sense of her power than would any amount of emotional pyrotechnics. In
the later scene with her father she is equally as simple:
"The sum and substance of it is this: I have been married twice.... I
mean that twice during my life--with years between--I have given myself,
body and soul, to the man I loved, firmly determined to remain faithful
to him unto death." Then follows the recital of the two love
affairs--the first with a brilliant but very poor journalist who died
prematurely, and the other with a sculptor, Strandgaard, whom she left
on the discovery of his faithlessness.
Her vision is of a time of greater freedom for self-expression:
"... the day will come when we, too, will demand it as our
right--demand the chance to live our own lives as we choose and
as we can, without being held the worse on that account. Of
course, I know that this is not an ideal, but merely a makeshift
meant to serve until at last a time comes which recognizes the
right of every human being to continue its life through the
race."
Her justification is the characteristic one:
"I have, after all, lived for a time during those few years of
youth that are granted us human beings only once in our lifetime,
and that will never, never come back again. What have these other
ones got out of their enforced duty and virtue except
bitterness--bitterness and emptiness? I have, after all, felt the
fullness of life within me while there was still time, and I
don't regret it!"
The clash with her father whom she loves tenderly she accepts as
inevitable in spite of the pain it must bring them both. The ecstasy of
a great vision softens to the note of personal loss as she leaves him:
"Yes--I do pity you, father! Don't think my heart is made of
stone. The sorrow I have done you cannot be greater than the one
I feel within myself at this moment, when perhaps I see you for
the last time! But how can I help that I am the child of a time
that you don't understand? We have never wanted to hurt each
other, of course--but I suppose it is the law of life, that
nothing new can come into the world without pain--"
Because Karen advocates a course generally denoted by the term (of
wretched connotation) free love, she is not to be confused with those of
lesser fineness who are fighting at her side. For instance, with Stanley
Houghton's heroine in Hindle Wakes. Anyone who sees in Karen another
Fanny Hawthorne, has failed to understand Karen's position. She is a
woman of culture and of ideals in all matters of life, and especially in
that of the sex relationship. "I have given myself, ..." she says, "to
the man I loved, firmly determined to remain faithful to him unto
death." This is a far cry from Fanny's reply to Alan: "Love you? Good
heavens, of course not! Why on earth should I love you? You were just
someone to have a bit of fun with. You were an amusement--a lark." To
Karen the relationship is justified only by depth of passion, and she
entered it with as great a solemnity and glow of consecration as did
ever a serious woman a church-made marriage. To the many camp-followers
of "established" feminism, those who don or doff their principles with
the transient fashion,--to them Karen must seem a humorous, if not a
pitiable figure. For she dares to have beliefs and gallantly cleaves to
them.
Karen, then, is a new woman in the sense that in the moment of crisis
she did not accept as inevitable the reply of convention, but weighed
her need against the law, and, finding the latter wanting, fulfilled her
need at the sacrifice of the law. On the other hand, she is not of those
who break laws for the intrinsic pleasure of destruction.
"Of course," she admits, "it would have been ever so much more easy for
me if, while I was still young, some presentable man, with all his
papers in perfect order and a financially secure future, had come and
asked for me--"
And she welcomes marriage with the good Doctor Schou in an attitude
unpleasantly reactionary:
"... I believe every woman who has reached a certain age--and you
know I am twenty-eight--will, without hesitation, prefer a
limited but secure existence by the side of an honest man to the
most unlimited personal freedom."
And worst of all, she, who throughout the play declares herself
unconvinced of guilt or stain, at the close of the first act becomes
quite mawkishly sentimental over Heine's pretty line, "May God forever
keep you so fair, and sweet, and pure."
Because Karen exhibits these painful inconsistencies, she is no less
possible or real or worthwhile. We who know many women emerging in
diverse odd shapes from the travail of awakening have discovered just as
inconsistent a combination of precipitation and reaction; and thus will
it ever be until we have at length worked out our way to the most
serviceable harmony. It is for this very reason that Karen is
interesting: she is no superwoman, but our own imperfect sister.
Of the other characters there is but one deserving special
comment--Karen's mother, who to me is the most remarkable person
Bergström has here created. She confesses to her husband that she has
known for three years that Karen had been living in Paris with
Strandgaard, but had kept the knowledge to herself because it had been
too late to interfere, and because she did not regard the calamity as
others would have in her place. From a terrible and bitter experience
with another daughter, Gertrude, who had gone insane through the abrupt
breaking off of a long engagement which had aroused primitive passion
and left it unfulfilled, Mrs. Borneman had reached a revolutionary
conclusion:
"... from that day I have--after a careful consideration--done
what I could to let our children live the life of youth, sexually
and otherwise, in as much freedom as possible. The result of your
educational method, my dear Kristen, is our poor Gertrude, who is
now confined in an insane asylum, as incurable. The result of my
method is Karen, I suppose. I don't know if it is very sinful to
say so, but I feel much less burdened by guilt than I should if
conditions were reversed."
When Karen, however, defends her course as an abstract ideal of "every
human being to continue its life through the race," and appeals to her
mother to understand, Mrs. Borneman retreats with, "I wash my hands of
it, Karen. I don't dare to think that far...."
It was her motherhood that had forced upon her the courage to overlook
the law, and not any desire to throw over the old to set up a new law.
The glory of the new vision means nothing to her in comparison with her
husband's suffering to which she herself has added. She is the promise
of a new type--the awakened mother.
As for the play as a whole, it appears to me that Mr. Bergström has
tried to say too much in the slight space of one short play, for he has
two distinct themes--the right of woman to love and life, and the
relationship between marriage and children. The first is the chief
theme, which is worked out in the story of Karen; the second is too
important to be employed as a subsidiary thread, and instead of adding
richness to the first it rather clutters and confuses it with
unnecessary baggage. Mrs. Borneman pities one of her sons because he
cannot afford to have children on his slender salary, and feels that her
other son is not justified in blindly bringing child after child into
the world, depending upon the rest of the family for their maintenance.
She asks her husband:
"So it is not enough for two people to live together in mutual
love?"
"No, Cecilia, that has nothing to do with marriage. What is so
inconceivably glorious about marriage is that, through it, God
has delegated His own creative power to us simple human
beings--that He has made us share His own divine omnipotence."
The poor professor is made consistent to the point of absurdity, and the
main issue befogged, when he cries out to Karen:
"And yet I could have forgiven you everything--your wantonness
and your defiance--if you had taken the consequences and had a
child! If you had had ten illegitimate children--better that than
none at all! But you have arrogantly defied the very commandments
of nature, which are nothing but the commandments of God!"
Perhaps this matter was included for the sake of Karen's reply:
"Do you think I am a perfect monster of a woman, who has never
felt the longing for a baby? Not me does your anger hit, but that
society which will not regard it as an inevitable duty to
recognize the right of every human being to have children--as a
right, mark you, and not as a privilege reserved for the richest
and the poorest. There are thousands of us to whom the right is
denied--thousands of men as well as women. But we, too, are human
beings, with love longings and love instincts, and we will not
let us be cheated out of the best thing that life holds!"
Technically the play is not so perfect a thing as Mr. Björkman's
unbounded encomiums would make us believe. It opens, for instance, in
the good old fashion scorned by Ibsen--with the gossip of servants, who
are here engaged in laying the table instead of in the time-honored task
of dusting. The whole action is cast within some eight hours, thus
causing a use of coincidence to the straining point. The most
commendable feature of technique is the admirably sustained suspense:
the story of Gertrude overshadows the entire piece from the opening
scene to Mrs. Borneman's avowal in the last act. The powerful use of the
story as contrast to Karen's career is also unusual.
And yet in spite of its faults--perhaps because of them--we have found
Karen Borneman the most stimulating play of the year. We hope one of our
two organizations dedicated to the drama will put it on in the near
future.
When the ape lost his wits he became man.--Viacheslav Ivanov.
Galsworthy's Little Human Comedy
No magazine that comes to this office is looked for more excitedly than
Harper's Weekly. Poetry and Drama is a quarterly event that keeps us in
a dignified intensity of expectation; and there are others. But Harper's
is a weekly adventure in the interest of which we haunt the postman. At
present it is featuring a series of sketches by Galsworthy--satirical
characterizations of those human beings who pride themselves on being
"different." Here is a man who knows himself for a philosopher; here is
an "artist"; here is one of those rare individualities so enlightened,
so superior, so removed, that there is only one label for him: "The
Superlative."
But it is in The Philosopher that Galsworthy excels himself. It is
probably the most consummate satire that has appeared in the last
decade:
He had a philosophy as yet untouched. His stars were the old
stars, his faith the old faith; nor would he recognize that there
was any other, for not to recognize any point of view except his
own was no doubt the very essence of his faith. Wisdom! There was
surely none save the flinging of the door to, standing with your
back against that door, and telling people what was behind it.
For though he did not know what was behind, he thought it low to
say so. An "atheist," as he termed certain persons, was to him
beneath contempt; an "agnostic," as he termed certain others, a
poor and foolish creature. As for a rationalist, positivist,
pragmatist, or any other "ist"--well, that was just what they
were. He made no secret of the fact that he simply could not
understand people like that. It was true. "What can they do save
deny?" he would say. "What do they contribute to the morals and
the elevation of the world? What do they put in place of what
they take away? What have they got, to make up for what is behind
that door? Where are their symbols? How shall they move and leave
the people?" "No," he said; "a little child shall lead them, and
I am the little child. For I can spin them a tale, such as
children love, of what is behind the door." Such was the temper
of his mind that he never flinched from believing true what he
thought would benefit himself and others. Amongst other things he
held a crown of ultimate advantage to be necessary to pure and
stable living. If one could not say: "Listen, children, there it
is, behind the door. Look at it, shining, golden--yours! Not now,
but when you die, if you are good."... If one could not say that,
what could one say? What inducement hold out?...
This is merely the first paragraph. The rest is even better. Such an
analysis ought to extinguish the Puritan forever--except that he won't
understand it. He'll think it was aimed at his neighbor. He knows any
number of men like that....
Knowledge or Prejudice
A critic writes us that he finds no fault with freedom of speech, and
that Emma Goldman's disregard of ordinary moral laws and blasphemy of
religion do not destroy the fact that she exists. But such an article
about her as appeared in our last issue is well calculated to make us
appear absurd, he thinks; it sounds like the oration of some one who is
just beginning to discover the things that the world has known always;
and he closes with this deliciously naïve question: "Do you believe in
listening respectfully to advocates of free love, and, because of their
daring, applauding them?"
Yes, we believe in listening respectfully to any sincere programme; we
believe that is the only way people get to understand things. We even
believe in listening seriously to insincere programmes, because the
insincere person usually thinks he is sincere and helps one to
understand even more. By doing all these things one is likely to reach
that altitude where "to understand all is to forgive all."
As for "advocates of free love"--we recall the impatient comment of a
well-known woman novelist: "When will people stop using that silly,
superfluous phrase 'free love'? We don't talk about 'cold ice' or 'black
coal'!"
And, though our applause was not confined to Emma Goldman's daring, as
our critic would probably concede, is not daring a thing worthy of
applause? Just as conflict is better than mediation, or suffering than
security, daring is so much more legitimate an attitude than
complacency.
But it is that remark about "things the world has known always" which
exasperates us the most. The world has not known them always; it doesn't
know them now. It has heard of them vaguely--just to the point of
becoming prejudiced about them. And prejudice is the first element that
sneaks away when knowledge begins to develop. If the world represented
by our critic knew these things it might be roused to daring, too.
Rupert Brooke's Visit
Rupert Brooke was in Chicago for a few days last month. One of the most
interesting things to us about his visit was that he so quickly
justified all the theories we have had about him since we first read his
poetry. First, that only the most pristine freshness could have produced
those poems that some people have been calling decadent; second, that
while he probably is "the most beautiful young man in England" it was
rather silly of Mr. Yeats to add that he is also "the wearer of the most
gorgeous shirts." Because Rupert Brooke doesn't wear gorgeous shirts; he
appears to have very little interest in shirts, as we expected. He is
too concerned with the big business of life and poetry. He is, as a very
astute young member of our staff suggested, somehow like the sea.
"Books and the Quiet Life"
George Gissing has always had a peculiarly poignant place in our galaxy
of literary favorites, and nowhere have we loved him more than in that
little "autobiography" which he called The Private Papers of Henry
Ryecroft. The portions of that book which have to do specifically with
books and reading have been brought together by Mr. Waldo R. Browne and
published with Mr. Mosher's usual incomparable taste.
A good many people have loved books as well as George Gissing did,
perhaps, but very few of them have been able to express that love like
this:
The exquisite quiet of this room! I have been sitting in utter
idleness, watching the sky, viewing the shape of golden sunlight
upon the carpet, which changes as the minutes pass, letting my
eye wander from one framed print to another, and along the ranks
of my beloved books....
I have my home at last. When I place a new volume on my shelves,
I say: Stand there whilst I have eyes to see you; and a joyous
tremor thrills me....
For one thing, I know every book of mine by its scent, and I have
but to put my nose between the pages to be reminded of all sorts
of things....
I regard the book with that peculiar affection which results from
sacrifice ... in no drawing-room sense of the word. Dozens of my
books were purchased with money which ought to have been spent
upon what are called the necessities of life. Many a time I have
stood before a stall, or a bookseller's window, torn by conflict
of intellectual desire and bodily need. At the very hour of
dinner, when my stomach clamored for food, I have been stopped by
sight of a volume so long coveted, and marked at so advantageous
a price, that I could not let it go; yet to buy it meant pangs of
famine. My Heyne's Tibullus was grasped at such a moment. It lay
on the stall of the old book-shop in Goodge Street--a stall where
now and then one found an excellent thing among quantities of
rubbish. Sixpence was the price--sixpence! At that time I used to
eat my mid-day meal (of course, my dinner) at a coffee-shop in
Oxford Street, one of the real old coffee-shops, such as now, I
suppose, can hardly be found. Sixpence was all I had--yes, all I
had in the world; it would purchase a plate of meat and
vegetables. But I did not dare to hope that the Tibullus would
wait until the morrow, when a certain small sum fell due me. I
paced the pavement, fingering the coppers in my pocket, eyeing
the stall, two appetites at combat within me. The book was bought
and I went home with it, and as I made a dinner of bread and
butter I gloated over the pages.
New York Letter
GEORGE SOULE
Hilaire Belloc is coming to America next fall for a lecturing tour. It
is well to take stock of him, so that we shall know what to expect. He
is clever, and a Catholic--that tells the whole story. We don't know
exactly how he will say it, but we know what he will say. Through
various smiling subtleties and paradoxes he will attack democracy,
feminism, socialism, individualistic rebellion of any kind. It is quite
possible that he will aim a few careless shots at Montessori, the
discussion of sex questions in public, Galsworthy, and Bernard Shaw. He
is a masculine, English, Agnes Repplier. He will entertain his
cultivated audiences, and give them the impression that he is very
modern and daring.
It is curious how the thinking mind immediately discounts the testimony
of one who is known to have given his allegiance to an embracing
authority of any kind. Whether the authority in question is the Vatican,
Karl Marx, Business, Nietzsche, or Theodore Roosevelt, we know the man's
whole mind is likely to be colored with it, and that the evidence is
probably of less importance to him than his case. Yet there is always a
moral suspicion against the man who refuses to enroll himself under any
banner. He seems dead, inhuman, academic. March to the drums, salute the
colors, or admit there is no blood in you! It is good that most of
mankind does so. The strongest army (not necessarily the largest) will
win, and the battle must come for the sake of the victory.
Therefore, let the radicals welcome Mr. Belloc as a good enemy. He
stands for a sincere, highly organized, and powerful propaganda which
cannot be ignored on the modern battlefield. On account of their worship
of authority the Catholics have a solidarity which no other movement can
boast. For the same reason they are doomed to an eternal enmity with
adventurous souls, those who fight for change of any kind. They seem
often to be in accord with advancing thinkers because they condemn
present conditions. But closer investigation will always show that
instead of pointing to the future they cling to the past. Mgr. Benson,
during his recent visit to New York, stated in private conversation that
present social conditions are intolerable. He went on to say that an
ideal society can be attained only under feudalism, with the church in
control.
There will be no more danger from the Catholics than from any other army
as long as we know what they are fighting for, and are able to recognize
their irregular troops.
But let there be no complacency among the enemies of the church on the
ground that it may not be really in the field, or has not artillery when
it gets there. Without investigation of any kind, I have heard of two
books attacking the church which were suppressed by their publishers at
the demand of Catholic authorities. In each case the weapon was a threat
to withdraw an extensive text book business from the house in question.
Naturally, the parties to the matter have not been anxious to give it
publicity. A magazine which published an article displeasing to
Catholics received a letter threatening it with black-listing. There
appears to be a well organized and efficient church publicity bureau to
attend to these and other matters. A proposal was recently made by a
Catholic journal that priests in confessional impose as penance the
subscription to Catholic papers and the purchase of Catholic books, at
the same time warning the people against secular publications. This was
discussed with some approval by America, the New York Jesuit weekly,
which regretfully admitted, however, that in the end Catholic
publications must depend "mainly on their merit." We are likely to
ignore such mediæval methods until we find them obstructing some actual
movement of importance. They do obstruct such movements, however,
sometimes very annoyingly.
All these methods are but the natural and blameless working of the
doctrine of intolerance. And perhaps their greatest danger is that their
temporary success will induce the opposing armies to use the same weapon
and so shackle themselves. The intolerance of the Puritan was a natural
result of his bitter struggle, yet it produced a century of aesthetic
darkness. The advanced opponents of the Puritan era are now uttering
pronunciamentos and personalities that are Archiepiscopal in their
intolerance.
But, you say, intolerance is necessary in the soldier. He must hate his
enemy and seek not only to dislodge but to silence his opponent. Well, I
will admit that when the soldier is in battle he must shoot to kill. But
there is a new kind of soldier developing who is more valuable to man
than the old. He joins the army not so much because of the magic of the
colors as because of the necessity of the cause and its temporary
usefulness in serving the truth behind it. Just as he will not march to
war without reason, so he will stop fighting his immediate enemy when
his cause is won, and will not go on to bickering and pillage. He is
ready to enlist under a new banner at any moment when a new banner
represents a more glorious cause than the old. His General is not a god,
but a leader. His freedom of choice is always the biggest asset of his
strength. Therefore he cannot be intolerant. He is strong, hard,
efficient, relentless, but never pompous or slavish. How much time the
world has lost eliminating armies of strong men whose fatal fault was
excessive, unreasoning loyalty!
That, after all, solves the riddle of my second paragraph. And if the
soldier must subordinate his cause to his truth, how much more so the
General and the King! The General has very little time to hate his
enemy. He must know their strength, study their methods, adopt the best
of their ideas, spy out the country, plan a campaign. He orders
slaughter not for revenge or hatred, but for success. Therefore it is of
supreme importance that his success be worth while.