Only on the basis of such verification shall we find it possible to

select from the whole mass of what, in our society, claims to be

art, those works which form real, important, necessary spiritual

food, and to separate them from all the harmful and useless art,

and from the counterfeits of art which surround us. Only on the

basis of such verification shall we be able to rid ourselves of

the pernicious results of harmful art, and to avail ourselves of

that beneficent action which is the purpose of true and good art,

and which is indispensable for the spiritual life of man and of

humanity.

CHAPTER XVII

Art is one of two organs of human progress. By words man

interchanges thoughts, by the forms of art he interchanges feelings,

and this with all men, not only of the present time, but also of the

past and the future. It is natural to human beings to employ both

these organs of intercommunication, and therefore the perversion of

either of them must cause evil results to the society in which it

occurs. And these results will be of two kinds: first, the absence,

in that society, of the work which should be performed by the organ;

and secondly, the harmful activity of the perverted organ. And just

these results have shown themselves in our society. The organ of

art has been perverted, and therefore the upper classes of society

have, to a great extent, been deprived of the work that it should

have performed. The diffusion in our society of enormous quantities

of, on the one hand, those counterfeits of art which only serve

to amuse and corrupt people, and, on the other hand, of works of

insignificant, exclusive art, mistaken for the highest art, have

perverted most men's capacity to be infected by true works of art,

and have thus deprived them of the possibility of experiencing the

highest feelings to which mankind has attained, and which can only

be transmitted from man to man by art.

All the best that has been done in art by man remains strange to

people who lack the capacity to be infected by art, and is replaced

either by spurious counterfeits of art or by insignificant art,

which they mistake for real art. People of our time and of our

society are delighted with Baudelaires, Verlaines, Moréases, Ibsens,

and Maeterlincks in poetry; with Monets, Manets, Puvis de Chavannes,

Burne-Joneses, Stucks, and Böcklins in painting; with Wagners,

Liszts, Richard Strausses, in music; and they are no longer capable

of comprehending either the highest or the simplest art.

In the upper classes, in consequence of this loss of capacity to be

infected by works of art, people grow up, are educated, and live,

lacking the fertilizing, improving influence of art, and therefore

not only do not advance toward perfection, do not become kinder,

but, on the contrary, possessing highly developed external means of

civilization, they yet tend to become continually more savage, more

coarse, and more cruel.

Such is the result of the absence from our society of the activity

of that essential organ--art. But the consequences of the perverted

activity of that organ are yet more harmful. And they are numerous.

The first consequence, plain for all to see, is the enormous

expenditure of the labor of working people on things which are

not only useless, but which, for the most part, are harmful;

and more than that, the waste of priceless human lives on this

unnecessary and harmful business. It is terrible to consider with

what intensity, and amid what privations, millions of people--who

lack time and opportunity to attend to what they and their families

urgently require--labor for 10, 12, or 14 hours on end, and even at

night, setting the type for pseudo-artistic books which spread vice

among mankind, or working for theaters, concerts, exhibitions, and

picture-galleries, which, for the most part, also serve vice; but

it is yet more terrible to reflect that lively, kindly children,

capable of all that is good, are devoted from their early years to

such tasks as these: that for 6, 8, or 10 hours a day, and for 10

or 15 years, some of them should play scales and exercises; others

should twist their limbs, walk on their toes, and lift their legs

above their heads; a third set should sing solfeggios; a fourth

set, showing themselves off in all manner of ways, should pronounce

verses; a fifth set should draw from busts or from nude models and

paint studies; a sixth set should write compositions according

to the rules of certain periods; and that in these occupations,

unworthy of a human being, which are often continued long after full

maturity, they should waste their physical and mental strength and

lose all perception of the meaning of life. It is often said that

it is horrible and pitiful to see little acrobats putting their

legs over their necks, but it is not less pitiful to see children

of 10 giving concerts, and it is still worse to see school-boys of

10 who, as a preparation for literary work, have learnt by heart

the exceptions to the Latin grammar. These people not only grow

physically and mentally deformed, but also morally deformed, and

become incapable of doing anything really needed by man. Occupying

in society the rôle of amusers of the rich, they lose their sense of

human dignity, and develop in themselves such a passion for public

applause that they are always a prey to an inflated and unsatisfied

vanity which grows in them to diseased dimensions, and they expend

their mental strength in efforts to obtain satisfaction for this

passion. And what is most tragic of all is that these people, who

for the sake of art are spoilt for life, not only do not render

service to this art, but, on the contrary, inflict the greatest harm

on it. They are taught in academies, schools, and conservatoires how

to counterfeit art, and by learning this they so pervert themselves

that they quite lose the capacity to produce works of real art, and

become purveyors of that counterfeit, or trivial, or depraved art

which floods our society. This is the first obvious consequence of

the perversion of the organ of art.

The second consequence is that the productions of amusement-art,

which are prepared in such terrific quantities by the armies of

professional artists, enable the rich people of our times to live

the lives they do, lives not only unnatural, but in contradiction

to the humane principles these people themselves profess. To live

as do the rich, idle people, especially the women, far from nature

and from animals, in artificial conditions, with muscles atrophied

or misdeveloped by gymnastics, and with enfeebled vital energy,

would be impossible were it not for what is called art--for this

occupation and amusement which hides from them the meaninglessness

of their lives, and saves them from the dullness that oppresses

them. Take from all these people the theaters, concerts,

exhibitions, piano-playing, songs, and novels with which they now

fill their time, in full confidence that occupation with these

things is a very refined, æsthetical, and therefore good occupation;

take from the patrons of art who buy pictures, assist musicians,

and are acquainted with writers, their rôle of protectors of that

important matter art, and they will not be able to continue such a

life, but will all be eaten up by ennui and spleen, and will become

conscious of the meaninglessness and wrongness of their present mode

of life. Only occupation with what, among them, is considered art

renders it possible for them to continue to live on, infringing all

natural conditions, without perceiving the emptiness and cruelty of

their lives. And this support afforded to the false manner of life

pursued by the rich is the second consequence, and a serious one, of

the perversion of art.

The third consequence of the perversion of art is the perplexity

produced in the minds of children and of plain folk. Among people

not perverted by the false theories of our society, among workers

and children, there exists a very definite conception of what

people may be respected and praised for. In the minds of peasants

and children the ground for praise or eulogy can only be either

physical strength: Hercules, the heroes and conquerors; or moral,

spiritual, strength: Sakya Muni giving up a beautiful wife and a

kingdom to save mankind, Christ going to the cross for the truth he

professed, and all the martyrs and the saints. Both are understood

by peasants and children. They understand that physical strength

must be respected, for it compels respect; and the moral strength of

goodness an unperverted man cannot fail to respect, because all his

spiritual being draws him toward it. But these people, children, and

peasants, suddenly perceive that besides those praised, respected,

and rewarded for physical or moral strength, there are others who

are praised, extolled, and rewarded much more than the heroes

of strength and virtue, merely because they sing well, compose

verses, or dance. They see that singers, composers, painters,

ballet-dancers, earn millions of roubles and receive more honor than

the saints do: and peasants and children are perplexed.

When fifty years had elapsed after Pushkin's death, and,

simultaneously, the cheap edition of his works began to circulate

among the people and a monument was erected to him in Moscow, I

received more than a dozen letters from different peasants asking

why Pushkin was raised to such dignity. And only the other day a

literate[123] man from Saratoff called on me who had evidently gone

out of his mind over this very question. He was on his way to Moscow

to expose the clergy for having taken part in raising a "monament"

to Mr. Pushkin.

[123] In Russian it is customary to make a distinction between

literate and illiterate people, _i.e._ between those who can and

those who cannot read. _Literate_ in this sense does not imply that

the man would speak or write correctly.--TR.

Indeed, one need only imagine to oneself what the state of mind

of such a man of the people must be when he learns, from such

rumors and newspapers as reach him, that the clergy, the Government

officials, and all the best people in Russia are triumphantly

unveiling a statue to a great man, the benefactor, the pride of

Russia--Pushkin, of whom till then he had never heard. From all

sides he reads or hears about this, and he naturally supposes that

if such honors are rendered to any one, then without doubt he must

have done something extraordinary--either some feat of strength

or of goodness. He tries to learn who Pushkin was, and having

discovered that Pushkin was neither a hero nor a general, but was

a private person and a writer, he comes to the conclusion that

Pushkin must have been a holy man and a teacher of goodness, and he

hastens to read or to hear his life and works. But what must be his

perplexity when he learns that Pushkin was a man of more than easy

morals, who was killed in a duel, _i.e._ when attempting to murder

another man, and that all his service consisted in writing verses

about love, which were often very indecent.

That a hero, or Alexander the Great, or Genghis Khan, or Napoleon

were great, he understands, because any one of them could have

crushed him and a thousand like him; that Buddha, Socrates, and

Christ were great he also understands, for he knows and feels that

he and all men should be such as they were; but why a man should be

great because he wrote verses about the love of women he cannot make

out.

A similar perplexity must trouble the brain of a Breton or Norman

peasant who hears that a monument, "_une statue_" (as to the

Madonna), is being erected to Baudelaire, and reads, or is told,

what the contents of his "Fleurs du Mal" are; or, more amazing

still, to Verlaine, when he learns the story of that man's wretched,

vicious life, and reads his verses. And what confusion it must

cause in the brains of peasants when they learn that some Patti or

Taglioni is paid £10,000 for a season, or that a painter gets as

much for a picture, or that authors of novels describing love-scenes

have received even more than that.

And it is the same with children. I remember how I passed through

this stage of amazement and stupefaction, and only reconciled myself

to this exaltation of artists to the level of heroes and saints by

lowering in my own estimation the importance of moral excellence,

and by attributing a false, unnatural meaning to works of art. And a

similar confusion must occur in the soul of each child and each man

of the people when he learns of the strange honors and rewards that

are lavished on artists. This is the third consequence of the false

relation in which our society stands toward art.

The fourth consequence is that people of the upper classes, more

and more frequently encountering the contradictions between

beauty and goodness, put the ideal of beauty first, thus freeing

themselves from the demands of morality. These people, reversing

the rôles, instead of admitting, as is really the case, that the

art they serve is an antiquated affair, allege that morality is an

antiquated affair, which can have no importance for people situated

on that high plane of development on which they opine that they are

situated.

This result of the false relation to art showed itself in our

society long ago; but recently, with its prophet Nietzsche and his

adherents, and with the decadents and certain English æsthetes who

coincide with him, it is being expressed with especial impudence.

The decadents, and æsthetes of the type at one time represented by

Oscar Wilde, select as a theme for their productions the denial of

morality and the laudation of vice.

This art has partly generated, and partly coincides with, a similar

philosophic theory. I recently received from America a book

entitled, "The Survival of the Fittest: Philosophy of Power," 1896,

by Ragnar Redbeard, Chicago. The substance of this book, as it is

expressed in the editor's preface, is that to measure "right" by the

false philosophy of the Hebrew prophets and "weepful" Messiahs is

madness. Right is not the offspring of doctrine, but of power. All

laws, commandments, or doctrines as to not doing to another what

you do not wish done to you, have no inherent authority whatever,

but receive it only from the club, the gallows, and the sword. A

man truly free is under no obligation to obey any injunction, human

or divine. Obedience is the sign of the degenerate. Disobedience

is the stamp of the hero. Men should not be bound by moral rules

invented by their foes. The whole world is a slippery battlefield.

Ideal justice demands that the vanquished should be exploited,

emasculated, and scorned. The free and brave may seize the world.

And, therefore, there should be eternal war for life, for land, for

love, for women, for power, and for gold. (Something similar was

said a few years ago by the celebrated and refined academician,

Vogüé.) The earth and its treasures is "booty for the bold."

The author has evidently by himself, independently of Nietzsche,

come to the same conclusions which are professed by the new artists.

Expressed in the form of a doctrine these positions startle us. In

reality they are implied in the ideal of art serving beauty. The

art of our upper classes has educated people in this ideal of the

over-man,[124]--which is, in reality, the old ideal of Nero, Stenka

Razin,[125] Genghis Khan, Robert Macaire,[126] or Napoleon, and all

their accomplices, assistants, and adulators--and it supports this

ideal with all its might.

[Foootnote 124: The over-man (Uebermensch), in the Nietzschean

philosophy, is that superior type of man whom the struggle for

existence is to evolve, and who will seek only his own power and

pleasure, will know nothing of pity, and will have the right,

because he will possess the power, to make ordinary people serve

him.--TR.]

[125] Stenka Razin was by origin a common Cossack. His brother

was hung for a breach of military discipline, and to this event

Stenka Razin's hatred of the governing classes has been attributed.

He formed a robber band, and subsequently headed a formidable

rebellion, declaring himself in favor of freedom for the serfs,

religious toleration, and the abolition of taxes. Like the

government he opposed, he relied on force, and, though he used it

largely in defense of the poor against the rich, he still held to

"The good old rule, the simple plan,

That they should take who have the power,

And they should keep who can."

Like Robin Hood, he is favorably treated in popular legends.--TR.

[126] Robert Macaire is a modern type of adroit and audacious

rascality. He was the hero of a popular play produced in Paris in

1834.--TR.

It is this supplanting of the ideal of what is right by the ideal of

what is beautiful, _i.e._ of what is pleasant, that is the fourth

consequence, and a terrible one, of the perversion of art in our

society. It is fearful to think of what would befall humanity were

such art to spread among the masses of the people. And it already

begins to spread.

Finally, the fifth and chief result is, that the art which

flourishes in the upper classes of European society has a directly

vitiating influence, infecting people with the worst feelings and

with those most harmful to humanity,--superstition, patriotism, and,

above all, sensuality.

Look carefully into the causes of the ignorance of the masses, and

you may see that the chief cause does not at all lie in the lack

of schools and libraries, as we are accustomed to suppose, but in

those superstitions, both ecclesiastical and patriotic, with which

the people are saturated, and which are unceasingly generated by

all the methods of art. Church superstitions are supported and

produced by the poetry of prayers, hymns, painting, by the sculpture

of images and of statues, by singing, by organs, by music, by

architecture, and even by dramatic art in religious ceremonies.

Patriotic superstitions are supported and produced by verses and

stories, which are supplied even in schools, by music, by songs, by

triumphal processions, by royal meetings, by martial pictures, and

by monuments.

Were it not for this continual activity in all departments of art,

perpetuating the ecclesiastical and patriotic intoxication and

embitterment of the people, the masses would long ere this have

attained to true enlightenment.

But it is not only in Church matters and patriotic matters that art

depraves; it is art in our time that serves as the chief cause of

the perversion of people in the most important question of social

life,--in their sexual relations. We nearly all know by our own

experience, and those who are fathers and mothers know in the case

of their grown-up children also, what fearful mental and physical

suffering, what useless waste of strength, people suffer merely as a

consequence of dissoluteness in sexual desire.

Since the world began, since the Trojan war, which sprang from

that same sexual dissoluteness, down to and including the suicides

and murders of lovers described in almost every newspaper, a great

proportion of the sufferings of the human race have come from this

source.

And what is art doing? All art, real and counterfeit, with very

few exceptions, is devoted to describing, depicting, and inflaming

sexual love in every shape and form. When one remembers all those

novels and their lust-kindling descriptions of love, from the most

refined to the grossest, with which the literature of our society

overflows; if one only remembers all those pictures and statues

representing women's naked bodies, and all sorts of abominations

which are reproduced in illustrations and advertisements; if one

only remembers all the filthy operas and operettas, songs, and

_romances_ with which our world teems, involuntarily it seems as

if existing art had but one definite aim,--to disseminate vice as

widely as possible.

Such, though not all, are the most direct consequences of that

perversion of art which has occurred in our society. So that what in

our society is called art not only does not conduce to the progress

of mankind, but, more than almost anything else, hinders the

attainment of goodness in our lives.

And therefore the question which involuntarily presents itself to

every man free from artistic activity and therefore not bound to

existing art by self-interest, the question asked by me at the

beginning of this work: Is it just that to what we call art, to a

something belonging to but a small section of society, should be

offered up such sacrifices of human labor, of human lives, and of

goodness as are now being offered up? receives the natural reply:

No; it is unjust, and these things should not be! So also replies

sound sense and unperverted moral feeling. Not only should these

things not be, not only should no sacrifices be offered up to what

among us is called art, but, on the contrary, the efforts of those

who wish to live rightly should be directed toward the destruction

of this art, for it is one of the most cruel of the evils that

harass our section of humanity. So that, were the question put:

Would it be preferable for our Christian world to be deprived of

_all_ that is now esteemed to be art, and, together with the false,

to lose _all_ that is good in it? I think that every reasonable

and moral man would again decide the question as Plato decided it

for his "Republic," and as all the Church Christian and Mohammedan

teachers of mankind decided it, _i.e._ would say, "Rather let there

be no art at all than continue the depraving art, or simulation of

art, which now exists." Happily, no one has to face this question,

and no one need adopt either solution. All that man can do, and that

we--the so-called educated people, who are so placed that we have

the possibility of understanding the meaning of the phenomena of our

life--can and should do, is to understand the error we are involved

in, and not harden our hearts in it, but seek for a way of escape.

CHAPTER XVIII

The cause of the lie into which the art of our society has fallen

was that people of the upper classes, having ceased to believe in

the Church teaching (called Christian), did not resolve to accept

true Christian teaching in its real and fundamental principles

of sonship to God and brotherhood to man, but continued to live

on without any belief, endeavoring to make up for the absence of

belief--some by hypocrisy, pretending still to believe in the

nonsense of the Church creeds; others by boldly asserting their

disbelief; others by refined agnosticism; and others, again, by

returning to the Greek worship of beauty, proclaiming egotism to be

right, and elevating it to the rank of a religious doctrine.

The cause of the malady was the non-acceptance of Christ's teaching

in its real, _i.e._ its full, meaning. And the only cure for the

illness lies in acknowledging that teaching in its full meaning.

And such acknowledgment in our time is not only possible, but

inevitable. Already to-day a man, standing on the height of the

knowledge of our age, whether he be nominally a Catholic or a

Protestant, cannot say that he really believes in the dogmas of

the Church: in God being a Trinity, in Christ being God, in the

scheme of redemption, and so forth; nor can he satisfy himself by

proclaiming his unbelief or skepticism, nor by relapsing into the

worship of beauty and egotism. Above all, he can no longer say

that we do not know the real meaning of Christ's teaching. That

meaning has not only become accessible to all men of our times, but

the whole life of man to-day is permeated by the spirit of that

teaching, and, consciously or unconsciously, is guided by it.

However differently in form people belonging to our Christian

world may define the destiny of man; whether they see it in human

progress in whatever sense of the words, in the union of all men in

a socialistic realm, or in the establishment of a commune; whether

they look forward to the union of mankind under the guidance of

one universal Church, or to the federation of the world,--however

various in form their definitions of the destination of human

life may be, all men in our times already admit that the highest

well-being attainable by men is to be reached by their union with

one another.

However people of our upper classes (feeling that their ascendancy

can only be maintained as long as they separate themselves--the rich

and learned--from the laborers, the poor, and the unlearned) may

seek to devise new conceptions of life by which their privileges

may be perpetuated,--now the ideal of returning to antiquity, now

mysticism, now Hellenism, now the cult of the superior person

(over-man-ism),--they have, willingly or unwillingly, to admit the

truth which is elucidating itself from all sides, voluntarily and

involuntarily, namely, that our welfare lies only in the unification

and the brotherhood of man.

Unconsciously this truth is confirmed by the construction of means

of communication,--telegraphs, telephones, the press, and the ever

increasing attainability of material well-being for every one,--and

consciously it is affirmed by the destruction of superstitions which

divide men, by the diffusion of the truths of knowledge, and by the

expression of the ideal of the brotherhood of man in the best works

of art of our time.

Art is a spiritual organ of human life which cannot be destroyed,

and therefore, notwithstanding all the efforts made by people of

the upper classes to conceal the religious ideal by which humanity

lives, that ideal is more and more clearly recognized by man, and

even in our perverted society is more and more often partially

expressed by science and by art. During the present century works

of the higher kind of religious art have appeared more and more

frequently, both in literature and in painting, permeated by a truly

Christian spirit, as also works of the universal art of common

life, accessible to all. So that even art knows the true ideal of

our times, and tends toward it. On the one hand, the best works

of art of our times transmit religious feelings urging toward the

union and the brotherhood of man (such are the works of Dickens,

Hugo, Dostoievsky; and in painting, of Millet, Bastien Lepage, Jules

Breton, L'Hermitte, and others); on the other hand, they strive

toward the transmission, not of feelings which are natural to people

of the upper classes only, but of such feelings as may unite every

one without exception. There are as yet few such works, but the

need of them is already acknowledged. In recent times we also meet

more and more frequently with attempts at publications, pictures,

concerts, and theaters for the people. All this is still very far

from accomplishing what should be done, but already the direction

in which good art instinctively presses forward to regain the path

natural to it can be discerned.

The religious perception of our time--which consists in

acknowledging that the aim of life (both collective and individual)

is the union of mankind--is already so sufficiently distinct that

people have now only to reject the false theory of beauty, according

to which enjoyment is considered to be the purpose of art, and

religious perception will naturally take its place as the guide of

the art of our time.

And as soon as the religious perception, which already unconsciously

directs the life of man, is consciously acknowledged, then

immediately and naturally the division of art, into art for the

lower and art for the upper classes, will disappear. There will

be one common, brotherly, universal art; and first, that art will

naturally be rejected which transmits feelings incompatible with

the religious perception of our time,--feelings which do not unite,

but divide men,--and then that insignificant, exclusive art will be

rejected to which an importance is now attached to which it has no

right.

And as soon as this occurs, art will immediately cease to be what

it has been in recent times,--a means of making people coarser and

more vicious; and it will become, what it always used to be and

should be, a means by which humanity progresses toward unity and

blessedness.

Strange as the comparison may sound, what has happened to the art

of our circle and time is what happens to a woman who sells her

womanly attractiveness, intended for maternity, for the pleasure of

those who desire such pleasures.

The art of our time and of our circle has become a prostitute. And

this comparison holds good even in minute details. Like her it is

not limited to certain times, like her it is always adorned, like

her it is always salable, and like her it is enticing and ruinous.

A real work of art can only arise in the soul of an artist

occasionally as the fruit of the life he has lived, just as a child

is conceived by its mother. But counterfeit art is produced by

artisans and handicraftsmen continually, if only consumers can be

found.

Real art, like the wife of an affectionate husband, needs no

ornaments. But counterfeit art, like a prostitute, must always be

decked out.

The cause of the production of real art is the artist's inner need

to express a feeling that has accumulated, just as for a mother the

cause of sexual conception is love. The cause of counterfeit art, as

of prostitution, is gain.

The consequence of true art is the introduction of a new feeling

into the intercourse of life, as the consequence of a wife's love is

the birth of a new man into life.

The consequences of counterfeit art are the perversion of man,

pleasure which never satisfies, and the weakening of man's spiritual

strength.

And this is what people of our day and of our circle should

understand, in order to avoid the filthy torrent of depraved and

prostituted art with which we are deluged.

CHAPTER XIX

People talk of the art of the future, meaning by "art of the future"

some especially refined, new art, which, as they imagine, will

be developed out of that exclusive art of one class which is now

considered the highest art. But no such new art of the future can

or will be found. Our exclusive art, that of the upper classes of

Christendom, has found its way into a blind alley. The direction

in which it has been going leads nowhere. Having once let go of

that which is most essential for art (namely, the guidance given

by religious perception), that art has become ever more and more

exclusive, and therefore ever more and more perverted, until,

finally, it has come to nothing. The art of the future, that which

is really coming, will not be a development of present-day art, but

will arise on completely other and new foundations, having nothing

in common with those by which our present art of the upper classes

is guided.

Art of the future, that is to say, such part of art as will be

chosen from among all the art diffused among mankind, will consist,

not in transmitting feelings accessible only to members of the rich

classes, as is the case to-day, but in transmitting such feelings

as embody the highest religious perception of our times. Only

those productions will be considered art which transmit feelings

drawing men together in brotherly union, or such universal feelings

as can unite all men. Only such art will be chosen, tolerated,

approved, and diffused. But art transmitting feelings flowing from

antiquated, worn-out religious teaching,--Church art, patriotic art,

voluptuous art, transmitting feelings of superstitious fear, of

pride, of vanity, of ecstatic admiration of national heroes,--art

exciting exclusive love of one's own people, or sensuality, will

be considered bad, harmful art, and will be censured and despised

by public opinion. All the rest of art, transmitting feelings

accessible only to a section of people, will be considered

unimportant, and will be neither blamed nor praised. And the

appraisement of art in general will devolve, not, as is now the

case, on a separate class of rich people, but on the whole people;

so that for a work to be esteemed good, and to be approved of and

diffused, it will have to satisfy the demands, not of a few people

living in identical and often unnatural conditions, but it will have

to satisfy the demands of all those great masses of people who are

situated in the natural conditions of laborious life.

And the artists producing art will also not be, as now, merely a

few people selected from a small section of the nation, members of

the upper classes or their hangers-on, but will consist of all those

gifted members of the whole people who prove capable of, and are

inclined toward, artistic activity.

Artistic activity will then be accessible to all men. It will

become accessible to the whole people, because, in the first place,

in the art of the future, not only will that complex technique,

which deforms the productions of the art of to-day and requires so

great an effort and expenditure of time, not be demanded, but, on

the contrary, the demand will be for clearness, simplicity, and

brevity--conditions mastered, not by mechanical exercises, but by

the education of taste. And secondly, artistic activity will become

accessible to all men of the people because, instead of the present

professional schools which only some can enter, all will learn music

and depictive art (singing and drawing) equally with letters in

the elementary schools, and in such a way that every man, having

received the first principles of drawing and music, and feeling a

capacity for, and a call to, one or other of the arts, will be able

to perfect himself in it.

People think that if there are no special art schools the technique

of art will deteriorate. Undoubtedly, if by technique we understand

those complications of art which are now considered an excellence,

it will deteriorate; but if by technique is understood clearness,

beauty, simplicity, and compression in works of art, then, even

if the elements of drawing and music were not to be taught in the

national schools, the technique will not only not deteriorate, but,

as is shown by all peasant art, will be a hundred times better.

It will be improved, because all the artists of genius now hidden

among the masses will become producers of art and will give models

of excellence, which (as has always been the case) will be the best

schools of technique for their successors. For every true artist,

even now, learns his technique, chiefly, not in the schools, but

in life, from the examples of the great masters; then--when the

producers of art will be the best artists of the whole nation,

and there will be more such examples, and they will be more

accessible--such part of the school training as the future artist

will lose will be a hundredfold compensated for by the training he

will receive from the numerous examples of good art diffused in

society.

Such will be one difference between present and future art. Another

difference will be that art will not be produced by professional

artists receiving payment for their work and engaged on nothing else

besides their art. The art of the future will be produced by all the

members of the community who feel the need of such activity, but

they will occupy themselves with art only when they feel such need.

In our society people think that an artist will work better, and

produce more, if he has a secured maintenance. And this opinion

would serve once more to show clearly, were such demonstration

still needed, that what among us is considered art is not art, but

only its counterfeit. It is quite true that for the production of

boots or loaves division of labor is very advantageous, and that

the bootmaker or baker who need not prepare his own dinner or fetch

his own fuel will make more boots or loaves than if he had to busy

himself about these matters. But art is not a handicraft; it is

the transmission of feeling the artist has experienced. And sound

feeling can only be engendered in a man when he is living on all

its sides the life natural and proper to mankind. And therefore

security of maintenance is a condition most harmful to an artist's

true productiveness, since it removes him from the condition natural

to all men,--that of struggle with nature for the maintenance of

both his own life and that of others,--and thus deprives him of

opportunity and possibility to experience the most important and

natural feelings of man. There is no position more injurious to an

artist's productiveness than that position of complete security and

luxury in which artists usually live in our society.

The artist of the future will live the common life of man, earning

his subsistence by some kind of labor. The fruits of that highest

spiritual strength which passes through him he will try to

share with the greatest possible number of people, for in such

transmission to others of the feelings that have arisen in him he

will find his happiness and his reward. The artist of the future

will be unable to understand how an artist, whose chief delight is

in the wide diffusion of his works, could give them only in exchange

for a certain payment.

Until the dealers are driven out, the temple of art will not be a

temple. But the art of the future will drive them out.

And therefore the subject-matter of the art of the future, as I

imagine it to myself, will be totally unlike that of to-day. It

will consist, not in the expression of exclusive feelings: pride,

spleen, satiety, and all possible forms of voluptuousness, available

and interesting only to people who, by force, have freed themselves

from the labor natural to human beings; but it will consist in the

expression of feelings experienced by a man living the life natural

to all men and flowing from the religious perception of our times,

or of such feelings as are open to all men without exception.

To people of our circle who do not know and cannot or will not

understand the feelings which will form the subject-matter of

the art of the future, such subject-matter appears very poor in

comparison with those subtleties of exclusive art with which they

are now occupied. "What is there fresh to be said in the sphere of

the Christian feeling of love of one's fellow-man? The feelings

common to every one are so insignificant and monotonous," think

they. And yet, in our time, the really fresh feelings can only be

religious, Christian feelings, and such as are open, accessible,

to all. The feelings flowing from the religious perception of our

times, Christian feelings, are infinitely new and varied, only not

in the sense some people imagine,--not that they can be evoked by

the depiction of Christ and of gospel episodes, or by repeating in

new forms the Christian truths of unity, brotherhood, equality, and

love,--but in that all the oldest, commonest, and most hackneyed

phenomena of life evoke the newest, most unexpected, and touching

emotions as soon as a man regards them from the Christian point of

view.

What can be older than the relations between married couples, of

parents to children, of children to parents; the relations of men

to their fellow-countrymen and to foreigners, to an invasion, to

defense, to property, to the land, or to animals? But as soon as

a man regards these matters from the Christian point of view,

endlessly varied, fresh, complex, and strong emotions immediately

arise.

And, in the same way, that realm of subject-matter for the art of

the future which relates to the simplest feelings of common life

open to all will not be narrowed, but widened. In our former art

only the expression of feelings natural to people of a certain

exceptional position was considered worthy of being transmitted

by art, and even then only on condition that these feelings were

transmitted in a most refined manner, incomprehensible to the

majority of men; all the immense realm of folk-art, and children's

art--jests, proverbs, riddles, songs, dances, children's games, and

mimicry--was not esteemed a domain worthy of art.

The artist of the future will understand that to compose a

fairy-tale, a little song which will touch, a lullaby or a riddle

which will entertain, a jest which will amuse, or to draw a sketch

which will delight dozens of generations or millions of children and

adults, is incomparably more important and more fruitful than to

compose a novel or a symphony, or paint a picture which will divert

some members of the wealthy classes for a short time, and then be

forever forgotten. The region of this art of the simple feelings

accessible to all is enormous, and it is as yet almost untouched.

The art of the future, therefore, will not be poorer, but infinitely

richer in subject-matter. And the form of the art of the future will

also not be inferior to the present forms of art, but infinitely

superior to them. Superior, not in the sense of having a refined and

complex technique, but in the sense of the capacity briefly, simply,

and clearly to transmit, without any superfluities, the feeling

which the artist has experienced and wishes to transmit.

I remember once speaking to a famous astronomer who had given public

lectures on the spectrum analysis of the stars of the Milky Way,

and saying it would be a good thing if, with his knowledge and

masterly delivery, he would give a lecture merely on the formation

and movements of the earth, for certainly there were many people

at his lecture on the spectrum analysis of the stars of the Milky

Way, especially among the women, who did not well know why night

follows day and summer follows winter. The wise astronomer smiled as

he answered, "Yes, it would be a good thing, but it would be very

difficult. To lecture on the spectrum analysis of the Milky Way is

far easier."

And so it is in art. To write a rhymed poem dealing with the times

of Cleopatra, or paint a picture of Nero burning Rome, or compose

a symphony in the manner of Brahms or Richard Strauss, or an opera

like Wagner's, is far easier than to tell a simple story without any

unnecessary details, yet so that it should transmit the feelings of

the narrator, or to draw a pencil-sketch which should touch or amuse

the beholder, or to compose four bars of clear and simple melody,

without any accompaniment, which should convey an impression and be

remembered by those who hear it.

"It is impossible for us, with our culture, to return to a primitive

state," say the artists of our time. "It is impossible for us now to

write such stories as that of Joseph or the 'Odyssey,' to produce

such statues as the Venus of Milo, or to compose such music as the

folk-songs."

And indeed, for the artists of our society and day, it is

impossible, but not for the future artist, who will be free from

all the perversion of technical improvements hiding the absence

of subject-matter, and who, not being a professional artist and

receiving no payment for his activity, will only produce art when he

feels impelled to do so by an irresistible inner impulse.

The art of the future will thus be completely distinct, both in

subject-matter and in form, from what is now called art. The only

subject-matter of the art of the future will be either feelings

drawing men toward union, or such as already unite them; and

the forms of art will be such as will be open to every one. And

therefore, the ideal of excellence in the future will not be the

exclusiveness of feeling, accessible only to some, but, on the

contrary, its universality. And not bulkiness, obscurity, and

complexity of form, as is now esteemed, but, on the contrary,

brevity, clearness, and simplicity of expression. Only when art has

attained to that, will art neither divert nor deprave men as it

does now, calling on them to expend their best strength on it, but

be what it should be,--a vehicle wherewith to transmit religious,

Christian perception from the realm of reason and intellect into

that of feeling, and really drawing people in actual life nearer

to that perfection and unity indicated to them by their religious

perception.

CHAPTER XX

THE CONCLUSION

I have accomplished, to the best of my ability, this work which

has occupied me for fifteen years, on a subject near to me--that

of art. By saying that this subject has occupied me for fifteen

years, I do not mean that I have been writing this book fifteen

years, but only that I began to write on art fifteen years ago,

thinking that when once I undertook the task I should be able to

accomplish it without a break. It proved, however, that my views

on the matter then were so far from clear that I could not arrange

them in a way that satisfied me. From that time I have never ceased

to think on the subject, and I have recommenced to write on it six

or seven times; but each time, after writing a considerable part of

it, I have found myself unable to bring the work to a satisfactory

conclusion, and have had to put it aside. Now I have finished it;

and however badly I may have performed the task, my hope is that

my fundamental thought as to the false direction the art of our

society has taken and is following, as to the reasons of this, and

as to the real destination of art, is correct, and that therefore my

work will not be without avail. But that this should come to pass,

and that art should really abandon its false path and take the new

direction, it is necessary that another equally important human

spiritual activity,--science,--in intimate dependence on which art

always rests, should abandon the false path which it too, like art,

is following.

Science and art are as closely bound together as the lungs and the

heart, so that if one organ is vitiated the other cannot act rightly.

True science investigates and brings to human perception such

truths and such knowledge as the people of a given time and society

consider most important. Art transmits these truths from the region

of perception to the region of emotion. Therefore, if the path

chosen by science be false, so also will be the path taken by art.

Science and art are like a certain kind of barge with kedge-anchors

which used to ply on our rivers. Science, like the boats which took

the anchors up-stream and made them secure, gives direction to the

forward movement; while art, like the windlass worked on the barge

to draw it toward the anchor, causes the actual progression. And

thus a false activity of science inevitably causes a correspondingly

false activity of art.

As art in general is the transmission of every kind of feeling,

but in the limited sense of the word we only call that art which

transmits feelings acknowledged by us to be important, so also

science in general is the transmission of all possible knowledge;

but in the limited sense of the word we call science that which

transmits knowledge acknowledged by us to be important.

And the degree of importance, both of the feelings transmitted by

art and of the information transmitted by science, is decided by the

religious perception of the given time and society, _i.e._ by the

common understanding of the purpose of their lives possessed by the

people of that time or society.

That which most of all contributes to the fulfilment of that purpose

will be studied most; that which contributes less will be studied

less; that which does not contribute at all to the fulfilment of the

purpose of human life will be entirely neglected, or, if studied,

such study will not be accounted science. So it always has been, and

so it should be now; for such is the nature of human knowledge and

of human life. But the science of the upper classes of our time,

which not only does not acknowledge any religion, but considers

every religion to be mere superstition, could not and cannot make

such distinctions.

Scientists of our day affirm that they study _everything_

impartially; but as everything is too much (is in fact an infinite

number of objects), and as it is impossible to study all alike, this

is only said in the theory, while in practice not everything is

studied, and study is applied far from impartially, only that being

studied which, on the one hand, is most wanted by, and on the other

hand, is pleasantest to, those people who occupy themselves with

science. And what the people, belonging to the upper classes, who

are occupying themselves with science most want is the maintenance

of the system under which those classes retain their privileges; and

what is pleasantest are such things as satisfy idle curiosity, do

not demand great mental efforts, and can be practically applied.

And therefore one side of science, including theology and philosophy

adapted to the existing order, as also history and political economy

of the same sort, are chiefly occupied in proving that the existing

order is the very one which ought to exist; that it has come into

existence and continues to exist by the operation of immutable

laws not amenable to human will, and that all efforts to change

it are therefore harmful and wrong. The other part, experimental

science,--including mathematics, astronomy, chemistry, physics,

botany, and all the natural sciences,--is exclusively occupied with

things that have no direct relation to human life: with what is

curious, and with things of which practical application advantageous

to people of the upper classes can be made. And to justify that

selection of objects of study which (in conformity to their own

position) the men of science of our times have made, they have

devised a theory of science for science's sake, quite similar to the

theory of art for art's sake.

As by the theory of art for art's sake it appears that occupation

with all those things that please us--is art, so, by the theory of

science for science's sake, the study of that which interests us--is

science.

So that one side of science, instead of studying how people should

live in order to fulfil their mission in life, demonstrates the

righteousness and immutability of the bad and false arrangements

of life which exist around us; while the other part, experimental

science, occupies itself with questions of simple curiosity or with

technical improvements.

The first of these divisions of science is harmful, not only because

it confuses people's perceptions and gives false decisions, but also

because it exists, and occupies the ground which should belong to

true science. It does this harm, that each man, in order to approach

the study of the most important questions of life, must first refute

these erections of lies which have during ages been piled around

each of the most essential questions of human life, and which are

propped up by all the strength of human ingenuity.

The second division--the one of which modern science is so

particularly proud, and which is considered by many people to be the

only real science--is harmful in that it diverts attention from the

really important subjects to insignificant subjects, and is also

directly harmful in that, under the evil system of society which the

first division of science justifies and supports, a great part of

the technical gains of science are turned, not to the advantage, but

to the injury of mankind.

Indeed, it is only to those who are devoting their lives to such

study that it seems as if all the inventions which are made in the

sphere of natural science were very important and useful things.

And to these people it seems so only when they do not look around

them and do not see what is really important. They only need tear

themselves away from the psychological microscope under which they

examine the objects of their study, and look about them, in order

to see how insignificant is all that has afforded them such naïve

pride, all that knowledge not only of geometry of _n_-dimensions,

spectrum analysis of the Milky Way, the form of atoms, dimensions

of human skulls of the Stone Age, and similar trifles, but even our

knowledge of micro-organisms, X-rays, etc., in comparison with such

knowledge as we have thrown aside and handed over to the perversions

of the professors of theology, jurisprudence, political economy,

financial science, etc. We need only look around us to perceive that

the activity proper to real science is not the study of whatever

happens to interest us, but the study of how man's life should be

established,--the study of those questions of religion, morality,

and social life, without the solution of which all our knowledge of

nature will be harmful or insignificant.

We are highly delighted and very proud that our science renders it

possible to utilize the energy of a waterfall and make it work in

factories, or that we have pierced tunnels through mountains, and so

forth. But the pity of it is that we make the force of the waterfall

labor, not for the benefit of the workmen, but to enrich capitalists

who produce articles of luxury or weapons of man-destroying war.

The same dynamite with which we blast the mountains to pierce

tunnels we use for wars, from which latter we not only do not intend

to abstain, but which we consider inevitable, and for which we

unceasingly prepare.

If we are now able to inoculate preventatively with diphtheritic

microbes, to find a needle in a body by means of X-rays, to

straighten a hunched-back, cure syphilis, and perform wonderful

operations, we should not be proud of these acquisitions either

(even were they all established beyond dispute) if we fully

understood the true purpose of real science. If but one-tenth of

the efforts now spent on objects of pure curiosity or of merely

practical application were expended on real science organizing the

life of man, more than half the people now sick would not have the

illnesses from which a small minority of them now get cured in

hospitals. There would be no poor-blooded and deformed children

growing up in factories, no death-rates, as now, of fifty per

cent among children, no deterioration of whole generations, no

prostitution, no syphilis, and no murdering of hundreds of thousands

in wars, nor those horrors of folly and of misery which our present

science considers a necessary condition of human life.

We have so perverted the conception of science that it seems strange

to men of our day to allude to sciences which should prevent the

mortality of children, prostitution, syphilis, the deterioration

of whole generations, and the wholesale murder of men. It seems

to us that science is only then real science when a man in a

laboratory pours liquids from one jar into another, or analyzes

the spectrum, or cuts up frogs and porpoises, or weaves in a

specialized, scientific jargon an obscure network of conventional

phrases--theological, philosophical, historical, juridical, or

politico-economical--semi-intelligible to the man himself, and

intended to demonstrate that what now is, is what should be.

But science, true science,--such science as would really deserve

the respect which is now claimed by the followers of one (the

least important) part of science,--is not at all such as this:

real science lies in knowing what we should and what we should not

believe, in knowing how the associated life of man should and should

not be constituted; how to treat sexual relations, how to educate

children, how to use the land, how to cultivate it oneself without

oppressing other people, how to treat foreigners, how to treat

animals, and much more that is important for the life of man.

Such has true science ever been and such it should be. And such

science is springing up in our times; but, on the one hand, such

true science is denied and refuted by all those scientific people

who defend the existing order of society, and, on the other hand, it

is considered empty, unnecessary, unscientific science by those who

are engrossed in experimental science.

For instance, books and sermons appear, demonstrating the

antiquatedness and absurdity of Church dogmas, as well as the

necessity of establishing a reasonable religious perception suitable

to our times, and all the theology that is considered to be real

science is only engaged in refuting these works and in exercising

human intelligence again and again to find support and justification

for superstitions long since outlived, and which have now become

quite meaningless. Or a sermon appears showing that land should

not be an object of private possession, and that the institution

of private property in land is a chief cause of the poverty of

the masses. Apparently science, real science, should welcome such

a sermon and draw further deductions from this position. But the

science of our times does nothing of the kind: on the contrary,

political economy demonstrates the opposite position; namely, that

landed property, like every other form of property, must be more

and more concentrated in the hands of a small number of owners.

Again, in the same way, one would suppose it to be the business of

real science to demonstrate the irrationality, unprofitableness,

and immorality of war and of executions; or the inhumanity and

harmfulness of prostitution; or the absurdity, harmfulness,

and immorality of using narcotics or of eating animals; or the

irrationality, harmfulness, and antiquatedness of patriotism. And

such works exist, but are all considered unscientific; while works

to prove that all these things ought to continue, and works intended

to satisfy an idle thirst for knowledge lacking any relation to

human life, are considered to be scientific.

The deviation of the science of our time from its true purpose is

strikingly illustrated by those ideals which are put forward by some

scientists, and are not denied, but admitted, by the majority of

scientific men.

These ideals are expressed not only in stupid, fashionable books,

describing the world as it will be in 1000 or 3000 years' time, but

also by sociologists who consider themselves serious men of science.

These ideals are that food, instead of being obtained from the land

by agriculture, will be prepared in laboratories by chemical means,

and that human labor will be almost entirely superseded by the

utilization of natural forces.

Man will not, as now, eat an egg laid by a hen he has kept, or bread

grown on his field, or an apple from a tree he has reared and which

has blossomed and matured in his sight; but he will eat tasty,

nutritious, food which will be prepared in laboratories by the

conjoint labor of many people in which he will take a small part.

Man will hardly need to labor, so that all men will be able to yield

to idleness as the upper, ruling classes now yield to it.

Nothing shows more plainly than these ideals to what a degree the

science of our times has deviated from the true path.

The great majority of men in our times lack good and sufficient food

(as well as dwellings and clothes and all the first necessaries of

life). And this great majority of men is compelled, to the injury of

its well-being, to labor continually beyond its strength. Both these

evils can easily be removed by abolishing mutual strife, luxury, and

the unrighteous distribution of wealth, in a word, by the abolition

of a false and harmful order and the establishment of a reasonable,

human manner of life. But science considers the existing order of

things to be as immutable as the movements of the planets, and

therefore assumes that the purpose of science is--not to elucidate

the falseness of this order and to arrange a new, reasonable way of

life--but, under the existing order of things, to feed everybody and

enable all to be as idle as the ruling classes, who live a depraved

life, now are.

And, meanwhile, it is forgotten that nourishment with corn,

vegetables, and fruit raised from the soil by one's own labor is the

pleasantest, healthiest, easiest, and most natural nourishment, and

that the work of using one's muscles is as necessary a condition of

life as is the oxidation of the blood by breathing.

To invent means whereby people might, while continuing our false

division of property and labor, be well nourished by means of

chemically prepared food, and might make the forces of nature work

for them, is like inventing means to pump oxygen into the lungs of a

man kept in a closed chamber, the air of which is bad, when all that

is needed is to cease to confine the man in the closed chamber.

In the vegetable and animal kingdoms a laboratory for the

production of food has been arranged, such as can be surpassed by

no professors, and to enjoy the fruits of this laboratory, and

to participate in it, man has only to yield to that ever joyful

impulse to labor, without which man's life is a torment. And lo and

behold! the scientists of our times, instead of employing all their

strength to abolish whatever hinders man from utilizing the good

things prepared for him, acknowledge the conditions under which man

is deprived of these blessings to be unalterable, and instead of

arranging the life of man so that he might work joyfully and be fed

from the soil, they devise methods which will cause him to become an

artificial abortion. It is like not helping a man out of confinement

into the fresh air, but devising means, instead, to pump into him

the necessary quantity of oxygen and arranging so that he may live

in a stifling cellar instead of living at home.

Such false ideals could not exist if science were not on a false

path.

And yet the feelings transmitted by art grow up on the bases

supplied by science.

But what feelings can such misdirected science evoke? One side of

this science evokes antiquated feelings, which humanity has used

up, and which, in our times, are bad and exclusive. The other side,

occupied with the study of subjects unrelated to the conduct of

human life, by its very nature cannot serve as a basis for art.

So that art in our times, to be art, must either open up its own

road independently of science, or must take direction from the

unrecognized science which is denounced by the orthodox section of

science. And this is what art, when it even partially fulfils its

mission, is doing.

It is to be hoped that the work I have tried to perform concerning

art will be performed also for science--that the falseness of the

theory of science for science's sake will be demonstrated; that

the necessity of acknowledging Christian teaching in its true

meaning will be clearly shown, that on the basis of that teaching

a reappraisement will be made of the knowledge we possess, and of

which we are so proud; that the secondariness and insignificance

of experimental science, and the primacy and importance of

religious, moral, and social knowledge will be established; and

that such knowledge will not, as now, be left to the guidance of

the upper classes only, but will form a chief interest of all free,

truth-loving men, such as those who, not in agreement with the

upper classes, but in their despite, have always forwarded the real

science of life.

Astronomical, physical, chemical, and biological science, as also

technical and medical science, will be studied only in so far as

they can help to free mankind from religious, juridical, or social

deceptions, or can serve to promote the well-being of all men, and

not of any single class.

Only then will science cease to be what it is now,--on the one hand

a system of sophistries, needed for the maintenance of the existing

worn-out order of society, and, on the other hand, a shapeless mass

of miscellaneous knowledge, for the most part good for little or

nothing,--and become a shapely and organic whole, having a definite

and reasonable purpose comprehensible to all men; namely, the

purpose of bringing to the consciousness of men the truths that flow

from the religious perception of our times.

And only then will art, which is always dependent on science, be

what it might and should be, an organ co-equally important with

science for the life and progress of mankind.

Art is not a pleasure, a solace, or an amusement; art is a great

matter. Art is an organ of human life, transmitting man's reasonable

perception into feeling. In our age the common religious perception

of men is the consciousness of the brotherhood of man--we know

that the well-being of man lies in union with his fellow-men.

True science should indicate the various methods of applying this

consciousness to life. Art should transform this perception into

feeling.

The task of art is enormous. Through the influence of real art,

aided by science guided by religion, that peaceful coöperation of

man which is now obtained by external means--by our law-courts,

police, charitable institutions, factory inspection, etc.--should

be obtained by man's free and joyous activity. Art should cause

violence to be set aside.

And it is only art that can accomplish this.

All that now, independently of the fear of violence and punishment,

makes the social life of man possible (and already now this is

an enormous part of the order of our lives)--all this has been

brought about by art. If by art it has been inculcated how people

should treat religious objects, their parents, their children,

their wives, their relations, strangers, foreigners; how to conduct

themselves to their elders, their superiors, to those who suffer,

to their enemies, and to animals; and if this has been obeyed

through generations by millions of people, not only unenforced by

any violence, but so that the force of such customs can be shaken in

no way but by means of art--then, by the same art, other customs,

more in accord with the religious perception of our time, may be

evoked. If art has been able to convey the sentiment of reverence

for images, for the eucharist, and for the king's person; of shame

at betraying a comrade, devotion to a flag, the necessity of revenge

for an insult, the need to sacrifice one's labor for the erection

and adornment of churches, the duty of defending one's honor or

the glory of one's native land--then that same art can also evoke

reverence for the dignity of every man and for the life of every

animal; can make men ashamed of luxury, of violence, of revenge, or

of using for their pleasure that of which others are in need; can

compel people freely, gladly, and without noticing it, to sacrifice

themselves in the service of man.

The task for art to accomplish is to make that feeling of

brotherhood and love of one's neighbor, now attained only by the

best members of society, the customary feeling and the instinct of

all men. By evoking, under imaginary conditions, the feeling of

brotherhood and love, religious art will train men to experience

those same feelings under similar circumstances in actual life; it

will lay in the souls of men the rails along which the actions of

those whom art thus educates will naturally pass. And universal

art, by uniting the most different people in one common feeling,

by destroying separation, will educate people to union, will show

them, not by reason, but by life itself, the joy of universal union

reaching beyond the bounds set by life.

The destiny of art in our time is to transmit from the realm of

reason to the realm of feeling the truth that well-being for men

consists in being united together, and to set up, in place of the

existing reign of force, that kingdom of God, _i.e._ of love, which

we all recognize to be the highest aim of human life.

Possibly, in the future, science may reveal to art yet newer and

higher ideals, which art may realize; but, in our time, the destiny

of art is clear and definite. The task for Christian art is to

establish brotherly union among men.

APPENDIX I

This is the first page of Mallarmé's book, "Divagations":--

LE PHÉNOMÈNE FUTUR

Un ciel pâle, sur le monde qui finit de décrépitude, va

peut-être partir avec les nuages: les lambeaux de la pourpre

usée des couchants déteignent dans une rivière dormant à

l'horizon submergé de rayons et d'eau. Les arbres s'ennuient,

et, sous leur feuillage blanchi (de la poussière du temps plutôt

que celle des chemins) monte la maison en toile de Montreur

de choses Passées: maint réverbère attend le crépuscule et

ravive les visages d'une malheureuse foule, vaincue par la

maladie immortelle et le péché des siècles, d'hommes près de

leurs chétives complices enceintes des fruits misérables avec

lesquels périra la terre. Dans le silence inquiet de tous les

yeux suppliant là-bas le soleil qui, sous l'eau, s'enfonce

avec le désespoir d'un cri, voici le simple boniment: "Nulle

enseigne ne vous régale du spectacle intérieur, car il n'est

pas maintenant un peintre capable d'en donner une ombre triste.

J'apporte, vivante (et préservée à travers les ans par la

science souveraine) une Femme d'autrefois. Quelque folie,

originelle et naïve, une extase d'or, je ne sais quoi! par elle

nommé sa chevelure, se ploie avec la grâce des étoffes autour

d'un visage qu' éclaire la nudité sanglante de ses lèvres. A la

place du vêtement vain, elle a un corps; et les yeux, semblables

aux pierres rares! ne valent pas ce regard qui sort de sa chair

heureuse: des seins levés comme s'ils étaient pleins d'un lait

éternel, la pointe vers le ciel, les jambes lisses qui gardent

le sel de la mer première." Se rappelant leurs pauvres épouses,

chauves, morbides et pleines d'horreur, les maris se pressent:

elles aussi par curiosité, mélancoliques, veulent voir.

Quand tous auront contemplé la noble créature, vestige de

quelque époque déjà maudite, les uns indifférents, car ils

n'auront pas eu la force de comprendre, mais d'autres navrés et

la paupière humide de larmes résignées, se regarderont; tandis

que les poètes de ces temps, sentant se rallumer leur yeux

éteints, s'achemineront vers leur lampe, le cerveau ivre un

instant d'une gloire confuse, hantés du Rythme et dans l'oubli

d'exister à une époque qui survit à la beauté.

THE FUTURE PHENOMENON--BY MALLARMÉ.

A pale sky, above the world that is ending through decrepitude,

going, perhaps, to pass away with the clouds: shreds of worn-out

purple of the sunsets wash off their color in a river sleeping

on the horizon, submerged with rays and water. The trees are

weary and, beneath their foliage, whitened (by the dust of

time rather than that of the roads), rises the canvas house

of "Showman of things Past." Many a lamp awaits the gloaming,

and brightens the faces of a miserable crowd vanquished by the

immortal illness and the sin of ages, of men by the sides of

their puny accomplices pregnant with the miserable fruit with

which the world will perish. In the anxious silence of all the

eyes supplicating the sun there, which sinks under the water

with the desperation of a cry, this is the plain announcement:

"No sign-board now regales you with the spectacle that is

inside, for there is no painter now capable of giving even a

shadow of it. I bring living (and preserved by sovereign science

through the years) a Woman of other days. Some kind of folly,

naïve and original, an ecstasy of gold, I know not what, by her

called her hair, clings with the grace of some material round a

face brightened by the blood-red nudity of her lips. In place of

vain clothing, she has a body; and her eyes, resembling precious

stones! are not worth that look, which comes from her happy

flesh: breasts raised as if full of eternal milk, the points

toward the sky; the smooth legs, that keep the salt of the first

sea." Remembering their poor spouses, bald, morbid, and full

of horrors, the husbands press forward: the women, too, from

curiosity, gloomily wish to see.

When all shall have contemplated the noble creature, vestige of

some epoch already damned, some indifferently, for they will not

have had strength to understand, but others, broken-hearted, and

with eyelids wet with tears of resignation, will look at each

other; while the poets of those times, feeling their dim eyes

rekindled, will make their way toward their lamp, their brain

for an instant drunk with confused glory, haunted by Rhythm, and

forgetful that they exist at an epoch which has survived beauty.

APPENDIX II[127]

[127] The translations in Appendices I., II., and IV., are by Louise

Maude. The aim of these renderings has been to keep as close to the

originals as the obscurity of meaning allowed. The sense (or absence

of sense) has therefore been more considered than the form of the

verses.

No. 1

The following verses are by Vielé-Griffin, from page 28 of a volume

of his Poems:--

OISEAU BLEU COULEUR DU TEMPS

1

Sait-tu l'oubli

D'un vain doux rêve,

Oiseau moqueur

De la forêt?

Le jour pâlit,

La nuit se lève,

Et dans mon cœur

L'ombre a pleuré;

2

O chante-moi

Ta folle gamme,

Car j'ai dormi

Ce jour durant;

Le lâche emoi

Où fut mon âme

Sanglote ennui

Le jour mourant....

3

Sais-tu le chant

De sa parole

Et de sa voix,

Toi qui redis

Dans le couchant

Ton air frivole

Comme autrefois

Sous les midis?

4

O chante alors

La mélodie

De son amour,

Mon fol espoir,

Parmi les ors

Et l'incendie

Du vain doux jour

Qui meurt ce soir.

FRANCIS VIELÉ-GRIFFIN.

BLUE BIRD

1

Canst thou forget,

In dreams so vain,

Oh, mocking bird

Of forest deep?

The day doth set,

Night comes again,

My heart has heard

The shadows weep;

2

Thy tones let flow

In maddening scale,

For I have slept

The livelong day;

Emotions low

In me now wail,

My soul they've kept:

Light dies away....

3

That music sweet,

Ah, do you know

Her voice and speech?

Your airs so light

You who repeat

In sunset's glow,

As you sang, each,

At noonday's height.

4

Of my desire,

My hope so bold,

Her love--up, sing,

Sing, 'neath this light,

This flaming fire,

And all the gold

The eve doth bring

Ere comes the night.

No. 2

And here are some verses by the esteemed young poet Verhaeren, which

I also take from page 28 of his Works:--

ATTIRANCES

Lointainement, et si étrangement pareils,

De grands masques d'argent que la brume recule,

Vaguent, au jour tombant, autour des vieux soleils.

Les doux lointaines!--et comme, au fond du crépuscule,

Ils nous fixent le cœur, immensément le cœur,

Avec les yeux _défunts de leur_ visage d'âme.

C'est toujours du silence, à moins, dans la pâleur

Du soir, un jet de feu soudain, un cri de flamme,

Un départ de lumière inattendu vers Dieu.

On se laisse charmer et troubler de mystère,

Et l'on dirait des morts qui taisent un adieu

Trop mystique, pour être écouté par la terre!

Sont-ils le souvenir matériel et clair

Des éphèbes chrétiens couchés aux catacombes

Parmi les lys? Sont-ils leur regard et leur chair?

Ou seul, ce qui survit de merveilleux aux tombes

De ceux qui sont partis, vers leurs rêves, un soir,

Conquérir la folie à l'assaut des nuées?

Lointainement, combien nous les sentons vouloir

Un peu d'amour pour leurs œuvres destituées,

Pour leur errance et leur tristesse aux horizons.

Toujours! aux horizons du cœur et des pensées,

Alors que les vieux soirs éclatent en blasons

Soudains, pour les gloires noires et angoissées.

ÉMILE VERHAEREN,

_Poèmes_.

ATTRACTIONS

Large masks of silver, by mists drawn away,

So strangely alike, yet so far apart.

Float round the old suns when faileth the day.

They transfix our heart, so immensely our heart,

Those distances mild, in the twilight deep,

Looking out of dead faces with their spirit eyes.

All around is now silence, except when there leap

In the pallor of evening, with fiery cries,

Some fountains of flame that God-ward do fly.

Mysterious trouble and charms us infold,

You might think that the dead spoke a silent good-by,

Oh! too mystical far on earth to be told!

Are they the memories, material and bright,

Of the Christian youths that in catacombs sleep

'Mid the lilies? Are they their flesh or their sight?

Or the marvel alone that survives, in the deep,

Of those that, one night, returned to their dream

Of conquering folly by assaulting the skies?

For their destitute works--we feel it seems,

For a little love their longing cries

From horizons far--for their errings and pain.

In horizons ever of heart and thought,

While the evenings old in bright blaze wane

Suddenly, for black glories anguish fraught.

No. 3

And the following is a poem by Moréas, evidently an admirer of Greek

beauty. It is from page 28 of a volume of his Poems:--

ENONE AU CLAIR VISAGE

Enone, j'avais cru qu'en aimant ta beauté

Où l'âme avec le corps trouvent leur unité,

J'allais, m'affermissant et le cœur et l'esprit,

Monter jusqu'à cela qui jamais ne périt,

N'ayant été crée, qui n'est froideur ou feu,

Qui n'est beau quelque part et laid en autre lieu;

Et me flattais encor' d'une belle harmonie

Que j'eusse composé du meilleur et du pire,

Ainsi que le chanteur qui chérit Polimnie,

En accordant le grave avec l'aigu, retire

Un son bien élevé sur les nerfs de sa lyre.

Mais mon courage, hélas! se pâmant comme mort,

M'enseigna que le trait qui m'avait fait amant

Ne fut pas de cet arc que courbe sans effort

La Vénus qui naquit du mâle seulement,

Mais que j'avais souffert cette Vénus dernière,

Qui a le cœur couard, né d'une faible mère.

Et pourtant, ce mauvais garçon, chasseur habile,

Qui charge son carquois de sagette subtile,

Qui secoue en riant sa torche, pour un jour,

Qui ne pose jamais que sur de tendres fleurs,

C'est sur un teint charmant qu'il essuie les pleurs,

Et c'est encore un Dieu, Enone, cet Amour.

Mais, laisse, les oiseaux du printemps sont partis,

Et je vois les rayons du soleil amortis.

Enone, ma douleur, harmonieux visage,

Superbe humilité, doux honnête langage,

Hier me remirant dans cet étang glacé

Qui au bout du jardin se couvre de feuillage,

Sur ma face je vis que les jours ont passé.

JEAN MORÉAS.

ENONE

Enone, in loving thy beauty, I thought,

Where the soul and the body to union are brought,

That mounting by steadying my heart and my mind,

In that which can't perish, myself I should find.

For it ne'er was created, is not ugly and fair;

Is not coldness in one part, while on fire it is there.

Yes, I flattered myself that a harmony fine

I'd succeed to compose of the worst and the best,

Like the bard who adores Polyhymnia divine,

And mingling sounds different from the nerves of his lyre,

From the grave and the smart draws melodies higher.

But, alas! my courage, so faint and nigh spent,

The dart that has struck me proves without fail

Not to be from that bow which is easily bent

By the Venus that's born alone of the male.

No, 'twas that other Venus that caused me to smart,

Born of frail mother with cowardly heart.

And yet that naughty lad, that little hunter bold,

Who laughs and shakes his flowery torch just for a day,

Who never rests but upon tender flowers and gay,

On sweetest skin who dries the tears his eyes that fill,

Yet oh, Enone mine, a God's that Cupid still.

Let it pass; for the birds of the Spring are away,

And dying I see the sun's lingering ray.

Enone, my sorrow, oh, harmonious face,

Humility grand, words of virtue and grace,

I looked yestere'en in the pond frozen fast,

Strewn with leaves at the end of the garden's fair space,

And I read in my face that those days are now past.

No. 4

And this is also from page 28 of a thick book, full of similar

poems, by M. Montesquiou.

BERCEUSE D'OMBRE

Des formes, des formes, des formes

Blanche, bleue, et rose, et d'or

Descendront du haut des ormes

Sur l'enfant qui se rendort.

Des formes!

Des plumes, des plumes, des plumes

Pour composer un doux nid.

Midi sonne: les enclumes

Cessent; la rumeur finit....

Des plumes!

Des roses, des roses, des roses

Pour embaumer son sommeil,

Vos pétales sont moroses

Près du sourire vermeil.

O roses!

Des ailes, des ailes, des ailes

Pour bourdonner à sont front,

Abeilles et demoiselles,

Des rythmes qui berceront.

Des ailes!

Des branches, des branches, des branches

Pour tresser un pavillon,

Par où des clartés moins franches

Descendront sur l'oisillon.

Des branches!

Des songes, des songes, des songes

Dans ses pensers entr' ouverts

Glissez un peu de mensonges

A voir le vie au travers

Des songes!

Des fées, des fées, des fées

Pour filer leurs écheveaux

Des mirages, de bouffées

Dans tous ces petits cerveaux.

Des fées!

Des anges, des anges, des anges

Pour emporter dans l'éther

Les petits enfants étranges

Qui ne veulent pas rester....

Nos anges!

COMTE ROBERT DE MONTESQUIOU-FEZENSAC,

_Les Hortensias Bleus_.

THE SHADOW LULLABY

Oh forms, oh forms, oh forms

White, blue, and gold, and red

Descending from the elm trees,

On sleeping baby's head.

Oh forms!

Oh feathers, feathers, feathers

To make a cozy nest.

Twelve striking: stops the clamor;

The anvils are at rest....

Oh feathers!

Oh roses, roses, roses

To scent his sleep awhile,

Pale are your fragrant petals

Beside his ruby smile.

Oh roses!

Oh wings, oh wings, oh wings

Of bees and dragon-flies,

To hum around his forehead,

And lull him with your sighs.

Oh wings!

Branches, branches, branches

A shady bower to twine,

Through which, oh daylight, faintly

Descend on birdie mine.

Branches!

Oh dreams, oh dreams, oh dreams

Into his opening mind,

Let in a little falsehood

With sights of life behind.

Dreams!

Oh fairies, fairies, fairies

To twine and twist their threads

With puffs of phantom visions

Into these little heads.

Fairies!

Angels, angels, angels

To the ether far away,

Those children strange to carry

That here don't wish to stay....

Our angels!

APPENDIX III

These are the contents of "The Nibelung's Ring":--

The first part tells that the nymphs, the daughters of the Rhine,

for some reason guard gold in the Rhine, and sing: Weia, Waga, Woge

du Welle, Walle zur Wiege, Wagala-weia, Wallala, Weiala, Weia, and

so forth.

These singing nymphs are pursued by a gnome (a nibelung) who desires

to seize them. The gnome cannot catch any of them. Then the nymphs

guarding the gold tell the gnome just what they ought to keep

secret, namely, that whoever renounces love will be able to steal

the gold they are guarding. And the gnome renounces love, and steals

the gold. This ends the first scene.

In the second scene a god and a goddess lie in a field in sight of

a castle which giants have built for them. Presently they wake up

and are pleased with the castle, and they relate that in payment for

this work they must give the goddess Freia to the giants. The giants

come for their pay. But the god Wotan objects to parting with Freia.

The giants get angry. The gods hear that the gnome has stolen the

gold, promise to confiscate it, and to pay the giants with it. But

the giants won't trust them, and seize the goddess Freia in pledge.

The third scene takes place underground. The gnome Alberich, who

stole the gold, for some reason beats a gnome, Mime, and takes from

him a helmet which has the power both of making people invisible

and of turning them into other animals. The gods, Wotan and others,

appear and quarrel with one another and with the gnomes, and wish to

take the gold, but Alberich won't give it up, and (like everybody

all through the piece) behaves in a way to insure his own ruin. He

puts on the helmet, and becomes first a dragon and then a toad. The

gods catch the toad, take the helmet off it, and carry Alberich away

with them.

Scene IV. The gods bring Alberich to their home, and order him to

command his gnomes to bring them all the gold. The gnomes bring

it. Alberich gives up the gold, but keeps a magic ring. The gods

take the ring. So Alberich curses the ring, and says it is to bring

misfortune on any one who has it. The giants appear; they bring

the goddess Freia, and demand her ransom. They stick up staves of

Freia's height, and gold is poured in between these staves: this is

to be the ransom. There is not enough gold, so the helmet is thrown

in, and they also demand the ring. Wotan refuses to give it up,

but the goddess Erda appears and commands him to do so, because it

brings misfortune. Wotan gives it up. Freia is released. The giants,

having received the ring, fight, and one of them kills the other.

This ends the Prelude, and we come to the First Day.

The scene shows a house in a tree. Siegmund runs in tired, and lies

down. Sieglinda, the mistress of the house (and wife of Hunding),

gives him a drugged draught, and they fall in love with each other.

Sieglinda's husband comes home, learns that Siegmund belongs to

a hostile race, and wishes to fight him next day; but Sieglinda

drugs her husband, and comes to Siegmund. Siegmund discovers that

Sieglinda is his sister, and that his father drove a sword into the

tree so that no one can get it out. Siegmund pulls the sword out,

and commits incest with his sister.

Act II. Siegmund is to fight with Hunding. The gods discuss the

question to whom they shall award the victory. Wotan, approving of

Siegmund's incest with his sister, wishes to spare him, but, under

pressure from his wife, Fricka, he orders the Valkyrie Brünnhilda to

kill Siegmund. Siegmund goes to fight; Sieglinda faints. Brünnhilda

appears and wishes to slay Siegmund. Siegmund wishes to kill

Sieglinda also, but Brünnhilda does not allow it; so he fights with

Hunding. Brünnhilda defends Siegmund, but Wotan defends Hunding.

Siegmund's sword breaks, and he is killed. Sieglinda runs away.

Act III. The Valkyries (divine Amazons) are on the stage. The

Valkyrie Brünnhilda arrives on horseback, bringing Siegmund's body.

She is flying from Wotan, who is chasing her for her disobedience.

Wotan catches her, and as a punishment dismisses her from her post

as a Valkyrie. He casts a spell on her, so that she has to go to

sleep and to continue asleep until a man wakes her. When some one

wakes her she will fall in love with him. Wotan kisses her; she

falls asleep. He lets off fire, which surrounds her.

We now come to the Second Day. The gnome Mime forges a sword in

a wood. Siegfried appears. He is a son born from the incest of

brother with sister (Siegmund with Sieglinda), and has been brought

up in this wood by the gnome. In general the motives of the actions

of everybody in this production are quite unintelligible. Siegfried

learns his own origin, and that the broken sword was his father's.

He orders Mime to reforge it, and then goes off. Wotan comes in the

guise of a wanderer, and relates what will happen: that he who has

not learnt to fear will forge the sword, and will defeat everybody.

The gnome conjectures that this is Siegfried, and wants to poison

him. Siegfried returns, forges his father's sword, and runs off,

shouting, Heiho! heiho! heiho! Ho! ho! Aha! oho! aha! Heiaho!

heiaho! heiaho! Ho! ho! Hahei! hoho! hahei!

And we get to Act II. Alberich sits guarding a giant, who, in form

of a dragon, guards the gold he has received. Wotan appears, and

for some unknown reason foretells that Siegfried will come and kill

the dragon. Alberich wakes the dragon, and asks him for the ring,

promising to defend him from Siegfried. The dragon won't give up

the ring. Exit Alberich. Mime and Siegfried appear. Mime hopes the

dragon will teach Siegfried to fear. But Siegfried does not fear.

He drives Mime away and kills the dragon, after which he puts his

finger, smeared with the dragon's blood, to his lips. This enables

him to know men's secret thoughts, as well as the language of birds.

The birds tell him where the treasure and the ring are, and also

that Mime wishes to poison him. Mime returns, and says out loud

that he wishes to poison Siegfried. This is meant to signify that

Siegfried, having tasted dragon's blood, understands people's secret

thoughts. Siegfried, having learnt Mime's intentions, kills him. The

birds tell Siegfried where Brünnhilda is, and he goes to find her.

Act III. Wotan calls up Erda. Erda prophesies to Wotan, and gives

him advice. Siegfried appears, quarrels with Wotan, and they fight.

Suddenly Siegfried's sword breaks Wotan's spear, which had been

more powerful than anything else. Siegfried goes into the fire to

Brünnhilda: kisses her; she wakes up, abandons her divinity, and

throws herself into Siegfried's arms.

Third Day. Prelude. Three Norns plait a golden rope, and talk about

the future. They go away. Siegfried and Brünnhilda appear. Siegfried

takes leave of her, gives her the ring, and goes away.

Act I. By the Rhine. A king wants to get married, and also to give

his sister in marriage. Hagen, the king's wicked brother, advises

him to marry Brünnhilda and to give his sister to Siegfried.

Siegfried appears; they give him a drugged draught, which makes

him forget all the past and fall in love with the king's sister,

Gutrune. So he rides off with Gunther, the king, to get Brünnhilda

to be the king's bride. The scene changes. Brünnhilda sits with

the ring. A Valkyrie comes to her and tells her that Wotan's spear

is broken, and advises her to give the ring to the Rhine nymphs.

Siegfried comes, and by means of the magic helmet turns himself into

Gunther, demands the ring from Brünnhilda, seizes it, and drags her

off to sleep with him.

Act II. By the Rhine. Alberich and Hagen discuss how to get the

ring. Siegfried comes, tells how he has obtained a bride for Gunther

and spent the night with her, but put a sword between himself and

her. Brünnhilda rides up, recognizes the ring on Siegfried's hand,

and declares that it was he, and not Gunther, who was with her.

Hagen stirs everybody up against Siegfried, and decides to kill him

next day when hunting.

Act III. Again the nymphs in the Rhine relate what has happened.

Siegfried, who has lost his way, appears. The nymphs ask him for

the ring, but he won't give it up. Hunters appear. Siegfried tells

the story of his life. Hagen then gives him a draught, which causes

his memory to return to him. Siegfried relates how he aroused and

obtained Brünnhilda, and every one is astonished. Hagen stabs him

in the back, and the scene is changed. Gutrune meets the corpse of

Siegfried. Gunther and Hagen quarrel about the ring, and Hagen

kills Gunther. Brünnhilda cries. Hagen wishes to take the ring

from Siegfried's hand, but the hand of the corpse raises itself

threateningly. Brünnhilda takes the ring from Siegfried's hand, and

when Siegfried's corpse is carried to the pyre, she gets on to a

horse and leaps into the fire. The Rhine rises, and the waves reach

the pyre. In the river are three nymphs. Hagen throws himself into

the fire to get the ring, but the nymphs seize him and carry him

off. One of them holds the ring; and that is the end of the matter.

The impression obtainable from my recapitulation is, of course,

incomplete. But however incomplete it may be, it is certainly

infinitely more favorable than the impression which results from

reading the four booklets in which the work is printed.

APPENDIX IV

Translations of French poems and prose quoted in Chapter X.

BAUDELAIRE'S "FLOWERS OF EVIL"

No. XXIV

I adore thee as much as the vaults of night,

O vase full of grief, taciturnity great,

And I love thee the more because of thy flight.

It seemeth, my night's beautifier, that you

Still heap up those leagues--yes! ironically heap!

That divide from my arms the immensity blue.

I advance to attack, I climb to assault,

Like a choir of young worms at a corpse in the vault;

Thy coldness, oh cruel, implacable beast!

Yet heightens thy beauty, on which my eyes feast!

BAUDELAIRE'S "FLOWERS OF EVIL"

No. XXXVI

DUELLUM

Two warriors come running, to fight they begin,

With gleaming and blood they bespatter the air;

These games, and this clatter of arms, is the din

Of youth that's a prey to the surgings of love.

The rapiers are broken! and so is our youth,

But the dagger's avenged, dear! and so is the sword,

By the nail that is steeled and the hardened tooth.

Oh, the fury of hearts aged and ulcered by love!

In the ditch, where the ounce and the pard have their lair,

Our heroes have rolled in an angry embrace;

Their skin blooms on brambles that erewhile were bare.

That ravine is a friend-inhabited hell!

Then let us roll in, oh woman inhuman,

To immortalize hatred that nothing can quell!

FROM BAUDELAIRE'S PROSE WORK ENTITLED "LITTLE POEMS"

THE STRANGER

Whom dost thou love best? say, enigmatical man--thy father, thy

mother, thy brother, or thy sister?

"I have neither father, nor mother, nor sister, nor brother."

Thy friends?

"You there use an expression the meaning of which till now remains

unknown to me."

Thy country?

"I ignore in what latitude it is situated."

Beauty?

"I would gladly love her, goddess and immortal."

Gold?

"I hate it as you hate God."

Then what do you love, extraordinary stranger?

"I love the clouds ... the clouds that pass ... there ... the

marvelous clouds!"

BAUDELAIRE'S PROSE POEM

THE SOUP AND THE CLOUDS

My beloved little silly was giving me my dinner, and I was

contemplating, through the open window of the dining-room, those

moving architectures which God makes out of vapors, the marvelous

constructions of the impalpable. And I said to myself, amid my

contemplations, "All these phantasmagoria are almost as beautiful as

the eyes of my beautiful beloved, the monstrous little silly with

the green eyes."

Suddenly I felt the violent blow of a fist on my back, and I heard a

harsh, charming voice, an hysterical voice, as it were hoarse with

brandy, the voice of my dear little well-beloved, saying, "Are you

going to eat your soup soon, you d---- b---- of a dealer in clouds?"

BAUDELAIRE'S PROSE POEM

THE GALLANT MARKSMAN

As the carriage was passing through the forest, he ordered it to be

stopped near a shooting-gallery, saying that he wished to shoot off

a few bullets to _kill_ Time. To kill this monster, is it not the

most ordinary and the most legitimate occupation of every one? And

he gallantly offered his arm to his dear, delicious, and execrable

wife--that mysterious woman to whom he owed so much pleasure, so

much pain, and perhaps also a large part of his genius.

Several bullets struck far from the intended mark--one even

penetrated the ceiling; and as the charming creature laughed madly,

mocking her husband's awkwardness, he turned abruptly toward her and

said, "Look at that doll there on the right with the haughty mien

and her nose in the air; well, dear angel, _I imagine to myself that

it is you!_" And he closed his eyes and pulled the trigger. The doll

was neatly decapitated.

Then, bowing toward his dear one, his delightful, execrable wife,

his inevitable pitiless muse, and kissing her hand respectfully, he

added, "Ah! my dear angel, how I thank you for my skill!"

VERLAINE'S "FORGOTTEN AIRS"

No. I

"The wind in the plain

Suspends its breath."--FAVART.

'Tis ecstasy languishing,

Amorous fatigue,

Of woods all the shudderings

Embraced by the breeze,

'Tis the choir of small voices

Toward the gray trees.

Oh, the frail and fresh murmuring!

The twitter and buzz,

The soft cry resembling

That's expired by the grass....

Oh, the roll of the pebbles

'Neath waters that pass!

Oh, this soul that is groaning

In sleepy complaint!

In us is it moaning?

In me and in you?

Low anthem exhaling

While soft falls the dew.

VERLAINE'S "FORGOTTEN AIRS"

No. VIII

In the unending

Dullness of this land,

Uncertain the snow

Is gleaming like sand.

No kind of brightness

In copper-hued sky,

The moon you might see

Now live and now die.

Gray float the oak trees--

Cloudlike they seem--

Of neighboring forests,

The mists in between.

Wolves hungry and lean,

And famishing crow,

What happens to you

When acid winds blow?

In the unending

Dullness of this land,

Uncertain the snow

Is gleaming like sand.

SONG BY MAETERLINCK

When he went away,

(Then I heard the door)

When he went away,

On her lips a smile there lay....

Back he came to her,

(Then I heard the lamp)

Back he came to her,

Someone else was there....

It was death I met,

(And I heard her soul)

It was death I met,

For her he's waiting yet....

Someone came to say,

(Child, I am afraid)

Someone came to say

That he would go away....

With my lamp alight,

(Child, I am afraid)

With my lamp alight,

Approached I in affright....

To one door I came,

(Child, I am afraid)

To one door I came,

A shudder shook the flame....

At the second door,

(Child, I am afraid)

At the second door

Forth words of flame did pour....

To the third I came,

(Child, I am afraid)

To the third I came,

Then died the little flame....

Should he one day return

Then what shall we say?

Waiting, tell him, one

And dying for him lay....

If he asks for you,

Say what answer then?

Give him my gold ring

And answer not a thing....

Should he question me

Concerning the last hour?

Say I smiled for fear

That he should shed a tear....

Should he question more

Without knowing me?

Like a sister speak;

Suffering he may be....

Should he question why

Empty is the hall?

Show the gaping door,

The lamp alight no more....

* * * * *

Transcriber's note:

Text enclosed by underscores is in italics (_italics_).

Small capital text has been replaced with all capitals.

Variations in spelling, punctuation and hyphenation have been

retained except in obvious cases of typographical error.

Missing page numbers are page numbers that were not shown in the

original text.

Page 5: The transcriber has completed the word "meeting". "In 1838,

on the occasion of a meet- of the Society for the Promotion of

Peace" ...

Page 372: Footnote 86, Knight, pp. 139-141. The number the

transcriber has rendered as 139 is unclear.