Then I told her the story of how Peter did not get married.
I knew he was amusing. Let's get in touch with his vibrations and find
him.
Edith, indeed, had invented her own kind of wireless long before
Marconi came along with his. Distances, as a matter of fact,
circumscribed her even less than time.
Just then, she saw Constant Lounsberry, or some one else, at a table in
the corner of the garden where we were dining and she strolled over to
talk with her. Sipping my coffee and smoking my cigarette, I recognized
a familiar voice and turned to see Peter, with his mother, about to
claim an adjacent table from which the occupants were rising. He looked
two years younger than he had four months before and his rather pretty
mother helped to confirm the illusion. Of course, I joined them at once
and soon we were discussing the Italian futurists, the comparative
merits of spaghetti and risotto, Lydia Borelli, the moving pictures,
and the Marchesa Casati, who had given a magnificent festa the evening
previous, when, clad in a leopard's pelt, she had stood on the steps
of her palace, and greeted her guests as they approached by gondola on
the Canale Grande. Peter, I noted, was wearing his amethyst intaglio of
Leda and the Swan on the little finger of his left hand. After a time,
during which, for a brief few moments, the conversation drifted towards
Toledo and the small affairs of Mrs. Whiffle, he told me his story.
I came near dying in Africa, Carl, surrounded by niggers and
fleas! It was horrible. Hot as a New York roof-garden and nearly as
uncomfortable. There I lay, rotting with a nameless fever, no one
with me but an incompetent Dutch doctor, who was more ignorant of the
nature of my complaint than I was myself, and a half-naked aboriginal,
who wanted to call in the witch-doctor and who, when burked in this
direction, attempted a few amateur charms, which at least had the merit
of awakening my interest. There I lay in a rude thatched hut with a
roof of caked cow-dung; I couldn't eat, drink, or speak. I thought it
was the end. Funny, but the only sound that reached my ears, after a
few days, was the chattering of monkeys, and later they told me there
were no monkeys about at all.
Over my head on the wall, hung a dirty thonged whip. Whether its
purpose was to beat women or oxen, I don't know, but, you will
remember, perhaps, that sometimes, when I awaken from sleep in the
middle of the night, I have a strange habit of holding one arm
straight up in the air, at right angles with my body. Well, while I
was ill, there it was, most of the time, straight up! One night, when
my strength was fast ebbing away, I reached higher and grasped the
whip. Then I grew drowsy; everything seemed to turn blood-red, even
the palm-leaves that waved across the opening made by the doorway of
the hut, and it was very hot, unspeakably roasting. Now, through this
same doorway, walked a woman in a rusty black robe and, although I
knew it must be Death, the figure confused itself in my mind with
Kathleen-ni-Houlihan and (will you believe it?) Sara Allgood! Fancy
the appearance of Death in the middle of Africa suggesting to me the
character of an Irish play and the actress I had seen in it! There
followed a slight pause, during which Death stood perfectly still. Then
two more figures entered the tiny hut. One was the Devil, Ahriman,
Abaddon, what you will; I recognized him at once, he was so likable
and, besides, he was lame. The other, I gathered after a little
conversation, was an emissary from heaven. Eblis seated himself on one
side of my cot, resting his crutches against the wall, and Gabriel's
ambassador stood on the other side. Now these two droll fellows began
to describe the climates and amusements of heaven and hell to me, each
speaking in his turn, and continually interrupting themselves to beg me
to decide speedily where I wanted to go. They stated frankly that they
had not any too much time, as they had several other visits to make
before dinner in various parts of the world. The Angel polished his
feathers with a small hat-brush and the Devil seemed to be taking good
care of his nails, in default of the opportunity to visit a manicure.
Death stood immovable, inexorable. Imagine, even in her presence, I had
to make up my mind where I wanted to go. It was a terrible experience,
I can tell you! It was as if she were saying, Hurry now, hurry now!
Nine minutes more. Only, of course, she did not utter a single word.
The Angel and the Devil were too silly. Had they been silent, it would
have been so much easier for me to decide. My mind would just be
wavering in a certain direction, when one of the supernatural visitors
would put me completely out with a warning about his rival's domain
and a word of enthusiasm for his own. Never have I suffered such
agony. I could not decide whether to go to Paradise or Pandemonium. My
perplexity grew as they argued. Meantime, it was obvious that I was
keeping Death from other bedsides. I could see that she was becoming
nervous and irritable, shifting first on one foot, then on the other.
It was evidently very irksome to her that she had taken a vow of
silence. In life, it is so easy; there is always something else to do.
But, in death, Carl, there is a single alternative; at least, it seemed
so to me for an unconscionable space of time. Suddenly, however, two
ideas occurred to me: I remembered that I had read somewhere that demon
and deity were originally derived from the same root: in that case,
one place would be as bad or as good as the other; and I remembered my
solution of the Bermuda problem: I could stay where I was. _I was not
compelled to go anywhere._ Stretching up my hands, I pulled hard on the
whip, which must have broken loose from the nail, because when I came
out of my coma, the thongs were gripped tightly in my hand, lying on
the blanket.
Peter concluded his story and, suddenly, with that delightful
inconsequence, which contributed so definite a charm to his manner, he
pointed to a woman in the crowd.
She resembles an ostrich and she is dressed like a peacock, he said.
Peter, I wish you wouldn't jest about death and holy things,
interjected Mrs. Whiffle, on whose literal mind the tale had evidently
clawed as an eagle claws the brain of a cat.
But, mother, Peter tried to mollify her, I am not jesting. I am telling
you something that happened.
Something that you _thought_ had happened, Mrs. Whiffle corrected, but
we should only think good thoughts. We should keep the dark ones out
of our minds, especially when they interfere and conflict with the
powerful words of Almighty God, our Creator.
I'm sorry, mother, I won't tell it again, he said, simply. Then,
after a nibble or two at a lobster, he turned to me, Mother is going
to America tomorrow. I shall be alone. Have you been to the Austrian
Tyrol? There's Russia, of course, and Spain, and those islands where
Synge used to go. Where are they? And Bucharest. Carlo, will you go
with me tomorrow to Buenos Ayres or Helsingfors?
You are not to be told where you are going, I replied, but you are
going with me.
Experience has taught me that people with principles are invariably
unreasonable. Peter had no principles and therefore he was reasonable.
So the next day, he really did drive back with us to Florence, through
the pleasant olive groves and vineyards. A jeroboam of chianti
enlivened the journey, and Edith adored the story of Peter's encounter
with Death, the Devil, and the Angel.
The Villa Allegra is set on the hills of Arcetri, high above the long
cypress-bordered avenue called the Stradone del Poggio Imperiale. The
villa is so artfully concealed amongst the cunningly-grouped, gnarled
olive trees, eucalypti, myrtles, plane-trees, laurels, pepper-trees,
and rows of cypresses, that, until you are in the very courtyard, you
are unaware of its propinquity, although, by some curious paradox,
the view from the loggia commands the surrounding country. The lovely
curve of the façade has been attributed to the hand of Raphael, and
Brunelleschi is said to have designed the cortile, for the physician
of the Medici once inhabited this country house, but the completely
successful loggia and the great salone were added by Chester Dale.
Peter had never been in Florence before; no more had I; so the romantic
charm of this lovely old house in the mountains served to occupy
us for several days. We inspected the sunken Roman bath and were
thrilled by the rope-ladder, which, when lowered through a trap-door,
connected a chamber on the second storey with a room on the first. We
were satisfied to sit in the evening under the red brocaded walls,
illuminated by wax tapers set in girandoles of green and rose faience,
to stroll in the gardens, to gaze off towards the distant hills from
the loggia. Edith entertained us with long accounts of the visits of
the spectre, the dame blanche who haunted the house. It was, if the
servants who swore they had seen her were to be believed, the spirit
of an elderly maiden lady who had died there. In life, it seems, she
had been of a jealous disposition and had tried to make the villa
uncomfortable for other guests. She was not successful in this effort
until she died, and not altogether successful even then, for there were
those who refused to be terrified by the persistent presence of this
spinster eidolon, which manifested itself in various ways. Others,
however, resembled Madame de Staël, who did not believe in ghosts but
was afraid of them.
In the mornings, Peter and I breakfasted together in the garden,
whither was borne us by the cynical butler a tray with individual
coffee percolators, a plate of fresh rolls, and a bowl of honey. The
peacocks strutted the terrace and the breeze blew the branches of the
fragrant gardenias across our noses. In the distance, the bells of
Florence softly tolled. In the afternoon, the distant hills became
purple and, in the evening, the atmosphere was tinged with green.
The peasants sang in the road below and the nightingales sang in the
olive copse. Roman lamps flickered on the tables and Strega, the
golden witch-liquid, stood in our tiny crumpled Venetian tumblers,
their distorted little bellies flecked with specks of gold. There were
occasional callers but no other resident guests than ourselves at the
villa and Edith, as was her custom, left us a good deal alone. On the
day of our arrival, indeed, she disappeared after luncheon and only
returned two days later, when she explained that she had gone to visit
a friend at Pisa. We usually met her at dinner when she came out to
the garden-table, floating in white crêpe de chine, with a turban of
turquoise blue or some vivid brilliant green, but during the day she
was seldom visible. She ate her breakfast alone on the balcony above
our bedroom, then read for an hour or two. What she did after, one
never knew, save as she told of it.
Meanwhile, Peter and I wandered about, inspecting the shops on the
Ponte Vecchio, tramping through the old palaces and galleries. Several
times Peter paused; he hesitated for the longest time, I think, before
the David of Donatello, that exquisite soft bronze of the Biblical lad,
nude but for his wreathed helmet, standing in his adolescent slender
beauty with one foot on the head of the decapitated giant. He carries a
sword and over his face flutters a quizzical expression. Indeed, what
Walter Pater said of the face of Monna Lisa might equally well apply
to the face of David. So remarked Peter, explaining that the quality
of both the David and Leonardo's darling was the same, both possessed
a compelling charm, and it was the charm of David which had slain the
ugly giant, just as charm always kills ugliness. And he swore that this
was the most beautiful object that the hand of man had yet created, an
art expression which reached its emotional and intellectual zenith, and
then he spoke of the advantage that sculpture enjoyed over painting.
One tires of a painting. It is always the same. There is never anything
new in it. But with a statue, every different light gives it a novel
value, _and it can be turned around_. When you tire of one aspect,
you try another. That is why statues belong in houses and pictures
belong in museums. You can visit the museum when you wish to look
at a picture, but it is impossible to live with a picture, because
it is always the same. You can kill any picture, even a picture by
Velázquez, by hanging it on your own wall, for in a few days it becomes
a commonplace to you, a habit, and at last one day you do not look at
it any more, you scarcely are aware that it is there at all, and you
are surprised when your friends speak of it, speak of it admiringly.
Yes, you say, unconvinced, it is beautiful. But you do not believe it.
On the other hand, a statue is new every day. Every passing cloud in
the sky, every shifting of the location of a lamp, gives a new value to
a statue, and when you tire of seeing it in the house, you can transfer
it to the garden where it begins another avatar.
Leaving David behind us, we walked down the long, marble, fourteenth
century stairway of the Palazzo del Podestà, into the magnificent court
embellished with the armorial bearings of the old chief magistrates,
out to the Via del Procónsolo, on through the winding streets to
the Palazzo Riccardi, where Peter again paused before the frescoes
of Benozzo Gozzoli. The Gifts of the Magi is the general title but
Gozzoli, according to a pleasant custom of his epoch, has painted the
Medici on a hunting expedition, the great Lorenzo on a white charger,
with a spotted leopard at its heels, falcons on the wrists of his
brilliant attendants, a long train of lovely boys, in purple and
mulberry and blue and green and gold, the colours as fresh, perhaps,
as the day they were painted. The most beautiful room in the world,
Peter exclaimed, this little oratory about the size of a cubicle at
Oxford, painted by candle-light, for until recently, there was no
window in the room, and I believed him. I am not sure but, belike, I
believe him still. Then Peter loved the walk in that gallery which
connects the Pitti Palace with the Uffizi, a long narrow gallery which
runs over the shops of the Ponte Vecchio (was ever another bridge so
richly endowed with artistic and commercial interest?), where hang the
old portraits of the families who have reigned in Florence, and some
others. Quaint old canvases, they are, by artists long forgotten and of
people no longer remembered, but more interesting to Peter and me than
the famous Botticellis and Bellinis and Giorgiones which crowded the
walls of the galleries. As we stood before them, Peter imagined tales
of adventure and romance to suit the subjects, pinning his narratives
to the expression of a face, the style of a sleeve, the embroidery of
a doublet, or to some accompanying puppet or pet, some ill-featured
hunch-back dwarf.
Thus the days passed and Peter became dreamy and wistful and the
charm of his spirit, I believe, was never before so poignant, for
his chameleon soul had taken on the hue of the renaissance and its
accompanying spirituality, the spirituality of the artist, the happy
working artist contriving works of genius. He could have perfectly
donned the costume of the cinquecento, for the revolutionary Peter of
New York, the gay, faun-like Peter of Paris, had disappeared, and a
Peter of reveries and dreams had usurped their place.
Never have I been so happy, he said to me on one of these days, as I am
now. This is true beauty, the beauty of spirit, art which has nothing
to do with life, which, indeed, makes you forget the existence of life.
Of course, however, this is of no help to the contemporary artist.
Confronted, on every hand, with perfection, he must lay down his chisel
or his brush or his pen. Great art can never flourish here again. That
is why Browning's poetry about Florence is so bad; why Ouida, perhaps
a lesser artist, succeeded where Browning failed. This is the ideal
spot in which to idle, to dream, even to think, but no work is possible
here and that, perhaps, is why I love Florence so much. I feel that I
could remain here always and, if I did I should do nothing, nothing,
that is, but drink my coffee and eat my rolls and honey in the morning,
gaze across to the hills and dream, stroll over the wondrous Ponte
Santa Trinità, which connects us so gracefully with the Via Tornabuoni,
wonder how Ghirlandaio achieved the naïve charm of the frescoes in the
choir of Santa Maria Novella, nothing else but these things. And, of
course, I should always avoid the Piazza Vittorio Emanuele.
But he had scarcely uttered the name before he determined that he must
drink some beer and so we strolled across the Piazza, on which he had
just placed a malison, into the Giubbe Rosse, full of Americans writing
letters, and Swedes and Germans, reading their native papers. We sat
down at a table just outside the door and asked one of the red-coats,
whose scarlet jackets give this place its cant name, to bring us
two steins of Münchener. Then came an anachronism, one of those
anachronisms so unusual in Florence which, more than any other city, is
all of a piece. A stage-coach, such a coach as one sees in old England,
drawn by four horses, drove gaily through the square. The interior
seemed empty but on the top sat several English girls in sprigged
muslins, a few pale youths, and a hatless man with very long hair, who
was clad in olive-green velvet.
Who is it? I asked a man at a neighbouring table.
And the reply came, That is Gordon Craig and his school.
A few days later, Peter encountered Papini, that strange and very ugly
youth, who mingled his dreams and his politics, mixing mysticism and
propaganda until one became uncertain whether he was seer or socialist,
and Marinetti. He read Mafarka le Futuriste and Marinetti talked to
him about war and vaudeville, noise and overthrow, excitement and
destruction. Bomb the palaces and build factories where they stood! So
Marinetti enjoined his followers. Whatever is today is art; whatever
was yesterday is nothing, worse than nothing, refuse, manure. Peter
was especially amused by Marinetti's war cry, Méprisez la femme! his
banishment of the nude and adultery from art, which was to become
entirely male. So, indeed, was life, for Marinetti exhorted his male
disciples to bear their own children! All these ideas, Peter repeated
to me in a dreamy, veiled voice, noting at the same time that one of
Marinetti's arms was longer than the other. It did not seem quite the
proper environment to carry on in this respect, but the words of the
Italian futurist had indubitably made an impression. I could see that
it was quite likely that Peter would become a Marinettist when he went
back to New York.
At dinner, one night, it became apparent that Peter once more was
considering his life work. One of the guests, a contessa with a florid
face and an ample bosom, began to fulminate:
Art is magic. Art is a formula. Once master a formula and you can
succeed in expressing yourself. Barrie has a formula. Shaw has a
formula. Even George Cohan has a formula. Black magic, negromancy,
that's what it is: the eye of a newt, the beak of a raven, herbs
gathered at certain hours, the heart of a black cat, boiled in a pot
together, call up the bright devils to do your bidding.
Art is a protest, corrected Mina Loy. Each artist is protesting
against something: Hardy, against life itself; Shaw, against shams;
Flaubert, against slipshod workmanship; George Moore, against prudery;
Cunninghame Graham, against civilization; Arthur Machen, against
reality; Theodore Dreiser, against style....
Never did I feel less sure of the meaning of art than I do here,
surrounded by it, began Peter, although I have never been more
conscious of it, more susceptible to real beauty, more lulled by its
magic. Yet I do not understand its meaning. It does not help me to
work out my own problems. The trails cross. For instance, here is
Edith leading her own life; here are we all leading our own lives, as
remote as possible from Donatello and Gozzoli. Here is Gordon Craig,
dressed like Bunthorne, driving a stage-coach and sending out arcane
but thundering manifestos against a theatre in which his mother and
Eleanora Duse are such conspicuous examples; here is Papini working and
dreaming; here is Marinetti shooting off fire-crackers; here are the
Braggiottis, teaching young Americans the elements of music in that
modern music-room with bas-relief portraits of the great composers,
Beethoven, Bach, Verdi, Mozart, Wagner, Rossini ... and Sebastian B.
Schlesinger, moulded in the frieze. Here is Loeser, always building
new houses and never completing them; here is Arthur Acton, with a
chauffeur who sings tenor arias in the drawing-room after dinner;
here is Leo Stein, collecting Renoirs and Cézannes for his villa at
Settignano. What does it all mean, unless it means that everything
should be scrambled together? I think a great book might be written if
everything the hero thought and felt and observed could be put into it.
You know how, in the old novel, only what is obviously essential to the
plot or the development of character is selected. But a man, crossing a
street to commit a murder, does not continuously think of the murder.
The cry of Buns! hot cross buns! the smell of onions or dead fish, the
sight of a pretty woman, impress his senses and remind him of still
other things. These ideas, impressions, objects, should all be set
down. Nothing should be omitted, nothing! One might write a whole book
of two hundred thousand words about the events of an hour. And what a
book! What a book!
This was before the day of Dorothy Richardson, James Joyce, and Marcel
Proust. The contessa snorted. Mina Loy, at the other end of the table,
looked interested in Peter for the first time, I thought. The white
Persian cat, one of Edith's cats, with his superb porcelain-blue eyes,
sauntered into the room, his tail raised proudly. Edith spoke:
The great artists put themselves into their work; the cat never does.
Men like Stieglitz and de Meyer put themselves into their cameras,
that is why their photographs are wonderful, but the cat never puts
himself into a camera. The great conquerors put themselves into their
actions; the cat never does. Lovers put themselves into the selves of
their loved ones, seeking identity; the cat never does. Mystics try to
lose themselves in union with their gods; the cat never does. Musicians
put themselves into their instruments; the cat never does. Indian
men, working in the ground, put themselves in the earth, in order to
get themselves back in the forms of wheat or maize to nourish their
bodies; the cat never does. Navajo women, when they weave blankets, go
so completely into the blanket while they are working on it, that they
always leave a path in the weaving that comes out at the last corner
for their souls to get out of the blanket; otherwise they would be
imprisoned in it. The cat never does things like this!
So every one really centres his self somewhere outside of himself;
every one gets out of his body. The cat _never_ does. Every one has a
false centre. Only the cat--the feline--has a true centredness inside
himself. Dogs and other animals centre themselves in people and are
therefore open to influence. The cat stays at home inside his body and
can never be influenced.
Every one has always worked magic through these false centres--doing
things to himself--seeking outlets, seeking expression, seeking power,
all of which are only temporarily satisfactory like a movement of the
bowels, which is all it amounts to on the psychic plane. The cat _is_
magic, _is_ himself, _is_ power. The cat knows how to live, staying as
he does inside his own body, for that is the only place where he _can_
live! That is the only place where he can experience being _here_ and
_now_.
Of course, all the false-centred people have a kind of magic power, for
any centredness is power, but it doesn't last and it doesn't satisfy
them. Art has been the greatest deceiver of all--the better the art,
the greater the deception. It isn't necessary to objectify or express
experience. What IS necessary IS to _be_. The cat knows this. May be,
that is why the cat has been an object of worship; may be, the ancients
felt intuitively that the cat had the truth in him.
Do you see where these reflections lead? The whole world is wildly
pursuing a mirage; only the cat is at home, so to speak.
Actors understand this. They only get a sense of reality when they
throw themselves into a part ... a false centre.
The cat understands pure being, which is _all_ we need to know and
which it takes us a lifetime to learn. It is both subject and object.
It is its own outlet and its own material. It _is_. All the rest of us
are divided bits of self, some here, some there. The cat has a complete
subjective unity. Being its own centre, it radiates electricity in
all directions. It is magnetic and impervious. I have known people to
keep a cat so that they could stroke the electricity out of it. Why
didn't they know how to be electric as the cat IS? The cat is the fine
specimen of the I am. Who of us is so fully the I am that I am?
Look around the world! Everybody putting him_self_ _out_ in some form
or another! Why? It doesn't do any good. At the end you exhaust the
possibilities of the outside world--geographically and spiritually. You
can use up the external. You can come to the end of objectifying and
objectives, and then what? In the end, only what we started with--the
Self in the body, the Self at home, where it was all the time while
bits of it were wandering outside.
Peter applauded with sundry bravos and benisons and divers amens, but
was moved to ask, Does the cat know this? Has the cat got a _conscious
being_? Does he appreciate his advantage?
But no one answered these questions, least of all the haughty white
Persian.
Apparently unreasonably (this biography was as far from my mind as
anything well could be), following a habit which I never could explain
to myself until I became a professional writer and the reason became
clear, before going to bed, I made notes on this and several subsequent
evenings and it is upon these notes that I am drawing now, to refresh
my memory. A few nights later, when Edith and Peter and I were sitting
alone on the loggia, Peter talked to us about the critics.
The trouble with the critics, he was saying, is that they are not
contradictory enough. They stick to a theory for better or worse, as
unwise men stick to an unwise marriage. Once they have exploited a
postulate about art or about an artist, they make all his work conform
to this postulate, if they admire it. On the other hand, if the work of
an artist displeases them, they use the postulate as a hammer. I think
it is Oscar Wilde who has written, Only mediocre minds are consistent.
There is something very profound in this aphorism.
Consider Frank Harris's Shakespeare theory, for example. It is good
enough as an idea, as a casual inspiration it is almost a masterpiece.
It would make a fine essay; if it had been used as a passing reference
in a book, it probably would have been quoted for years. Harris,
however, has spun it out into two thick volumes and made it fit
into crevices and crannies where it cannot very well feel at home.
Certainly, it is true that any artist creates his characters out of
his own virtues and weaknesses; all of a novelists' characters, to
a certain extent, reflect phases of himself. The mistake Harris has
made lies in identifying Shakespeare only with his weak, unsuccessful,
sentimental, disappointed, unhappy characters, such as Hamlet, Macbeth,
Orsino, Antonio, and Romeo. Shakespeare probably was just as much Sir
Toby Belch and Falstaff. Curiously, this theory of identification fits
the critic himself, the intellectual creator, more snugly than it does
the romancer, the emotional creator. Remy de Gourmont has pointed this
out. He says, Criticism is perhaps the most suggestive of literary
forms; it is a perpetual confession; believing to analyze the works
of others, the critic unveils and exposes himself to the public. So
from these books we may learn more about Frank Harris than we do about
Shakespeare.[2] This, of course, has its value.
But that is why Shakespeare is greater than his critics, that is
greater than the critics who cling to one theory. Shakespeare speaks
only through his characters and he can say, or make some one say,
Frailty, thy name is woman,
but on the next page another character may deny this sentiment, for
this is not Shakespeare's opinion, it is that of an incensed lover. So
Richard III remarks:
Conscience is but a word the cowards use,
Devised at first to keep the strong in awe.
But Hamlet replies:
Thus conscience does make cowards of us all.
Both are true, both good philosophy, and so from the playwright, the
great poet, the novelist, you get a rounded view of life which a critic
usually denies you.
Occasionally a critic does contradict himself and really becomes human
and delightful and we take him to our hearts, but the next day all
the doctors and professors and pundits are excoriating him, assuring
us that he is not consistent, that he is a loose writer, etc. Good
critics, I should like to believe, are always loose writers; they
perpetually contradict themselves; their work is invariably palinodal.
How, otherwise, can they strive for vision, and how can they inspire
vision in the reader without striving for vision themselves? Good
critics should grope and, if they must define, they should constantly
contradict their own definitions. In this way, in time, a certain
understanding might be reached. For instance, how delightful of Anatole
France to describe criticism as a soul's adventures among masterpieces,
and then to devote his critical pen to minor poets and unimportant
eighteenth century figures.
But, asked Edith, does not the reader in his own mind contradict the
consistent critic? Does not this answer your purpose?
By no means. What you say is quite true. A dogmatic writer rouses a
spirit of contradiction in the reader, but this is often a spirit of
ire, of deep resentment. That is in itself, assuredly, something, but
it is not the whole purpose of criticism to arouse anger, whatever
the prima donna who reads the papers the morning after her début at
the Opera may think. Criticism should open channels of thought and
not close them; it should stimulate the soul and not revolt it. And
criticism can only be wholesome and sane and spiritually stimulating
when it is contradictory. I do not mean to say that a critic should
never dogmatize--I suppose at this moment I myself appear to be
dogmatizing! He may be as dogmatic as he pleases for a page or two
pages, but it is unsafe to base an entire book on a single idea and
it is still more unsafe to reflect this idea in one's next book. It
is better to turn the leaf and begin afresh on a new page. Artists
are never consistent. Ibsen apparently wrote A Doll's House to prove
that the truth should always be told to one's nearest and dearest and,
apparently, he wrote The Wild Duck to prove that it should not. Ibsen,
you see, was a poet and he knew that both his theses were true. In his
attempt to explain the revolutionary doctrines which he found inherent
in Wagner's Ring, Bernard Shaw ran across many snags. He swam through
the Rheingold, rode triumphantly through Die Walküre, even clambered
gaily through Siegfried, by making the hero a protestant, but when he
reached Götterdämmerung, his hobby-horse bucked and threw him. Shaw was
forced to admit that Götterdämmerung was pure opera, and he attempted
to evade the difficulty by explaining that Wagner wrote the book for
this work before he wrote the other three, quite forgetting that, if
Wagner's intention had been the creation of a revolutionary cycle, it
would have been entirely possible for him to rewrite the last drama
to fit the thesis. The fact is that the work is inconsistent from any
point of view except the point of view of art. Any critic who is an
artist will be equally inconsistent.
Truth! Truth! Peter cried in scorn. Forsooth, what is truth? Voltaire
was right: error also has its merits.
And yet ... I began.
And yet! he interrupted, still more scornfully. No, there is no such
thing as truth. Truth is impossible. Truth is incredible. The most
impossible and incredible physical, spiritual, or mental form or
idea or conception in the cosmos is the cult of truth. Truth implies
permanence and nothing is permanent. Truth implies omniscience and no
one is omniscient. Truth implies community of feeling and no two human
beings feel alike about anything, except perhaps for a few shifting
seconds. Truth, well if there is such a thing as truth, we may at least
say that it is beyond human power to recognize it.
But it is not impossible to approach Truth, to play around her,
to almost catch her, to vision her, so to speak. No, that is not
impossible. Natheless, the artist, the writer, the critic who most
nearly approaches Truth is he who contradicts himself the oftenest
and the loudest. One of the very best books James Huneker has written
is a work purporting to come from the pen of a certain Old Fogy, in
which that one opposes all of James's avowed opinions. It is probable,
indeed, that we can get the clearest view of Huneker's ideas from this
book.
Then truth is not an essential of art? I asked.
It has, of course, nothing whatever to do with art. No more has form.
Life has so much form that art, which should never imitate life, should
be utterly lacking in form. Criticism appears to be a case apart.
Criticism is an attempt, at its worst at least, to define art and
definition implies truth and error. But what the critics do not realize
in their abortive efforts to capture her, is that Truth is elusive. She
slips away if you try to pin her down. You must, as Matthew Arnold has
said much better than I can, approach her from all sides. Even then she
will elude you, for the reason I have elucidated, because she does not
exist!
Why do we read the old critics? For ideas? Seldom. Style? More
often. Anecdote? Always, when there is any. Spirit? We delight in
it. Facts? Never. No, you will never find facts--at least about such
a metaphysical concept as art--correctly stated in books, because
there is no way of stating them correctly. And the evasion of facts
is an exact science which has yet to become popular with the critics,
although it is always popular with readers, as the continued success
of Berlioz's Mémoires goes to show. We read the old critics _to find
out about the critics_, not about the subjects on which they are
writing. Consequently, it is only the critics who have been interesting
personalities who are read through many generations.
As an addendum, I might state that interest in art is fatal. An
enthusiastic essay will kill anything. Spontaneity and freshness do
not withstand praise. Art must be devoid of self-consciousness. A
certain famous actress once told me that she never liked to have people
particularize in their enthusiasm about one of her performances. When,
she said, they tell me that such and such a gesture, such and such a
tone of voice, is the important moment in one of my interpretations,
I can never repeat it without remembering their praise, and,
involuntarily, something of the original freshness has departed.
I remember another occasion on which Peter talked about the subject
that most interested him.
It is the pleasant custom of present day publishers of books, he
was saying, to prelude the real publication of a volume by what is
technically known as a dummy. The dummy, the sample from which orders
are taken, to all outward inspection, appears to be precisely like the
finished book. The covers, the labels, the painted top, and the uncut
edges give one every reason to hope for a meaty interior. Once opened,
however, the book offers the browser a succession of blank pages.
Sheet after sheet of clean white paper slips through his fingers,
unless, by some chance, he has opened the volume at the beginning, for
the title-page and table of contents are printed (the dedication is
missing), and so are the first thirteen pages of the text.
Such dummies are irresistible to me. Coming warm, hot even, from
the binder, they palpitate with a suggestion which no perusal of
their contents can disturb. How much better than the finished book!
I exclaim, and there are days when I feel that I will never write a
book; I will write only dummies. I would write a title-page, a table
of contents, and thirteen pages of some ghost essay, breaking off in
the middle of a curious phrase, leaving the reader sweetly bewildered
in this maze of tender thought. And, to give this dummy over-value,
to heighten its charm and its mystery, I would add an index to the
blank pages, wherein one could learn that on empty page 76 hovered the
spirits of Heliogabalus and Gertrude Atherton. It would further inform
one that Joe Jackson, George Augustus Sala, and fireless cookers were
discussed on page 129. Fancy the reader's delight in learning that
he might cull passages dealing with the breeding of white mice on
unbegotten pages 67, 134, 185 et seq., 210, 347!
I have it in mind to call my first dummy, Shelling Peas for Shillings.
The binding will be of magenta boards with a pistachio-green label,
printed in magenta ink. The top will be stained pistachio-green and the
edges will be unopened. On the title-page, I shall set an appropriate
motto and a plausible table of contents might include:
The Incredible History of Ambrose Gwinett
Inkstains and Stoppage
Purcell, Polko, and Things Beginning with a P
Folk-Dancing at Coney Island
Carnegie Hall as a Cure for Insomnia
Many Blue Objects and One Black One
Ouida's Italy
Erasmus Darwin's Biographer
Etc.
You see how the subjects present images and ideas which will make
it possible for the reader, in his mind's eye, to write the papers
himself. Shelling Peas for Shillings, Peter rolled the name over. It's
a good title. I shouldn't wonder if sometime that dummy would be much
sought after by collectors.