Part 6

A spring gushed forth here on the airy height; but the soil was not hard enough to retain it; and the water sapped away among the soft moss. One day a man came and laid down a hard channel for the spring. Imprisoned on both sides, it now imperiously sought an outlet and--a miracle!--leapt glittering into the sunshine. The history of Freedom.

89

_The Renaissance: A Thesis_

How unsatisfactory are those explanations of the Renaissance which give as its cause the breaking up of the restrictive intellectual canons of the Middle Ages--as if a mere negation could explain such a unique creative era! What has here to be discovered is how freedom and the _capacity_ for freedom should have appeared at the same moment. Perhaps the Middle Ages have now been sufficiently reviled by the admirers of the Renaissance; perhaps that event owed more than we are willing to acknowledge to the centuries of mediæval repression and discipline. During these centuries the human spirit had been confined in the granite channel cut for it by mediæval Christianity, a channel of which even the mouth was stopped. In the fifteenth century the stream swept away every obstacle and leapt forth, a brilliant cascade, scattering almost pagan warmth and light. The fall of Constantinople and the other circumstances usually given as the explanation of this outburst were only its occasion; the cause lay much deeper, in the long storing up, conserving and strengthening of human powers. The freedom of which the Renaissance was an expression was more, then, than the simple removal of restriction. It was a freedom not political or moral, but vital; a positive enhancement if the natural power of man, who could now do things which hitherto he could not do--an event in the history, not merely of society, but of Man. Accordingly, the "freedom of the individual," so dear to some moderns, does not teach us much here. It was not because freedom was given to them that men now created: the freedom was claimed because they now possessed more power, could do more, and had, therefore, the _right_ to a larger sphere of freedom. The more naturally free--that is, individually powerful--a people become, the more they will demand and obtain of "individual freedom"; but it is perhaps inexpedient to offer to a people individually weak any more freedom than they can use. They are still at the disciplinary stage; they are preparing for their renaissance; and to the student of human culture the periods of preparation, of unproductiveness, are more worthy of consideration than the productive periods. For in the future we must prepare for our eras of fruition, and not leave them, as in the past, to pure chance.

At the Renaissance, however, it was not even individual freedom in the modern democratic sense that was claimed and allowed; it was at the most the freedom of certain individuals, the naturally free, the powerful. Not until a later time was this claim to be universalized by the unconditional theorists, the generalizers _sans_ distinction, the egalitarians. The French Revolution was the Renaissance rationalized and popularized.

90

_The Unproductive Periods_

Without the Middle Ages the Renaissance would have been impossible; the one, therefore, was as necessary as the other; and our reprobation of the former for its comparative sterility is entirely without justification. If we happen to be living in an unproductive age, it is our misfortune, then; but we are not entitled, in contemplating this age, to the luxury of condemnation, reproof or scorn. What we _may_ demand of any period now is that it should be a period either of preparation or of fruition. So the present era _is,_ after all, deserving of condemnation, but only because it is not an era of preparation--not for any other reason.

91

_Duties of the Unproductive_

The history of culture is the history of long ages of unproductiveness broken by short eras of production; but unproductiveness is the rule. The men born in barren periods have not, then, the right to bewail their lot: _we_ have not that right. But what is of the first importance, for the sake of culture, is to find out what are the duties proper to men in a sterile age. Certainly their duty it is not to produce whether they are productive or not; that can only result in abortions and painful caricatures: does not contemporary literature demonstrate it? The work that is born out of the poverty of the artist is, as Nietzsche pointed out, decadent work, and debases the spectator, lowers his vitality.

What, then, are the tasks of a writer in an unproductive age? To live sparely and conserve strength? To make discipline more rigid? To preserve and fortify the tradition of culture? To render more accessible the sources from which creative literature draws its life, so that the _next_ generation may be better placed? To observe vigilantly the signs of today--and not only of today? It may be so; but, also, when necessary, to throw these prudent and preservative tasks to the winds and spend his last ounce of strength in battling with the demons who make a productive era forever impossible. Yes, this last duty is for us today--the most important. And, we may depend, it is the creators--those who produce what they should not--who will fight most bitterly on the opposite side.

92

_"Emancipation"_

The rallying cry of the great writers of the last century was "emancipation." Goethe, Heine and Ibsen alike professed as their task the emancipation of man; Nietzsche, their successor, elevated the freed man, the Superman, into an ideal, in the pursuit of which it was necessary meantime that men should discipline themselves. The later moderns, our own contemporaries, have belittled this freedom, seeing in it nothing but a negation, the freedom _from_ some one thing or another. But Ibsen and Heine, these men of true genius, who believed most sincerely that they were "brave soldiers in the war of the liberation of humanity" did not perhaps waste their powers in battling for a thing so trivial! It is barely possible that they meant by emancipation something much more profound; something spiritual and positive; indeed, nothing less than an enhancement of the powers of man! Certainly both poets looked forward to new "developments" of man: Heine with his "happier and more perfect generations, begot in free and voluntary embraces, blossoming forth in a religion of joy"; Ibsen with his perplexed figures painfully "working their way out to Freedom." It was the task of us in this generation, who should have been the heirs of this tradition, but are not, to supply the commentary to this noble vision, to carry forward this religion of hope further and further. But the _cult_ of modernity has itself prevented this; the latest theory has always seized us and exacted our belief for its hour; the present has invariably triumphed; and we have discarded the great work of last century before we have understood it. Heine has been seized mainly by the decadents; his healthy and noble sensuousness, his desire to restore the harmony between the senses and the soul, _as a means_ towards the emancipation of man, and as nothing else, has been perverted by them into worship of the senses for their own sake--a thing which to Heine would have seemed despicable. Ibsen has fallen among the realists and propagandists; all the spiritual value of his work has for this age been lost--and what a loss!--his battle to deliver man from his weakness and inward slavery has been reduced --it is no exaggeration--to a battle to deliver the women of the middle classes from their husbands. The old story of emanation has been again repeated, with the distinction that here there is no trace left of the original source except negative ones! Well, we have to turn back again, our task, second to none in grandeur, before which we may well feel abashed, is still the same as that of Goethe, Ibsen and Nietzsche, the task of emancipation. To restore dignity to literature, indeed, it would be necessary to create such a task if it did not already exist.

93

_Genealogy of the Moderns_

This is what has happened. The conventional moderns of our time are the descendants _not_ of Heine and Ibsen, but of the race against which the poets fought. They live unthinkingly in the present, just as their spiritual ancestors lived unthinkingly in the past. But slavery to the past has long ago fallen into the second place among dangers to humanity: it is slavery to the present that is now by far the greatest peril. Not because they broke the tyranny of the past, but because they had an ideal in the future are the great fighters of last century significant. To think of them as iconoclasts is to mistake for their aim the form of their activity: the past lay between them and their object: on that account alone did they destroy it. But the great obstacle now is the domination of the present; and were the demi-gods of last century alive today, they would be fighting precisely against _you,_ my dear moderns, who live so complacently in your provincial present, making of it almost a cult. To be a modern in the true sense, however, is to be a fore-runner; there is in this age, an age of preparation, no other test of the modern. To believe that there are still potentialities in man; to have faith that the "elevation of the type Man" is possible, yes, that the time is ripe to prepare for it; and to write and live in and by that thought: this is to be modern.

94

_Domination of the Present_

To be modern in the accepted, intellectually fashionable sense: what is that? To propagate always the newest theory, whatever it be; to be the least possible distance behind the times, behind the latest second of the times, whether they be good or bad; and, of course, to assume one is "in the circle" and to adopt the tone of the circle: in short, to make ideas a matter of fashion, to choose views as a well-to-do woman chooses dresses--to be intellectually without foundation, principles or taste. How did this convention arise? Perhaps out of lack of leisure: superficiality is bound to engulf a generation who abandon leisure. But to be enslaved to the present in this way is the most _dangerous_ form of superficiality: it is to be ignorant of the very thing that makes Man significant, and with idiotic cheerfulness and unconcern to render his existence meaningless and trivial. In two ways' can Man become sublime; by regarding himself as the heir of a great tradition: by making of himself a fore-runner. Both ways are open to the true modern, and both must be followed by him. For the past and the future are greater than the present: the sense of continuity is necessary for human dignity.

The men of this age, however, are isolated--to use an electrical metaphor--from the current of Humanity: they have become almost entirely individuals, temporal units, "men"; what has been the outcome? Inevitably the loss of the concept Man, for Man is a concept which can be understood only through the contemplation on a grand scale of the history of mankind. Man ceases to be dramatic when there are no longer spectators for the drama of Humanity. The present generation have, therefore, no sentiment of the human sublime; they see that part of the grand tragedy which happens to pass before them, but without caring about what went before or what will come after, without a clue, however poor, to the mystery of existence. They know men only, the men of their time. They are provincial--that is, lacking the sentiment of Man.

How much decadence may not be traced to this! In Art, the conventions of Realism and of Æstheticism have arisen. The first is just the portrayal of present-day men _as_ present-day men; nothing more, therefore, than "contemporary art"; an appendage of the present, a triviality. The second has as its creed enjoyment of the moment; and if it contemplates the past at all, it is with the eyes of the voluptuous antiquary--but a collector is not an heir. Art has in our time, both in theory and in practice, become deliberately more fleeting. In morality, there is Humanitarianism, or, in other words, the conviction that the suffering of today is the most important thing, coupled with the belief that there is nothing at present existing which can justify and redeem this suffering: therefore, unconditional pity, alleviation, "the greatest happiness of the greatest number." Modern pessimism, which springs from the same source, is the obverse of this belief. It, also, regards only the present, and says, perhaps with truth, that _it,_ at any rate, is not noble enough to deserve and demand the suffering necessary for its existence--consequently, _all life_ is an error! All these theories, however, are breaks with the spiritual tradition of emancipation; they are founded on the magnification of the temporary--of that which only in a present continually carried forward seems to be important. This judgment of Life with the eyes of the present, this narrowest and most false of interpretations: how has it confused and finally stultified the finest talents of our time! The modern man is joyless; his joylessness has arisen out of his modernity; and now to find forgetfulness of it he plunges more madly than before--into modernity! For his own sake, as much as for that of Humanity, it is our duty to free him from his wheel. One can live with dignity only if one have a sense of the tragedy of Man. It is the first task of the true modern to destroy the domination of the present.

95

_Encyclopædists_

Strange that the great dramatic poets of modern times have had a weakness for turning their tragedies into encyclopædias! Consider "Faust" and "Brand," for instance. Is it that the sentiment of the eternal was already beginning to weaken in Goethe and Ibsen? Were they overburdened by their own age? Their world was too much with them; and so they did not reach the highest peaks of tragedy: they were not universal.

96

_What is Modern_

It is time we erected a standard whereby to test what is modern. To be an adherent of all the latest movements--that is at most to be anarchistic, eclectic, inconsistent--call it what you will. Futurism, Realism, Feminism, Traditionalism may be all of them opposed or irrelevant to modernity. It is not sufficient that movements should be new--if they are ever new; the question is, To what end are they? If they are movements in the direction of emancipation, "the elevation of the type Man," then they are modern; if they are not, then they are movements to be opposed or ignored by moderns. If modernism be a vital thing it must needs have roots in the past and be an essential expression of humanity, to be traced, therefore, in the history of humanity: in short, it can only be a tradition. The true modern is a continuator of tradition as much as the Christian or the conservative: the tine fight between progress and stagnation is always a fight between antagonistic _traditions._ To battle against tradition _as such_ is, therefore, not the task of the modern; but rather to enter the conflict--an eternal one--for his tradition against its opposite: Nietzsche found for this antithesis the symbolism of Dionysus and Apollo. Does such a tradition of modernity exist? Is there a "modern spirit" not dependent upon time and place, and in all ages modern? If there is--and there is--the possession of it in some measure will alone entitle us to the name of moderns, give us dignity and make the history of Man once more dramatic and tragical. It is a pity that some historian has not yet traced, in its expression in events, the history of this conflict--a task requiring the deepest subtlety and insight. Meantime, for this tradition may be claimed with confidence such events as Greek Tragedy, most of the Renaissance, and the emancipators of last century. These are triumphant expressions of "the modern spirit," but that spirit is chiefly to be recognized as a principle not always triumphant or easy of perception, constantly struggling, assuming many disguises and tirelessly creative. It is not, indeed, only a tradition of persons, of dogmas, or of sentiments: it is a principle of Life itself. This conception, it is true, is grand, and even terrifying--a disadvantage in this age. But is there any other which grants modernity more than the status of an accident of time and fashion?

97

_How We Shall Be Known_

In an age it is not always what is most characteristic that survives: posterity will probably know us not by our true qualities, but by the exceptions to them. The present-day writers in English who will endure after their age has passed are probably Joseph Conrad, W. H. Hudson, and Hillaire Belloc for a few of his essays and lyrics--none of them representative, none of them modern. They might have been born in any era: they are in the oldest tradition. The most striking characteristic of our time, however, is its lack of a tradition. The sentiment of transiency is our most deeply rooted sentiment: it is the very spirit of the age. But by its essential nature it cannot hope to endure, to be known by future generations; for we shall not produce immortal works until we become interested in some idea long enough to be inspired by it, and to write monumentally and surely of it. We hold our ideas by the day; but for a masterpiece to be born, an idea must have taken root and defied time. Permanence of form, moreover, would seriously embarrass a modern writer, who wishes to change with the hour, and does not want his crotchets of yesterday to live to be refutations of his fads of today. Thus we are too fleeting to make even our transitoriness eternal. The very sentiment of immortality has perished amongst us, and we actually prefer that our work should die--witness the Futurists! The most self-conscious heirs of modernity, these propounded the theory that _it is better_ that works of art should not endure: well, in that case, their own creations have been true works of art! Nevertheless, all they did in this theory was to erect into a system the shallowness, provinciality and frivolousness of the present--and thereby to proclaim themselves the enemies of the future.

IV

ART AND LITERATURE

98

_Psychology of Style_

There are writers with a style--it may be either good or bad--and writers with no style at all, who just write badly. What quality or combination of qualities is it which makes a writer a stylist?

Style probably arises out of a duality; the association in a writer of the scribe and the spectator. The first having set down his thought, the second goes aside, contemplates it, as things should be contemplated, _from a distance,_ and and asks, "How does this strike me? How does it look, sound, move?" And he suggests here a toning down of colour, there an acceleration of speed, somewhere else, it may be, an added lucidity, for clearness is an æsthetic as well as an intellectual virtue.

The writer without style, however, just writes on without second thought; the spectator is altogether lacking in him; he cannot contemplate his work from a distance, nor, indeed, at all. This explains the unconsciousness and innocence in bad writing--not in bad style, which is neither unconscious nor innocent! The stylist, on the other hand, is always the actor to his own spectator; he must get his effect; even Truth he uses as a means to his effect. If a truth is too repulsive, he throws this or that cloak over it; if it is uninteresting, he envelops it in mysticism (mysticism is simply an artist's trick); in a word, he æstheticizes, that is, falsifies everything, to please the second person in his duality, the spectator. Even if he gets his effects by moderation of statements, he is to be distrusted, for it is the moderation and not Truth that is aimed at. And, then, his temptation to employ metaphors, to work up an interesting madness, to rhapsodize--these most potent means to great effects, these falsifications! Well, are we to assent, then, to the old philosophic prejudice against style and refuse to believe any philosopher who does not write badly?

99

_Modern Writing_

The greatest fault of modern style is that it is a smirking style. It fawns upon the reader, it insinuates, it has the manner of an amiable dog. If it does something smart, it stops immediately, wags its tail, and waits confidently for your approval. You will guess now why those little regiments of dots are scattered so liberally over the pages of the best-known English novelist. It is H.G. Wells's style wagging its tail.

100

_The Precise_

There have been writers--there _are_ writers--whose only title to fame is an interesting defect. They are unable to write soundly, and this inability, being abnormal, is more interesting than sound writing, which is only normal. For to limp or to hop on one leg is never pedestrian--what do I say?--is _not even_ pedestrian.

101

_Paradox_

What is paradox? The "bull" raised to a form of literary art?

102

_The Platitude_

There should be no platitudes in the works of a sincere author. A platitude is an idea not understood by its writer--in one word, a shibboleth.

103

_Praise?_

It is usual to extol the industry of those realists who put _everything_ into their books, but they should rather be censured for their want of taste. The truth is that they lack the selective faculty--lack, that is, art. Afraid to omit anything from their reproductions of existence--lest they omit what is most significant--they include _all_: the easiest course. The easiest course, that is--for the writers.

104

_Hostility of Thinkers_

When a thinker has a world of thought of his own, he generally becomes cold towards other thinkers, and to none more than to him whose star is nearest his own. It is necessary, therefore, that he should read, above all, the philosopher whose thought most closely resembles his, for to him he is most likely to be unjust. We are the most hostile to those who say what we say, but say it in a way we do not like.

105

_The Twice Subtle_

The thinker who has been twice subtle arrives at simplicity. And in doing so he has, at the same time, discovered a new truth. But this other thinker has possessed simplicity from the beginning. Has he also possessed this truth? At any rate, he does not know it.

106

_Mastery of One's Thoughts_

One should know how to keep one's thoughts at a distance. The French can do this, and, therefore, write at once wittily and profoundly of serious things. But the Germans live, perhaps, too near their thoughts, and are possessed by them: hence, their obscurity and heaviness. Wit--lightness of hand--shows that one is master of one's thought, and is not mastered by it. Nevertheless, the thoughts of the Germans may be the mightier. In this matter the complete thinker should be able to become French or German as occasion demands.

107

_Psychologists_