Part 12

One of the recently so honoured dead in the pages of the _Dial_ has been Whitman; and in an essay on _Whitman’s Love Affairs_ Mr. Emery Holloway throws a fresh light on an old but still obscure subject. His “love affairs” were obviously more matter for criticism in Whitman than in some other writers, since Whitman was pre-eminently an autobiographical writer who sang himself. What, then, does Mr. Holloway find? A little surprisingly—at least to readers who have not already divined Whitman’s secret—that Whitman “suffered” from love, and struggled against it rather as a raw tyro than as the “master of himself” of his poetic fiction. In some private diaries of Whitman, quoted by Mr. Holloway, we are presented with the spectacle of Whitman grappling with his own soul after the manner of saints mortifying the flesh, or, as I would suggest, after the distinctively modern fashion. Instinct was at war with reason, even in Whitman, and, in the end, as usually occurs with modern men, it was reason that won. Mr. Holloway divides Whitman’s works between two periods: the first, in which he sang “untrammelled natural impulses”; and a second, in which he was concerned about democracy and the immortality of the soul; in short, with reason. And between these two periods, or worlds of discourse, Mr. Holloway tells us, was a purgatory, in which Whitman’s soul was tried as by fire. The diaries already mentioned contain some of the records of Whitman’s conflict with himself. Here, for example, is an entry bearing all the marks of a painful resolution. “I must,” he says, “pursue her no more” ... and resolve “to give up absolutely and for good, from this present hour, the feverish, fluctuating, useless, undignified pursuit of 164 ... avoid seeing her or any meeting whatever from this hour forth, for life.” The reader is to be pitied who does not understand, however dimly, what Whitman must have gone through in imagination and reality to confide to the author of _Leaves of Grass_ such a shocking confession. He emerged from the experience with that past behind him, but still, I think, unresolved. For it was not his to reconcile instinct with reason in an epigenesis; he passed from one phase to the next without carrying his sheaves with him. From being within sight of real greatness, he declined to the stature of a great American.

Following its faithful treatment of the Whitman myth, the _Dial_ examines the case of Mark Twain. It is undoubtedly a pathological case, and not only Mark Twain but America was the victim in it. A nation suffers the fate of its great men; as is their odyssey so is the odyssey of the nation to which they belong. Does a great man in any nation become corrupt; does he succumb to falsehood and to the morality of the herd? Even so his nation is on the downward path. On the other hand, does he maintain his integrity, even though his life should pay for it? There is a sign that his nation also will battle through. From this point of view, Mark Twain presents the spectacle both of a tragedy and a portent. Nobody can read his works without realising the essential truthfulness of the man, his marvellous capacity for intellectual honesty, his unerring perception of the norm of things. Mark Twain, permitted and encouraged to pass free judgment upon American and human life, might have been one of the cultural forces of the new world; he was one of God’s best gifts to America. We know, however, what America did for Mark Twain; it slowly but surely emasculated him in the supposed interests of the female (not the feminine) in the American soul. Under the influence of his wife who, as he said, not only “edited everything I wrote, but edited me,” under the similar influence of all that was bourgeois in America—Mark Twain consented to “make fun” of everything he held dear. Talents and powers which it is spiritual death to trade, Mark Twain prostituted for the amusement of a people whose deepest need was high seriousness. As Mr. Lovett says, Mark Twain “flattered a country without art, letters, beauty or standards to laugh at these things.” The judgment is severe, but it is just; and Mark Twain, I believe, would be the first to acquiesce in it.

That he preserved, in the back of his mind, his spiritual vision and knowledge, there can be no doubt. He sinned not only against the light, but in the light. One or two revealing phrases in his works have escaped the censorship of the female American he married. “In our country,” he said, “we have three unspeakably precious things: freedom of thought, freedom of speech, and the prudence never to practise either.” It must be admitted that this is a “snag” in the smooth current of a work of amusement; it betokened the existence of depths and danger. But it is nothing to the remarks let off in conversation on the rare occasions when the censor was absent. “I’ve a good mind,” he once said to a friend, “to blow the gaff on the whole damned human race.” It is tragedy, indeed, that he never did. We have the gaff blown on us all too seldom, and usually by men whose idiosyncrasies and abnormalities allow us to ignore them. Mark Twain was such a normal man that his blowing of the gaff could not possibly have been attributed to a neurotic complex derived from infantile suppression: it would have been the judgment of man upon Man. His failure to bestow this inestimable gift upon America and the world we owe to America, and if, as I have said, a nation suffers the fate of its great men, we may be sure that America will pay for it.

AMERICA REGRESSING.—Just when we in Europe were beginning to envy America her promise, contrasting it with the winter of our own discontent, “the authorities” (as one might say the furies, the parcæ or the weird sisters) have descended upon our unfortunate but deserving friend, the _Little Review_, and suspended its mail service on account of its publication of a chapter of Mr. James Joyce’s new novel, _Ulysses_. That such an absurd act of puritanic spleen should be possible after and before years of world-war is evidence that spiritual meanness is hard to transcend; and it confirms the justice or, at least, the apprehension expressed in Mr. Ezra Pound’s _bon mot_ that the U.S.A. should be renamed the Y.M.C.A. Not only is the _Little Review_ perfectly harmless; would to heaven, indeed, that it were, or could be otherwise, for never can any good be done by something incapable of doing harm; but the _Ulysses_ of Mr. James Joyce is one of the most interesting symptoms in the present literary world, and its publication is very nearly a public obligation. Such sincerity, such energy, such fearlessness as Mr. Joyce’s are rare in any epoch, and most of all in our own, and on that very account they demand to be given at least the freedom of the Press. What the giant America can fear from Mr. Joyce or from his publication in the _Little Review_ passes understanding. Abounding in every variety of crime and stupidity as America is, even if _Ulysses_ were a literary crime committed in a journal of the largest circulation, one more or less could not make much difference to America. But _Ulysses_ is no crime; but a noble experiment; and its suppression will sadden the virtuous at the same time that it gratifies the base. America, we my be sure, is not going to “get culture” by stamping upon every germ of new life. America’s present degree of cultural toleration may ensure a herb-garden, but not a flower will grow upon the soil of Comstock.

Among the scores of interesting experiments in composition and style exhibited in _Ulysses_, not the least novel is Mr. Joyce’s attempt to develop a theory of harmonics in language. By compounding nouns with adjectives and adjectives with adverbs, Mr. Joyce tries to convey to the reader a complex of qualities or ideas simultaneously instead of successively. “Eglintoneyes looked up skybrightly.” In such a sentence agglutination has been carried beyond the ordinary level of particles into the plane of words, and the effect is to present a multitude of images as if they were one. Thus “a new and complex knowledge of self” finds its “appropriate medium of expression in terms of art.” I am not so sure that Mr. Joyce has not carried the experiment too far, but this, again, is a virtue rather than a defect in a pioneer. Moreover, the world needs a few studio-magazines like the _Little Review_, and a few studio writers like Mr. James Joyce. What does it matter if, in his enthusiasm, Mr. Joyce travels beyond the limits of good taste, beyond, that is, the already cultivated, if only a single new literary convention is thereby brought into common use?

THE BEST IS YET TO BE.—“One dreams of a prose,” says _The Times Literary Supplement_, “that has never yet been written in English, though the language is made for it and there are minds not incapable of it, a prose dealing with the greatest things quietly and justly as men deal with them in their secret meditations ... the English Plato is still to be.” Alas, however, that _The Times_ should be just a little misled, for the “quiet” of meditation is not the real genius of the English language, and the emphasis in the phrase, “English Plato,” should be on the word English. Greek Plato translated into English would not give us what we are seeking. What we need is Plato’s mind. It is characteristic, however, this demand for quiet, or, rather, quietism, in _The Times Literary Supplement_, since, on the whole, the _Supplement_ is about the deadest mouse in the world of journalism. Above all, it is suggested, writers must keep their voices low, speak in whispers, even, perhaps, a little under their breath as if in meditation, in case—well, in case of what? Is there not a _hush_ in the _Literary Supplement_ which is not the hush of reverence for literature, but of fear and prudence?

Our writer observes very acutely that prose is usually thought greatest when it is nearest poetry, and he properly dissents from this common opinion. Prose, we should say, can only be great as it differs from poetry, and the greatest prose is furthest away from poetry. And the difference, we are told, is the difference between love and justice. The cardinal virtue of poetry, he says, is love, while the cardinal virtue of prose is justice. May we not rather say that the difference is one of plane of consciousness, prose being at the highest level of the rational mind, and poetry at the highest level of the spiritual mind? Yes, but then, in all probability, _The Times_ would regard us as fanciful, for note, anything _exact_ about spiritual things is likely to be dismissed by the _Literary Supplement_ as fanciful and dangerous. Again, “prose is the achievement of civilisation”; in other words, it is the norm of social life. True, but let me add that it is the register of Culture, marking the degree to which Culture has affected its surrounding civilisation. Prose without poetry is impossible, and the greatest prose presupposes the culture of the greatest poetry, for the “justice” of prose is only the “love” of poetry _with seeing eyes_. Finally, we must agree with our essayist when he quotes with approval the excellent observation of Mr. Sturge Moore that “simplicity _may_ be a form of decadence.” Simplicity is a sign of decadence when it sacrifices profundity of thought to simplicity of expression—as in the classical case of Voltaire, who positively dared not think deeply lest he should be unable to write clearly, clarity of expression being more to him (and often to the French genius generally) than depth of thought. And writers like Mr. Clutton Brock are just as certainly symptoms of the decadence of simplicity in our own time and place. On the other hand, I still dream of a profound simplicity, the style of which is transparent over depths; and in this, if no English writer has ever been a master, Lao Tse is the world’s model, at least in fragments. We must learn to distinguish between a puerile and a virile simplicity, between innocence and virtue; and perhaps the first exercise in such judgment should be to put the _Literary Supplement_ in its proper place.

This brings us back to quietism and the question whether the perfect English prose would deal with the highest things in the spirit of man’s secret meditations. I do more than doubt it. Secret meditation is incommunicably secret; it is thought without words, and disposed to poetry rather than prose. I suspect our writer really means rumination, in which case, however, he is no better off. For the genius of the language does not run easily in reverie, it is a language that loves action and life. It has few cloistered virtues, and to employ it for cloistered thought would be to use only one or two of its many stops, and those not the most characteristic. Lastly, I cannot but think that the choice of “quietism” as the aim of perfect English prose is a sign of decadence, for it indicates the will to retire into oneself, and to cease to “act” by means of words. The scene it calls up is familiar and bourgeois: a small circle of “cultured” men week-ending in a luxurious country house and confessing “intimately” their literary weaknesses. It is the prevalent atmosphere of the _Literary Supplement_ and the _Spectator_. It is essential that there be “equality” between them, that none should presume to wish to inspire another to any “new way of life,” that action, in short, should be excluded. Once granted these conditions of sterility, and the perfect prose, we are told, would emerge.

The rest of us, however, have a very different conception of the perfect English prose. The perfect English prose will be anything but a sedative after a full meal of action. It will be not only action itself, but the cause of action, and its deliberate aim will be to intensify and refine action and to raise action to the level of a fine art. Anything less than a real effect upon real people in a real world is beneath the dignity even of common prose. The very “leaders” in the penny journals aim at leaving a mark upon events. Is the perfect prose to be without hope of posterity? On second thoughts, I shall withdraw Plato from the position of model in which I put him. Plato, it is evident, is likely to be abused; without intending it, his mood, translated into English, appears to be compatible only with luxurious ease; he is read by modern Epicureans. And I shall put in Plato’s place Demosthenes, the model of Swift, the greatest English writer the world has yet seen. Yes, Demosthenes let it be, since Plato is being used for balsam. We seek an English Demosthenes.

Index

_Adonais_, 178

“Æ,” 117-34

Andrews, Francis, 176

_Anglo-Irish Essays_ (John Eglinton), 74

_Apology, The_ (Plato), 97

_Appreciations and Depreciations_ (Boyd), 76

Archer, William, 59

Arnold, Matthew, 82

_Art and Letters_, 136

Asquith, H. H., 68

_Athenæum, The_, 70

Baring, Maurice, 27

Beardsley, Aubrey, 115

Beerbohm, Max, 23

Bell, Clive, 72

Benda, Julien, 81

_Beyond Good and Evil_ (Nietzsche), 133

_Bhagavad Gita, The_, 44, 112

_Biographia Literaria_ (Coleridge), 69

Björnson, B., 29

Blake, William, 134

Boutroux, Emile, 69

Boyd, E. A., 76

_Breaking the Spell_ (Macan), 90

Brock, A. Clutton, 211

Caine, Hall, 28

_Call, The_, 165

_Candle of Vision, The_ (“Æ”), 117

Carlyle, Thomas, 36

_Causes profondes de la Guerre, Les_ (Hovelaque), 155

Cervantes, 197

Cheney, L. J., 192

Chesterton, G. K., 60, 155

Cicero, 96

_Clarté Française, La_ (Vannier), 65

_Cocoon, The_, 191

Coleridge, S. T., 29, 35, 69

Conrad, Joseph, 27

_Contemporary Drama of Ireland_ (Boyd), 76

_Contingency of the Laws of Nature, The_ (Boutroux), 69

_Cratylus, The_ (Plato), 130

Crees, G., 20

_Daily Mail, The_, 89

Da Vinci, Leonardo, 96

De Quincey, 95

_Dial, The_, 199

_Distribution of Wealth, The_ (Thompson), 162

Dodd, Professor, 181

_Don Quixote_ (Cervantes), 196

Dostoievski, F., 28

Douglas, C. H., 198

Dowson, Ernest, 173, 195

_Drapier’s Letters, The_ (Swift), 96, 198

_Dublin Review, The_, 161

“Eglinton, John,” 74

_Egyptian Book of the Dead_, 168

Ellis, Henry, 134

Epstein, Jacob, 46

Ervine, St. John, 76

_Essay on Comedy, An_ (Meredith), 168

_Euphues_, 61

Fielding, Henry, 139

Flaubert, G., 65

_Flight of the Eagle, The_ (Standish O’Grady), 79

Fontenelle, 15

Fowler, Warde, 88

_French Literary Studies_ (Rudmose-Brown), 73

Freud, Professor, 127

_Funeral Oration, The_ (Pericles), 66

Garnett, Edward, 27

Gaudier-Brzeska, 46

Gwynn, Stephen, 75

Hales, Professor, 49

Harland, Henry, 23

Haumont, M., 27

Heraclitus, 39

Herford, Professor C. H., 167

Hoare, —., 179

Hobbes of Malmesbury, 67

Holloway, Emery, 202

_Homage to Propertius_ (Pound), 49

_Homeland_ (Izzard), 89

Hope, John Francis, 168

Hovelaque, M., 155

Hudson, W. H., 88

Ibsen, Henrik, 29

_International Journal of Ethics, The_, 36

_Irish Books and Irish People_ (Gwynn), 75

_Irish Citizen, The_, 166

Izzard, P. W. D., 89

James, Henry, 22-7

Jones, Dr. Ernest, 189

Jonson, Ben, 98

Jowett, B., 67

Joyce, James, 47, 207

Jung, Professor, 185, 189

Juvenal, 198

Kautsky, K., 33

Kipling, Rudyard, 178

_Kossovo: Heroic Songs of the Serbs_ (Rootham), 171

Landor, W. S., 15

Lawrence, D. H., 23

_Lay Sermons_ (Coleridge), 35

_Leaves of Grass_ (Whitman), 204

Leuba, Professor, 114

Levy, Dr. Oscar, 40

Lewis, Wyndham, 47, 52

_Little Review, The_, 22, 47, 52, 63, 207

_Lockhart’s Life of Scott_, 16

_London Mercury, The_, 152, 176

Lovett, R. A., 205

_Lycidas_, 178

Lyttelton, Dr., 17

Macan, Dr., 90

Mackenna, Stephen, 29

_Mahabharata, The_, 30, 135, 168, 195

_Manchester Guardian, The_, 193

Mann, Henry, 156

Martyn, Edward, 77

Marx, Karl, 33, 161-7

Mayne, Ethel Coburn, 22

Mead, G. R. S., 68, 112, 185

Menger, Dr., 162

Meredith, George, 20, 168, 178

_Middle Years, The_ (Henry James), 24

Mitchel, John, 166

Moore, T. Sturge, 211

Morris, William, 167

_New Age, The_, 86

Newman, Henry, 155

Nietzsche, Friedrich, 30, 37-41, 53, 55, 133

O’Grady, Standish, 79-81

Oulsham, H. Y., 192

Patanjali, 132, 188

Pater, Walter, 195

Pericles, 66

Plato, 130, 209

Plotinus, 29

_Poems and Prose_ (Dowson), 173

_Pot-boilers_ (Clive Bell), 70

Pound, Ezra, 15, 49, 52-63, 104, 207

_Pound, Ezra: His Metric and Poetry_, 57

Propertius, 49

_Psycho-Analysis_ (Dr. Ernest Jones), 189

_Queen’s College Miscellany, A_, 195

_Quest, The_, 68, 111

Rahilly, Professor A., 162

Randall, A. E., 112

Richardson, Samuel, 139

Rootham, Helen, 171

Rosebery, Lord, 68

Rousseau, J. J., 38

Rudmose-Brown, Professor, 73

Russell, Bertrand, 34

_Sayings and Stories_ (Hoare), 179

Sedlák, Francis, 35

_Selected Essays and Passages_ (Standish O’Grady), 80

_Sentiments de Critias, Les_ (Benda), 81

_Sentimental Journey, A_ (Sterne), 92

Shakespeare, 60, 91, 151, 154

Shankara, 30

Shaw, G. Bernard, 82

_Song of Songs_, 172

Soundy, W. Mattingly, 64

_Spectator, The_, 211

Squire, J. C., 152

Stendhal, 95

Sterne, Laurence, 92

Stewart, Herbert, 36

Strachey, Lytton, 63

Swift, Benjamin, 95, 198

Symons, Arthur, 115, 173

Thompson, William, 162

Thoreau, H. D., 74

_Times, The_, 45, 145, 153

_Times Literary Supplement, The_, 143, 160, 209

_Tom Jones_ (Fielding), 140

Turgenev, 27

Twain, Mark, 204

Tweed, John, 45

_Ulysses_ (Joyce), 47, 207

Vannier, M., 65

Vaughan, Henry, 184

_Venture, The_, 175

Voltaire, 211

Vyasa, 30

Walpole, Horace, 103

Wells, H. G., 36

Whitman, Walt, 38, 202

_Whitman’s Love Affairs_ (Holloway), 202

Wilde, Oscar, 55

Wordsworth, William, 119

Yeats, W. B., 134

_Yellow Book, The_, 23

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