The deeper interest in the expression of national qualities and in the
representation of provincial peculiarities is to-day accompanied by an
increasing cosmopolitanism which seems to be casting down the barriers
of race and of language. More than fourscore years ago, Goethe said that
even then national literature was "rather an unmeaning term" as "the
epoch of world-literature was at hand." With all his wisdom Goethe
failed to perceive that cosmopolitanism is a sorry thing when it is not
the final expression of patriotism. An artist without a country and with
no roots in the soil of his nativity is not likely to bring forth flower
and fruit. As an American critic aptly put it, "a true cosmopolitan is
at home,--even in his own country." A Russian novelist set forth the
same thought; and it was the wisest character in Turgenieff's 'Dimitri
Roudine' who asserted that the great misfortune of the hero was his
ignorance of his native land:--"Russia can get along without any of us,
but we cannot do without Russia. Wo betide him who does not understand
her, and still more him who really forgets the manners and the ideas of
his fatherland! Cosmopolitanism is an absurdity and a zero,--less than a
zero; outside of nationality, there is no art, no truth, no life
possible."
Perhaps it may be feasible to attempt a reconciliation of Turgenieff and
Goethe, by pointing out that the cosmopolitanism of this growing century
is revealed mainly in a similarity of the external forms of literature,
while it is the national spirit which supplies the essential inspiration
that gives life. For example, it is a fact that the 'Demi-monde' of
Dumas, the 'Pillars of Society' of Ibsen, the 'Magda' of Sudermann, the
'Grand Galeoto' of Echegaray, the 'Second Mrs. Tanqueray' of Pinero, the
'Gioconda' of d'Annunzio are all of them cast in the same dramatic mold;
but it is also a fact that the metal of which each is made was smelted
in the native land of its author. Similar as they are in structure, in
their artistic formula, they are radically dissimilar in their essence,
in the motives that move the characters and in their outlook on life;
and this dissimilarity is due not alone to the individuality of the
several authors,--it is to be credited chiefly to the nationality of
each.
Of course, international borrowings have always been profitable to the
arts,--not merely the taking over of raw material, but the more
stimulating absorption of methods and processes and even of artistic
ideals. The Sicilian Gorgias had for a pupil the Attic Isocrates; and
the style of the Athenian was imitated by the Roman Cicero, thus helping
to sustain the standard of oratory in every modern language. The 'Matron
of Ephesus' of Petronius was the great-grandmother of the 'Yvette' of
Maupassant; and the dialogs of Herondas and of Theocritus serve as
models for many a vignette of modern life. The 'Golden Ass' went before
'Gil Blas' and made a path for him; and 'Gil Blas' pointed the way for
'Huckleberry Finn.' It is easy to detect the influence of Richardson on
Rousseau, of Rousseau on George Sand, of George Sand on Turgenieff, of
Turgenieff on Mr. Henry James, of Mr. James on M. Paul Bourget, of M.
Bourget on Signor d'Annunzio; and yet there is no denying that
Richardson is radically English, that Turgenieff is thoroly Russian, and
that d'Annunzio is unquestionably Italian.
In like manner we may recognize the striking similarity--but only in so
far as the external form is concerned--discoverable in those
short-stories which are as abundant as they are important in every
modern literature; and yet much of our delight in these brief studies
from life is due to the pungency of their local flavor, whether they
were written by Kjelland or by Sacher-Masoch, by Auerbach or by Daudet,
by Barrie or by Bret Harte. "All can grow the flower now, for all have
got the seed"; but the blossoms are rich with the strength of the soil
in which each of them is rooted.
This racial individuality is our immediate hope; it is our safeguard
against mere craftsmanship, against dilettant dexterity, against
cleverness for its own sake, against the danger that our cosmopolitanism
may degenerate into Alexandrianism and that our century may come to be
like the age of the Antonines, when a "cloud of critics, of compilers,
of commentators darkened the face of learning," so Gibbon tells us, and
"the decline of genius was soon followed by the corruption of taste." It
is the spirit of nationality which will help to supply needful idealism.
It will allow a man of letters to frequent the past without becoming
archaic and to travel abroad without becoming exotic, because it will
supply him always with a good reason for remaining a citizen of his own
country.
(1904.)