'Was once too at the full, and round earth's shoreLay like the folds of a bright girdle furled;But now I only hearIts melancholy, long-withdrawing roarRetreating to the breathOf the night-wind, down the vast edges drearAnd naked shingles of the world.'
'Was once too at the full, and round earth's shoreLay like the folds of a bright girdle furled;But now I only hearIts melancholy, long-withdrawing roarRetreating to the breathOf the night-wind, down the vast edges drearAnd naked shingles of the world.'
"Yes, it is the decadence, the Roman decadence over again. Were Lucian to come among us now he would be quite at ease—no, not that, for in one thingwe are utterly changed; so sordid is our decadence, so gross, so contemptibly material, that we are denied the consolations of art vouchsafed to his own land. Even in the days of her death Rome could boast the splendour of a luxuriant literature, the glory of beauty of environment, the supremacy of an art-appreciation that blinded men's eyes to the shadow of the end. But for us, in the meanness of our fall, we have no rags of art wherewith to cover our nakedness. Wagner is dead, and Turner and Rossetti; Burne-Jones and Watts will go soon, and Pater will follow Newman and Arnold. The night is at hand."
He lifted a small hammer and struck a velvet-voiced bell that stood on the Arabian table of cedar inlaid with nacre and ivory. Murad came out of the darkness, and at a gesture from Aurelian filled the great hookah of jade and amber with the tobacco mingled with honey and opium and cinnamon, placed a bright coal in the cup, and gave the curling stem wound with gold thread to his master.
Malcolm watched it all as in a midsummer dream; for once he was succumbing to the subtle influences that were seducing his yielding senses. He could not reply to Aurelian, he lacked now even the desire. The slow and musical voice, so delicately cadenced, had grown infinitely pleasing to his unfamiliar ears, strangely fascinating in its mellow charm. Wondering, he found himself yielding to it,—at first defiantly, then sulkily, then with careless enjoyment, forgetful ofeverything save his new delight in his strange surroundings.
The rose-water gurgled and sobbed in the jade hookah; thin lines of odorous smoke rose sinuously to the silken awning that hung above the terrace, dead in the hot August night. For a time neither spoke; then at length Aurelian said, with a more sorrowful gravity than before,—
"Yes, the night is at hand, and the darkness at last will cover our shame. It is better so. I thought once that through art we might work revolution, and so win the world to clearness of sight again; that was because I did not know the nature of art. Art is a result, not an accident,—a result of conditions that no longer exist. We might as well work for the restoration of chivalry, of the House of Stuart, of the spirit of the Cinque-Cento, or any other equally desirable yet hopeless thing. What we are, that our art is also. Every school of art, every lecture on æsthetics, every art museum, is a waste and a vanity, their influence is nothing. Art can never happen again; we who love it and know it for what it is, the flowering of life, may only dream in the past, building for ourselves a stately pleasure-house in Xanadu on the banks of that river measureless to man that runs to a sunless sea.
"Individualism begot materialism, and materialism begot realism; and realism is the antithesis of art.
"What else could have been? Art is a result,—and a cause; at once the flower of life and the seed ofthe age to come. That age which through its meanness and poverty is barren of blooms leaves no seed for its own propagation. Good-night then to art; for the time its day is done. Intelligence and erudition may create a creditable archæology, and a blind generation may—nay, has—mistaken this for art. Well, its folly is fond and pitiful.
"Do you not see, then, how the discovery of this thing must fill me with that despair which kills all effort? You will say, 'Rise then, gird thyself with the sword of scorn and invective, and strike with exaltation at the false civilisation which is the death of art and of all that is worthy in life.' Dear boy, our fathers in their fond, visionary idealism made for all time such warfare of no avail. By cunning schemes and crafty mechanism they, impelled by most honourable motives, have woven a System which is now not alone the System of these United States but of that Europe which we have dragged to our level; a System which is now being accepted by that pure and happy civilisation, the last to yield to our importunity, Japan, and being accepted to its own damnation. And that System has made impossible forever any successful result; for so dominant is it, so subtle in its influence, so almighty in its power, that human strength is helpless before it. Moreover, it will, through its infinite craft, seem to yield now and then, yet only in form; for it will so debauch the reformers that they will think now and again their cause is won, yet willit have lost every element of desirability. Nevertheless 'the People' will shout with acclamation, 'Victory! glorious victory! won through the strength of our immortal and matchless institutions.' And all the while they are shouting for the shadow of revolution, for the dead body from which the soul has fled.
"'What is this System,' do you say? I will tell you; it is the system of the nineteenth century, by which it will be known in the histories of times to come, should time continue,—the great three-fold system of Equality, The Freedom of the Press, and Public Opinion. You yourself do them honour, for that you yourself have yielded to their evil influence; until you have risen once for all superior to their plausible sophistry, every thought you have, every act you are guilty of, will be tainted by them and made of no avail. The whole world kneels before them now, confessing their dominion. So long as this is so, so long will reform be impossible.
"Democracy, Public Opinion, Freedom of the Press,—the idolatrous tritheism of a corrupt generation. Through the Institution of Democracy you have bound yourself with invincible chains to a political system which is the government of the best, by the worst, for the few,—in other words, the suppression of the intelligent few by the mob for the bosses. By the Institution of Public Opinion you have made Democracy permanent, preventing foreverthe rule of the 'saving remnant.' You have founded your unholy inquisition for the suppression of the martyrs to wisdom, and by your Institution of the Freedom of the Press you have raised a tyranny, an irresponsible hierarchy of godless demagogues, an impeccable final authority which will suppress, as it suppresses now, all honourable freedom of thought. You have broken and destroyed the power of the Church, and you are proud thereof; but beware! for in its place you have builded a Power, more widespread, more overwhelming, more irresistible. Though you crushed Democracy and discredited Public Opinion, yet so long as the Freedom of the Press remained in existence, Journalism would by its bull of deposition, its anathema of excommunication, extinguish your labour in a breath.
"Here is your triple-headed Cerberus that bars your exit from this hades you have made. Until he is slain you may never escape. Slain? You cannot slay him; he is sheathed in an impenetrable hide, proof against all assaults. Listen, only in one way may you pass by him. Wait! In a little time his three horrid heads will growl with rising fury each to each, over the enormous spoils of decaying life. Wait! and the growls will grow fierce and more furious; and at last in mortal and horrible combat the beast will strive withitself, spreading chaos and death around. So will it disable itself; and when at last its triple head has collapsed in ghastly exhaustion, then will the timehave come: pile upon it the hoary boulders of experience left by immemorial glaciers of time; raise them into a mountain, and though, like imprisoned Titan, the horrid beast bellows and thunders below, you may go forth fearlessly, and on the dread ruin he has wrought build a new civilisation, a new life."
Aurelian's ardent eyes gazed on the man before him through the writhing smoke in the pallid dawn; his voice was like the voice of a velvet bell.
"Yes, it is the end of years; the era of action is over, night follows, blotting from sight the shame of a wasted world; but through the mute, unutterable night rises and brightens the splendour of the new day, the new life. Action has striven and failed, and wreck and ruin are the ending thereof; but across the desert of failure and despair bursts the flame of the Dawn; the far-forgotten spirit of the world rises toward dominion again,—the spirit of visions and dreams, the mighty Mother of worlds and men, the Soul of the Eternal East."
Aurelian had risen and stood facing McCann, his white face lighted by a flame of sudden vigour and inspiration; but even as he finished speaking it changed. His eyes grew soft, and he smiled gently. "Malcolm," he said, coming to the speechless agitator, and laying an arm lightly over his broad shoulders, "Malcolm, I shall hardly forgive you this. You have made me almost enthusiastic again; for a moment I could have believed once more there was virtue inaction; that has passed, and I am myself again. And now, look!"
The sun rose, and its level river of light swept through the valley. A mist like vaporous opals rose slowly from the winding river below them, curling in the amber air and brushing itself in thin plumes over the pale sky. Down from the terrace stretched the great garden, where multitudinous lilies flashed in the first light with iridescent dew. A splendid peacock swept flauntingly through the mazy walks and among the white statues until it reached the central fountain, where it spread itself in the sun. At the foot of the last terrace, where the marble steps turned to serpentine in the still water, a small white boat with prow of gilded fretwork lay motionless among the opening water-lilies and the great blooms of the lotos. The breath of honeysuckle and jasmine and day-lilies and tuberoses drifted slowly up in the first stirring wind. The river-mist lifted, showing the golden meadows with the slim elms here and there and the lofty hills fringed with dark forests beyond.
"Malcolm," said Aurelian, "beyond those fortress hills lies the world,—the nineteenth century, seething with impotent tumult,—festering towns of shoe factories and cotton-mills, lying tradesmen and legalised piracy; pork-packing, stock-brokers, quarrelling and snarling sectaries, and railroads; politicians, mammonism, realism, and newspapers. Within my walls, which are the century-living pines, is the world of thepast and of the future, of the fifteenth century and of the twentieth century. Here have I gathered all my treasures of art and letters; here may those I love find rest and refreshment when worn out with hopeless lighting. Suffer me to live here and forget, or live in a living dream of dreamless life. Against my hilly ramparts life may beat in vain,—it cannot enter. Here I am a King; humour my fancy, and give over your striving to make a poet into a warrior. There is other work before me. Even as in the monasteries of the sixth century the wise monks treasured the priceless records of a dead life until the night had passed and the white day of mediævalism dawned on the world, so suffer me to dream in my cloister through evil days; for the night has come when man may no longer work."
Here ends the Gospel of Inaction called the Decadent, which is privately issued for the Author by Copeland and Day, of Cornhill, Boston, in an edition limited to one hundred and ten copies on this yellow French handmade paper, and fifteen copies on thick Lalanne paper, which have been printed during October and November, MDCCCXCIII by John Wilson and Son, Cambridge, at the University Press. The Frontispiece and Initial letters are designed by Bertram Grosvenor Goodhue and cut upon wood by John Sample, Jr.
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Transcriber's Notes:Table of contents was added for this edition.Page 1, changed "agressive" to "aggressive".Page 17, changed "Guatamala" to "Guatemala".
Table of contents was added for this edition.
Page 1, changed "agressive" to "aggressive".
Page 17, changed "Guatamala" to "Guatemala".