Essays from the Chap-Book

A COMMENT ON SOME RECENT BOOKS

SITTING in slippered ease before the fire, in that ripe hour when the violence of flame has given place to a calm and penetrating glow, one hears the wind without as if it were a tumult in some other world. The great waves of sound follow each other in swift succession, but they break and wreck themselves on a shore so remote that one meditates unconcerned in the warmth of the wide-throated chimney. The sense of repose and ease within is too deep to be disturbed by the roar that fills the wintry night without. And yet how fragile are the walls that guard our glowing comfort from the storm of the vast world, and how small a space of light and heat is ours in the great sweep of elemental forces!

The policing of the world and the suppression of the cut-throat and the savage secure, at times, an order so pervasive and so stable that we forgot the possibilities of revolt and tragedy which underlie human society in its most serene as in its most agitated moments. The elemental forces which plant the seeds of tragedy in every human life, play as freely and powerfully through society to-day as in those turbulent periods when strong natures made laws for themselves and gave full vent to individual impulse. As a rule, these forces expend themselves in well-defined and orderly channels; but they have lost nothing of their old destructiveness if for any reason they leave these channels or overflow their narrow courses. Conventions are more rigidly enforced and more widely accepted to-day than ever before; but the tide of life is as deep and full and swift as of old, and when its current is set it sweeps conventions before it as fragile piers are torn up and washed out by furious seas.

In our slippered ease, protected by orderly government, by written constitutions, by a police who are always in evidence, we sometimes forget of what perilous stuff we are made, and how inseparable from human life are those elements of tragedy which from time to time startle us in our repose, and make us aware that the most awful pages of history may be rewritten in the record of our own day. It will be a dull day if the time ever comes when uncertainty and peril are banished from the life of men. When the seas are no longer tossed by storms, the joy and the training of eye, hand, and heart in seamanship will go out. The antique virtues of courage, endurance, and high-hearted sacrifice cannot perish without the loss of that which makes it worth while to live; but these qualities, which give heroic fibre to character, cannot be developed if danger and uncertainty are to be banished from human experience. A stable world is essential to progress, but a world without the element of peril would comfort the body and destroy the soul. In some form the temper of the adventurer, the explorer, the sailor, and the soldier must be preserved in an orderly and peaceful society; that sluggish stability for which business interests are always praying would make money abundant, but impoverish the money-getters. There would be nothing worth buying in a community in which men were no longer tempted and life had no longer that interest which grows out of its dramatic possibilities.

That order ought to grow, and will grow, is the conviction of all who believe in progress; but society will be preserved from stagnation by the fact that every man who comes into the world brings with him all the possibilities which the first man brought. For men are born, not made, in spite of all our superior mechanism; and although a man is born to-day into conditions more favorable to acceptance and growth than to rejection and revolt, he must still solve his personal problem as in the stormier ages, and make his own adjustment to his time. And in the making of that adjustment lie all the elements of the human tragedy. The policing of the world will grow more complete from age to age, but every man born into this established order will bring with him the perilous stuff of revolt and revolution. Without this background of tragic possibility life would lose that perpetual spell which it casts upon the artistic spirit in every generation; it would cease to be the drama to which a thousand pens have striven to give form, before which a thousand thousand spectators have sat in a silence more affecting than the most rapturous tumult of applause.

In these “piping times of peace” perhaps the artist renders no greater service to his kind than by keeping the tragic background of life in clear view. Men sorely need to be reminded of the immeasurable space which surrounds them and the bottomless gulfs which open beneath them. In this trafficking age, when so many slowly or swiftly coin strength, time, and joy into money, the constant vision of the human drama, with its deep and fruitful suggestiveness, is a necessity, and it can hardly be a matter of coincidence that the tragic side of the drama has so strongly appealed to men of artistic temper in recent years. Whatever may be said about the sanity of view and of art of Flaubert, Zola, and De Maupassant; of Ibsen and Maeterlinck; of George Moore, William Sharp, and the group of younger writers who, with varying degrees of success, are breaking from the beaten paths, it is certain that they have laid bare the primitive elements in the human problem. The dramas of Ibsen and Maeterlinck have brought not peace but a sword into recent discussion of the province and nature of art; but whatever may be our judgment of the truth and quality of these end-of-the-century readings and renderings of the great drama, there is no question about their departure from the conventional point of view. They may be partial, even misleading, in the interpretation of life and its meaning which they suggest, but they disturb and agitate us; they make us realize how fragile are the structures which so many men and women build over the abysses. If they do nothing more than irritate us, they render us a service; for irritation is better than the repose of unconsciousness; it brings us back to the sense of life; it makes us aware of the deeper realities.

Mr. Sharp’s “Vistas” seems at first reading a book out of another century, so dominant is its tragic note, so remote its themes, so elemental its consciousness. It is a book of glimpses only; but these glimpses open up the recesses and obscurities where destiny is swiftly or slowly shaped. Lawmaking and the police seem very superficial assurances and guardians of order in a world in which, beyond their ken or reach, such tremendous forces of good and evil are slumbering; traffic and finance seem matters of secondary interest or occupation when such passions are stirring and striving. And yet “Vistas” is peculiarly a book of our time; it registers the revolt which the man of insight and artistic temper always makes when conventions begin to cut to the quick, and the air becomes close and heavy. The human spirit must have room and sweep; it must feel continually the great forces which play through it; it must carry with it the continual consciousness of its possibilities of good and evil. And the more orderly society becomes the greater will be the need of keeping alive the sense of peril and uncertainty from forces which may be quiescent but which are never dead; of remembering that there must be freedom as well as restraint, and that the policeman must represent an order which is accepted as well as enforced.

The dramatists and the novelists continually shatter our sense of security by reminding us that if Arthur Dimmesdale is dead, Philip Christian survives; that if Isolde has perished, Anna Karenina still lives; that if Francesca da Rimini is no longer swept by the relentless blasts, Tess is not less tragically borne on to her doom. The commonplace man sees the commonplace so constantly that he needs in every age his kinsman of keener sight and finer spirit to remind him that life is not in things; and that neither peace for traffic nor order for quietness of mind is its supreme end. And, after all, the singing of the open fire is the sweeter for the tumult beyond the walls.

One Word More

By

Hamilton Wright Mabie

ONE WORD MORE

THE contemporary writing which is commonly called “decadent” has one quality which is likely to be fatal to its permanence, – it wears out the reader’s interest. On the first reading it has a certain newness of manner, a certain unconventionality of form and idea, which catch the attention; but these qualities catch the attention, they do not hold it; with each successive reading the spell weakens until it is largely spent. We discover that the manner which caught us, so to speak, at the start, is either self-conscious or tricky; and both qualities are fatal to permanence. There is nothing so inimical to the highest success in art as self-consciousness, and nothing is so soon discovered as a trick of style. It is, of course, both unintelligent and idle to characterize a considerable mass of writing in general terms; but, even with such differences of insight and ability as the decadent literature reveals, it has certain characteristics in common, and these characteristics disclose its essential qualities. They are significant enough to furnish a basis for a dispassionate opinion.

With the revolt against the conventional and the commonplace, especially on the part of the youngest men, every lover of sound writing must be heartily in sympathy. In a time when Edwin Arnold, Alfred Austin, and Lewis Morris are gravely brought forward as fit candidates for the laureateship which Wordsworth and Tennyson held in succession, it is not surprising that young men with a real feeling for literature fall to cursing and take refuge in eccentricity of all kinds. It must frankly be confessed that a great deal of current writing, while uncommonly good as regards form and taste, is devoid of anything approaching freshness of feeling or originality of idea. Its prime characteristic is well-bred, well-dressed, and well-mannered mediocrity; of contact with life it gives no faintest evidence; of imagination, passion, and feeling – those prime qualities out of which great literature is compounded – it is as innocent as the average Sunday-School publication. It is not without form, but it is utterly void.

That men who are conscious, even in a blind way, of the tragic elements of life should revolt against this widespread dominion of the commonplace is matter neither for astonishment nor regret; if they have blood in their veins and vitality in their brains, they cannot do otherwise. The responsibility for excesses and eccentricities generally rests with the conditions which have set the reaction in motion. When men begin to suffocate, windows are likely to be broken as well as opened; when Philistia waxes prosperous and boastful, Bohemia receives sudden and notable accessions of population.

Among English-speaking people at least, it is chiefly as a reaction that decadent literature is significant. It is an attempt to get away from the mortal dulness of the mass of contemporary writing, – an effort to see life anew and feel it afresh. In many cases, it is, however, mistaken not only in morals, but in method: it confuses mannerism with originality, and unconventionality with power. A manner may be novel and, at the same time, bad; one may be unconventional and, at the same time, essentially weak. In moments of hot and righteous indignation a little cursing of the right sort may be pardonable; but cursing has no lasting quality.

A revolt against too many clothes, or against a deadly uniformity of cut and style, is always justifiable; but nudity is not the only alternative; there is an intermediate position in which one may be both clothed and in his right mind.

Now, there is nothing more certain than that the originality of the greater and more enduring books is free from self-consciousness, mannerism, and eccentricity in any form. As a rule, the greater the work the greater the difficulty of classifying it, of putting one’s hand on the secret of its charm, of describing it in a phrase. The contrast between Shakespeare and Maeterlinck is, in this respect, so striking that one wonders how the admirers of the gifted Belgian were led into the blunder of forcing it upon contemporary readers. Maeterlinck has unmistakable power; his skill in introducing atmospheric effects, in assailing the senses of his readers without awakening their consciousness that powerful influences are in the air, his genius in the use of suggestion, are evident almost at a glance. But when one has read “The Intruder” or “The Princess Maleine” one has, in a way, read all these powerful and intensely individual dramas. They are all worked out by a single method, and that method is instantly detected. Maeterlinck’s manner is so obvious that no one can overlook or mistake it. With Shakespeare, on the other hand, there is the greatest difficulty in discovering any manner at all. At his best Shakespeare is magical; there is no getting at his way of doing things. His method is so free, so natural, so varied, and moves along such simple lines that we take it for granted, as if it were a part of the order of things. There is a kind of elemental unconsciousness in him which gives his artistic processes the apparent ease, the fulness, and range of the processes of nature.

“The great merit, it seems to me,” writes Mr. Lowell to Professor Norton, “of the old painters was that they did not try to be original. ‘To say a thing,’ says Goethe, ‘that everybody else has said before, as quietly as if nobody had ever said it, that is originality.’” In other words, originality consists not in saying new things, but in saying true things. It is for this reason that the great writers have no surprises for us; they lift into the light of clear expression things that have lain silent at the bottom of our natures; things profoundly felt, but never spoken. In like manner, originality in form and style is not a matter of novelty, but of deeper feeling and surer touch. A piece of work which, like a popular song, has a rhythm or manner which catches the senses, may have a lusty life, but is certain to have a brief one. There is nothing “catching” or striking, in the superficial sense, in the greater works of art. Their very simplicity hides their superiority, and the world makes acquaintance with them very slowly.

A genuine reaction, of the kind which predicts a true liberation of the imagination, is only momentarily a revolt against outgrown methods and the feebleness of a purely imitative art; it is essentially a return to the sources of power. It begins in revolt, but it does not long rest in that negative stage; it passes on to reconstruction, to creative work in a new and independent spirit. Goethe and Schiller went through the Sturm and Drang period; they did not stay in it. “The Sorrows of Werther” and “Goetz” were followed by “Tasso” and “Faust;” and “The Robbers” soon gave place to “William Tell.” The Romanticists who made such an uproar when “Hernani” was put on the stage, did not long wear red waistcoats and flowing locks; they went to work and brought forth the solid fruits of genius.

The man on the barricade is a picturesque figure, but he must not stay too long or he becomes ridiculous; the insurrection, if it means anything, must issue in a permanent social or political order. Even genius will not redeem perpetual revolt from monotony, as the case of Byron clearly shows. Revolt is inspiring if it is the prelude to a new and better order; if it falls short of this achievement, it is only a disturbance of the peace. It means, in that case, that there is dissatisfaction, but that the reaction has no more real power than the tyranny or stupidity against which it takes up arms. The new impulse in literature, when it comes, will evidence its presence neither by indecency nor by eccentricity; but by a certain noble simplicity, by the sanity upon which a great authority always ultimately rests, by the clearness of its insight, and the depth of its sympathy with that deeper life of humanity, in which are the springs of originality and productiveness.

The Man Who Dares

By

Louise Chandler Moulton

THE MAN WHO DARES“BALLADS AND SONGS,” BY JOHN DAVIDSON

GRANT ALLEN has written of “The Woman Who Did” – and the title suggests that John Davidson may fitly be called “The Man Who Dares;” for certainly some of his themes and some of his lines, in this his latest book, are among the most daring in modern literature.

Richard Le Gallienne, in comparing William Watson and John Davidson, suggests that Davidson is a great man, and Watson a great manner. This is a statement I am not ready to indorse. I think Watson has much more than a great manner. He has noble and stately thought, a large outlook, and, in his own direction, subtle and keen perception. He knows the moods of the spirit, the reach of the soul; but the human heart does not cry out to him. He waits in the stately Court of the Intellect, and surveys the far heavens through its luminous windows.

Davidson, on the contrary, hearkens to the heart’s cry. The passionate senses clamor in his lines. Ceaseless unrest assails him. Doubt and faith war in him for mastery. Above all he is human; and, secondly, he is modern. “Perfervid,” “A Practical Novelist,” and two or three other tales, at once merry and fantastic, prove his gifts as a story-teller. He has written several delightful plays, among which “Scaramouch In Naxos” is, perhaps, the most remarkable. Its originality, its charm, its wayward grace give it a place to itself in modern literature; and I doubt if we have any other man who could have given us quite the same thing. But when the right to careful attention of his other work has been fully admitted, I am inclined to think that nowhere does he more thoroughly prove his high claim to distinction than in his “Fleet-Street Eclogues,” and his new volume of “Ballads and Songs.”

Of all these Ballads the three that have most moved me are “A Ballad of a Nun,” “A Ballad of Heaven,” and “A Ballad of Hell.” There is much crude strength in “A Ballad in Blank Verse of the Making of a Poet;” but the blank verse, impassioned though it be, has neither the stately splendor of Milton nor the artistic and finished grace of Tennyson. It is full of stress and strain, – this story of a youth who was brought up by a father and mother who really believed that the soul’s probation ends with this brief span of earthly life, and that

“In life it is your privilege to choose,But after death you have no choice at all.”

He tortured his mother by his unbelief, until he slowly broke her heart, and “she died, in anguish for his sins.” His father upbraided him, and he cried – very naturally, if not very poetically —

“Oh, let me be!”

Then he sought his Aphrodite, and found her, dull, tawdry, unbeautiful, – an outcast of the streets. He wrote his dreams; and then he felt that they were lies. He grew desperate, at last, and professed himself convicted of sin, and became a Christian – resolved to please his father, if he could not please himself. But this phase could not last; and he shattered his father’s new-found happiness by a wild denunciation of all creeds, and an assertion that there is no God higher than ourselves. Then was the father torn between his desire to seek his wife in Heaven, and his impulse to go with his son into the jaws of Hell. At last, in his turn, the father died; and the poet – the child of storm and stress – was left at liberty to be himself —

“ – a thoroughfareFor all the pageantry of Time; to catchThe mutterings of the Spirit of the Hour,And make them known.”

There are lines, here and there, in this poem of exquisite beauty; but there are others that seem to me “tolerable and not to be endured.”

I make my “Exodus From Houndsditch,” without as yet being tempted to linger there, and come to “A Ballad of a Nun.” And here, indeed, you have something of which only John Davidson has proved himself capable. The Ballad tells the old Roman Catholic legend of the Nun whom the lust of the flesh tempted.

There are stanzas here of such splendid power and beauty that they thrill one like noble and stirring music. You shall listen to some of them. The Abbess loved this Nun so well that she had trusted her above all the rest, and made her the Keeper of the Door: —

“High on a hill the Convent hung,Across a duchy looking down,Where everlasting mountains flungTheir shadows over tower and town.“The jewels of their lofty snowsIn constellations flashed at night;Above their crests the moon arose;The deep earth shuddered with delight.“Long ere she left her cloudy bed,Still dreaming in the orient land,On many a mountain’s happy headDawn lightly laid her rosy hand.“The adventurous sun took heaven by storm;Clouds scattered largesses of rain;The sounding cities, rich and warm,Smouldered and glittered in the plain.“Sometimes it was a wandering wind,Sometimes the fragrance of the pine,Sometimes the thought how others sinnedThat turned her sweet blood into wine.“Sometimes she heard a serenadeComplaining sweetly, far away:She said, ‘A young man wooes a maid;And dreamt of love till break of day.”

In vain she plied her knotted scourge. Day after day she “had still the same red sin to purge.” Winter came, and the snow shut in hill and plain; and she watched the nearest city glow beneath the frosty sky. “Her hungry heart devoured the town;” until, at last, she tore her fillet and veil into strips, and cast aside the ring and bracelet that she wore as the betrothed of Christ: —

“‘Life’s dearest meaning I shall probe;Lo! I shall taste of love, at last!Away!’ She doffed her outer robe,And sent it sailing down the blast.“Her body seemed to warm the wind;With bleeding feet o’er ice she ran;‘I leave the righteous God behind;I go to worship sinful man.’”

She reached “the sounding city’s gate.” She drank the wild cup of love to the dregs. She cried —

“‘I am sister to the mountains, now,And sister to the sun and moon.’”

She made her queen-like progress. She loved and lived —

“But soon her fire to ashes burned;Her beauty changed to haggardness;Her golden hair to silver turned;The hour came of her last caress.“At midnight from her lonely bedShe rose, and said, ‘I have had my will.’The old ragged robe she donned, and fledBack to the convent on the hill.”

She blessed, as she ran thither, the comfortable convent laws by which nuns who had sinned as she had done were buried alive. But I must copy the remaining stanzas, for no condensation can do justice to their tender, piteous, triumphant charm: —

“Like tired bells chiming in their sleep,The wind faint peals of laughter bore;She stopped her ears and climbed the steep,And thundered at the convent door.“It opened straight: she entered in,And at the Wardress’ feet fell prone:‘I come to purge away my sin;Bury me, close me up in stone.’“The Wardress raised her tenderly;She touched her wet and fast-shut eyes:‘Look, sister; sister, look at me;Look; can you see through my disguise?’“She looked, and saw her own sad face,And trembled, wondering, ‘Who art thou?’‘God sent me down to fill your place:I am the Virgin Mary now.’“And with the word, God’s mother shone:The wanderer whispered, ‘Mary, Hail!’The vision helped her to put onBracelet and fillet, ring and veil.“‘You are sister to the mountains now,And sister to the day and night;Sister to God.’ And on the browShe kissed her thrice, and left her sight.“While dreaming in her cloudy bed,Far in the crimson orient land,On many a mountain’s happy headDawn lightly laid her rosy hand.”

“A Ballad of a Nun” seems to me Mr. Davidson’s crowning achievement; yet “A Ballad of Heaven” and “A Ballad of Hell” are scarcely less striking. In “A Ballad of Heaven” there is a musician who works for years at one great composition. The world ignores him. His wife and child, clothed in rags, are starving in their windy garret; but he does not know it, for he dwells in the strange, far heaven of his music.

“Wistful he grew, but never feared;For always on the midnight skiesHis rich orchestral score appeared,In stars and zones and galaxies.”

He turns, at last, from his completed score to seek the sympathy of love; but wife and child are lying dead. He gathers to his breast the stark, wan wife with the baby skeleton in her arms.

“‘You see you are alive,’ he cried.He rocked them gently to and fro.‘No, no, my love, you have not died;Nor you, my little fellow; no.’“Long in his arms he strained his dead,And crooned an antique lullaby;Then laid them on the lowly bed,And broke down with a doleful cry.”

Then his own heart broke, at last, and he, too, was dead.