Modern Mysticism and Other Essays 1910--Francis, Grierson

8/13/2019 Modern Mysticism and Other Essays 1910--Francis, Grierson

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Modern Mysticism


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First Edition . . \ 899Second Edition . 1910

.HISWICK PRESS: CHAKLHS WHITTINGHAM AND co.TOOKS COURT, CHANCERY I.ANE. LONDON


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PrefaceSOME years ago, while living in Paris, Ipersuaded the author of this volume topublish an opuscule of aphorisms and shortessays in French. That little book, not beingintended for the general public, was neitheradvertised nor put on sale. It was withoutintroduction of any kind, and was printedby an obscure publisher. Worse still, it wasprinted in such haste as to be full of typo-graphical errors. Notwithstanding all this, afew weeks after its appearance the author re-ceived some scores of letters from leadingFrench writers and poets, among whom weremany Academicians. But perhaps more re-markable still was the appreciation withwhich it was received by writers so opposedas M. Sully Prudhomme, of the French

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6 PREFACEAcademy, and M. Stephane Mallarme, theleader of les Jeunes. The former wrote of Poriginalite puissante de la pensee de1'auteur, and the latter of the rare Emo-tion inspired by these pages.A distinguished Italian critic, Signor En-rico Cardona, published a brochure on thelittle work, in the opening lines of which hedefines Mr. Grierson as un filosofo dalcuore di artista, thus making the author'sname known in Italy. Dona Patrocinio deBiedma, the well-known Spanish poet andwriter, translated the aphorisms and mostof the short essays, and published them inseveral of the leading journals of Spain.

In writing to the author, M. MauriceMaeterlinck said: Let me tell you what joyit has been to me to encounter in your booka soul so strangely fraternal, perhaps I oughtto say the most truly fraternal that I have yetfound. You have deliciously and profoundlysurprised me you have said so many thingswhich I should like to have written myself.The author has made prolonged residences


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PREFACE 7in the principal capitals of the world, and hashad exceptional opportunities for the studyof art and of human nature in every sphereof artistic and social life. The pages onTolstoy and on Wagner are the result of ayear's residence in Russia and a sojourn ofseveral months in Bayreuth.

L. W. T.


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ContentsPAGEPREFACE 5

MODERN MYSTICISM . . . nBEAUTY AND MORALS IN NATURE . 19THE TRAGEDY OF MACBETH . . 28MODERN MELANCHOLY 37TOLSTOY 42IMITATION AND ORIGINALITY . . 52PHYSICAL COURAGE AND MORAL

COWARDICE .... 64PARSIFALITIS 70AUTHORITY AND INDIVIDUALISM . 82THE NEW CRITICISM ... 92AMIEL . . . . . . 101CULTURE. . . . . .noTHE ARTISTIC FACULTY IN LITERA-

TURE . . . . .117


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ModernMysticism

MYSTICAL inspiration is the essentialelement that assures immortality toany work, whether in poetry, art, music, orphilosophy.Of all the forms which inspirational thoughtmay take, that which is coeval with the art-

form is the most vital and the most beautiful,because the most mystical. The highest in-spiration demands the union of art and wis-dom; and modern mysticism is both broaderand deeper than that expressed in mediaevaltimes, for the wisdom of the past was oftenweakened by dogma and nullified by imprac-ticable ideals. But even in ancient times themost consoling sentiments and the most sub-lime ideas were expressed in the artistic mould.Job was a prose poet, Plato a poetic philo-sopher. The perennial charm of the book of


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12 MODERN MYSTICISMJob' lies in the fact of the sentiment and thelanguage being conceived as one. Wisdommay be profound, but obscure thought cannotcontain the highest wisdom. The best art,therefore, can be symbolical or allegorical, butthe idea must be clear and the form evident.And as the mystical law demands the unityof thought and form, the same law stampsevery new artist and poet with the seal oforiginality. They may borrow from one an-other, but they do not imitate. Inferior gradesof inspiration are often engendered by pre-ceding examples, but the possessor of anoriginal faculty arrives with something in-definable. We recognise the charm, but wecannot explain it. We may call this power a temperament, anything, indeed, exceptwhat is meant by the old-time definition ofspecial instrument for a special mission,which scientific knowledge of the present dayforbids us to consider tenable. For, sincewe are all the result of ancestral forces, andconditions, to apply the term instrumentto a human soul, capable of thinking andsuffering, is to strip the mind of every vestigeof personality and responsibility. It would


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MODERN MYSTICISM 13reduce all forms of talent to a condition ofinspired idiocy. Although this faculty hascome into existence through a soil that hasbeen ploughed and harrowed by others, itnow produces a new flower or a new fruit.Modern mysticism is not only anti-pro-vincial, it is anti-dogmatic as well.

L'esprit

replie sur lui-meme, says M. Maeterlinck, n'est qu'une cele brit locale qui fait sourirele voyageur. This is why genius, which isantithetical to local sentiment, is never typicalof one race or nation. The Shakespeare ofHamlet is the most un-English of all ourpoets. The fundamental element of his in-spiration is catholicity, and this could notexist were the poet swayed by provincial sen-timent, passion, and reason. In like manner,Dante, Michelangelo, Beethoven, Goethe,to name but a few, were not representativetypes of their respective countries. Suchminds rise clear above the local idea. Theyare universal because their thought is mysticaland not methodical. It would be difficult toimagine anything more opposed to Englishsentiment than the mysticism displayed inShakespeare, and yet there never was a time


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14 MODERN MYSTICISMwhen the poet was so deeply appreciated byEnglish thinkers nor so fully understood byContinental critics. The real man is the in-terior man; the superficial man has a pro-vincial mind, he is warped by exterior in-fluences. He revolves in a circle in which hebelieves himself developing and progressing;he is therefore often powerful in his ownsphere, but his power is conventional andhis influence ephemeral.

There is but one universal mode of thought,that of interior consciousness freed fromschools and systems. We may or may notknow more than the ancients, but the soulof man is certainly the same now as it wasin the days of Solomon and Socrates. Theexterior has changed, local forms of thoughtare more varied, but the man who wishes tothink deeply must be prepared to think freely.The distance of the nearest fixed star canscarcely be conceived by the human mind,and the distance of the farthest, measured bymechanical means, passes beyond the pro-vince of human will and human imagination.In this illimitable realm of mystery the mindperceives but does not comprehend; it gropes


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MODERN MYSTICISM I 5its way in infinite space; it can form no justidea of the fathomless ocean of ether in whichwe exist, revolving, as we do, a mere speckaround a sun that is another speck in thestupendous sea of worlds,No sooner does intuition penetrate to anew conception of Nature's enigma than themind becomes conscious of revolving withina new circle of unsolved problems. Paradoxand illusion are the riddles, the tempters, andthe tormentors of poets and thinkers, for thedeeper the soundings the more imperativethe mystery.

With all our systems and conventions thesecret essence of the mind can no more beforced into fixed grooves now than in theolden times. With all our progress in me-chanical invention and social comfort, thesoul refuses to conform to exterior conditions,customs, influences, and examples. Whilethe body goes its own way, passing from onegrade of life to another, the mind has its ownmode of progress, unknown to superficial ob-servers. And while we no longer dress, eat,and live like the ancients, we neverthelessthink in similar moods and reason by similar


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1 6 MODERN MYSTICISMmethods. This is the immortal part of us.The mystical element in man to-day is asreal and perennial as the mysticism of Athensand Jerusalem.The transmission of intuitive lore from onethinker to another is never direct and con-secutive; the line of thought is broken atcertain periods. Nature ordains these gaps,so that receptive minds may have time toappropriate certain fundamental maxims be-fore a new thinker arises to solve one moreriddle in the chaos of doubt and disorder.Emerson followed Novalis without being hissuccessor, but Emerson prepared the way forMaeterlinck, who, in his turn, reintioducesNovalis as one would present a newly dis-covered thinker to the notice of minds pre-pared to listen and comprehend.

Novalis is a philosophical pagan, a meta-physical Christian, a scientific mystic. Inmany respects he is in German what Emersonis in English. Perhaps the principal charmof Novalis is his freedom from dogma; henever preaches. Such writers appeal only toreaders capable of receiving light from within.Emerson was optimistic, utilitarian, demo-


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MODERN MYSTICISM 17cratic. More practical than poetic, he appearedat a time when new social conditions engen-dered new forms of thought, in a countrywhere there was no special field for the propa-gation of poetic sentiment, and when art, inits purest phases, was a foreign and uncon-genial element. Nevertheless, Maeterlinckis right when he places Emerson among themystics; for, as the Belgian poet says, II ya mille mysticismes divers.

While Emerson is wise in the worldly sense,the wisdom of Novalis attains the metaphysi-cal; it soars to heights which often makeimmortality incomprehensible and earthlyexistence unsatisfactory. He carries us tosuch altitudes that gazing upwards is un-pleasant and looking below dangerous. Butif Novalis often soars beyond the clouds, whenhe speaks of mind and personality he illuminates certain mysteries with incomparableflashes of wisdom. When he defines genius asthe possession of the rhythmic sense, weinstinctively accept the definition as the mostconcise and lucid ever given of that inscrut-able faculty. This rhythmic sense embracesthe unity of thought and emotion, all that is

B


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1 8 MODERN MYSTICISMarchitecturally harmonious in the mind, allthat is poetic and psychological in the heart.The best poetry, art, and music emanate froma source that contains the essential elementsof universal science. Indeed, this harmony isthe highest expression of the mystical elementobtainable by the human mind.

Errors in judgment and in art are causedby a denial or ignorance of the law of ethicaland aesthetical correspondence. For, withouta clear conception of the absolute relation ofthought and art, even what the world acceptsas serious work is rejected later as ephemeral.


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Beauty and Morals in NatureLa nature est d'une insensibilite absolue, d'une

immoralite transcendente. RENAN.NT ATURE takes no account of the ethical1. T| idea in the social economy of man. Sheis indifferent to

everything except the strugglefor life and beauty. But in the struggle to-wards the beautiful there is no moral aim.Some of the most beautiful flowers contain themost virulent poisons, while beautiful facesmore often denote stupidity and egoism thangoodness and wisdom. Nature is a sensualforce, which, as Amiel says, is sans pudeuret sans probite. From the beginning she hasstriven for an expression of beauty, whetherwise or ignorant, malignant or beneficent;and this principle lies at the base of thewhole idea of creation, the one force actingin, through, and over all, ignoring the ethical

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20 BEAUTY IN NATUREidea developed by man, unconscious of hisreligious sentiment, blind to the scruples ofcivilisation, indifferent to the moral code andthe moral character. What nature was andis in the plane of matter she continues to bein the sphere of the mind. Personal beautyis as potent to-day as it was at the courtsof Solomon and Pericles. Place a beautifulwoman of ordinary intelligence beside a num-ber of celebrated women with plain features,and note the difference between the sensationcreated by comeliness and the respect paidto the celebrities In the daily battles wagedbetween beauty and morals, the moralists arenearly always out-generalled; for the prin-ciple of beauty is a fundamental, changelesselement in the order of the universe, whilemoral codes and notions belong to man,differing according to religion and custom.Nature is inexorable in her multiple moodsand methods. She laughs at systems andsermons, and while the preacher thinks hispeople well under discipline, there, right underhis nose, the subtle charm is taking effect,the power of beauty, the immutable central-soul cause is destroying old conditions and


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BEAUTY IN NATURE 21creating new ones, ignoring the precepts ofthe moralist and every maxim imbibed sincechildhood, to revel in the illusion which themagician Nature has conjured up from thefountain of infinite life.

In its influence beauty is suave or terrible,conciliating or contradictory, insensible orcomforting. Preach at it, and it becomes anightmare; reason it away, and it returnsunder new devices; accept it scientifically,and it becomes natural ; accept it artistically,and it becomes a benediction; accept it philo-sophically, and it becomes a fundamentalnecessity. It mocks those who deny it andbites like a viper those who scorn it; itsvictims are those who blindly court it; itsfavourites are those who meet it as a friend.The materialist sees and enjoys principally

the physical charm of beauty; the idealistresponds mainly to its psychical quality; butits real power and mystery lie in the myriadexpressions and combinations of the physicalunited with the psychical. And this is theone thing about personal beauty which eter-nally mystifies and surprises : every new faceis a law unto itself. The enthusiast who


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22 BEAUTY IN NATUREthinks he has mastered the secrets of formby familiarity with one or several types, fallsan easy victim to his own naivete. Facesand forms are of infinite degree, like thestars; and like the stars, too, each type ofbeauty has its peculiar atmosphere, aeriformenvelope, transparent or opaque, behindwhich the essence rolls and revolves underimmutable and mysterious Law. The formis but the mask of the soul, be the soul wiseor ignorant, subtile or naive, and familiaritywith beauty implies contact with the psy-chical element that lies hidden behind theexterior. It is this dual quality which makesbeauty twofold in its power: it not onlyattracts by its special form, but it enchantsby the indefinable quality of its psychicprinciple. This is why beauty, in its mostpositive manifestation, is the most potentfriend and the greatest enemy with whichman has to deal. Beauty is more a dangerto the sensitive idealist than it is to thesensual materialist, for the first is too im-pressionable to hold it within reasonablelimits, and the second too practical to fallits victim. Bacon says, There is no ex-


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BEAUTY IN NATURE 23cellent beauty that hath not some strange-ness in the proportion. This is so becausethe charm of all excellence is originality,just as art becomes a real thing when itrises above imitation. But Bacon errs whenhe says, The principal part of beauty is indecent motion, for its chief virtue is in form,its second in mind, its third in motion. Agraceful bearing is a potent charm whencoupled with a handsome face without mindor when united to intellect, but simple graceof movement, although a charm in itself, isnever so fascinating as beauty of feature andform. Every age has its special types ofbeauty as well as its special manifestationsof genius, and, indeed, beauty and geniusare the only forces in the social universewhich make their own laws and compel us,consciously or unconsciously, to follow them.But the tyranny of a beautiful woman witha callous heart is more fatal in the ranks ofgenius than is tyrannical genius in the ranksof nations. An Italian Aspasia or a FrenchCleopatra might have turned Bonaparte intoa second Mark Antony and Boulanger intoa second Bismarck. It is a mere hazard of


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BEAUTY IN NATURE 25the one devours by aggression, the other de-ceives by feints. This second is like an eternalmirage in the void of the human mind, andhas led as many heroes to destruction asever fell in battle. The forces of Naturebuild and destroy by the same element, andthe tragedies that occur in the deserts of theimagination, through the fatal allurements ofbeauty, are, for the most part, never known;for men will confess to any loss or dis-appointment except that caused by the en-ticements, the stratagems, and the sorrowsof chimerical love.Envy usually anathematises the things it

most hates, and if comeliness could be ex-tinguished by envy, the world would soonbe without personal attraction in any form.The envy caused by beauty is at once morerestricted and more bitter than that causedby genius; but as genius over-rides andneutralises envy by a natural process of timeand superiority, beauty acts like a magicalantidote to malicious jealousy: it suffices tomake itself visible and the reaction occurs,the thing is done; and, like all performancesof magic, no one can tell precisely how the


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26 BEAUTY IN NATUREthing is done. Philosophers and wits haveracked their brains in every age to unravelthe enigma the natural magic of a beautifulface defies analysis. There are no writtencodes to unravel the secret devices of Nature

they are unfathomable.Cynics may continue to depose this or

that queen of beauty by a bon mot, by acontemptuous remark, by vulgar jests abouta woman's age; but, with grace and intelli-gence, beauty can go a surprising distancebefore it ceases to charm; for beauty, evenin age, is a power to be reckoned with:there are grandmothers living who, at thepresent moment, are being courted by theclever sons of their former playmates, andhundreds of wise men prefer the beauty ofmaturity to that of youth, recognising in agea special and superior enchantment. Andhere, again, personal attraction resemblesgenius in its action on individual minds: noman, at liberty to decide for himself, has everbeen influenced by envy against any particu-lar type of what he considers beautiful; thusthe potential quality of beauty is a silentresolvent; the charms of a wicked woman,


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BEAUTY IN NATURE 27like the charms of a good woman, render herenemies ridiculous by contrast and pitiableby the opposition of so much power to somuch weakness.

In the life of the artist who has observedlong and patiently the objectively beautifulis a constant friend and comforter. Hehas met beauty half-way, and held a parleywith the arch-enemy, first with courageoushumility, then with diplomatic audacity, andlastly on terms of equality; for, with the trueartist, intimacy with beauty is the only kindof

familiaritywhich does not lead to con-

tempt; the artist respects the foe turnedto friend, knowing that beyond familiarknowledge there lies a region of undefinedmystery and charm, which, like the empyrean,is illimitable.


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The Tragedy of MacbethAN IMAGINARY DIALOGUE BETWEEN

EURIPIDES AND ^ESCHYLUS

EURIPIDES : Concerning tragedy, I maysay that the psychological law of sim-plicity in connection with that of illusion mustbe strictly observed in every part of it. Intragedy, as in all the realm of poetry, as wellas in the higher philosophy, it is the simplestillusions that strike most deeply into the humanheart; and in Macbeth it is these elements ofillusion and simple poetic truth that carry themind captive, charm the heart, and bewilderthe imagination with vague personages, ideas,conditions, and objects. But when there ismuch noise, loud speech, intense action, con-fusion, and pomp of words, without the veil ofsuggestion which should always shroud the

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THE TRAGEDY OF MACBETH 2pfigures of tragedy, there can be little inspira-tion, little enthusiasm, and no mystery.

I will tell you why I regard Macbeth as thegreatest tragedy the world has yet seen: itcontains more mystery, illusion, and sim-plicity than any other work of the kind inany language. For does not mystery bewilderus? Does not illusion fascinate us? And doesnot simplicity win our sympathies and lodgein our understanding?

^ESCHYLUS: I see clearly, as you havesaid, that there must be illusion and mysteryin every great tragedy, also do I assent tothe need of simplicity, both in the action andin the dialogue; but I think there should bemore mystery, coupled with illusion, thansimplicity in the action ; for do not the twogreat tragic elements of love and murder re-quire this?EURIPIDES: In the action there shouldalways be that train of thought which carriesthe mind captive, leading it on and on fromone stage of the plot to another, proceedingslowly by a certain law of augmentation, whichin tragedy, poetry, and music is always to beobserved. But passing into the mysteries of


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3O THE TRAGEDY OF MACBETHtragic emotion, as in Macbeth, is like the ex-ploring of dangerous regions by night, whereevery step is uncertain as you grope your wayin the deep shadows or deeper darkness,descending lower and lower, until terror andmystery unite as one.^ESCHYLUS: I must confess you give me

new light on this subject, for I begin to seewhat you really mean by mystery. Thisis truly the predominant trait of the greatesttragedies in which the depths of passion arereached. You have expressed it well, and Inow see it more clearly than before. But tellme, what is the actual difference, in youropinion, between mystery and illusion in sucha tragedy as Macbeth?

EURIPIDES : Mystery is the counterpart ofillusion; the one may be compared to thecaterpillar, the other to the butterfly; and inthis I speak not only physically but spiritu-ally; for the caterpillar is a mystery in that itsuddenly changes, as it were, from beast tobird. And is not the butterfly an illusion tothe sense of sight, as it darts here and thereamong the flowers and through the air, delight-ing the beholder by its rapid flight and brilliant


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THE TRAGEDY OF MACBETH 3colours? This is what illusion does to themind; it flits before the senses like a phantom ;but it is impalpable, it cannot be fully graspedby any of the senses; it has the elements ofthe real and the unreal. And so, too, hasmystery, which is always filled with dim un-certainty, like a great cave that is never com-pletely illuminated, but presents the alterna-tions of flickering lights and dark shadows tothose travellers who venture to look in at itsmouth.

I will now explain why the tragedy ofMacbeth is so filled with these elements,especially with illusion and mystery, accord-ing to their technical use in the drama. Wehave these in the characters both of Macbethand Lady Macbeth. The banquet scene isan illusion combined with mystery, as thespirits come and go before the eyes ofMacbeth, but are unseen by all the others.This seeming phantasy of the sense is amystery to those beholding it, as well as toMacbeth himself, being, moreover, awful andoverwhelming in its abruptness; and overallthere soars the fatal chimera, flattering hisvanity by the lips of his lady, for it is this


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32 THE TRAGEDY OF MACBETHthat urges him on and on till the culminat-ing point is reached. Certainly in no otherdrama have mystery and illusion been soeffectively portrayed. We see it, indeed, inthe beginning of the drama. As the first actopens out before us there seems to be anair of expectation hanging like a thin veilover it, through which we can almost seeto the end the mighty scenes that are tofollow.

^ESCHVLUS: What part in the action, orwhat bearing upon the illusion or mystery inthis great tragedy, has the music as sung bythe witches?

EURIPIDES: Now, indeed, do you touchupon a vital point in Macbeth, one in whichthe illusive and the mysterious join handsand become as one, where the action bringswith it all the results which naturally flowfrom such causes. We see depicted beforeus, not only to the physical sense of sightand to the sense of melody, but in a psycho-logical aspect, the distinctly mystical qualityof the conception when we hear the witchessing and see them dance, coming, as they do,in that particular part of the tragedy, neither


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THE TRAGEDY OF MACBETH 33too soon nor too late, but at the exact pointwhere all is adjusted to a harmony that is aswonderful as it is fascinating. We see thembefore us dancing and singing and exultingover something, we hardly know what; butwe feel that it is something of vital signific-ance; and, let me say, the music itselfheightens the effect of the whole action. Theman who composed it must have had a clearconception and a deep appreciation of thepeculiar elements of this tragedy.As for subtilties, Macbeth is full of them ;and yet, strange to say, it is one of the simplestworks ever written. For the charm of illusionis simplicity, by which it takes us captive, likethe face of a beautiful woman when smiling,who says nothing, but leaves all to the sug-gestive fancy of the beholder. Not as theworld understands it is Macbeth subtile. Tothe unobserving, to the mind unaccustomedto analyse, it would be very difficult to appre-ciate the glories of such a work, its motive,its action, and its influence. And touchingthe scene of the witches, I will say that nolover of Shakespeare, no tragedian with a dueappreciation of his art, will ever permit this

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34 THE TRAGEDY OF MACBETHtragedy to be presented without the fullmusical score.

^ESCHYLUS: And now tell me what, ac-cording to your understanding, is the mostillusive, the most mysterious, the most sug-gestive, and yet the simplest passage inMacbeth.

EURIPIDES : This question would seem tobe a very difficult one, since it appears toembrace a review of the whole drama; but itis, in fact, quite simple, for it can be answeredin a few words. In that great scene, at oncevivid and sublime, just after the murder, whenMacbeth is shrouded in the gloom of psycho-logical mystery, awe, and terror, mingled withvanity, ambition, and the prospect of glory,he asks the question, Didst thou not hear anoise? And, amidst the brooding silence,Lady Macbeth replies, I heard the owlscream and the crickets cry. In this sceneare combined all the elements of mystery,illusion, and simplicity. It suggests to thecultured mind the principles of the highesttragic colloquy. I deem that passage the mosttranscendent in all the work of Shakespeare;nor has it a parallel in the work of any other


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THE TRAGEDY OF MACBETH 35poet. What weirdness is there The solemnstillness of night, the ominous screech of theowl, the cricket's plaint, from some remotecrevice, following the night-bird's scream likea warning from an invisible witness, themediaeval castle, the two beings, impelledby inexorable ambition to the murder of theKing these things occasion the most sugges-tive passage in the whole realm of tragedy As to the knocking at the door, which a greatwriter has spoken of as involving the reactionof noise and confusion after the murder, Iadmit its effect is powerful, but the concep-tion is not poetic, for in these knockings thereaction is material; the incident suggests areturn to ordinary life after the commissionof the deed, and the effects of it have nometaphysical bearing upon the progress ofthe play.AESCHYLUS : And what, may I ask, is thedifference between Greek tragedyand Macbeth'

EURIPIDES: There are many differences,both in the conception and in the action.While, in the Greek tragedy, we find muchof the subtileness which was congenial to theGreek mind, with the weirdness of fatal sor-


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36 THE TRAGEDY OF MACBETHrows growing out of the calamities whichbefall the chief personages in the drama,there is not that simplicity which is so strikinga feature in Macbeth, and which makes it sopotent in its influence on the imaginationand the feelings. The Greeks were mastersof a few of the elements of tragedy. Whatthey attempted they accomplished with awonderful degree of perfection; but theirworks were lacking in the elements of illusivesuggestion, and above all in that simplicityor truthfulness to Nature which is so pro-minent throughout Shakespeare's tragedies.To be thrilling in its effect on the mind,to be fascinating, to be illusive yet real, atragedy and indeed every great poem,dramatic or epic must proceed by grades,passing, as in a symphony, from major tominor and back again, exalting the mind,thrilling the nerves with strong emotions,pleasing the imagination with new fancies,augmenting the movement by changes, untila climax is reached, which, in the catastropheof the drama, concentrates in one scene allthe elements of ambition, mystery, andemotion.


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Modern MelancholyMODERN melancholy has, before every-thing else, its gesture. Its naturalmotion is the gesture of disillusion, a weary,languid mien of abandonment. What resigna-tion there is in its most typical phases Forthe spirit of disenchantment is ennui, andfatigue is anti-dramatic. And so is the actingof Madame Yvette Guilbert. She expressesabnormal emotion by normal methods. Herart is the synthesis of modern pessimism anddisillusion. It contains weird suggestions ofpassing chimeras, vague reminiscences ofvanished dreams, vivid reality and poignantsimplicity.The mediaeval attitude of melancholy wasthat of faith and resignation. The character-istic of the sadness of our age is dejection,often accompanied by indifference and un-

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38 MODERN MELANCHOLYwillingness to enunciate. Disenchantmentcan only be expressed by the three moods ofpoetry, music, and gesture. And gesture isthe most congruent expression of the soul,therefore the most apparent. The beggaryand misery of the suppliant at the street cor-ner is shown by attitude first of all, then byfacial expression, and lastly by intonation.And if the natural form of disillusion is oneof mute dejection, it is the antithesis of pan-tomime with its imbecile extravagance andaffected emphasis. The very effort of panto-mime puts a damper on imagination and feel-ing. The basic element of Madame Guilbert'sart is quietude; she stands before us, not ina theatrical robe, but in a modern gown,without stage illusions, devoid of theatricalmethod or style.The French diseuse is a spontaneous revela-tion of what many poets, artists, actors,

and musicians of our time have felt buthave never succeeded in expressing. With-out this attitude the poetry of modern dis-enchantment is mere intellectual sugges-tion, and the melancholy of modern musicnever surpasses a sentimental semblance of


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MODERN MELANCHOLY 39emotional reality. Madame Bernhardt showsus how a classical method, with its measuredinflections, its aristocratic reticence, and variedattitudes can develop dramatic art. MadameGuilbert's art is a spontaneous conception, acreation in the highest sense of the word. Alldramatic art, properly speaking, is evolvedfrom experience and imitation. She sprangforth as in a night, like a tragic apparitiondenuded of the paraphernalia of tragedy. Andyet, by the gesture of two long phantom-likearms, by the listless posture of a statuesqueneck, by the languid roll of the eye, by apeculiar inimitable movement of the shoul-ders, she suggests and depicts a world ofideas, passions, emotions, illusions, bothpoetic and commonplace. She invokes theeveryday sentiments and sensations that liebeyond mere words and phrases. Her art isnever vehement. It is smothered passion. Itis the fire of love covered with the ashes ofdisillusion. And yet it is not acting; it issimple, unsophisticated gesture. Nor doesshe sing, properly speaking ; nor does sheneed to sing. Her features announce what istoo deep for words, and her voice intones


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MODERN MELANCHOLY 4settings, nor woven fancies. We are placedsuddenly beyond the lamentations and thevaguely cherished dreams even of the mostpessimistic poets, and we stand before thepine coffin of Hope covered with the fadedroses of modern disillusion. The time is pastfor weeping, and gesture has taken the placeof tears; it is all that art can do, not at itslowest, but at its last and final stage. Althoughrealistic, it is too reticent to be brutal. Noris it limited to one sphere of modern life. Itcomprises a vast social world, from the cynicaldespair of Montmartre to the sentimentaldespair of the Madeleine. The first is a frankconfession of a glaring social fact; the second,a religious and secret confession of the sametroubled state of the soul. This art is notonly a Latin and Parisian development; allnations understand it, for the language andgesture of modern melancholy are universal.


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TolstoyTHE portrait of Tolstoy denotes prideand will; the portrait of Rousseau, sen-sibility and originality. Tolstoy is an aristo-crat who has sought peace in plebeian humil-ity. Rousseau was a provincial sentimentalistwho began his career by seeking the societyof philosophers.The expressions in these two faces tell thestory of conflicting emotions and intellectualparadox ending in mental disorder.

Tolstoy mistakes mere humility for religion,and poverty for progress. The French writercaused a revolution of ideas; the Russianwishes to cause a revolution of deeds as wellas of ideas. When Rousseau wrote his Con-fessions, he united emotional fantasy with psy-chological observation; while Tolstoy leavesthe domain of sane talent and healthy art for


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TOLSTOY 43a sphere of eccentric experimentation. Thereis a wide gap between a pensive temperamentand a morbid imagination. The one is markedby philosophical harmony, the other overflowswith vague visions of perfectibility.

But the celebrated Russian has not de-veloped that spirit of humility which somewriters would have us believe. Indeed, hispronunciamientos are not so much the resultof humility as of malicious rivalry; for whenhe asks Englishmen to give up Shakespeare,Germans to give up Beethoven, Italians togive up Dante, it is, of course, with the ex-press understanding that Count Tolstoy shalltake their place.The teaching of this writer calls to mindthe old error, taught in different forms in allages, of the possible attainment of intellectualand moral equality. If such men would calmlycontemplate the heavens by night and notethe difference in the size and glory of thestars, or walk into the woods to take lessonsfrom the beasts and the birds, all differing inform and colour, they would see that thephysical structure of the universe conforms tothe spiritual and moral faculties of man in


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44 TOLSTOYthat both harmonise with the universal andimmutable law of variation and inequality.

Instead of a manifestation of genius wehave in Count Tolstoy a depressing sense ofwill-power, unbalanced by culture and intui-tion. It is literary Nihilism put into practiceby a converted pessimist.After reading books like the KreutzcrSonata and La Bete Humaine, one is temptedto ask what these painful recitals do towardsthe elevation of art or humanity. The artistand the thoughful reader answer this questionby comparing such books with the work ofScott and Balzac. The work of the modernrealist is the art of fact, comparable to pro-blems in algebra. Literary realism is artisticmaterialism, the pugilism of intellectuality.The disciples of realism tell us that there is aprofound and practical philosophy in this kindof writing; but the realities of everyday lifeare sufficiently vivid to permit of dispensingwith this new form of modern emotion. Thinkof an age of practical research being calledupon to supply a literature of physical suffer-ing and psychological sorrow, to harmonise,as it were, with the doubts of a Spencer and


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TOLSTOY 45the dynamics of a Darwin It is not surprisingthat a large number of persons daily seekrefuge in phenomenal mysticism when oneconsiders the psychological inquisition towhich readers of novels have been put duringthe past twenty years.The study of Tolstoy means the study ofRussian character, with its superstitions, its

contradictions, its strange medley of fanaticismand pessimism. This character is stronglytinctured with Oriental mysticism, coupledwith a new form of Western thought. TheRussians imitate much, create little. Inthis soil theories take root with singularfacility.

Character distinguishes one man from an-other, and gives identity; true personalitydistinguishes one man from all others, andgives originality. Every human being thatlives a sober, industrious life possesses char-acter, but neither sobriety nor industry willgive personality. The quality of character islimited to local environment; the quality ofpersonality is universal in its influence, andoriginality is its fundamental element. Allleaders, whether in politics or philosophy, art


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46 TOLSTOYor literature, possess it, or they would not beleaders.The rare possessors of personality inspire

four sentiments in the heart of man ; namely,love, envy, respect, and hatred. Personalityis inimitable, and yet it is mimicked morethan anything else.A man's temperament is all the man. Itis more than his style, because a gifted writercan vary his style, but his temperament never.Indeed, when Count Tolstoy changed hismode of living, when he set aside worldlypleasures, vices, and ambitions, he could notlay aside the domineering temperament withwhich he was born. Used to commandingpeople in his younger days, he expects tocommand still. This sort of man will neverconsent to learn from others; he would com-pel people to learn from him. And this isthe danger. Men juggle with temperamentas they do with words, phrases, theories,whims, and fads ; and it rarely occurs topeople who reason from a sentimental stand-point to analyse their feelings. Stamp with aseal of sincerity any preposterous theory, andthere will not be found wanting sentimental


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TOLSTOY 47people to accept it. Nor can you ever con-vince the sentimental dreamer that sincerityis no more a mark of genius or wisdom, thanwriting a novel every year is a sign of talent.Self-confidence and the fanatical instinctdevelop and proceed apace; and what is thisself-confidence but the most positive form ofsincerity? Wise men not only make blunders,but often doubt their own powers. They havetheir negative moments. A fanatic neverdoubts. It is this perennial assurance whichgives him such sway over the masses, andhypnotises many intelligent people, so thatthey accept mere will for reason.

Tolstoy and Ibsen are two names which arefrequently pronounced in the same breath,but it would be difficult to find two menmore widely separated, both by temperamentand by method. Tolstoy began life as anaristocratic viveitr, changed his mode of living,and became a preacher with a system. Ibsen,on the contrary, presents ideas and imagesfrom the poetic side of life. He is no more apreacher than Shakespeare, yet the exampleshe sets before us have all the vividness andardour of the real. Such work requires some-


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48 TOLSTOYthing besides power and sincerity; for we arehere in the presence of the poetic instinct,which is not only a temperament, but a stateof culture that is clairvoyant in its verynature.

This nature cannot be assumed at will,whereas the builder of systems may beginlife as he pleases. There is no fixed timefor him to appear on the programme of life'sraces ; and he may always count on winningat least one popular race.When a single idea takes possession of aman of talent to the exclusion of all others,his thought becomes entangled, his reason nolonger holds the balance of power in favourof sound judgment and artistic imagination.One has only to look at the portrait of CountTolstoy to see a man of iron will, possessedby a fixed idea. It is not a head we can com-pare with that of an Emerson or a Goethe.The face is characterised by an expression ofdistrust, suspicion, and dogged will the anti-thesis of those signs which are characteristicof harmonious minds.

There has not been during the past centurya more striking example of provincial ascen-


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TOLSTOY 49dency springing from dogmatic will. Andyet the celebrated Russian is sincere. Buthis sincerity is born of a certain inherent, un-conscious hauteur, which is the cause of somuch oracular positiveness. Like Carlyle,he is positive from lack of experience. Hisreasons, too, are not the reasons of the poet,whose inspirations are both deep and lofty,subtile and lucid, but those of a writer lookingat life on a surface without reflective lights.He takes long, solemn views of men andthings, outlooks that correspond with thelong, bleak, and lonely wastes of the Russiansteppes. But the solemnity is that of the old-time preacher, at once strong and narrow,never broad and universally appropriate.The abrupt is as dangerous in man as it isin Nature: there has been no graded develop-ment in the march of this singular character.The contrast between the fashionable, worldlyTolstoy and the Tolstoy suddenly becomeethical gives the mind a shock. Harmoniousthinkers are never precipitate. They movefrom one sphere to another with analyticalcaution and patient reserve. They are patientabove all things, waiting years before accept-D


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$0 TOLSTOYing a new system where superficial mindswait months.The man who is swayed by emotion or

passion is never certain in his judgment.And this uncertainty renders him a victimto appearance and illusion. Urged on by apowerful emotion, he jumps in the dark; hisefforts appear successful, in reality they arefailures. Tolstoy's efforts have made thewealthy realize more than ever the absurdityof the idea of universal equality and humility;because, having plenty of time to considercalmly the questions which the great writer setsbefore them, they not only refuse Lo leap inthe dark, but they recognize the impossibilityof his system being established successfully.If the body cries out against pain, the mindgrows violent in its revolt against pressure.This is the one insupportable thing for thespirit of man, the thing which is most anti-pathic to every fibre of his being. The ideathat he is to obscure his identity by merginghis temperament in that of a thousand or amillion others is impossible for most mindsto entertain seriously. Culture is mighty in amodest way. It rises above the fads and


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Imitation and OriginalityTHE assertion of John Stuart Mill thatnew melody will some day be impossibleto invent seems true, for since Wagner wehave had little save imitations of the oppres-sive and tedious side of his genius. But if thisbe true of music, art is in the same predica-ment. The world is passing from the purelyartistic to the commonplace and pseudo-artistic. Artists are left with the alternativeof returning to primitive methods or persist-ing in that kind of mechanical imitation socunningly wrought by painters like Meis-sonier.

Does not this dilemma explain the abortiveattempts of the French symbolists to imbuetheir angular, weirdly incoherent pictures withthe semblance of life? Art-symbolism is notlikely to produce such a master as Maeter-

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IMITATION AND ORIGINALITY 53linck is in literature, for the reason that inpoetic symbolism the mind is charmed andinstructed by a different psychological pro-cess. The. eye demands, above all things, thehighest, simplest, and most natural expressionof physical beauty. Symbolical artists, in de-spair of being original, have sought to adaptthe metaphysical to the plastic by a mixtureof mediaeval mysticism, spiritism, and thenaive impotence of Botticelli. The result is amystical incoherence, a straining after a formof originality that is neither realistic noridealistic in its effect. The critical eye is moreoften offended than pleased with this newexperiment in art. And, after all, are we nottoo human in these days for the worship ofthe attenuated and ethereal? Since asceticismis no longer considered a reasonable indul-gence, the world has come to believe in thenatural and the normal as the true mode ofplastic inspiration.The creative faculty, which means genius inpoetry and music, is limited to such a degree inplastic art that many painters of renown areintellectually inferior to the mechanical dex-terity of the hand, so to speak. Unlike the


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54 IMITATION AND ORIGINALITYpoet and the musician, they need the model.So nearly is their talent related to formulaand method, that in many respects it re-sembles a science more than a gift. It is anart which acts on the emotions through op-tical sensation, and may be likened to thetalent of the actor which depends on thedramatist for the development of characterand on the enthusiasm of local assemblies forinspiration.Compare the work of the great masters with

the best work of the new generation, and thesensation is like that experienced in passingfrom a garden of flowers to a field of redclover. The early masters especially had thesecret possessed by the Athenian sculptors,which Joseph Roux defined in the aphorism :The Greek statue blushed; the modernstatue makes the beholder blush. Whatstrikes the visitor on entering the celebratedgalleries is the warmth of the colouring, thevivid and lifelike expression, the marvellousrichness and 'eclat of the ensemble displayedin a Da Vinci, a Correggio, a Raphael, or aTitian, in contradistinction to the pictures ofthe modern schools. The visitor is drawn to


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IMITATION AND ORIGINALITY 55the works of the old masters by somethingwhich is not only poetic, but real; there is amagnetic warmth and mellowness about thetone and expression of their portraits whichattracts as by a perpetual charm.The enormous success of Meissonier's pic-tures is the surest sign that our taste in arthas degenerated. A Parisian critic has de-nned his work as the triumph of the bour-geois instinct in art ; and in this connectionit is interesting to note the remarkable har-mony existing between many writers andartists of the day. There is a striking affinitybetween the methods of Meissonier and themanner of Zola. Both have depicted life withpower and precision; both have painted incolours or in words the form of thought mostcongenial to their minds. But their creativefaculties end precisely in the element inwhich they were developed. They are mastersof the powerful, students of the Darwiniantheory applied to materialistic art. Meissonierhas glorified the most extravagant period inthe military history of France. In his vividillustrations of events in the career of Bona-parte the painter has only expressed his per-


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56 IMITATION AND ORIGINALITYsonal predilection for the most ambitious ofmodern generals ; that is to say, he has givenvent to a sentiment in favour of a survival ofthe fittest in the matter of brute force andinexorable egoism. A painter depicts withthe brush the things that are most congenialto his sentiment. He can no more rise abovehis natural disposition than a poet can risebeyond the limits of his poetic faculty. In hisfigures of Bonaparte, Meissonier sought toturn an idol of flesh and blood into a person-age of transcendent heroism; in his figures ofChrist, Munkacsyhas debased the ideal manto the attitude of a half-starved madman.Realism has bent its forces towards the ex-pression of an art that lies beyond the creativeability of its votaries. The charm of beautyis replaced by efforts which show restrictionsof taste and weakness of judgment. Thesame physiological traits, the same corporealpreponderance that stamps contemporary artin general, characterise the work of Mun-kacsy. In his portraitures of Christ he showsus not the divine idea in the man, but thefigure of a Nihilistic fanatic, who, from thewild expression in his face and undignified


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IMITATION AND ORIGINALITY 57attitude of his person, causes the beholderlittle surprise to find that he stands beforePilate as a dangerous disturber of the peace.The people who surround Christ are a littlemore modern than the Hungarian gipsy anda little more Oriental than the HungarianJew.We are living in an age when technicalskill is supposed to be as good as imaginationin art. The accuracy with which a Meissonieror a Degas paints a battle or a ballet-danceris equalled by the photographic word-picturesdrawn by a Maupassant or a Zola. Take, forexample, Notre Co&ur. With what power thedifferent scenes are depicted; with what ac-curacy every phrase sets before the eye aliving, moving personage; with what realisticart the temperament of each is made to unrollbefore the reader as by a word-panorama,where every page tells precisely what it oughtto tell, and where every scene containsexactly what was intended. The author,striving after originality, has done his utmostto go beyond the commonplace; but oneputs down the book with the feeling thatMaupassant, although a master of the tech-


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58 IMITATION AND ORIGINALITYnical part of story-telling, lacked the facultyof poetic invention. His heroes and heroinesare photographs of individuals who swarm inthe fashionable world of Paris, and who, farfrom representing rare types of humanity,only appear on paper the common symbolof latter-day society as it exists in all thegreat cosmopolitan centres of the world.The critical reader is interested in this kindof work from the assurance that the char-acters and incidents shall unroll before himin due order from the first to the last line ofthe book. As for the characters, the readeris held by that kind of interest which at-taches to the secret springs of a mechanicalmermaid, or the platitudes of a modernParisienne. Maupassant puts his charactersthrough a course of literary gymnastics, inwhich he shows us the muscles, the sinews,the esprit^ the mental manoeuvres of each;and when the entertainment is over werealise its artificial methods, and wonder atthe author's power to hold the reader's atten-tion by such trivial devices.

There never was a time when so much artwas wasted on subjects and plots which in


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IMITATION AND ORIGINALITY 59themselves are ephemeral. Guy de Mau-passant was a pupil of Gustave Flaubert,and he did his utmost to reach the artisticheight. of his master. But it is impossible,after having read La Tentation de Saint-Antoine or Madame Bovary not to notice thewide gap that separates the two authors:Flaubert was intuitive, creative, lucid in hisartistic conceptions, without a flaw in thearrangement of his ideas; Maupassant showsall those signs of technical subtileness andperfect literary form which were character-istic of his master, but the indefinable toneof sincerity and poetic power possessed bythe author of Salammbo is lacking. It is thedifference between talent carried to a state ofperfection by sheer application, and geniuswhich is born with the creative and poeticinstinct. Take from a novel like Notre Cczurits rhetorical perfection, and the story itselfwould be insupportable. Such works are notmerely imitative, they revolve in a socialsphere that borders on the inhuman: wiveswithout the maternal instinct, friends withoutaffection, lovers without love, honour withoutconscience, everything that paints the modern


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60 IMITATION AND ORIGINALITYcanaille and the social sans culotte of thefashionable world of to-day.We are told that reality in the unreal isthe truest form of art, and to photograph theemptiest phase of modern art is put down asthe quintessence of artistic ability. Balzacimitated, but he added to the faculty ofimitation a philosophic and poetic conceptionthat gave to his work an originality whichplaces it beside the most original in literature.Zola, an admirer and follower of Balzac,has not succeeded in reaching the plane ofhis great predecessor any more than Mau-passant attained the perfection of Flaubert.We have arrived at a time when novelistshave taken to the model, when those whoseem the strongest cannot walk without thesupport of some school or method, where-by the machinery of the intellect may beregulated and set in motion.The longer we contemplate the work al-ready done, the more the world of art andliterature appears to be in repose on thepillars of that work; and the time is at handfor a true realisation of the facts as theyexist.


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IMITATION AND ORIGINALITY 6 1Nevertheless, the man of talent or geniusto-day has a sphere of his own, which, if not

creative in the sense of former times, is evenmore difficult when we consider the vast ob-servation, experience, and general knowledgerequired to impress serious minds. Threecenturies ago Bacon, while yet a young man,did not hesitate to declare that he had takenall knowledge unto his province. But atthat day there was little to master beyondthe classical confines of the Greek and Latinworld. Both style and model were invariablyborrowed from the ancients; no weight wasattached to the methods and manners ofmediaeval thought. Bacon, therefore, in tak-ing all knowledge unto his province simplyappropriated the intellectual possessions ofGreece and Rome, and out of them formu-lated a new system of reasoning.Emerson was wrong when he said that aman could learn as much by staying at homeas by going abroad. The man who expectsto rise above mediocrity in this age must notonly become familiar with the characteristicsof his own people, but must acquaint himselfwith the virtues and vanities of other nations


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62 IMITATION AND ORIGINALITYin order to wear off the provincial veneerwhich adheres to all individuals withoutpractical experience, and mocks one in atoo conscious security of contentment orindifference. Talent was never so rife asat present; what is rare is a universality ofthought and feeling, a union of the intuitionaland experimental, a clear connection betweenknowledge and wisdom application on theone hand, comprehension on the other. Itno longer suffices to familiarise oneself withthe dead languages and the philosophy of theancients, for a new criterion has been estab-lished whereby to judge the man of creativeability.The genius of the future must be acquaintedwith the world, not only in its poetic but itsprosaic attire. He must be familiar with themystic elements of Athenian philosophy andthe characteristics of German pessimism,modern evolution, scientific agnosticism;sentiment must be coupled with science, andphilosophy with art. The ideas and formulaeof one mind no longer suffice to wield an ab-solute power in the world of thought; thebest intellects of all ages must be assimilated


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IMITATION AND ORIGINALITY 63and appropriated in order to bring forth newmanifestations of the creative faculty whichshall add something more to the wisdomalready expressed by that indefinable qualitywe designate as genius.


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Physical Courage and MoralCowardicePHYSICAL courage and moral cowardiceare usuallyfound as twins. When Francewas la grande nation militaire no one daredto speak his mind. The chief quality of thenation resided in physical valour, which wassupposed to embody all the moral virtues.But with Louis XVI military force took asecond rank; men began to preach whatthey thought. France has ever since remainedthe only country where literary and philosophi-cal truths have been enunciated without fearor favour by individuals as well as by groupsand schools. On the other hand, Spain hasremained a physical-force nation, as is shownby her bull-rings. The bull-fighters face deathvoluntarily every day; and yet the Spaniardsremain as putty in the hands of the priests.

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PHYSICAL COURAGE 65England, since the days of Elizabeth, hasnot only been the leading naval Power, but

she has added a number of more or lessbrutal sports to the list of valorous pastimes :foot-ball, fox-hunting, prize-fighting, requireplenty of muscle and physical courage, but nobrains or moral independence. It is con-sidered highly respectable to be a soldier,or a sailor, or an athlete, or a fox-hunter,without sufficient intelligence to engage inthe most superficial conversation on art,music, or literature. It is considered risky tospeak of religious doubt, although you maybe an Agnostic; bad taste not to admirecricket-playing, although it may bore you.

It is difficult to be a race of athletes andprogress artistically and socially at the sametime. This physical courage and commercialactivity develop a certain hypocrisy in theEnglish character. Frankness, generosity,enthusiasm are rarely expressed with a freehand in regard to meritorious works in litera-ture, poetry, philosophy, and art. Manywriters are slow to praise, fearing that frankenthusiasm will be taken as a mark of criticalincapacity; so hypocrisy bows, and gives a

E


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66 PHYSICAL COURAGEblow for each word of praise uttered. Anotherform of dissimulation is that of beginning acriticism by the hypercritical method, andending it by eulogy. Before any praise isrendered the author or artist receives a cer-tain number of stripes with a literary cat-o'-nine-tails, and this passes for criticism incertain quarters.

In literature the English are a sentimentalpeople; and it is a fine art with the critic todevise means to make the reader suppose thecritic superior to that kind of thing. Theresult is that the people go their own way,and read the books that please them, with-out a thought for the critic's opinion. Noone who has watched the effect produced bycertain popular authors can doubt this. Manyauthors, however, who are not popular, in-timidated by the system of scourging, havebeen turned into literary tortoises, not daringto show more than a nose now and again oftheir real self. This is why English literatureof the present day is so devoid of colour andpersonality. The lack of sincerity engendershypercriticism. One wonders how writers canfind the courage, not to say patience, to go


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PHYSICAL COURAGE 67on from day to day concocting articles inwhich none but provincial minds believe andnone but the idle read. An excuse is madefor praising anything good, whether in art orliterature, especially if the work shows per-sonality, for that is what the worshippers ofphysical courage hate more than anythingelse; and so it is in all branches of art andthought; new forms, aspirations, achieve-ments must be received with caution, if notwith suspicion. There is one thing, however,which the physical courage people accept,namely, humour. This accounted for the greatsuccess of the new Scotch humour. No medi-tation was required in reading it, and everyone could appreciate it, from butlers tobishops, especially when it was not onlyorthodox but sentimental.One of the most curious effects of moralcowardice on the British mind is shown in

the attitude of the majority of the leadingwriters of the day towards questions such asSocialism, Spiritism, Scepticism, etc. Hun-dreds who sympathise with Socialism, orbelieve in Spiritism, hide their convictionsbehind a mask of irony or humour.


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68 PHYSICAL COURAGEBritish humour, in these days, is not somuch a natural product of the mind and

heart, as a cloak to dissemble thought. Any-thing will pass if dressed up in that humor-istic garb which harmonises with those manlysports we are taught to believe as so essentialto the glory of Englishmen, because humouris one of the prime elements in these sports,it being an element which springs from thetongue, wholly foreign to reason and thought.And this is why physical courage, carried toexcess, always leads to moral skulking. It isa curious fact that of all the great nationsnone do so little thinking as the English andthe Spanish, the two nations that deal mostin sports. An Englishman of the lower orderis troubled by nothing if he can get plenty ofbeer and tobacco, with plenty of rough amuse-ment, just as the Spaniard thinks of nothingbut attending mass and bull-fights.When Matthew Arnold went to America,he said the curse of that country was its funny men. To the English critic the jour-nalists seemed to take nothing seriously, noteven the critic, whom they included in theirhumoristic assaults. But American humour


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PHYSICAL COURAGE 69is as far removed from the English character,as French wit is from Teutonic sentiment.American humour is the result of intelligencedirected in a single channel; English humouris meant to fill a gap left by moral apathyand mental indifference. The English sayamusing things to a lazy and hypocriticalpublic. Put a French and an English mechanicface to face in an argument on politics orreligion, and note the difference between thelogic and frankness of the first and the obtusesubterfuges of the second. The French work-man not only thinks, but is not afraid to saywhat he does think; his English brother letssentiment fill the place of thought, and isalways the victim of sentimental wire-pullers.The new-woman movement, the Socialistmovement, the Buddhist craze, and thepsychical research movement, are all so manyforces which Nature has put into the mindsof certain men and women to react againstthe prevailing moral decadence. An English-woman in bloomer costume on a bicycle isa furious protest against an intolerable formof British prudery.


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Parsifalitis

IT was Schopenhauer who opened the eyesof the Germans to the futility of theirdream -philosophers. With that writer theoccupation of German visionaries came to anend, after which there was clearly nothing tobe done but descend from the clouds anddeal with first principles, with man in particu-lar and humanity in general. But as the lastphilosophical dreamer disappeared, a geniusarose with a new gift and a new ambition.

Wagner, influenced by the example ofSchopenhauer, became a musical metaphysi-cian, who united something of Teutonicdream-life with the most positive form ofart ever invented by man.The climax of the new art-philosophy wasreached in the mighty inspirations of DerXing des Nibelungen, clearly conceived and

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PARSIFALITIS 7 1powerfully embodied from the first line of thedrama to the last detail of the mise-en-scene.Then came the Wagnerian decadence, andParsifal was written. All previous systemswere to be ignored for a method whereby agroup of notes should possess the quality ofasserting an individuality in an idea calledthe leit-motif. The music of the leading char-acters in the drama was to preach a kind ofsermon to the emotions, and by constant itera-tion act as a spiritual interpreter to the under-standing. The composer was to choose amotifmuch as a preacher would choose a text,and, at given moments throughout the work,reiterate the motif by different instrumentsand voices, just as the preacher might repeathis text with renewed emphasis several timesduring an exhortation. But just in proportionas a sermon is enhanced by the repetition ofa text, so a musical ensemble is weakened bythe iteration of a motif, especially when theimpression created on a mind wholly free frombias is one of mediocrity.Of all things, music should never pose,should never bewilder the senses by meaningsand motives hidden under a veil of theoretical


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/2 PARSIFALITIS

uncertainty. The greater part of the musicof Parsifal belongs to the domain of psycho-logical experiment. And as it is impossiblefor obscure thought to take a plastic and ex-ternal configuration, so it is impossible toproduce a regular and artistic form by themethods employed by the master in this work.In Parsifal, Wagner attempted to depictsentiments and emotions, as they come andgo, with the rapidity of thought. In the shortspace of a few seconds he tries to express inmusic precisely what is supposed to pass inthe mind of Parsifal or Kundry. Love, passion,frenzy, hope, malice, despair, he attempts totransfix by orchestral means, each chord vary-ing in a multitudinous flow of sound, seldomhalting long enough on any one idea for thelistener to fix a definite form in his mind. Allthis is highly instructive from a psychologicalpoint of view; it is interesting as a meta-physical study, but it is not inspiration.Musical form demands precisely what is de-manded of poetry and sculpture repose,beauty, regularity, a satisfying sense of wellrounded harmonies. While music finds acongenial element in mystical sentiment, in


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74 PARSIFALITISBut this is not all. In Parsifal art hassuffered. In Tannhauser and Lohengrin we

have romance, sentiment, passion, a free andpositive inspiration, and notwithstanding avein of intense pessimistic melancholy run-ning through them, they remain as monu-ments of inspirational achievement. But inParsifal Wagner descended at one stroke tosentimentality pure and simple. The think-ing world is asked to accept this work as adefinite ethical pronouncement. We are ex-pected to become so unphilosophical, so im-practical, as to exchange our individuality forself-effacement and dumb resignation : anattitude that failed even in the incomparablepresentation of Greek and Roman stoics; anattitude that so nullified the Hindoo mindthat India lost its self-control and finally itsindependence; an attitude that has reducedItaly, Austria, and Spain to a condition ofvassalage, and has forced the Christianworld to accept modern progress as a propand modern science as an aid. Both themusic and the drama of Wagner's last worktend to a climax of negative emotion, all themore dangerous because the work was con-


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PARSIFALITIS 75ceived and written as an example of ethicalart not to be surpassed even by the authorhimself. The active genius invariably endsby doing.too much. It was so with Napoleonwhen he started for Moscow. The danger liesin excessive ambition, in the forcing of ideaswhen Nature calls for passive repose.But not only does the active genius endby doing too much, with a temperament likethat of Wagner he lands his followers on thewrong side of the ditch ; he passes away in acloud of glory, imposing on his discipleswho mistake mere ambition for inspirationa state of continual squabbling and conten-tion. A militant genius, if he live long enough,ends by counteracting the effect of his mostvirile powers. Beethoven, whose temperamentwas meditative, had no systems to build andno theories to uphold. This is why in hisworks we find more order and logic in ideas,and more art and consonance in method.He was positive as a personality, but passiveas an artist. Verdi, at his worst, is tolerable;Beethoven, at his worst, is interesting ;Wagner, at his worst, is insupportable.The mission of music is to elevate and


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PARSIFALITIS 77of dawn. Wagner is Schopenhauer set tomusic.

In the psychological world there are athousand, different diseases which attack themind; here it is religion, there it is philo-sophy, science, or art. Credulity on the onehand, or positivism on the other, are symp-toms of psychological distemper. Those whodeny genius are affected as well as those whoblindly accept the nonsense that geniussometimes preaches. Perhaps Democrituswho laughs is as mentally afflicted as Hera-clitus who weeps; and Diogenes, who livedin a tub, was no worse or better off thanAlexander who slept on the sands of thePersian desert. Nature, smiling blandly atall, has her own secret, which is eternallyhidden.

Parsifalitis is a new distemper in the worldof art. It attacks man at two of his mostvulnerable points, his imagination and hisinstinct of credulity. It entraps by the splen-dour of its mise-en-scene, by its metaphysics,and by the hallucinating movements of ges-ture and sound. In the auditorium at Bay-reuth, where optical and acoustic conditions


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78 PARSIFALITIS

are perfect, where a thousand persons gaze atthe same sights, listen to the same sounds,think of the same things, the general effect isintensely hypnotic. It is not strange thatunder such conditions, romantic, neurotic,and sentimental minds should be acted uponby a force far beyond their will to withstand.Here the fanatically disposed settle them-selves for an abracadabrant initiation into themysteries of the Parsifalian chimera. Eachtime the curtains are parted a new door openson a world of illusive suggestion ; at the endof each act one more door closes upon thepersonal judgment of the listener. The typi-cal habitues of Bayreuth, tormented by afixed idea, their nerves shattered by theabuse of antithetical harmonies, advise thenew-comer to have patience. After the fif-teenth representation of Parsifal you willbegin to appreciate the beauty of the scoreand the sense of the symbols. The visitorpromises to return again, and half throughsnobbery, half through curiosity, he becomesinoculated with the germs of Parsifalitis with-out once suspecting the danger. Then comesa time when the world of art has no longer


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PARSIFALITIS 79anything beautiful or instructive to offer.Bayreuth has shorn the constant visitor ofhis personality, of his judgment, of his ap-preciation of the artistic and the beautiful. Amonk, confined in the cell of a sombremonastery, enjoys more intellectual freedom;he rejoices in the works of a hundred differ-ent saints; he is free to admire a certainpriest more than a certain bishop, a certainbishop more than a certain pope. The victimof Parsifalitis knows but one priest, who is atonce both pope and saint, the high-priest ofthe Grail. An acolyte of the temple of Bay-reuth is sworn to a kind of secret compactto burn incense only at one altar of thistemple, in the chapel of Parsifal, and no-where else.

But if Parsifal causes an obsession atBayreuth, on British soil it has produced anew form of snobbery. In this countrysnobbery favours the most successful master,whoever he may be. The snob waits untilthe early disciples of genius have done therough and needy work, ploughed the ground,planted the seed, and reaped the harvest; hethen appears at the vintage festival with all


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8O PARSIFALITISthe assurance and satisfaction of the success-ful reaper.

In Thackeray's day the snob was almostexclusively confined to social circles. Fromthe social sphere he invaded that of art. Thestudios and the galleries became thronged atcertain seasons with people devoid of thesense of colour and unconscious of thebeauty of form. But the British snob, alwaysbehind the snob of other nations in his intel-lectual manifestations, makes up for lost timewhen he once decides upon a move; so, fromart he has jumped to ultra-Wagnerian music.Conceive, if you can, a sudden change inliterary taste from Shakespeare to Mr. Gilbert,or from Mr. Gilbert to Ibsen, and you willappreciate the chasm that has been crossedat a single bound by the latest and mostpretentious form of snobbery.It is an easy matter to affect admiration forpainters and composers, but difficult to simu-late it for poets and philosophers; mere senti-ment suffices for the former, but the latterdemand ideas. This is another reason whyartistic snobbery commonly moves on well-beaten ground. Exclamations and platitudes


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PARSIFALITIS 8 1will do to hide one's ignorance of art andmusic; but you cannot juggle with the pro-ductions of an Ibsen, a Meredith, or aMaeterlinck. Is this not why the new snob-bery, in its jump from art to music, has leapedover literature without so much as touching apoet or philosopher in its passage? For it isan error to suppose that the admirationkindled by writers like Schopenhauer andNietzsche is tinctured with snobbery. Thesnob, no matter what his learning may be,will never patronise anything which requiresserious justification by word or pen.


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AUTHORITY AND INDIVIDUALISM 83But

nothing vanishes suddenly. Systems,like men, wear themselves out, not by suddenfriction, nor by fits and starts, but by stagesas definitely marked on the map of time asthe stages of a desert route for the marchingof caravans.

In the movementsof certain Eastern dancesthe contortions of the performers seem out ofharmony with the rhythm of the music;nevertheless the character of the people,the music, and the gestures are one; thejerky and the seemingly accidental are butthe natural changes from one mood to an-other, symphonic gradations in a series ofscenes developed in accordance with thetastes and the temperaments of differenttribes and peoples. In politics, philosophy,religion, the transitions may also seem suddenand meaningless; but the illusions of sightand sentiment are chimerical symbols whichoften haunt the mind and heart of the mostrobust at a time when reason and clear sightare the most necessary. In the movement ofgreat bodies there are incidents, but no acci-dents ; issues and results, but no haphazardupheavals and endings. There would have


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AUTHORITY AND INDIVIDUALISM 85witnessed not only the decadence, but thedeath of individual authority. Modern hero-worship began with Bonaparte and endedwith Carlyle. The Corsican made it familiar,the Scottish moralist made it fashionable.Democracy rendered it impossible. Nor doeshistory record an instance of a nation havingbeen saved from impending disaster by aprophet. Lord Chesterfield predicted theFrench Revolution thirty years before theevent; Chateaubriand foretold the advent ofFrench Republicanism nearly half a centuryprevious to the tragedy at Sedan ; and Moltke,with a cynicism which some writers regard asa species of sorcery, devised and concocteda system of operations for the taking of Parisand the overthrow of the Empire as early as1857, thirteen years before the declaration ofwar, at a time when the Palace of the Tuilerieswas the universal rendezvous of kings, million-aires, and beautiful women, in the midst ofone of the most luxurious, peaceful, and pro-mising reigns of modern history.The fact that a man exists who can see ageneration or two in advance is in itself asymbol of fatality. A prophet is synonymous


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86 AUTHORITY AND INDIVIDUALISMwith destiny. He is amongst us not as anexample, but as a symbol; not as a warning,but as a figure. The true prophet, whilepreaching to this world, lives in another farremote. He is the shadow of the unknown ;and shadows may frighten for a moment, butthey do not impress. What passes as a flashis not understood by men devoid of intuitiveinsight; for as it requires the highest culture torecognise the early manifestations of genius,it requires something akin to the propheticspirit to recognise a prophet. The recognitionof prophetic truth cannot be imparted, andfor this reason the people who follow geniusat the outset are destined to be so few innumber as to be devoid of worldly power.And so, in spite of everything, a prophet issynonymous with destiny. This is why thelamentations of Jeremiah and Isaiah, evennow, make the most curious and the mostmelancholy as well as the most fascinatingreading. Their powerful inspirational out-bursts did not save Israel, not even at a timewhen a prophet was regarded as a mouthpieceof Jehovah.

In the Anglo-Saxon nations the signs of


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AUTHORITY AND INDIVIDUALISM 87coming events may be likened to those ofFrance in the latter half of the eighteenthcentury when that country lost, in rapid suc-cession, Canada, India, and her possessionsin Africa, when the caustic negations ofVoltaire met half-way the imbecile quarrels ofthe Jansenists, who, blind to the universaldisaster and decadence, found time for vio-lent disputes about the doctrine of predestina-tion, thus assisting by intestine discord therush towards the brink of national calamityand social chaos. In every case we findpolitical disaster stalking arm-in-arm withreligious dissension.

There are three principal social elementswhich are levelling and diluting old systemsand beliefs the Salvation Army, which hasmade a clean divorce between Episcopalian-ism and the people; Republicanism, whichhas undermined Monarchism; and Socialism,which has denied even the necessity of Re-publicanism. The Roman Republic passedupward into the splendours of the Empire.The duration of its decline seemed destinedto correspond with the height of its glory bya long series of tragic disasters. But in our


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88 AUTHORITY AND INDIVIDUALISMday society is not imitating the Romans.Socialism, if it is to come, will not mounttowards Empire; it seeks a rapid descent toa level of individual equality.

If the idealism with which we are familiaris spiritual and intuitive, the science of thenear future will be founded on common-sense and individual needs, without whichidealism itself is but a sounding brass anda tinkling cymbal. Intelligence in the pastwas almost always turned to personal author-ity instead of to philosophical influence andexample. Indeed, authority seems to havebeen the chief aim in the lives of most menwho have acted on the stage of public affairs,whether in politics, in religion, or in art. Andthe liberty which authoritative people givethemselves even now is often worse than thelicence they profess to cure. Nor is the in-dividualism here displayed of the kind whichis intended to work both ways; it works butone way, and that on the side of egoism; forwhen it comes to liberty of conscience andutterance, the vaunted freedom is foundwanting it is vested in one man or a singlegroup of men.


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AUTHORITY AND INDIVIDUALISM 89The evolution of one law is in harmonywith the progress of all other laws. In the

secret methods of the unseen there is a fixedmode of progression based on social andantithetic harmony. People allude to thenew-woman movement, to socialistic plansand progress as fashionable and evanescentfads. Few there are who can see the gradeddescent in government, the transitions increeds, the merging of the classes into themasses, the aristocratic into the democratic.The secret forces of Nature, commonly dualin their action, are now opposing optimisticscience to pessimistic religion, mystical ideal-ism to agnostic uncertainty. But a nationwhich advances towards the declivity whichprecedes decay is harassed by a thousandinimical forms of thought, which seem to risefrom regions previously ignored or unknown.It is a hidden and unrecognised law that thefirst signs of national decadence are markedby indifference and egoism on one hand, andloud professions of optimism on the other;for one-half of the community is blinded byobtuseness and apathy, the other by avidityand imprudence, as if an evil enchantress had


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90 AUTHORITY AND INDIVIDUALISMnullified, as with a magic wand, the judgmentof the rulers and the understanding of thepeople.The world is, therefore, likely to have amanifestation of anarchic collectivism beforeit can reach the natural and congenial elementof individual liberty, when men can moveabout in perfect harmony with their fellowsand yet retain distinctive traits of characterand genius. Society will probably be com-posed of small groups working in harmonywith one another. Universal agreement maybe attained, but universal affinity never. Thechemical constituents of each separate humanentity forbid an affinity where large numbersof people are massed together under a regimeof collective authority.

Individual freedom will come about afterfreedom has been attained, first politically,then religiously, then philosophically; forthis is the order in which Nature began hersocial development. Therefore we have had,and are still having, political agitations alwaysclosely identified with religious liberty, tyranny,and inharmony, the question of individualliberty coining in only by vague suggestion


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AUTHORITY AND INDIVIDUALISM QIand isolated example. Socialism will stripsociety of its false aristocracy. Socialism, inits turn, will be conquered and governed bythe aristocracy of intellect, the only unconquer-able thing in the world.


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The New CriticismIT would be interesting to ask certaincritics to define the difference between thepersonal merits of a poet who has periodsof alcoholic inebriety, and a poet who hasspells of narcotic intoxication. The peoplewho idolise Burns and sneer at Poe, whohold Coleridge up as a philosophical paragonand frown at De Quincey as a literary out-cast, may or may not know that petty, local,or provincial prejudice is at the bottom oftheir likes and dislikes. The calm observer,the man who takes the world as it is, theimpartial judge, knows now, as he everhas known, that this kind of criticism isnot worth the weight of a pinch of snuffin the critical balance which holds theburden of genius. When we stop to con-sider the small number of criticisms whichare not based on this kind of provincial


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THE NEW CRITICISM 93sentiment, as offensive in its ignorance asit is monstrous in its impertinence, wecannot wonder that genius in the Anglo-Saxon nations means the battle of a life-time. We cannot marvel that

Modern Mysticism and Other Essays 1910--Francis, Grierson

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Transcript of Modern Mysticism and Other Essays 1910--Francis, Grierson