. The craftsman does a part, the artist
plans the whole.
Marian said: “Sometimes some one says to me, ‘that picture is perfectly
beautiful,’ and I can’t see it so. Then again I may think a picture
beautiful, and another person will not. Why is that?”
“Because,” I said, “your taste, your standard, is different.”
“Is it just taste?” she asked.
“Taste with a reason,” I said, “even if you don’t know the reason.”
“I think,” said Virginia, “that when an artist expresses himself well,
every one must realize it.”
“Not at all,” I said. “One has to be trained to understand pictures, as
one has to be trained to see.” I told them of Turner, whose pictures
look beautiful to some, and to others are mere blotches of color.
“A picture is not what it represents,” I said. “One must learn to see
it. A proof of this is that babies, quite able to recognize objects, do
not recognize pictures. And so some people are babies all their lives in
relation to art.
“Now,” I asked, “do any of you think photographs artistic?”
I believe Henry was going to say he did, but was overwhelmed by the
others. Alfred said: “In a photograph all the unimportant things are
there with the important.”
Marian said that there, as in life, there was intrusion of inharmonious
details.
The out-of-focus and blurred photograph sometimes is artistic, because
of the lost details and the effect of distance; but, just therefore, it
is untrue to fact.
Virginia said photographic art was bad art. She said: “My teacher gave a
good example. If a fire-engine were tearing along the street, you would
be so interested in that you would see nothing else. There might be
crowds of people, but you would not notice them. But if a camera were to
be snapped, they would all be in it and obscure the engine. You see only
what is important, but the camera sees everything.”
“That is a good illustration,” I said. “And so you see we are
story-tellers in vision as well as in narrative. We see things complete
and dramatic, whether they are so or not, just as we must tell a
complete story. Do you realize how all the arts are related, how they
all have the same laws? And these, I believe, are the laws of life.
“Did you ever think of it, that the artist sees only with his eyes,
whereas you see with your eyes, fingers, ears, with all your senses? You
see a table square, high, hard, smooth, but an artist sees it only in
perspective, from a certain point of view. To get completeness you must
limit yourself, because you cannot see the universe. The drop of water
is most complete and perfect when it is a limited, spherical drop, not
when it is scattered abroad in mist.