NEW YORK LETTER
GEORGE SOULE
Theman who fought the big battle for Ibsen and Nietzsche should have filled Madison Square Garden; as it was, the little Comedy Theatre wasn’t large enough to hold the audience, although Scandinavian patriotism accounted for a good deal of it. He came on the stage with Brander Matthews, the apotheosis of the academic, and the contrast was striking. Matthews was tall, dull, professional. Brandes, with his keen face, alert eyes, and shock of grayish hair, was possibly the most fully alive person in the room. He radiated interest—human connection with anything vital.
We were all a little sorry his subject was Shakespeare; we wanted to hear of something modern. And when the first part of the lecture was read, couched in scholarly but terse English, we felt cheated. It was good criticism, and informing, but it wasn’t the sort of thing we had expected from Brandes. Suddenly a spark shot out. (The quotation is from memory):
We cannot emphasize too strongly the fact that all works of literature which have a real effect on mankind, all works which endure hundreds of years, find their inspiration not in books, but in life.
We cannot emphasize too strongly the fact that all works of literature which have a real effect on mankind, all works which endure hundreds of years, find their inspiration not in books, but in life.
The words were pronounced with excited intensity. Soon came another:
We used to define the genius as the man who interprets his age; now we know that the genius is the man who, working against his age, creates new times.
We used to define the genius as the man who interprets his age; now we know that the genius is the man who, working against his age, creates new times.
Dr. Brandes broke into a lively sally at the Baconians. He spoke of Shakespeare’s errors in scholarship. These Bacon would surely have avoided, but of Shakespeare’s great lines Bacon could not possibly have written one. He ended that section with something like this:
The Baconian theory was founded by the uneducated, it was developed by the half-educated, and it is now held solely by idiots.
The Baconian theory was founded by the uneducated, it was developed by the half-educated, and it is now held solely by idiots.
The audience was immensely pleased at his sharp fire.
Dr. Brandes’ epigrams sometimes sound as if he substituted wit for wisdom. But that is because the epigrams stick and are repeated. His method is to open with an epigram to catch the attention, to proceed with a line of sound argument, and at the end to finish superblywith a sentence that contains his conclusions and impales his opponent at the same time.
With Frank Harris, Dr. Brandes was no more gentle. By parallel quotation Harris was made to appear ridiculous. Brandes showed that whatever in his writings is sound has been said before. This was the end of the lecture:
Mr. Harris says that it is possible to admire Shakespeare, but that it is impossible to worship him. Ladies and gentlemen, I do the impossible.
Mr. Harris says that it is possible to admire Shakespeare, but that it is impossible to worship him. Ladies and gentlemen, I do the impossible.
Afterwards came a supper of the Scandinavian Society, at which the guest of honor made a speech that looked brilliant and was lively even as a piece of pantomime—but it was in Danish. Dr. Brandes was beaming and unaffectedly cordial with everybody. He smilingly interrupted one of the pompous addresses in his honor to correct a quotation from Goethe. He proposed a toast to the charming young lady who acted as his American manager, and said that the success of his tour was due entirely to her. Later a consul made a highly complimentary, but exceedingly tedious, speech. Dr. Brandes fidgeted until he could stand it no longer, then he quickly got up, took his champagne glass, ran over to the orator and slapped him on the shoulder, saying, “You are a very nice man.” The rest was drowned in the toast.
The other day an illustrator saw a hand-mirror in a publisher’s office. He put the mirror against a book cover and held it at arm’s length. “There,” he said, “is the ideal jacket for a novel. Every woman likes to imagine herself the heroine of the book she is reading.” But the publisher was wiser. “You are half right,” he answered. “But she wants to be a Gibson heroine. To see her own face, without flattery, would startle her into disapproval of the book.”
A recent symposium inThe Sunbore the impressive title,The Sentimentalization of Woman in American Fiction. All the authors were agreed that realism doesn’t go because of the desire of the reader to be flattered. If she isn’t, the novel is “unpleasant,” “depressing.” You may paint your villainess black, but, as your reader will take her for an enemy, you must see that she is properly punished. But if your heroine does anything unconventional, it must be of the kind that your reader enjoys by imagination, though she wouldn’t have the courageto do it. Only you must not make the thrills so strong as to shock the reader into self-consciousness and self-disapproval. Georg Brandes said that our novels are written by old maids for old maids. If we would only put into our literature the same genius and daring that we put into our skyscrapers!
The thing none of the authors seemed to see is that it is futile to stop at blaming the readers. Of course the great public is comparatively stupid. It is everywhere, it always has been and always will be. What is a leader if he is not someone in advance of the others? And the essential act for a leader is to lead. He can’t get a following until he does that. Only a coward stays behind and flatters the crowd because he is afraid they will not come after him. Perhaps they won’t follow his particular route. But if he goes on fearlessly he has done the best that is in him, anyway. The chances are that if he has a sincere conviction and marches far enough in one direction they will at least struggle along after a while. They may even follow in hordes. What we need first is not a more intelligent public, but courageous writers.
Naturally the matter is not simple. Your artist has to be fed and clothed. If he is creating a new medium—as did Wagner—he even needs large resources to produce his art. The solution used to be the wealthy patron. The petty monarch maintained a musician or a painter to enhance the glory of his court. The noble supported a writer from personal pride. The monastery afforded a refuge for the unworldly creator. It would be difficult to find a great artist before the last century who did not have some such subsidy, unless he had means of his own.
Since then democracy has permeated the world. Fast presses, advertising, and royalties have been invented. Now the public is the writer’s patron. Music is often subsidized, to be sure, and painters can still sell their canvases to the wealthy. But the earnings of the writer are in strict proportion to the number of copies of his books that can be sold.
There is a distinct advantage in this situation. The virtue of democracy is not the government of the majority, but the opportunity of the minority. The minority becomes, not a defensive close corporation, but a body of fighting visionaries. The emphasis is placed on growth. The eternal impulse of the minority to turn itself into a majority prevents a static age. The strongest lead, instead of the highly born.
So it must be with our writers. Difficulty insures heroes. We can discount at once the truckling commercial writers. But the others must be deeply sincere and strong in order to exist at all. There is little room for the dilletante. Let our young people who have something to say recognize the situation. They must dedicate themselves to a probable poverty. They must gird their loins and sharpen their weapons. They must be prepared to wait years, if need be, even for recognition. Every energy must be devoted to saying as well as may be the thing that is in them. And so, hoping nothing, fearing nothing, living simply, supporting themselves as best they may, but always doing the thing that is worth while for its own sake, they may produce a literature that has not been equalled since the world began.
Others of us can share in this glorious undertaking. Discerning critics must sift the true from the false. They must lay aside the twin snobberies of praising or blaming a work because of its popularity. They must fight eternally for the sincere. They must point out directions, they must prize meanings above methods. They must give a nucleus to the intelligent reading public and constantly augment it. They must bear sturdy witness to the fact that art is not an amusement for idle moments, but the consciousness of the race. They must show its relation to life as well as to living. They must be predisposed in favor of no work on account of its nationality, school or tendency. Just as Brandes enlarged the conception of literature by showing it as a world phenomenon, they must rid it of petty divisions in the realm of thought. No more should such a statement as “Galsworthy is a poet rather than a novelist” be allowed to pass as criticism. A novelist may be a poet or a philosopher or a psychologist or a historian or a sociologist. Any of these may combine the intrinsic abilities of any or all of the others. He is greater for doing so. The only test of his work is its effectiveness. A work of art is an organism, the highest product of nature, infinitely more real, more beautiful, more potent, than any flower. Only when we see it as such, and not as a collection of petals and stamens, or as a member of a species, shall we know it.
The whole problem of creating a literature, as of doing anything else, is one of direction and power. If we blame someone else for our deficiencies, if we stand aloof, if we bow to circumstances and are afraid to pay for what we want, we shall of course do nothing. And we shall not enjoy ourselves or the world much either. But if we fixon a goal that is worth a life, and set out for it with the joyous spirit of adventurers, risking everything, enduring everything, sleeping under the stars, staying hard and keen, we shall command the fates. What more could we ask of the world?