In the Grand Canyon of Arizona, that most exhilarating of all natural
phenomena, Nature has for once so focussed her effects, that the result
is a framed and final work of Art. For there, between two high lines of
plateau, level as the sea, are sunk the wrought thrones of the
innumerable gods, couchant, and for ever revering, in their million moods
of light and colour, the Master Mystery.
Having seen this culmination, I realize why many people either recoil
before it, and take the first train home, or speak of it as a "remarkable
formation." For, though mankind at large craves finality, it does not
crave the sort that bends the knee to Mystery. In Nature, in Religion, in
Art, in Life, the common cry is: "Tell me precisely where I am, what
doing, and where going! Let me be free of this fearful untidiness of not
knowing all about it!" The favoured religions are always those whose
message is most finite. The fashionable professions--they that end us in
assured positions. The most popular works of fiction, such as leave
nothing to our imagination. And to this craving after prose, who would
not be lenient, that has at all known life, with its usual predominance
of our lower and less courageous selves, our constant hankering after the
cosey closed door and line of least resistance? We are continually
begging to be allowed to know for certain; though, if our prayer were
granted, and Mystery no longer hovered, made blue the hills, and turned
day into night, we should, as surely, wail at once to be delivered of
that ghastliness of knowing things for certain!
Now, in Art, I would never quarrel with a certain living writer who
demands of it the kind of finality implied in what he calls a "moral
discovery"--using, no doubt, the words in their widest sense. I would
maintain, however, that such finality is not confined to positively
discovering the true conclusion of premises laid down; but that it may
also distil gradually, negatively from the whole work, in a moral
discovery, as it were, of Author. In other words, that, permeation by an
essential point of view, by emanation of author, may so unify and
vitalize a work, as to give it all the finality that need be required of
Art. For the finality that is requisite to Art, be it positive or
negative, is not the finality of dogma, nor the finality of fact, it is
ever the finality of feeling--of a spiritual light, subtly gleaned by the
spectator out of that queer luminous haze which one man's nature must
ever be to others. And herein, incidentally, it is that Art acquires
also that quality of mystery, more needful to it even than finality, for
the mystery that wraps a work of Art is the mystery of its maker, and the
mystery of its maker is the difference between that maker's soul and
every other soul.
But let me take an illustration of what I mean by these two kinds of
finality that Art may have, and show that in essence they are but two
halves of the same thing. The term "a work of Art" will not be denied, I
think, to that early novel of M. Anatole France, "Le Lys Rouge." Now,
that novel has positive finality, since the spiritual conclusion from its
premises strikes one as true. But neither will the term "a work of Art"
be denied to the same writer's four "Bergeret" volumes, whose negative
finality consists only in the temperamental atmosphere wherein they are
soaked. Now, if the theme of "Le Lys Rouge" had been treated by Tolstoy,
Meredith, or Turgenev, we should have had spiritual conclusions from the
same factual premises so different from M. France's as prunes from
prisms, and yet, being the work of equally great artists, they would,
doubtless, have struck us as equally true. Is not, then, the positive
finality of "Le Lys Rouge," though expressed in terms of a different
craftsmanship, the same, in essence, as the negative finality of the
"Bergeret" volumes? Are not both, in fact, merely flower of author true
to himself? So long as the scent, colour, form of that flower is strong
and fine enough to affect the senses of our spirit, then all the rest,
surely, is academic--I would say, immaterial.
But here, in regard to Art, is where mankind at large comes on the field.
"'Flower of author,'" it says, "'Senses of the spirit!' Phew! Give me
something I can understand! Let me know where I am getting to!" In a
word, it wants a finality different from that which Art can give. It
will ask the artist, with irritation, what his solution, or his lesson,
or his meaning, really is, having omitted to notice that the poor
creature has been giving all the meaning that he can, in every sentence.
It will demand to know why it was not told definitely what became of
Charles or Mary in whom it had grown so interested; and will be almost
frightened to learn that the artist knows no more than itself. And if by
any chance it be required to dip its mind into a philosophy that does not
promise it a defined position both in this world and the next, it will
assuredly recoil, and with a certain contempt say: "No, sir! This means
nothing to me; and if it means anything to you--which I very much
doubt--I am sorry for you!"
It must have facts, and again facts, not only in the present and the
past, but in the future. And it demands facts of that, which alone
cannot glibly give it facts. It goes on asking facts of Art, or, rather,
such facts as Art cannot give--for, after all, even "flower of author" is
fact in a sort of way.
Consider, for instance, Synge's masterpiece, "The Playboy of the Western
World!" There is flower of author! What is it for mankind at large? An
attack on the Irish character! A pretty piece of writing! An amusing
farce! Enigmatic cynicism leading nowhere! A puzzling fellow wrote it!
Mankind at large has little patience with puzzling fellows.
Few, in fact, want flower of author. Moreover, it is a quality that may
well be looked for where it does not exist. To say that the finality
which Art requires is merely an enwrapping mood, or flower of author, is
not by any means to say that any robust fellow, slamming his notions down
in ink, can give us these. Indeed, no! So long as we see the author's
proper person in his work, we do not see the flower of him. Let him
retreat himself, if he pretend to be an artist. There is no less of
subtle skill, no less impersonality, in the "Bergeret" volumes than in
"Le Lys Rouge." No less labour and mental torturing went to their
making, page by page, in order that they might exhale their perfume of
mysterious finality, their withdrawn but implicit judgment. Flower of
author is not quite so common as the buttercup, the Californian poppy, or
the gay Texan gaillardia, and for that very reason the finality it gives
off will never be robust enough for a mankind at large that would have
things cut and dried, and labelled in thick letters. For, consider--to
take one phase alone of this demand for factual finality--how continual
and insistent is the cry for characters that can be worshipped; how
intense and persistent the desire to be told that Charles was a real
hero; and how bitter the regret that Mary was no better than she should
be! Mankind at large wants heroes that are heroes, and heroines that are
heroines--and nothing so inappropriate to them as unhappy endings.
Travelling away, I remember, from that Grand Canyon of Arizona were a
young man and a young woman, evidently in love. He was sitting very
close to her, and reading aloud for her pleasure, from a paper-covered
novel, heroically oblivious of us all:
"'Sir Robert,' she murmured, lifting her beauteous eyes, 'I may not tempt
you, for you are too dear to me!' Sir Robert held her lovely face between
his two strong hands. 'Farewell!' he said, and went out into the night.
But something told them both that, when he had fulfilled his duty, Sir
Robert would return . . . ." He had not returned before we reached
the Junction, but there was finality about that baronet, and we well knew
that he ultimately would. And, long after the sound of that young man's
faithful reading had died out of our ears, we meditated on Sir Robert,
and compared him with the famous characters of fiction, slowly perceiving
that they were none of them so final in their heroism as he. No, none of
them reached that apex. For Hamlet was a most unfinished fellow, and
Lear extremely violent. Pickwick addicted to punch, and Sam Weller to
lying; Bazarof actually a Nihilist, and Irina----! Levin and Anna,
Pierre and Natasha, all of them stormy and unsatisfactory at times. "Un
Coeur Simple" nothing but a servant, and an old maid at that; "Saint
Julien l'Hospitalier" a sheer fanatic. Colonel Newcome too irritable and
too simple altogether. Don Quixote certified insane. Hilda Wangel, Nora,
Hedda--Sir Robert would never even have spoken to such baggages! Mon
sieur Bergeret--an amiable weak thing! D'Artagnan--a true swashbuckler!
Tom Jones, Faust, Don Juan--we might not even think of them: And those
poor Greeks: Prometheus--shocking rebel. OEdipus for a long time
banished by the Censor. Phaedra and Elektra, not even so virtuous as
Mary, who failed of being what she should be! And coming to more
familiar persons Joseph and Moses, David and Elijah, all of them lacked
his finality of true heroism--none could quite pass muster beside Sir
Robert . . . . Long we meditated, and, reflecting that an author must
ever be superior to the creatures of his brain, were refreshed to think
that there were so many living authors capable of giving birth to Sir
Robert; for indeed, Sir Robert and finality like his--no doubtful heroes,
no flower of author, and no mystery is what mankind at large has always
wanted from Letters, and will always want.
As truly as that oil and water do not mix, there are two kinds of men.
The main cleavage in the whole tale of life is this subtle, all pervading
division of mankind into the man of facts and the man of feeling. And
not by what they are or do can they be told one from the other, but just
by their attitude toward finality. Fortunately most of us are neither
quite the one nor quite the other. But between the pure-blooded of each
kind there is real antipathy, far deeper than the antipathies of race,
politics, or religion--an antipathy that not circumstance, love,
goodwill, or necessity will ever quite get rid of. Sooner shall the
panther agree with the bull than that other one with the man of facts.
There is no bridging the gorge that divides these worlds.
Nor is it so easy to tell, of each, to which world he belongs, as it was
to place the lady, who held out her finger over that gorge called Grand
Canyon, and said:
"It doesn't look thirteen miles; but they measured it just there! Excuse
my pointing!"
1912.